Start With the Writing Job You Already Have
Almost every new writer asks me the same thing, usually with a little apology in the voice: can I be a screenwriter with no experience? Most of them are wrong about the "no experience" part. If someone already pays you to write ad copy, YouTube scripts, reels, product pages or news packages, you've been practising for years. You just haven't been calling it film.
[HIREN: add 1 or 2 lines here about how your own ad work trained you for screenwriting, e.g. a habit from the agency years you still use on a script]
I spent 25 years in advertising. The writer I want you to meet today spent a long stretch there too, and then wrote Piku.
The experience you already have
When we say "no experience", we usually mean no film credit. That's a different thing. A credit is something you get at the end. Experience is what you build every day you write for someone who is waiting for it.
Look at what a paid writing job asks of you. You write to a brief that somebody else set. You find one idea and land it in a few seconds, because the viewer is about to scroll. You write in a voice that isn't yours, a brand's or a presenter's or a character's. And you hand it in on time, whether the mood came or not.
Every one of those is a screenwriting muscle. Film just asks you to hold it for two hours instead of thirty seconds.
From the art department to Piku
Juhi Chaturvedi studied fine arts in Lucknow. She joined Ogilvy & Mather in Delhi as an art director. Not a copywriter. Her job was the picture, not the words.
She moved to the agency's Mumbai office in 1999. Later, when she was posted to Bengaluru, the office needed people who could write ads in Hindi, and she moved across into copywriting. That's worth sitting with for a moment. Her first real writing break came because she could write in Hindi. Hindi was her advantage, not her limitation.
She went on to McCann and Bates, where she was a creative director. Along the way she worked with Shoojit Sircar on ad films for brands like Titan and Saffola. When Sircar wanted a writer for a feature called Shoebite, he asked her to write the dialogue. That film never released. But the partnership held.
What came next is a filmography most writers would give a lot for. Story, screenplay and dialogue for Vicky Donor (2012), which won her the Filmfare award for Best Story. Dialogue for Madras Cafe (2013). Then Piku (2015), October (2018) and Gulabo Sitabo (2020), all written by her and directed by Sircar. Piku won her two National Awards, Best Original Screenplay and Best Dialogue.
In an interview with HuffPost India, she said Sircar sold her the idea of film writing as being like "stitching together multiple 30-second ads." She also said advertising teaches you to tell "a sharp story with great economy."
Watch Piku with that in mind. A daughter looks after a father obsessed with his digestion, and the man who runs a taxi business ends up driving them both from Delhi to Kolkata. Small scenes, each with one clear point, many of them built on a single line of dialogue that tells you exactly who is speaking. That's an ad writer's discipline, given room to breathe.
Can I be a screenwriter with no experience?
Yes, as long as you're honest about where you're starting. You can begin without a credit or a contact in Mumbai. You can't skip the pages. Nobody hires a screenwriter on promise alone; they read a script.
So the real question changes. It stops being "am I allowed?" and becomes "what will I show someone in six months?" For most people with a day job, the answer is one finished spec script. I've laid out the wider route in how to become a screenwriter in India. This piece is about the first step.
How do I start screenwriting with no experience?
Start by noticing what your day job already trains, and use it on purpose.
Use the brief habit. Before you write a single scene, write your film's brief in one paragraph: who it's about, what they want, what's in the way, and what the audience should feel walking out. Then write a logline from it. You do this at work every week; now do it for yourself.
Treat every scene like a spot. One scene, one point. If you can't say in a line what changes in the scene, it isn't ready yet. Ad writers are good at this and often forget they are.
Turn your YouTube or content gig into practice. If you script videos for a channel, you are already writing for a voice and a running time. Try this: once a week, rewrite one of your scripts as a short scene between two people who want different things. Same information, but now it comes out through conflict instead of a presenter. Fifteen of those and you'll hear dialogue very differently.
Write in your strongest language. Juhi's Hindi got her into copywriting. If you think in Hindi, write your script in Hindi. Producers can get a translation. They can't get a feeling you never had.
[HIREN: add 1 or 2 lines here about the first thing you'd tell a copywriter who wants to write films]
Try this
Make a one-page plan for a spec script you write beside your paid work. Put these on the page, and keep it to one page.
The film in one line. Your logline.
Your daily slot. One fixed time, even 40 minutes, before work or after dinner. Same time every day.
Your weekly target. For example, five pages a week. At that pace a feature-length draft takes you roughly six months.
Your day-job skill. Name the one habit from your job you'll bring to the script, and the one you'll have to unlearn.
Your first reader. One person, by name, who will read the draft when it's done.
Stick it near your desk. Thoda thoda roz likho; a page a day adds up faster than a weekend of inspiration.
Quick answers
Do I need to quit my job to become a screenwriter? Not to start. Juhi Chaturvedi had a long ad career before Vicky Donor. A steady income gives you time to write a script properly instead of rushing it.
Does writing ads or YouTube scripts count as experience? As practice, yes. As a credential, not yet. It gives you speed and an ear for voice, but you still need a finished spec script to show.
Do I need to live in Mumbai first? You can write your first draft from anywhere. Finish the script before you worry about the city.
Turning a one-line idea into a story that holds for two hours is part of The Foundation of Storytelling, my live online course in Hindi and English.
Send me your one-page plan, or your logline and the day-job skill you're bringing, on WhatsApp. I'll tell you where the plan is realistic and where it needs a smaller first step.
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