My Parisian Lifestyle

  I found out yesterday that the Met supermarket across the street from my apartment is shutting down and being replaced by a CVS.
     It was disconcerting information because ever since my first trip to Paris, I realized that I was living a Parisian lifestyle in Manhattan. In my Gramercy Park neighborhood I shop nearly every day for fresh produce, meat, wine and bread. The only things I don’t have access to are a patisserie and boulangerie.

     I feel as if I live in Paris, carrying home my baguette, bottle of pinot noir, croissant, chocolate or whatever. I live ten minutes from high-end stores like Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Westside Market, Garden of Eden, a cheese shop and three wine stores within two blocks.  But when I don’t feel like going to any of them, I go to my tiny, old school Met supermarket. Besides milk, eggs and the usual canned staples, I can buy imported cheese, chocolate and sausage, European beer and junk food (I am, after all, an American). I’m in the Met every day picking up something, especially when I'm cooking dinner, usually four-to-five nights per week. I love to cook. It’s my hobby. I never miss Top Chef. I know the cashiers first names and have relationships with them. I like Jose, the manager. When I'm out of town on a vacation, I miss them. Counting the CVS replacing Met, that will make three CVS stores within a four-block radius of my apartment. 
     Directly across the street is a Duane Reade and four blocks away is a Walgreens, and in a different direction two blocks away is another Walgreens. Oh, and another Duane Reade is two blocks in the other direction. Unfortunately, there are no old school supermarkets like Met nearby. The closest one is a Morton Williams seven blocks away. Oh, and seven blocks back. It’s pretty small too, unlike the gigantic suburban megastores that could house several airbuses. Paris is filled with old school supermarkets, most of which are even tinier than my Met. 
     The Met employees are being driven out by increased rent: from $15,000 to $25,000 per month. Jose has worked for the company for 40 years and to keep a job with Met (not as manager), he would have to take a salary cut of $700 a week. All of the cashiers will be out of work. Some are older, in their 50s. They are frightened about finding employment. Others are in there 20s and are more hopeful they’ll land something.
     As for me, I will have to walk 14 blocks to the closest supermarket. But Morton Williams is not across the street, so I won’t be going that often, certainly not every day. It won’t be a place I can stop in on my way home to grab a baguette, imported Gruyère cheese or Norwegian beer. Worst of all for moi, the landlord who is almost doubling the Met’s rent, has taken away my Parisian lifestyle. 
     C'est la vie!Quel dommage!

The Bad Ass Screenwriter

As a Script Consultant for many years, I’ve worked with more than 2,000 screenwriters. Most of them are nice people.

Good guys and women. Many have hired me more than once. I’ve become friends with lots of them. I’ve helped them through deals. I’ve been invited to weddings, baptisms, bar mitzvahs and numerous parties, rooftop gatherings and barbecues.

But frankly, most of these good people are wimps.

What exactly is a wimp? The following comes from the dictionary on the dock of my computer.

Coward, namby-pamby, pantywaist, weakling, milquetoast, wuss, pansy, candy-ass, scaredy-cat, chicken.

Instead of calling them wimps, let’s just say they were all too nice.

But nice is for dogs.

Let’s look at another word: bad ass: a tough, uncompromising, or intimidating person.

Which would you rather be when you’re negotiating a deal for your screenplay?

Ninety percent of the screenwriters I’ve worked with are in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Another nine.nine percent are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. I’ve had two others in their 80s. I didn’t know these two guys ages until after I finished their screenplays and I met them. Incidentally, both of them wrote killer scripts.

One was a war hero. Not Desert Storm. Not Vietnam. Not Korea.

World War Two! A great guy. A weapons expert. But he was too nice.

Is that you? Are you too nice? Are you tired of all the bullshit you’ve been dragged through? Have you had enough? Are you fed up to the core, broken and ready to throw in the towel because you’ve let producers, studio executives, Hollywood agents, directors and actors (if you’ve gotten that far?) and everybody else walk all over you?

The infamous screenwriter Joe Esterhaus (Basic Instinct, Jagged Edge, Music Box) was most assuredly not too nice. He was and is the bad ass of screenwriters. He’s downright scary with his shoulder length streaked hair, long beard and ever-present snarl.

He rarely smiles and in his hey day he wore lots of leather. He looks and sounds like a Hells Angel enforcer. He could have fit right in to Sons of Anarchy. He made a career (and a fortune) out of intimidating Hollywood executives. Even on his lousier scripts, he got big money and a begrudging respect (or maybe fear). BTW, Check out Joe Esterhas’ great book The Devils Guide To Hollywood: The Screenwriter As God.

He wasn’t afraid to throw or take a punch. That’s the way every screenwriter should be. Do you see yourself that way? I’m a screenwriter myself and the idea of throwing, and especially, taking a punch makes me uneasy.

David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, The Untouchables, Spartan) is also a tough guy. He’s fairly small and he rarely smiles (not sure what the not-smiling thing is all about), but he’s a bad ass that executives don’t like to mess with.

He too wrote an incredible book Bambi vs. Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business.

Frank Darabont wrote a script for the 4^th installment of the Indiana Jones franchise only to have it rejected by George Lucas. He was upset, but didn’t lose it because he “didn’t want to harm my friendship with Steven (Spielberg).” And I think it’s fair to say that words were exchanged with the bosses of AMC regarding their disagreements on The Walking Dead.

There are many other stories of bad ass screenwriters who took their scripts by the horns and managed to control them, but those guys are rare. Billy Bob Thornton once jumped on a producer’s desk ready to beat the crap out of him for messing with his script.

I’ve worked with multi-millionaires, hard-nosed, tough-edged businessmen (and women) who had the killer instinct in their other careers, but are the biggest babies as screenwriters. I’ve worked with doctors, lawyers of every kind, editors, high school teachers, college professors, PhD.’s, psychologists, psychiatrists, advertising copywriters, publishers and virtually dozens of professions who’ve wimped out when it came to their screenplays.

Why is that?

Before I answer the question, let me ask you something: are you too nice?

Do you have the courage to admit it? Of course you don’t because nobody likes to think of themselves as being weak.

But chances are that you are weak when it comes to your screenplay. Maybe not at first. You’re filled with piss and vinegar, but then the nonsense starts and continues with your second and third scripts. You want a deal so badly that you will do whatever it takes to make it happen and usually that means selling your soul, losing your integrity and turning into a whore (which is worse than being a wimp).

Whichever route you chose, at the end of the day, your screenplay doesn’t get made or sold and you’re back at square one having your calls, emails and texts go unanswered by the people who took advantage of you.

If you’re new to screenwriting this information may come as a surprise and it might be easy to be judgmental. You may think I’m full of crap, but if you’ve been at it for a few years and come close to getting a deal (or actually got a deal and made some money) you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The thing is: most screenwriters are afraid to be bad asses.  They’ve spent anywhere from four months to three years working on a screenplay and most don’t know what to do with it. They finish their first script and are all gung ho about getting it out to agents. When they find out that’s easier said than done, it’s a real wake up call.

There were times in my screenwriting career where I wished I’d spoken up. And I can’t tell you the number of times former students, clients, colleagues and friends have not spoken up when they should have.

It’s easy to understand why they didn’t.

They didn’t want to rock the boat and risk being replaced on somebody’s whim. Getting the deal is life and death. So is getting your movie made.

Speaking up is the key. I’ve done it. Twice. And both times I was treated differently than when I was my usual frightened screenwriter. The first time it was about money. A certain figure was brought up in the early stage of the deal. Then it came time to make it happen and the figure was cut in half.

I needed the money, but I was so enraged at the cheapness of the two producers that I stood my ground and said it had to be the initial figure.

I waited three days. They agreed. I got the money.

I was petrified during the three-day wait that my plan would backfire. I was physically ill.

Then the phone call came from the money guy. My aggressiveness paid off.

The second time was also about money. It’s ironic how being desperate for a paycheck will make a screenwriter get some balls.

I’m writing this because of a recent agent situation. I got an email from someone I knew who started out as a television writer, but wound up as an agent for a big firm. In his email he told me he was looking for screenplays and could I get him some, not only my own, but of everybody I knew.

Duh! Yeah!

I contacted ten of the best screenwriters I knew who had great scripts. A few had come close to getting deals. The rest were first-timers. I knew the scripts were great because I helped them develop them. I also included one of mine. I told each person (male and female) to email the new agent and mention me. He was ecstatic to have all these wonderful projects. He thanked me profusely.

And I felt happy that I could be the conduit to my screenwriter clients possibly getting an agent.

Two months passed. A couple of the ten emailed me about it. One wanted to call the agent. I suggested that she not. “Better to hold off and wait for him to call you,” I said.

I, on the other hand, did contact him with a gentle, pathetically friendly email asking if he’d had a chance to read the scripts.

“No. I’m swamped. I promise I’ll get to them soon.”

It’s now three months, going on four. I’m ticked off because I’m starting to look bad to the screenwriters I contacted. I reassured them all that the guy was new on the job and that he would be getting back very soon.

But I wasn’t really certain of that.

I sincerely hope he will.

I want to handle this like Joe Esterhas because at times like this he is my hero. I could never really be like him, maybe it’s in the DNA, but if I pushed myself, I could be a little bad ass now and then. So could you.

 I want to call up the agent and say something to the effect of, “What’s the deal, asshole? You tell me you want screenplays and I give you ten winners and you can’t find the time to read them? What the fuck’s going on with you? Jesus Christ, man, read the Goddamn scripts or I’ll take them to somebody who will!”

I think I could do that. Could you? Would you be able to muster the courage to say it or something tougher or something really nasty that will rattle the agent’s cage?

Most people would say I’m a nice guy. Maybe too nice.   

But I know I’ll have to get more assertive if anything is going to happen with my screenwriting career.

And you will too.

You just cannot be nice.

Don’t be afraid to risk the deal or the almost deal. Don’t be afraid to tell a producer that his notes are idiotic. Don’t be afraid to defend the scene or the Act break or the ending you know in your heart is right.

You’re the person who created the script. You’re the writer in the room. You’re the one who labored over your screenplay. Don’t let them take it away from you.

     Remember: nice is for dogs.

I'm Baaaaaa-aaaaacccckkkkk!

     It's been awhile, almost nine months since I last posted.  But I have an excuse. I've been busy and lucky enough to get work. Yes. Work!!!

     It happens.

     I got a writing gig on a new sitcom called Don't Know Jack. When it will air is anyone's guess, but that's how it is in the television business. For example, over the years I've had seven deals. 7. I got the money, but none of them ever made it to the air. Just like most pilots never make it to the air. 

     I also got a rewrite of a screenplay called Dead Is Even. Worked on it, on and off, for five months. The producer hired me because he read a screenplay I wrote eight years ago. He had always liked the script and said he would back pocket it (which means he would always symbolically have it in his back pocket if the occasion ever arose where a studio was looking for something like it. )

     Lo and behold: a script came across his desk, which he optioned and remembered my screenplay and called me because it needed a rewrite.

     It's good to be remembered.

     This kind of thing is pretty much the norm for screenwriters. Not the upper echelon types, but the normal, typical screenwriter. The work comes sporadically until you're connected to a project that gets some buzz and makes some noise and gets made and gets more buzz and noise and suddenly you're a hot screenwriter.

     Anyway, I'm happy to be back in the saddle and I will be posting on a regular basis.

     Oh, by the way, I also published three books during these last nine months.

    Writers Rehab, Never Trust Ann Coulter and my third novel Paris Time (A Time-Travel Novel) that has been selling well.

     Check all of them out or just one.

     See you soon!

30 Days And Counting To Publication Date!

     One month from today, Writers Rehab will be published published. To say that I'm excited about it would be an understatement.  Whether you're a novelist, screenwriter, playwright or television writer, Writers Rehab will work for you.
     The book is designed to be a comprehensive self-help book in the form of a 12-Step Program for writers dealing with emotional or psychological roadblocks with their writing.
     You can use it as a source to deal with the numerous scenarios that face writers:
          * Being stifled creatively
          * Running into brick walls
          * Losing confidence
          * And experiencing writers block to the point of depression and creative collapse
     Starting today, I will be making posts about the book and about the worst thing that can happen to any writer: writers block
     I've had it. I know you've had it.  Frankly, my guess is that everyone has had it at one point or another.
     But there are ways around it.

Is Finding The Spine of Your Story Breaking Your Back?

     As with all writing, no matter if it's a novel, screenplay, television pilot or play, everything boils down to structure. Without it, you're doomed. Without even a basic cause and effect outline, eventually you'll hit a brick wall.

     Even when we have a detailed scene by scene or chapter by chapter outline, the actual writing part is difficult, some say even torturous.

     What can be of help is to understand the spine of your story. What is what you're writing "really" about? The wildest thriller can still be about the disconnect between a father and son or a child from an alcoholic family's relationship with her mother or a guy with authority issues.

     Re-watch or re-read your favorite novels or movies and figure out what the stories are "really" about. Or look at the TV shows your currently watching or have watched? 

     Was "The Sopranos" about the brutal head of a Mafia family? Or was it "really" about a mobster who was the head of a Mafia family who was also a family man with mother issues? 

     Think about it.

     I recently saw a production of the play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" I saw the movie years ago and I've read it, as well. On the surface it's about a destructive relationship between a man and wife. But if you look at it closely, what it's really about is a woman disappointed with herself for marrying a weak man who she compares to her successful father, which says to me the spine of the play is a woman with father issues.

     Now, the play is one of my favorites and it's about other things, as well, but the core of the structure, i.e., the spine, comes from Martha putting her father on a pedestal. Her husband can never live up to her father and she never lets him forget it.

     So pick a couple of your favorite works of fiction and look for the spine. It will help you recognize the spine of your story.

     

  

Don't Keep Knocking On The Door When You Know In Your Heart Nobody's Coming

     A big mistake many writers make is waiting for someone to help them. I don't mean with what you're writing at the moment,  but with what I like to call the "maintenance" of your career. Once your project is ready (meaning you've done several drafts, gotten positive feedback and you're confident it's as good as it can be), it's like a child being sent out into the world.

     Unfortunately, the world doesn't care and it won't be a welcoming place for your baby to enter into.

     That's where you come in. Unless you have contacts in high places or a referral to someone who can help you, you and only you are responsible for finding a contact in a high place and getting your own referrals.

     Too many new (and not so new) writers are helpless. 

     They act like foreigners in a country who don't speak the language.

     They are timid about asking for help. 

     They are lazy. They feel that the hard work was in getting their project in shape. I won't say that that's the easy part, but finding an agent, manager, editor producer who will even read your script is almost as difficult.

     Whatever discipline and work habits you used to write your latest opus, you must do the same in your pursuit of representation or an interested producer. 

     Allocate an hour day (more if you can spare it) to surfing the Internet for writing sites and contests with the hope of finding a name who will be receptive to reading your script or at least reading a synopsis.

    Get to know people, especially other writers or people working in the business. Join writers support groups. Go to symposiums on writing or breaking into the business. Everywhere you go talk to people. Schmooze. You never know where you'll find someone who knows someone who knows someone else.

     And keep writing query letters and query emails. Find ways to nail down the exact email address of someone important. Or even of someone not important, but who may know someone who is.

     The thing you should do least of all is to wait for someone to knock on your door, out of the blue. Or wait for someone who said they would help you, but didn't. If you encounter someone who seems positive and receptive, be thankful, but also be mistrustful. They may be lying or just yessing you to death so you'll stop bugging them.

     Be relentless, be polite, be cautious and be smart enough to know who has your best interests at heart and who doesn't.

     And hope for some luck!

Are You An Overwriter or Underwriter?

     Screenplays, as well as all forms of writing, are either overwritten or underwritten. And I don't mean strictly by length.  An overwriter will write a screenplay that's just too long. I encourage people to shoot for 110 pages, but many new (and experienced) screenwriters go way over, as well as way under. 

     This kind of overwriting and underwriting can be fixed by either editing and cutting or adding and embellishing scenes, sub-plots and the main storyline.

     The other problem area is what I'm dealing with today.

     Scenes can also be overwritten and underwritten. Overwritten means you've put in too much information or information the reader already knows or you've written a monologue that stops the forward movement of the plot dead in it's tracks. Simple, the scene is bloated and needs to be trimmed or maybe even eliminated.

     Underwritten scenes are an even bigger problem. When you have to edit a scene that's too long, it's a bit easier than having to embellish a scene that's too short. Now, in screenwriting, scenes should be short. If you can give all relevant information in a one page (or less) scene good for you. Move on to the next scene. But often, it's not that simple. Some scenes require crucial info to move the story or reveal character, so it's difficult to make it lean and mean.

     Ultimately, you will look at your first draft and realize that some scenes work very well, others are underwritten and some are overwritten.

     An underwritten scene means that you've given some information that presumably will lead to the next scene, but you just do a cursory job of it. You've written an exchange between two characters consisting of 10 lines. It probably needs 20 or 30 to clearly get the information you need to get across.

     Overwritten scenes are frustrating to read because they just have too damn much information, but at least the key info is there. Underwritten scenes are more frustrating because you merely drop some information and move to the next scene, but you leave the reader hanging and frustrated because we're not sure what you're trying to get across.

     So if you've written a scene that looks too short on the page, it probably is. Take another look at it and make sure it contains what you want it to contain. And if it doesn't, take another crack at it.

Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes

     Most screenwriters (and writers in general) are in one kind of rut or another. It just ain't happening. You have a mediocre idea or not even an idea--maybe just a notion of a story. Or the premise you fell in love with doesn't love you back. It sounded like such a good idea at the time. Now you hate it and you wonder why you ever thought it was any good.

    Back to the rut. You're not writing. The only thing you're doing is feeling sorry for yourself. Days go by. Maybe weeks. And then a few months have gone by and you're self-esteem is dwindling as your self-loathing is increasing. 

     That's when it really gets bad because you're starting to become immobilized with fear that you'll never find another good idea or that even if you do, you won't be able to finish a draft or if you do, you won't be able to rewrite it or rethink it.  That kind of thinking pushes you down even further into the miasma of a blocked writer.

    Oh, by the way, that's what you've become. You are not a screenwriter anymore. You are now a screenwriter who can't break through his block and that's dangerous territory because with all that free time you have because you aren't writing, you can spend it "thinking" about how you're not writing and that brings you down even more.

    Is there a way out of this horrible place?

    Only if you change the rut you've been in. How do you do that? Depends on your psyche. Maybe take a short vacation. Or a long one. Get away from your environment and the daily bullshit.  Join a health club. Exercise can be a very freeing experience once you find a routine.

     I won't kid you. There are might be 50 things you can try to get out of your rut and none of them may work. But you have to try. 

     You have to change whatever pattern you've fallen into.

     Because nothing changes if nothing changes, you have to take that first step.

     If you don't, it'll only get worse.

Every Screenplay Starts With A Raw Idea

     Nobody knows where it comes from...that elusive idea that sometimes materializes in our brains. It's not even in our comfort zone. It's just the nucleus of an idea or even a raw notion of a concept. But it's something and it hooks us. Maybe in the form of a sentence or maybe a theme or maybe some primal event that suddenly gets your mind cooking.
     That cooking feeling is what lights the fire under our seats.  We can't get it out of our minds. It starts to build momentum. Suddenly a character, your hero, pops into your head. What he or she wants is very clear. What he or she has to do to attain it comes next.
     Then the complications and obstacles.
     Then the protagonist.
     Then you mysteriously know the event that will come at the end of Act One. And the middle of Act Two hiccup arrives. And all of a sudden a subplot comes to mind.
     Then you realize what the end of Act Two moment will be. Something unexpected and exciting that will propel you into Act 3.
     And maybe you even know how it's going to end.
     If you're really lucky you pound out an outline that feels right. Then you start the script. It's not as if the screenplay will write itself, but you're churning out pages faster than ever before and they feel right and you've got your muse riding with you and you're writing in one of those outbursts that rarely come so you know you'd better stick with it because "make hay while the sun shines" keeps reverberating throughout your head.
     And you complete the first draft faster than anything you've ever written and you get some feedback from your key readers and they like it and they give you some good notes that feel right and you dive into the rewrite and...
     It all started with that raw idea that you weren't even looking for.
     Sometimes those are the best inspirations, much better than those other ideas you've been thinking about or making notes for or doing false starts on. Not that they won't materialize into screenplays.
     But never underestimate the wild idea that pops into your head.
     Like a new friend or a new lover, those are the best kind.
   
   

The Academy Awards 2012

     Historically, whenever I watch the Academy Awards I feel inspired as a screenwriter. Each year a few screenwriters I haven't heard of are nominated for Best Screenplay or Best Adapted Screenplay. This year was the same, but I was bummed out because of one nomination: the adaptation of Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy. It was probably the worst movie I saw last year. The screenplay is a study in nonsense, hackwork and most of all, bad storytelling.
     I went to see the film because I like Gary Oldman and I trusted the reviews (which I rarely do). I never read a review until after I see a movie. But the buzz in the quotes in the newspaper ads made it seem like a great film.
   It isn't.
   Whoever wrote this turd and study in boredom (I felt sorry for the actors) is one thing, but how could it be nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay. I've met one person who liked this movie. He saw it twice. I kid him about being off his meds that day. I don't know. He's a screenwriter himself and smart. Why did he like it? Who knows?
    I suggest that you see this movie as an assignment. Tell me if you understand it. Tell me what the structure is.  Tell me what the hell it's supposed to be about.
    I love Woody Allen and I loved Midnight In Paris, but I'm not sure it deserved Best Screenplay. Margin Call or Bridesmaids were much better scripts.
    In fact, look at the structure of both of these movies. Bridesmaids went on a little too long, but it had a true beginning, middle and end. So did Margin Call.
    Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy had nothing.
    See for yourself.
  

The Challenge of Writing A Time Travel Story

    The best time travel movies have one thing in common. The portal to the past or future is believable. Back To The Future is the best example of a believable way to go back in time. If you've seen the movie you know that the character played by Christopher LLoyd takes a DeLorean automobile, soups it up and with some bells and whistles enables Michael J. Fox to go, well, back to the future.
     If you haven't seen the movie what I've just said won't be a spoiler. As the title implies, Michael J. Fox is definitely going back in time, it happens pretty early on in the movie so nothing has been ruined for you.
     I bring this up today because I'm reading Stephen King's new novel 11/22/63 which is a time travel story. The basic premise is that a guy goes back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK.  It's much more than that, but you should read the book and take an incredible ride. As usual, the story is amazing and I literally can't put the book down.
     My only beef is the portal Mr. King has chosen for his main character to do his time travel. I won't say what it is here, but I expected more from the master. Simply, it's too easy. One of the things I was looking forward to was an imaginative portal so I sighed in disappointment when I found out what it was.
     OK, there. I'm throwing a little pinprick at a giant.
     Once Mr. King gets his protagonist and us into the past, then he shines. The rules he invents made me smile at how clever they were.  For me, next to having an imaginative portal, the other challenge of time travel stories is the do's and dont's a character must follow. In 11/21/63 Stephen King dazzles us with how things work.
     I'm assuming the book will be a film and it'll be terrific. My only wish is that whoever writes the screenplay takes some creative liberties and finds a better portal.

The Most Important Reason To Complete A First Draft Of Your Screenplay

     This is so fundamental it's ridiculous, but a screenwriter can never hear it enough times.
     You finish a first draft to see how good or bad your screenplay is. If it's more good than bad, you commit to completing a second or third or fourth draft until it's finally done. If it's bad you have 3 choices:
     (1) Decide if it's worth rethinking
     (2) Put it aside for the time being and let the idea germinate
     (3) Junk it permanently
     Don't be ashamed to junk it permanently. It's better to cut your losses before you get even further into the miasma of trying to make something unworkable work. Kind of like the economists say: don't put good money after bad.
   
   
   

A New Screenwriting Book Worth Checking Out

     As the author of one book on screenwriting and another on filmmaking (The Portable Film School), I'm always wary of the competition. To be honest, there are lots of good books for new or newish screenwriters. None of them are really bad. It's just that some are really good. Superior. 
    All how-to books on screenwriting pretty much say the same things, but in different ways. It's like there are 100 books on Italian cooking, but at the end of the day, the recipes they teach are all dealing with the same ingredients. The key is the author of the Italian cookbook. He or she has a uniqueness, a certain style, a way of making difficult tasks seem easy or a way of making an experienced cook grow. 
     Viewing screenwriting books is the same. Some writers need lots of handholding, others want to be motivated, then there are those who like tough love. Whatever a screenwriter needs can be found out there. You may have to go through a few books or ask friends for recommendations, but you'll find 2 or 3 that will be a good fit. 
     "Writing Movies for Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You can, Too!"by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon delivers on several levels. It's informative, entertaining as hell and gets into the craft of writing screenplays in a way that inspires. I've been a fan of these guys since Reno 911. I think Thomas Lennon is an amazing comic actor. I've heard him (and them) interviewed and these are two guys who know their way around Hollywood. This is a very solid book for any screenwriter. 
     As I said in the title of this review, their book isn't as good as mine, but it's damn close. BTW, they are not paying me anything to say all these nice things.

Be Your Own Mentor

     Whether it's in life or in the context of pursuing a career as a screenwriter, the presence of a mentor is important. Nobody does it alone, without guidance, without someone to motivate you or push you or talk some sense into you. If you're lucky enough to have someone who cares enough to want to inspire you to do better or to overcome those demons that have immobilized you and are preventing you from completing the first draft of your screenplay or getting the energy to start that rewrite, you're a fortunate person.

     But some of us don't have a mentor. Or we had one or two, but we were too arrogant or insecure to listen to them. Add to the mix the fact that you're no longer in high school or college and finding potential mentors becomes increasingly narrow. Or you're too egotistical to want to listen to anyone.

     But I'm not here to judge. I want this to be a judgment-free environment.

     Let's just say that you would like to have a mentor, but the pickings are slim.

     What do you do?

     As the title of this post says, be your own mentor.

     Learn how to inspire yourself, to push yourself, to get focused and to face the harsh reality that your career is not moving forward (let alone your screenplay) and the only person to blame is you. (I know I said I want this to be a judgment-free environment, but don't think of those last 7 words as judgement, but rather fact.

     Just as you know when you've eaten too many Mallomars at one sitting or had too many Margaritas or behaved irresponsibly in some situation, you also know when you're not writing. You know what it's like to turn your frustration outward, when you should be turning it inward. By looking at yourself in a critical way, if you have the guts, you'll pinpoint what's preventing you from writing at all or completing your script.

     There's nothing like a little fire in the belly to jumpstart a day at the computer. And there's nothing like some solid introspection and self-analysis to bring you to a moment of clarity.

     It's real easy for all of us to bullshit our way into or out of anything, but that's negative behavior. No mentor worth his or her salt will ever BS you. Mentors tell the truth, whether we want to hear it or not. And, guess what, we don't want to hear it.

     Compliments are nice, but it's the stuff we don't want to hear that will help us move forward.

     If there's no mentor in your life presently and if you don't see anyone on the horizon, it's time to take charge and get the job done yourself.

     Special thanks to JTC

     

A Few Words About Dialogue

     Dialogue can be lifelike or artificial. Lifelike is how people really talk. Artificial is sanitized lifelikeish dialogue. Much of the dialogue on bad TV sitcoms is artificial. Everybody's funny (in real life everyone isn't). 

     Write how people talk. Two goofball slackers in their Twenties will talk differently than two devout nuns in their Fifties. In real life a clever person will say clever things. A dull person will not. In real life a clever person will be consistently clever or witty as he goes through each day. In your screenplay, most of the time we see him, he should be the clever, witty guy -- if that's the character's dramatic purpose. If you're writing the character for comic relief or to be a buddy/confidant to your protagonist, his job is to say or do funny things. We don't necessarily need to see the dark, sad or unhappy aspects of his life. Sitcoms are good examples of this.

     Characters should speak in what appears to be their natural, everyday language, but they must avoid the repetition and digression of ordinary conversation.  What they say must be carefully designed to move the story forward. 

     Characters in every form of fiction tend to be drawn from real life. Your success as a screenwriter will depend on your powers of observation and on your ability to portray what you observe. Characters are also drawn from what you read and what you hear.   

     Astute, observant screenwriters note the peculiarities, eccentricities and the special qualities of the people around you. Sometimes you'll create a character accurately drawn from a single living model. More often you'll use combinations of personalities that have moved or intrigued you to create a totally original character.

The Curious Case of Parallel Thinking

     There's nothing more frustrating and disconcerting than to be nearing completion of a new script that has an amazing premise, something you feel is totally unique, only to learn that somebody else has already written and sold a similar story.
     Your immediate reaction is to assume that somebody stole your idea.  Yes, of course, that's a natural assumption. But if you've never met the person and you do some digging and discover that he wrote the script two years before you even got your idea, then you know he didn't steal it.
     It's just an example of parallel thinking.
     Two (or 5, 10 or 1,000) people have the same idea.
      Stand up comics go through this all the time when it comes to jokes. A stand up in New York reads something in The NY Post about a talking parrot who recites Shakespeare. Another stand up working in Atlanta reads the same story. Five other comics in Los Angeles also read the same story. And every one of these comedians write a joke about a parrot who recites Shakespeare. They try out the joke that night and it gets huge laughs. Over the next few weeks they each use the joke and sooner or later one of them will hear from a friend that so-and-so comedian is using his talking parrot joke.
     Of course, nobody stole anything from anybody because parallel thinking took over.
     This is a fairly common occurrence, especially when it comes to either high concept ideas or ideas taken from the headlines.  Last week  the movie "30 Minutes Or Less" opened. It's about a pizza delivery man who has had a bomb rigged to his body by a couple of bad guys. If he doesn't successfully rob a bank the bomb will go off and he'll be killed. This is a comedy. However, a few years ago there was a real life story about a pizza delivery man who had a bomb rigged to his body and, well, this wasn't a comedy. The bomb blew up and the guy died.
     Sounds to me like the authors of the movie got their idea from this actual incident. In an article I read they claim that they'd never heard of it. OK. That's what they say and maybe they didn't. But it was a story that made national headlines. Is it fair to say that other screenwriters were  inspired to write a script based on the real incident? I think it's fair.
     I know a bunch of writers, myself included, who wrote a script only to find that something just like it is in production or development or has been sold which, of course, kills any screenplays like it.
     That's just the way it works.
     Don't automatically assume that someone has stolen your idea.
     Is there any way around this? Not really, other than to make sure you don't spend an inordinate amount of time writing scripts. If you took 3 years to write something and then found out it's dead in the water, it'll be a lot more painful than if you spent 3 months on the project.
    So, write fast! Or at least faster!

The Future of Story Conference Is Approaching! Get On Board

     Finding the right story to tell is the hardest part of being a screenwriter (or any kind of writer). Compared to nailing down the right story, writing it is easy. (That’s easy with BIG QUOTES because nothing about writing is easy).

     But without a story that you’re in love with and passionate about you’re kidding yourself. You’re a boat without a rudder.  When you start writing something that you only like or think you might be able to get into over time, you will drift. As you slog through the first 10 or 15 pages you’ll hope that once you get into it you’ll find something to draw you in.

     But most of the time that doesn’t happen.

     That’s why there are false starts.

     Same with relationships. If you’re a guy your whole approach to romance is defined by how much you’re attracted to the woman. If it’s an instant attraction -- and if it’s mutual --  or if it’s love at first sight you’ll behave in an entirely different way than if you just ask out a woman for the sake of trying to find someone to have dinner with on Saturday night.

     If you find yourself rudderless with the script you’re working on help is available soon. I’ve personally contacted many of you over the last few weeks about The Future of Story Conference on Saturday, August 27^th in Los Angeles presented by Michael Wiese Productions and C3: Center For Conscious Creativity.

     Authors of some of the best-selling and most popular books on screenwriting and the film  industry will be there. It’s a one day affair that will give you enough advice and motivation to either finish the script that’s been driving you crazy or start the next one.

     For more information check out this link: http://www.mwp.com/thefutureofstory/

My Article For Comedy Writers At Writersstore.com

     I know a lot of comedy writers.
     Some are funnier than others both in daily life and on the page. More often than you’d imagine, the funniest scripts are written by men and women who aren’t that much fun to be around. They can “write” funny, but not “be” very funny during normal life. Some are downright boring while others are depressed and a drag to be around.
     Likewise, some of the funniest writers I know are hilarious when they’re hanging out with friends or one on one, but they aren’t funny on paper. Because they were so funny, early in their careers they tried writing comedy, but they realized after a few not-very-laugh-filled scripts that comedy wasn’t their forte.
     They shut the door on writing comedy and found their niche elsewhere. But that doesn’t apply to someone who can actually write funny stuff.
     Let’s say that’s you.
     In my experience as a writer and teacher, I’ve learned that some comedy writers (like some people) are naturally funny while others have to work at it.
Think back to your childhood. Remember the kid who was the class clown? He (it was pretty much always a he. Funny girls were considered to be weird. And guys, how intimidated are you by a witty, funny woman?) irritated the teacher and generated giggles from classmates not so much by making witty remarks, but mainly by doing goofy stuff, making faces and slap-sticky things.
     I went to middle school with the same group of kids. There were the smart kids (not me), the athletes (not me), the cool kids (definitely not me), the outcasts (fortunately not me: that was to come during high school), the gen-pop (kids who were just there, usually well-behaved and religious) and the two kids competing to be class clown (one of which was me).
Competing is a generous word. There was no competition. The other kid, Joey, was hands down, the funniest kid in class. I was a distant second. Really distant. Looking back, kids laughed at me more than because of something funny I did or said.
     Joey was cute and had a killer smile. I was kind of geeky-looking and when I smiled my face wrinkled up in a way that made me look like I had Progeria (a rare abnormality marked by premature aging, grey hair, wrinkled skin and stooped posture in a child). Joey was charming. I wasn’t. All the girls had crushes on him and all the boys wanted to either hang with him or be him.
     Nobody wanted to be me. I didn’t even want to be me.
     What I wanted was to make my classmates laugh (attention, duh!). The problem was that Joey was a natural. I wasn’t. He would open his mouth and most of the time something clever came out. And when what he said missed the mark, he had learned to ignore it and move on to the next ad lib.
     I didn’t know what an ad lib was. I didn’t know what being witty or clever meant. At some point, I started to realize that unlike Joey, I would have to work at getting laughs. Work very hard!
     Which brings us back to comedy writing. At some point you decided that you wanted to be a comedy writer. For me, it was in my early 20s. I started out writing plays, specifically, comedies.
     That’s when I realized that my writing career was a re-creation of my childhood desire to be class clown. Instead of competing with one Joey who didn’t have to work that hard at getting laughs, I would be competing with lots of Joeys to whom comedy writing came, if not “easy,” certainly “easier.”
     Once again, that “work very hard” mantra began ringing in my ears. I’m convinced that most of us have to work at it.
     Being a comedy writer isn’t just a matter of writing funny dialogue, bits or set pieces.        There’s a whole other level to confuse you.
     What kind of comedy do you write?
     You’re at a party, in a bar or somewhere and you’re talking with someone you just met. You let it slip that you’re a screenwriter and the person asks you what kind of stuff you write.
     Someone who doesn’t write comedies might answer without a moment’s hesitation in the following way:
     “I write – “Thrillers. Action. Sci-Fi. Adventure. Mysteries. Independent. Horror. Drama.”
These writers are lucky. They know their identity as a screenwriter.
But if you’re a comedy writer your answer might not come as easily. What would your answer be? That you write: Comedies? Comedy/dramas? Serio/comic? Dramedies? Dramatic comedies? Romantic comedies? Buddy comedies? Bittersweet comedies? Comedy/adventures? Sex comedies? Dark comedies? Farce? Parody?
Pinpointing the type of comedies you write is important, especially if the person who asked what kind of screenplays you write is an agent, manager, producer, development executive or somebody in the business who might help you.
     The industry has changed. Knowing the kind of comedy you write is a way of creating your brand. Maybe the old school term for branding is just as good: pigeonholed.
In television you’re either a sitcom writer or you write hour-long drama. You might eventually do both, but you’ll break into the business as one or the other.
Before Alan Ball wrote Six Feet Under and True Blood, he wrote for Grace Under Fire and Cybil. He made the transition, which also included a little detour into screenwriting called American Beauty. Same with Terence Winter. Before he wrote for The Sopranos and created Boardwalk Empire he wrote for Flipper and Sister, Sister. Judd Apatow is known for a certain kind of comedy. So are Nora Ephron and Nancy Meyers. So are The Farrelly Brothers, Adam Sandler, Diablo Cody, Kevin Smith and Dana Fox. 
     Woody Allen is in a genre-bending league all his own.
     There are four stages of his career. (1) Fun, goofy comedies: Bananas, Take The Money and Run and Sleeper. (2) Comedy/dramas: Annie Hall, Manhattan and Broadway Danny Rose. (3) Dramatic/Comedies: Stardust Memories, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Radio Days. (4) This is the most difficult to pinpoint. Even diehard Woody Allen fans, of which I am one, have found his output over the last 15 years to be inconsistent. His best films are a mix of comedy/dramas and dramedies (Deconstructing Harry, Match Point, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Whatever Works). His lesser successes are more difficult to pinpoint (Anything Else, Cassandra’s Dream, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger).
     And then in the summer of 2011 comes Midnight In Paris which has him at the top of his game.
     Now we should all be so lucky to have careers as long and productive as Woody Allen. Even if his best work is behind him, he leaves a tremendous legacy. I bring him up simply to illustrate that though he began his screenwriting career writing lowbrow comedies he aspired to greater heights and achieved it. As of this writing he’s written more than 40 screenplays.
     What about you? You’re writing comedies. Are you able to narrow it down to the kind you write? It’s important to your career that you know so when someone who can help you asks what you write you can be specific. But maybe you don’t know your genre of comedy or you’re not sure. You may still be finding your voice.
     Do you want to be known as the screenwriter who writes raunchy, vulgar, stupid stuff (that might get you a huge deal and a house in Malibu) or do you want to be known as the writer of witty, clever, smart comedies? The kind that get nominated for Academy Awards.
The ability to write raunchy comedies and dick jokes is a certain kind of talent that might get you in the door. If you’re relatively young, your life experience might still be in the adolescent/frat boy vein. You can outgrow that if you choose. Maybe you won’t want to. Maybe that’s all you’re capable of. If that’s the case, you’ll be branded as a one-trick pony.
But as you get older you might want to change your professional image. Woody Allen came a long way from Bananas to Crimes and Misdemeanors. But if you start out wanting to write comedies that are grounded in reality and filled with wit and intelligence, you’ll be positioning yourself on a higher plain.
     You’ll be the screenwriter others aspire to be. And that’s nothing to laugh about!

Be Sure You Know What You've Written

           Often, a screenwriter doesn’t know what he/she has written. What started off to be about one character winds up being about whom you thought was the second lead. What started off as a coming of age story about a lovesick teenage girl obsessed with her teacher turns out to be about him. What was supposed to be a comedy turns into a bittersweet drama.

            Why does this happen?

            There’s no easy answer. It’s just the process of writing. Ideas beget ideas. You can write a detailed outline and maybe even a pretty detailed treatment that follows your original idea, but when you get to script and the characters start coming alive things can go in a direction you never anticipated.

            This is good as long as you known what your creative vision is. It’s when you lose sight of what you’re writing that problems arise.

Similarly, a finished movie sometimes doesn’t know or hasn’t decided what it is.

            Case in point. Early in 2011 there was The Dilemma. I couldn’t wait to see this movie. Big fan of its stars, Vince Vaughn and Kevin James.  Huge fan of its director, Ron Howard. Liked the previous work of the screenwriter, Alan Loeb. The film got uniformly bad reviews. I saw it opening weekend.

            Now we all know (or if you don’t know, you should) how the rewriting process goes, so maybe one or more people got their hands involved in the script. It started off pretty funny so you think you’re watching a comedy. I mean, Vince Vaughn? Kevin James? We’re not expecting Eugene O’Neill here. Then it turns a corner and it gets serious.

Well, a little serious. We’re kind of not laughing, but we’re waiting for things to get funny again. Problem is, it doesn’t. It gets more serious and a key plot point makes us uncomfortable. We’re waiting for some kind of Act Three payoff, but none comes. The story changed gears. And what they gave us bums us out. And it ends, but the ending isn’t even remotely satisfying.

What went wrong with all these talented people involved? Who knows? Maybe they don’t even know. When a studio and talent and a director gets involved, lots can happen.

But when you’re writing your screenplay and you make changes from your original idea, make sure you stay in control. When other hands get involved you often don’t have a say, but when your story is still in your hands, and your hands alone, there’s no excuse to lose sight of what you intended.

Just Wait For The Idea To Come, Right? Wrong!

     Ideas, like opportunities, don't come that often. We have to look for them. Sometimes, if we're lucky, an idea for a screenplay appears out of nowhere. We're walking our dog, taking a shower, overhearing a conversation in a restaurant or an elevator, skimming the newspaper and voila!...inspiration strikes.
     That's cool if that happens, but if we're spending the bulk of our time waiting for that fantastic idea to land in our laps, well, we're going to wait a long time. If the muse isn't striking a chord, we have to look for ideas. How do we do this? Pretty much by making sure our antennae are up 24/7. Be on the look out for ideas from all the different kinds of media. Read newspapers. Read a few of the pop culture websites and blogs. 
     When you're talking with friends or co-workers or strangers, pay attention to what they say. They might innocently relate an anecdote that resonates with you and could serve as the catalyst for your next script.
     Let your mind wonder. Think about your past. People, events, specific incidents that affected you. Sometimes recalling things from our past opens up a door that has long been closed.
     And don't forget about reading. Inspiration breads inspiration. Or going to movies. Sometimes watching a film can jump start your creativity.
     But the most important thing is to always be ready to be receptive to the random comment, encounter or oddball incident that gets you to think, "What if...?"