Okay, I’m a little fired up here but stay with me. The ultimate purpose of this post is a positive one. I want to help everybody reach their full potential as a writer, which means finding them their perfect agent match.
Last week, I posted an article about whether to pursue a studio or artist path as a screenwriter.
In regards to the “artist” path, I said the main thing you’re trying to do is get on the Black List. And since the Black List is voted on by development execs, it’s exclusively fueled by scripts that agents and managers send out.
One of you then pointed out, “Hey, Carson, this article is fun and all but none of it is relevant unless you get an agent. Since getting an agent is really really really hard, this article is more fantasy than reality.”
That’s what I want to address today because while this commenter was right, the comment was phrased in such a way that we might as well have been placed in a DeLorean and sent back to 1985 with how impossible it is to get an agent in Hollywood.
People.
It is 2022!!!
It is easier to get a rep than ever before in history.
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. The number one strategy for getting on the Black List is going over to the Black List site and downloading the last three Black Lists.
From there, read all the loglines, figure out which ones are the most similar to your script, and write down the agents and managers representing those writers (which are listed underneath the logline). Then get a 7 day free trial at IMDB Pro, search for those agents and managers, which will give you their e-mails.
Then e-mail these agents/managers with a query that looks something like this…
Hey [Name of Agent],
I’m a huge fan of your client’s, [Name of Client], script, [Name of Script]. It was my favorite script of last year.
I have something along the same lines that I believe you’d love. It’s called [Title of Your Script] and it’s about [Logline of Your Script].
Let me know if it’s something you’d be interested in reading and I’ll send it over.
Thanks so much,
[Your Name]
Note the simplicity of the query. That’s on purpose. These people do not have time to read about your trip to Africa when you were 8 and how your close brush with death during a safari inspired you to start writing movies.
The main point you want to get to – and get to fast – is the title and logline. Cause that’s all they care about. If it sounds like a good script, they’ll request it. If not, they won’t.
For an unknown screenwriter, this is your best strategy for getting an agent or manager. Does it help if your script is referred to them by a mutual friend or someone like me? Of course. Referrals are always helpful in an industry that has an endless number of creators competing for attention. But if that option isn’t open to you, you have to do cold querying.
There are some agents and managers who don’t put their contact info up on IMDB Pro. But that shouldn’t stop you. Ask people here in the comments for that info. I know a lot of you have reps e-mail addresses.
And look – I get that this is far from a “sure thing” for snagging a rep but TOO BAD! This process needs to be hard. If it were easy, everyone would do it, and then you’d have the exact same problem once you got your agent, which is that they represent 6000 other clients and now you’re desperately vying for their time.
The reason it’s hard is to filter out the un-serious writers and the people who don’t try hard enough. If you say to yourself, “I’m going to get a rep no matter what,” and give yourself two months to do so and only do everything to achieve that goal, you’re probably going to achieve it.
But if you’re more comfortable hanging off to the side and complaining that the game is rigged, well, good luck with that. I guarantee that’s not going to get you any closer to finding an agent.
Now let’s say you do this but you don’t get any script requests. As someone who has received thousands of queries, I can tell you that this is probably due to one of three things.
One, your concept isn’t very good. Two, your concept might be good but your logline is clunky, indicating that you’re not a very good writer. Three, the query itself is clunky. There are spelling issues, grammar issues, or ‘prattling on’ issues.
You need to identify which one of these three things is the problem and fix it. That means sending these queries off to friends – preferably knowledgeable screenwriter friends (which you can find here on this site if you don’t have them) – and asking them for an honest assessment of the logline and query.
I can’t stress enough that if these people aren’t honest with you, this plan is pointless. I even see it sometimes on this site where someone posts a weak logline in the comments and people act like it’s pretty decent, giving them false hope and sending them off on a de facto suicide mission. I don’t want anyone to be mean to anyone else. But there are ways of saying a concept is weak without being rude. “I don’t think this logline works. There’s nothing unique here. I wouldn’t write this if I were you.”
If your concept and logline are getting good reactions from friends but not agents, it might be your query that’s the problem. The problems I see in most queries is that they’re unfocused. They’re sloppy. And they ramble.
The reason this is an issue is because in almost every instance, the problems I see in a query extend out into the script itself. If the query rambles, the script rambles. If a comedy script query includes a few joke-attempts that aren’t funny, the script isn’t funny. If the writer includes a few tells that they’re new to screenwriting, the script ends up feeling like a newbie script.
That’s why I included the above query blueprint. I suggest you use that. If you’re no stranger to the query game, you can go a little further. If you can bring yourself closer to the agent in any way, that helps. For example, if you can say something like, “I recently saw Bones and All at Toronto and spoke with your client, David Kajganich, afterwards. He was such a cool dude who clearly loves writing. It must be rewarding seeing him experience all this success.”
I can vouch for myself here. Personalized touches like that are harder to pass up. When someone e-mails me and compliments something I did, it makes me feel good, so I tend to pay a little more attention to that query. But if someone mentions someone I know that they know, I’ll almost always open the script and read a page or two just to see how the writing is and if I get pulled in.
But let’s not lose sight of the goal here. The goal is to genuinely put yourself out there and query everyone you find an e-mail for. That’s your best ticket to a manager. And it’s totally possible that you get a rep out of this. I mean, you’ve seen some of these Black List scripts I’ve been reviewing lately. I’d say 25% of the people who comment here are at least as good as those writers.
But don’t blow your chance with a weak logline or a weak query. Get feedback first. Also, if you run into the worst case scenario, which is that nobody likes your concept, you’re going to have to accept that and move on to the next script. I know that sucks but we’re not playing in the National league here. We’re playing in the Premiere League. Nobody gives you credit for trying.
Put your big girl boots on and do the smart thing this time. Get feedback on your concept BEFORE YOU WRITE THE SCRIPT. Not after. Cause while there’s a little bit of wiggle room when it comes to dressing up a weak concept in a logline, it’s still putting flavored chapstick on an oinker. So let’s get that figured out before you spend the next four months of your life writing something.
And to jack this up a notch, I’m going to check back in with all of you two weeks into the new year. And I want to hear some success stories about getting agents. I will not stand for anything less.
Let the Agenting begin. Share your concepts, queries, manager e-mail addresses, and anything else related to today’s article in the comments.
While I encourage you to get logline, concept, and query feedback from your friends, if you want to get professional feedback from the guy who’s poured through tens of thousand of queries and read just about every idea in the world, e-mail me at carsonreeves1@gmail.com for a logline consult ($25) or a query consult ($50). I also do full feature script consultations as well.
