I stumbled onto a similar article for actors and thought the subject matter would be perfect to port over to screenwriting. I see a lot of writers come into this craft with misguided expectations and beliefs. Today I’m dishing out 10 observations I’ve witnessed over the years that dispel the myths. Some of it will be hard to hear. But all of it will help. Let us begin!
5 KEYS TO SCREENWRITING SUCCESS
TIP 1 – BE IN IT FOR THE LONG RUN
This is one of the most overly ignored pieces of advice out there. I can’t tell you how many aspiring writers come to Hollywood, write 4-5 scripts, and when those scripts don’t rock the town, go home claiming they gave it their all. You’re talking about mastering one of the most difficult professional skills in the world: WRITING MOVIES. If you realistically want to make it in this business, you have to give it 7 years. And you have to give it an OBSESSIVE 7 years (every day you either write, read, or study). I don’t know any Top 1000 doctor in the world who hasn’t had at least 7 years of education. So why would you assume it’d be any easier for screenwriters? Because it’s writing? I’ll tell you this. Show me a doctor who can fix a wandering second act and I’ll get you (and him) a 3-picture deal at Paramount. This shit is hard. Embrace the long-term approach and your chances for success will rise dramatically.
STEP 2 – ONLY WRITE SCRIPTS THAT CONTAIN SPECTACLE, A CLEVER IDEA, HEAVY CONFLICT, IRONY, OR BIG CHARACTERS
In my experience, these are the only scripts that make enough noise to get noticed in the overly saturated spec market. So spectacle: Jurassic Park. A clever idea: Three groomsman wake up the day after their bachelor party with no memory of what happened and no idea where the groom is. They must find him and get him to his wedding within 48 hours. Heavy Conflict: Taken – A man’s daughter is taken by criminals and will likely disappear forever within 72 hours if he doesn’t rescue her. Irony: A king with a crippling stutter must give a perfect speech to save the world. Big Characters: The recent spec, The Virginian, about George Washington. As for what scripts you don’t want to write – well, anything that’s the opposite of these five. A good reference point is anything that could be considered “writer-director” material. For example, a Woody Allen film. Or There Will Be Blood. Or Garden State. Or Lost in Translation. Or The Royal Tenebaums. These types of scripts die a horrible death when they’re not coupled with geniuses to direct them. You need a script that works on the page, not an esoteric tone-poem that only works when a magnificent director can interpret it for the screen.
STEP 3 – CRAVE FEEDBACK, NO MATTER HOW CRITICAL IT MAY BE
There are two kinds of screenwriters. The kind who avoid critical feedback, allowing them to live in the Matrix and never have to accept the truth, and the ones who crave feedback, allowing them to pinpoint their weaknesses and work towards improving them. Feedback-cravers improve 10x, 20x, even 100x faster than feedback deniers because they’re actually learning what they’re doing wrong. I get it. Screenwriting is an isolating fear-inducing craft that can have you go a year at a time without hearing one positive response to something you’ve written. And under those circumstances, a critical reaction has the potential to send you spiraling into depression. But here’s the twist. Negative feedback is actually a positive thing. There’s nothing that helps you get better faster than feedback. The sooner you shift into that mindset, the sooner your writing will thrive. Any feedback you can get is great, but the more knowledgeable (people who understand screenwriting) the feedback is, the faster you’ll improve.
STEP 4 – LEARN CHARACTER
You must know how to plot, how to structure a story. But if you really want to make it as a screenwriter, learn character. Learn how to make a character likable. Learn how to make a character interesting. Learn how to make a character “big” (like we were talking about yesterday). Learn how to arc a character. Learn how to create unresolved backstories for characters. Learn how to create unresolved relationships between characters. Read bad scripts and learn how to “fix” characters that aren’t working (like yesterday – if a producer said to you, “Kyle is boring. We want to make him pop more.” Know how to do that). Because the truth is, anybody can learn how to plot a script with enough practice. So the pool of competition in that arena is endless. But the number of writers who understand (and I mean TRULY understand) character is far fewer. So if you can master that skill, you will be in very high demand in this town.
STEP 5 – TAKE CHANCES
There’s an old saying in photography. “You should never know how tall a photographer is.” The idea being: Bad photographers always take their pictures from eye level (allowing you to know exactly how tall they are). Good photographers will get down on their knees, or on their stomach, or climb up to the tallest building in town, all to get the most dramatic shot possible. Keep this in mind as a writer. If you’re going to stand out, you’re going to need to take chances. You’ll have to explore different types of storytelling techniques, different types of characters, come at your stories from different angles. I realize that my advice here can seem contradictory at times. I tell you what you can and can’t do with damning certainty. And while most of the time, I’m right, nothing memorable ever gets written without the writer taking risks. The Graduate isn’t a hit if Mike Nichols follows the rule that your main character must be active. Pulp Fiction isn’t a phenomenon if Quentin Tarantino followed the studio mantra of centering your story around a single hero. American Sniper doesn’t become a monster hit if Jason Hall followed the wisdom that contemporary war movies don’t make money. You MUST take a risk (or two, or three) in every screenplay you write if you want them to stand out. Your risks will define you.
FIVE FATEFUL STEPS THAT ENSURE SCREENWRITING FAILURE ☹
MISTAKE 1 – YOU ONLY WRITE ONE SCRIPT
It’s probably the saddest situation I see. The writer who’s pushing that same first screenplay every time you talk to him. While it’s not impossible to break in with your first script (I’ve seen it happen three times – however in two of those instances, the screenwriters had come from other writing backgrounds and therefore knew how to tell a good story), it’s extremely unlikely for a number of reasons. First scripts are usually autobiographical and therefore unsalable (I’m sorry but your life isn’t that interesting). The writer doesn’t know the craft well yet, leaving the majority of the script sloppy. Because of the lack of objectivity due to you going through your script 5000 times, rewrites tend to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic rather than remove any icebergs. It’s often a black hole of “Not-getting-better-itis.” If you’re still hanging onto that first script, you’re hanging onto endless failure. Abort. Abort.
MISTAKE 2 – YOU BELIEVE THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED
Producers don’t only hire their cousins to direct movies. Directors don’t only audition their wife’s inner circle for the female lead. Actors don’t only work with their best friends. Your chances of making it in Hollywood are still high if you’re not Jewish. Or gay. Some writers want to convince themselves that this entire industry operates on nepotism. These defeatists can pull up 50 articles highlighting people who only made it because they knew Steven Spielberg’s nanny. Look, those stories are out there if you want to find them. But so are the articles about people who came from nowhere, who knew nobody. Here’s a story for you. You know who Larry Miller is? He’s an actor. Larry Miller was Jerry Seinfeld’s best friend when Jerry was casting his show. Everyone was sure, then, that he’d be getting the role of George. The audition was merely a formality. But you know who got the role instead? Jason Alexander. A guy Jerry didn’t know. Making it in this business is hard enough. Don’t let your mind get in the way. If you believe that only extended family get writing jobs, then that will become your reality. But if you actually want to make it, focus on the truth. That hard work and dedication to the craft can lead to a career in screenwriting. Because it can. I see it happen all the time.
MISTAKE 3 – YOU BELIEVE YOU KNOW HOW TO DO IT BETTER
A lot of people who get into screenwriting believe the system is broken. So their initial entries into the craft aren’t so much about writing good stories as proving to the industry that they know better. I dread the “I know better” screenwriter more than any other screenwriter out there because I know his script will be inspired by a genius whose work is impossible to replicate (i.e. Tarantino), I know it will be at least 150 pages, and I know that despite it being written for the sole purpose of defying the Hollywood system, it will actually be the most cliche-laden script I read that month. Most writers grow out of this phase when they realize how vehemently Hollywood rejects these scripts. But others never do, continuing to use every one of their screenplays to make a 160 page point. If you’re going to be a screenwriter, write, read, and study screenwriting as much as possible. Learn to respect the craft as well as the business side of things. That way, when you do take risks, you’re doing so from a place of knowledge and strategy, and not to say “fuck you” to the very system you’re trying to break into.
MISTAKE 4 – YOU NEVER REWRITE
There are two types of screenwriters who don’t rewrite. The fresh-out-the-womb newbie who just got into the craft. They don’t rewrite because nobody’s told them to. Then there’s the screenwriter who’s so arrogant, he believes his stuff too good to be rewritten. I’m going to tell you something right now. No script you’ve written less than three drafts of is going to be any good. There’s too much your script is missing out on if you don’t rewrite it. Setups and payoffs. Clear characters. Clean plotting. Good Will Hunting was rewritten 100 times. That’s why it won the Oscar. Cause they rewrote all the shit out of the screenplay. For even the talented screenwriters out there, I wouldn’t write any less than six drafts and would aim for ten to be safe. It’s hard to get a script in any kind of readable shape before that, much less in “rocks the reader’s life” form.
MISTAKE 5 – YOU DON’T PUT YOUR STUFF OUT THERE
I was watching this comedian documentary a couple of months ago called Misery Loves Comedy. As I’m watching it, a bunch of professional comedians are being interviewed. Some who I loved, some who I liked, and some who I thought were embarrassingly unfunny. Like their jokes were cringe-worthy. And yet these were people who were making money at this profession. They’d actually made a career out of this. That got me thinking. How did these people who clearly lacked talent in their chosen field make it so far? The thing I realized – the sole difference between them and the much funnier 9-to-5er sitting at home on his couch? Was that they went out there and did it. Instead of hiding behind snarky internet comments or waiting for the next Christopher Nolan trailer to come out so they could bitch about it on Twitter, they wrote jokes, practiced them, found open-mic nights and stood in front of hundreds of audiences and practiced their sets. When a joke hit, they pocketed it and tried to land a second joke. And when they got that laugh, they went for a third. Until they eventually carved out a routine that didn’t embarrass them. Again, the only reason this marginal comedian makes money at his profession over the way funnier 9-to-5er is that he PUT HIMSELF OUT THERE. There’ve been hundreds of thousands of screenwriters who have come through this town and never made it simply because they didn’t put their work out there to be judged, to be read. People. You can’t hit a home run if you don’t swing the bat. The first step towards success is to stop complaining about shit, go write something, and put it out there for the world to judge.
