Archive for Motivation to write
The screenwriting voice you should listen to
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Screenwriter Marti Noxon
One passage of an interview screenwriter Marti Noxon (“Buffy,” “Mad Men,” “I Am Number Four”) did for Film School Rejects caught my eye:
Something works the best for me…first and foremost, if I have a gut level reaction that tells me that I understand emotionally what the core of the story is, then I’ve already started off in a better place than when I’m coming from my head and thinking, “Commercially, this would be a good idea” or “I should take this project because it’ll make a lot of money or because I like these people.”
That’s wisdom coming from experience and it really rings a bell. I’ve mentioned in some other posts the few times that I accepted an assignment despite having a gut feeling that it wasn’t right for me. Of course you have to eat, and sometimes you just show up, do the best job you can, and collect the pay check.
However, especially if you’re doing something on spec, before you start, check with your gut (or wherever you store your intuition).
Here’s how it might work. Your loud voice says, “I bet this would sell! Vampires, that’s what everybody wants!” Your smaller voice says, “I’m tired of vampires. I have nothing to say about vampires.” Your louder voice says, “Who are you, Ingmar Bergman! I’m telling you, vampire babies, it’s never been done! It’s hot!”
It will be hard, but listen to the small voice. Keep coming up with new ideas until you find one that both of your voices can agree on. That will be the winner.
(For more friendly guidance on writing a screenplay, novel or short story, get my book, “Your Writing Coach,” published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline book sellers.)
Screenwriter, get back into that pigeon hole!
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On his Go Into the Story blog, screenwriter Scott Myers tells what happened after he and his writing partner wrote a script about a dog (K-9). They were offered assignments to write scripts in which the protagonists were superhero mutant frogs…then one starring a pig. Also whales, kangaroos, and monkeys.
This kind of stereotyping is typical. I found that out first-hand, too. I broke in writing sitcoms as a free-lancer, things like “Benson” and “Family Ties” (as well as many more less memorable). After that I was the sitcom guy.
Even making the jump to comedy TV movies was hard. Fortunately two very kind producers, Phil Doran and the late Doug Arango, went to bat for me, and that got me in the door.
The next hurdle was getting any feature work. That required writing a few spec scripts because producers assume that TV writers either can’t think in terms of 90 minutes (if they’ve been writing 24-minute sitcoms) or can’t think big enough (if they’ve been writing TV movies).
Switching genres is tough, too, although if you’re a comedy writer you can slide into comedy-dramas reasonably easily.
Why the pigeon-holing? Because it’s easy and because it’s safter to bet that somebody can do again something he’s done well before, rather than something new. It’s reasonable, if annoying to the writer who wants to spread her wings. (Oh oh, more pigeon references.)
If it takes you a while to break in, at first you’ll be grateful to be writing anything–after all, feeling pigeonholed is a big step up from being ignored.
Furthermore, you may find that you’re perfectly happy writing only thrillers or only action pictures, or only comedies, even only comedies featuring animals. It’s possible to have a narrow career if you’re very, very good at what you write.
However, the odds are that you’ll want to branch out at some point. Your best bet is to start out with a genre you really like. Get so good at it that people want your work. Exploit that niche. Make a lot of money doing it, if you’re working in the Hollywood realm. Don’t spend all that money. Put aside enough of it that you can easily take time to write a spec script in the next genre you want to work in.
If you think you’ll be discriminated against in that genre, use a pen name to get a fair reading. If they love it, you can confess…and charge them enough money for an eventual move into yet another genre, if you want.
Screenwriters: stay current!
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This is the final post based on some of Adam Singolda’s tips for marketers, re-interpreted for writers. His third tip is: Don’t solve a new game with old tools.
OK, so he’s mixing metaphors, but the point is that now new tools are coming up every few months instead of every few years. You don’t have to use all of them—in fact, trying to do that is counter-productive because you’ll be overwhelmed in no time. But you do have to know enough about all of them to decide which ones you can turn to your advantage.
A few of the ones I see looming at the moment are:
- micro payments (these have been discussed for a long time but now they’re on the way for real—so you will easily be able to pay a small amount, say 20 cents or pence, for reading an extended article or one chapter of a book, or a few dollars for streaming a movie);
- enhanced ebooks (these exist already but they’re not very good yet, but they’re going to blend text and videos and other formats);
- new ways of finding your way through the ever-increasing amount of social information (and information in general) so that you get what you really want.
It’s also vital to keep up with the newest developments in films and television and online media, as well as gaming, which are converging.
Is it exhausting keeping up? If you’re over 30, probably yes, but it gets easier when you learn to treat every new tool as disposable: something to use while it serves you and then discard in favor of the new one when that one serves you better (and not if it doesn’t). They’re not going to slow down for people in the slow lane.
