I don't know why people are always complaining about the barriers to entry in pro screenwriting. All you gotta do is pay $600 for final draft; write for free for a decade; spend $5K a year on contests; move to LA too soon and get a $4K a month shoebox apartment...
A moment of silence for an entire generation deceived into believing that salt, butter, and full-fat milk were the reason they were the unhealthiest humans ever.
I'm starting a production company called Gaslight Pictures where all we do is we get writers to spend years on free work and then convince them it's their fault we can't find financing.
I see a lotta screenwriters being endlessly, exuberantly positive on here and I gotta wonder - is anyone REALLY all that happy, all the time? Does anyone really ALWAYS want everyone else to always succeed, forever and ever and ever, Amen?
#RoughDay
When a producer gets back to you same day, asks for a call within a few days, and gives you their private number to call... that means they hated the script and want to loudly berate you for it as soon as possible, right?
I'd say maybe ninety-five percent of the amateur screenplays I read start with a description of some sort of light beams. Often shining through a window. Usually with dust motes.
Was feeling terrible about my writing ability today... until I was able to help a gifted writer out with an already-great script. Now I feel like a boss, so... help people!
A pilot of mine just made the quarterfinals in the ScreenCraft TV Pilot Script Competition (there's a mouthful!)... which I had forgotten I had entered. Ha!
If you were reading a script for coverage and found maybe a hundred typos (including the more egregious punctuation errors), would you feel justified in referring to the writing as "sloppy and unprofessional"?
STEP ONE: write screenplay
STEP TWO: deeply infatuated with screenplay and believing it's "The One," send to every single industry person you've ever met
STEP THREE: crickets
STEP FOUR: revisit sceenplay, see it for what it is, wallow in shame
Rinse. Wash. Repeat.
Raise your hand if you've ever bent over backwards and made questionable writing choices just to keep a scene break falling on the "right" script page.
...do a bunch of free work for some guy named Rick who'll drag you through development hell for years, then drop you on your birthday; do endless expensive therapy to make peace with the abuse; sell your soul to the devil; write eight or nine undeniable scripts...
Stoked OLD-ASS ZOMBIES is a Qfinalist in the
@ScriptPipeline
competition!
Logline: Infected by a virus that gives super strength to the elderly, an old man and his wannabe girlfriend bust out of assisted living, fleeing for their lives from a nerdy, heavily armed militia.
Thinking of starting a service for screenwriters who thrive on adversity. Once a day I'll send an email telling you your writing is bad and you're never gonna make it.
Anybody else ever get halfway through a feature and think, y'know what...? This is probably better as a pilot spec script BAM done finished the end fade out YAY, NO MORE WORKING, TIME FOR ICE CREAM AND A BEACH TRIP!!?!!
After failing for months to secure a lucrative writing gig and pay off his Mob debts, a desperate screenwriter fires off an eleventh-hour tweet in an attempt to avoid his impending execution.
#HireMe
#SaveALife
#PleaseRT
#KiddingNotKidding
New contest: leave the 1st line of your screenplay in the comments. If it intrigues me, I'll DM asking for the 2nd line. If that also intrigues me, I'll DM for the 3rd. And so on. Winner gets the satisfaction of having their script personally requested, like, a thousand times.
"Fuck-it" scripts are better because they're such a wild swing that you already KNOW they'll be rejected. So you can set aside Fear and instead write with joy from a place of Love - which is where the Good Stuff lives...
If I spend the four-plus hours it takes to read someone's script and provide detailed notes, how many days of radio silence from them before I can put their name on my "naughty" list?
...spend $3K a month on Raya dates; spend $5K a year on life coaches and gurus; shag the exact right, perfectly placed junior executive; sell your soul to the devil AGAIN, cuz the first time didn't take; spend your parents' retirement fund on a feature that plays 2 festivals...
You guys, every single one of my old screenplays is absolute shit. And the fact that I can recognize that, and see what I'd need to do to fix them, is fantastic!
Also, life is way too short.
On the one hand, having this massive Twitter screenwriting community is an amazing encouragement. On the other, it's a constant reminder that Dang, Dude... You Are NOT All That Special.
So thrilled when one of my scripts gets recognized!!!
Today it was my wife spotting my latest pilot printed out on the counter and saying, "Hey, is that your latest pilot?" But tomorrow... who knows?
Gonna title a screenplay, "WE'RE ASSHOLES. SO YOUR SCREENPLAY," so that when they reject me, screenwriting contests will have to write, "Regrettably, WE'RE ASSHOLES. SO YOUR SCREENPLAY did not advance to the next round of the competition."
As of today my pilot is a finalist in the
@screencrafting
TV contest thingy, which as everyone knows means we're probably only months away from production. So... who's gonna watch my show?
"Network laterally" is possibly the best screenwriting career advice you'll ever get, but no one wants to believe that because it's difficult, it moves at the pace of a human relationship, and it doesn't involve a Deus-ex-Studica parachuting in with a briefcase full of money.
If you'd had a lovely 1.5 hour chat with a potential rep, and they'd requested 2 more scripts and discussed working together... how many days of radio silence before you'd scrawl their name in the circle of blood candles and intone "Thou art dead to me, now & forevermore"?
Why the
#ScreenPit
not?
Here's my Nicholl Finalist script, MARLENE THE DIVINE:
A grieving widower's plans for bloody revenge are thwarted when a woman claiming to be the 150th incarnation of God Almighty knocks him out and drags him on a cross country road trip.
All I want is a cozy writing shed by a remote lake, a cafeteria full of good food and a rotating stable of inspiring filmmakers for dinner companions, a personal masseuse, and Spielberg's private cell number.
Is that too much to ask?
@IAmJenMcG
I grew up in Peru with family members of people who died on that flight, living in the place they brought Juliane after they found her.
Given that personal connection, I pitched a biopic about her to my then-manager. He said, quote, "Meh."
Probably shoulda stuck with it.
@SoundsLikeJoe
A website founded by a former Universal Studios exec where amateurs can upload their scripts to be evaluated by pro readers and scored from 1-10. Above 8, they recommend to the industry. Below 8, they call up your parents and tell them their child will never amount to anything.
Just got a script request from a rad producer I'd reached out to in JULY. Never stop deluding yourself people: they're not ghosting you... they're just thinking it over.
I don't consider myself a great writer, but this is the first page of my feature MARLENE THE DIVINE, which was a Nicholl finalist and got me my first reps.
I wish great writers could post the 1st page of a script they broke in with to prove how varied writing style can be, but I’m 104% sure someone on here will roll their eyes and go “THAT got you REPPED?”
So in conclusion, don’t do that.
But I wish you could.
#PipelineWriters
An Oscar winning director once read one of my scripts and said, "Thanks again for sharing. It's a really great, fun read," and then a buncha other nice stuff and this isn't a humblebrag it's a straight up brag cuz I'm starting to think that was my peak and I just didn't realize.
Don't start crying all at once, but today was my first day as a high school English teacher, which means I shan't be freelance nuh more, which means I shan't be wasting so much time on screenwriting Twitter.
All y'all sad sacks'll just have to carry on without me.
Mental health tip: after you share that script with that producer, do NOT, by any means, give it a "quick glance" for typos you might have missed.
This is anathema.
MY 9TH GRADE ENGLISH STUDENT, AFTER I ASKED HER TO PLEASE STOP TALKING: This class is hell. I am in hell.
ME: How is this class hell?
STUDENT: No. I take that back. I've been to hell. This class is worse. I'd rather burn in hell than sit through this class.
-
So... yeah.
🎉 Congratulations to the 2023 Screenwriting TV Pilot Script Competition Finalists! 🎉 These exceptional pilots were selected from almost 3,400 submissions. Check out the full list here:
Two for two on OLD-ASS ZOMBIES. Woot, woot!
Logline: Infected by a virus that gives super strength to the elderly, an old man and his wannabe girlfriend bust out of assisted living, fleeing for their lives from a nerdy, heavily armed militia.
Remember that the ENTIRE value in screenwriting contests is to open a door to relationships with industry people, and that you can accomplish the same thing by moving to LA and camping in your car outside their houses for a few weeks (or months - the industry's tough right now).
What you can't see in this clip is that while Elliot Page was talking, Jennifer Garner was tracking me as I walked behind her. Something about my "incredible style."
Reitman had to ask her to cut it out, because Elliot found it super distracting.
Congrats to the finalists selected for Spring 2022 Pitch Week! 🎉
These writers met industry mandates given to our team and this list is now out to our network of industry professionals who will select writers they want to meet with.
Stay tuned! 👀
5/6 Handing screenwriting over to machines isn't just ignoring the substantial risks of a new technology. It's an abandonment of some fundamental aspects of what it takes to live a good, fully human life...
You periodic reminder that Twitter is a VERY public, very interconnected place to be trashing someone's art.
If you wouldn't say it to their face... maybe save it for the dinner table.
I say this with nothing but a heart full of love for all the hard-working folks out there clawing their way through garbage amateur screenplays for money... if you haven't read at least a hundred scripts and written a half dozen, you're likely wasting your money paying for notes.
Instead of making more outrageous screenwriting resolutions about things I can't control, I'm gonna focus on tangible steps to improving my mental health (exercise and mindfulness, mostly)... which will inevitably lead to a meeting with Steven Spielberg.
3/6 Writing isn't a destination. It's a process that teaches and changes you along the way. And contrary to everyone's secret fantasy, screenwriting isn't a script you sell...
Suggestions for a screenplay I can teach a 9th/10th grade English class?
I want one that's: very literate, tackles important themes, is for a movie the kids might have heard of, and isn't super-incredibly likely to piss off too many parents.
Ideas?
So cool that AFF upped their early entry fee to $60 so of course that means they're finally gonna have PAID readers cuz I'm sure that's why they did it, right? Yes! Yay!
Don't get me wrong, I love the positivity of this community, and I'm always gonna cheer for the success of others. There are times, though, when the whole "Keep going and you're sure to WIN!!!" thing feels a bit much.
I got seduced into screenwriting by a "friend" who asked me to write him a short and then produced it.
Question: what sort of vengeance is appropriate for someone who blows up your whole life like that?
Got a pitch later to a great company, so I figured the best thing to do is get my entire face numbed and let a professional masochist attack my mouth with power tools for a couple of hours.
@JohnDiesattheEn
Have none of you people considered the strategy of being born into or perhaps murdering your way into the one percent? It's simple math, people. Geez.
Friendly reminder to never share a script with anyone, ever, unless it's perfect. The way you'll know it's perfect is you'll type FADE OUT, and a flock of white doves will descend on a beam of golden light and poo all over your keyboard.
Great news! I'm starting a religion where all the unpaid screenwriting work gets handsomely rewarded in the afterlife! Everyone's welcome! Fees are minimal!
The real reason "writing is rewriting" is that the best art is made with love, and love requires time and attention to be real. First drafts are about infatuation. Rewrites are where true, committed love starts to bloom.
#screenwriting
#WritingLife
As of this second, there are 1,617 entry slots left for the Nicholl, and I am no longer low-grade anxious over potentially missing my shot this year. Cheers.
For
#1stPageFriday
: the first 2 pages of my Nicholl finalist, Page-winning, AFF & NFF Semifinalist, Sundance-selected screenplay MARLENE THE DIVINE, in a google doc with the first chapter they became in my novel of the same name (just out now on Amazon):
Got another one of those Coverfly industry download notifications and it's already been like an hour and nobody's called to offer me a ton of money yet, so... yeah... obviously a scam.
Grateful to Circle of Confusion for sending me a second fellowship rejection four days after the first fellowship rejection, because I'd forgotten to feel bad about myself today.
So far this year I've written 2 high concept feature screenplays, sold one, secured high-level meetings at 3 studios for the other, and attached an Oscar winning director to a concept I scribbled on the back of a dirty napkin. You?
#TogetherWeCan
#WritingCommunity
#Screenwriting
My first feature film is now out on the streaming internet and I'm sorry Twitter I learned my lesson no more external links ever here's the poster
#SupportIndieFilm
byeeeeee.
@BrianDuffield
Don't forget that he disappeared to THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN for those ten years. Perhaps he found a wish-granting octopus down there. Or something.
I'm probably too tired right now to be tweeting.
Too many people get on here to trash other people's art, so here are some TV shows I've unequivocally loved with my whole entire wicked little heart:
- STATION ELEVEN
- THE WHITE LOTUS
- BETTER CALL SAUL
- STAGED
- THE LEFTOVERS
- TOP OF THE LAKE
But wait... there's more!!!
This is not the most comfortable bed I have ever been in.
Also, this whole "nobody knows what's wrong with me" thing is getting old.
Also, did you know they don't feed you at the ER?
The point, of course, is that "sick and hungry" is apparently a good look for me.
Screenwriters, at what point in writing an action line do you KNOW it's gonna be juuuust too long, once that period's in there, to fit on the line?
I feel like I've written so much at this point that I can sense, like, a third of the way across, that I'm headed for Runt City.
Once I wrote coverage on a script by a USC screenwriting prof and let me tell you, babies... it was very not good. But the real miracle - and the reason why maybe this teacher still has lots to teach almost everyone - was that she received that coverage with humility & grace. 😮
"She had a face that could launch a thousand shrimping boats."
This line just occurred to me out of the ether, and obviously someone has to build a screenplay around it now... probably
@BogeyGuyC
.
You're welcome.
Today, I asked one of my HS Creative Writing students, "Now that I've had you try lots of forms, which do you think is your favorite?" and his eyes lit up, and he said, "screenwriting."
So I'm just wondering... does this make me a bad person? Have I done a cruel thing?
Screenwriting pro tip: any old idiot can give screenwriting advice and call it a "pro tip." It's not a pro tip until you've paid.
(PayPal, cash, or Venmo accepted).
One time when I was young and single, my buddy offered to introduce me to Evangeline Lilly (who was sitting like ten feet from us) and I said, "No thanks, she's not my type."
Ya know, in case you're wondering what kinda coward I am.
If you've ever read one of my screenplays and wondered if I was always this weird, here's a 22 year old pen drawing from my sketchbook, before I'd even HEARD of screenwriting.