As a screenwriter who has survived (and more recently, prospered) in the game, I'm often asked how to 'get into the business' or 'get paid for doing what I love'. (Retch)Here's my answer. A lot of new screenwriters won't like it.
This is because most screenwriters have a dream project, a story they want to tell, an idea that they just KNOW will be a hit film. I don't care about that. I don't particularly care about your ideas, your projects. What I care about boils down into a simple question.
How good are you at this thing you claim to want to do for a living? To answer this question, let me tell you a story of two screenwriters. Bob and... Mo (it being Ramadan)
Bob wants to be a screenwriter. 'Ok.' says Bob, 'I've read my Field, my Snyder and my McKee. Now I'm going to write my spec script, the one great idea that made me want to be a writer.' Bob goes off and lo and behold, he writes and writes and produces something that looks and smells vaguely like a 'screenplay'. 'Huzzah!' Says Bob. 'I'm going to send this to agents and producers and maybe, just maybe, one of them will option the script, make the movie and make my fortune!' Bob does his best to pull in his contacts, he cashes in favours and sells his body in the hope that someone important will read his opus.
Now at this point, we should maybe cover some truths about Bob. Whilst he is a likeable thoroughly optimistic sort of fellow the following is likely to be the case.
1. Bob is statistically almost certain to be rubbish at screenwriting. This is his first go at this.
2. Bob's 'one great idea' might actually be quite good, but he has more than likely just spunked it up the wall in a terrible screenplay.
3. Bob has no influence, no allies and the business being what it is, Bob's idea, if it gets read and if it's any good will likely be given to someone else to write professionally.
4. Bob has not experienced process. He has not learned to write with any boundaries beyond a form book that he more than likely doesn't fully understand.
5. And remember, this was Bob's 'one great idea' so more than likely, Bob will sit back and wait for some kind of response to his hard written work of genius. When none comes, Bob will lose heart and return to his day job.
We all know a Bob. We love his innocence, but Bob is not a screenwriter. Bob is a man with one idea who happens to have written a screenplay.
Now consider Bob's friend Mo. Mo read the same books as Bob. Mo has probably also written a spec screenplay, but Mo knows that his own recently excreted pearl might not stand up to scrutiny at the sharp end.
So what does Mo do? He goes along to the low level networking events that will admit him. He talks to people, people like himself who are at the beginnings of their career. Mo does not have the patience for the slush pile. Mo is looking for something specific - a newish producer with an idea for a movie, but without the skills to turn it into a screenplay. 'Do such things exist?' I hear you say? The answer is simple. The producer with an idea is a lot more common than the producer who is sitting in her office, fanned by slaves, waiting for the perfect unsolicited screenplay to drop through the letterbox.
Mo eventually finds a producer with an idea - the idea is about gangsters. Although not particularly into gangsters, Mo tells the producer he can write this screenplay. Mo shows the producer his spec script. Mo's spec script is no better than Bob's but it doesn't have to be. Where Bob was trying to convince high end readers to make his movie, Mo is only trying to prove to a newish producer that he knows how to write a screenplay, any screenplay.
If indeed he does, Mo's odds - combined with his personality and demonstrated drive (he's shown up at this event after all) are good. 'I can't pay you much, Mo.' The producer is likely to say. 'As you're new, Mo, I'll give you $800, 400 now, 400 when you're done. We'll sort a proper fee if/when the film goes into production.' Mo knows that these aren't the sort of numbers he's read about in books, but he reckons he can bash this out, and what the hell, this newbie producer might get the thing made. If not, some optimist has just given him money to get better at screenwriting.
Mo writes the movie in the evenings and at weekends. It's a fraught challenging process. Mo has to take notes, learn genre, listen to the producer's mate who 'Almost had a short at Sundance once'. All of this makes him better at screenwriting and helps him to begin to assert himself as the 'expert in the room' on screenplay. Whilst Bob waits for the gods to respond to his script in the pile, Mo finishes the screenplay, hands it over and leaves the producer to get on with getting it made. Maybe the producer likes Mo, maybe he offers him another gig. Maybe not, but Mo has learned process and he is now the author of two different screenplays.
Mo goes back to the networking events and does the same trick again. Occasionally, he meets douches. Sometimes it doesn't work out but Mo has scripts out there with inexperienced but motivated producers pushing them to get made. Mo doesn't have to do anything. He keeps writing to briefs - briefs he never thought he would work on. He suddenly finds himself saying things like 'Yeah, I wrote one of those a few months back. Let me send you a sample.' Word starts to get around that Mo is a guy with the skills to write anything. People begin to knock on his website.
Mo writes five full length screenplays for peanuts in his first year for five different producers in four different genres. None of them are 'his idea'. He does some process on all of them, including writing treatments and pitching. Bob meanwhile is still waiting for someone to buy into his dream. He's maybe started to tinker with another 'awesome idea' but he's had no process on his first screenplay. He hasn't worked it or learned to write to remit or deadlines. He won't have improved much.
By this point, with deadlines to motivate him, Mo is beginning to feel confident enough to start approaching agents, and maybe, using his skills to write that awesome spec project. He's also gained the confidence not to write screenplays for $800. He'll have the benefit of Five people who have good will and OWE HIM to help grease the wheels, who themselves are climbing steadily up the greasy pole of the industry.
Cards on the table. I'm a Mo. I back his method because it was mine and in the city of London circa 2009 - present, I know it works. When I lecture my University students or talk to newbie writers, I encounter the same fear of process. 'How do I stop them from changing my ideas?' 'Hollywood makes you write to a formula.' 'I'm not into commercial kind of films.'
These are walls you are meant to run into as a professional. The smashes and train wrecks, the arguments, the crying, the hair pulling... It all makes you better at what you do. Writing screenplays is where this job begins, not where it ends. You fight and learn and win the battles through your mastery and application of craft, not, as some books would have you believe, by following through on one good idea.
It is possible to get so good at this that the ideas and 'changes' people add to your script are exactly the ones you subliminally suggested in its writing.
For you writers out there, I'd love to know your thoughts and your methods. The US has a more vibrant spec market than the UK and maybe there are other ways to slice it but to summarise the above, I would distil this into the below.
Write for people whilst you are weak. Learn on their time and their dime (however small that dime may be) When you are stronger with your craft and more connected in the business, write for you.
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