Minority Screenwriters, or Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner

The ongoing discrimination lawsuit against WME and CAA from African American screenwriter Justin Samuels (and one little John August post to be precise) has made the issue of underrepresentation of black writers bubble up again in the blogosphere. Unsurprisingly, working and wannabe screenwriters, slaving away in the trenches on the umpteenth free rewrite, have met with a fair amount of vitriol Samuel's blithe naïveté about the long slog that is trying to write and sell the Hollywood screenplay.

According to Samuels, he is due eight million dollars in damages because he had eight screenplays (worth "one million each") that he was unable to submit to the majors because they don't accept unsolicited queries. And since the only way in for an unrepped writer is through a recommendation from an insider-- and the agents and insiders are white-- black writers are effectively locked out, in Samuels' reasoning. That leaves a black writer with much nothing else to do but launch an eight million dollar law suit.

Crazy right? Plenty black screenwriters have bucked the trend. There's Gina Prince Bythewood, Geoffrey Fletcher, and um, who'm I leaving out... Antwone Fisher? Talk about exceptions proving the rule. And while nobody expects Hollywood to be a dream factory for minority writers, we quite possibly never had it so bad.

Despite a WGA diversity department, and a number of programs designed to tackle the imbalance, the report on writers of color in the industry is the worst it's been in ten years. According to the Hollywood Reporter:

In film, minorities are underrepresented by a ratio of 7-to-1, with the share of minorities employed in writing jobs declining to its lowest level in at least 10 years (5%).

So what's at work here? John August raises the question of access. If screenwriting is to whatever degree sometimes about who you know, how do you change a writer of color's connections? UCLA's talked about increasing film school aid to writers of color, which seems solid-- not to moan, but I could certainly have benefited from it going to the exorbitantly priced one I self-paid for. But even with scholarships in place, it's a handful of writers that are going to go the film school route.

I remember when the contention was that there weren't enough African-American distributors and if distribution existed, the story of black film would be different. But now it's starting to look like the back-end problem we thought we had is in fact a front-end issue. And like John August, I'm not sure that legally forcing agencies to read queries would change the landscape much. The system of "by request only" is in place to keep out mediocre material. Good scripts win contests and attract agents, managers or influential champions. The cream rises to the top.

"Practice. Feedback. Network." That's the journey. But as hard as we work at the first two components, that last one continues to be the tough one to hurdle because it's the one most out of our control. I keep thinking more mentorships along the lines of the Cosby Fellowship might be the answer, but I'd love to hear other thoughts.

There are More Hours in The Day. They Just Exist When You Don't Want To Be Up.

I've been known to say "There's just not enough hours in a day..." and I've been known to say it lots. Recently, however, I've discovered, there are enough hours. They just exist when you don't want to be up.

I've been trying with mixed success to get up at 6.00 AM to do a couple hours of writing before the rest of the house wakes up. The first couple of days was heaven. Contrary to my thinking that it would be tough to get out of bed, it was a cinch...at least in the beginning. I had that starting a new draft buzz, that high you get in the first 15 or so pages before the self-doubt kicks in.

But then I had to put said first draft on the backburner to get a rewrite done on the crazy Bollywood musical and the momentum dipped. Slowly but surely I've fallen back into my old writing pattern of trying to get a little done at night after Chicklet goes to bed. But it's sporadic and by that time of the night the brain's a little frazzled so I'm desperately trying to go back to getting the most important item of my day,writing, on the agenda when I'm fresh.

Problem is the Chicklet seems to adjust to my earlier wake-up time and just gets out of bed earlier. (I still love hearing her feet hit the floor and come pitter-pattering into the office to ask "What you doing on the computer?".) But that first morning when I got up at 6.15 and wrote for three hours was like falling into a time warp, like being in a writing program again. It was so good to be so focused, to have the leisure of some quiet time to think. I long to experience it again, even with the trade off: me being so tired towards sundown I feel nauseous.

Photo by twob

The Fairy Tale Business

I had a professor at film school who used to tell us we're in the dream business, which was a nice antithesis to all the curmudgeonly folks telling us that we stood a better chance of winning the lottery than selling a spec.

He would then go on to say that every movie begins with "once upon a time" and that our craft stretches back to the cave dwellers who told stories around campfires to explain the world around them and the values they held.

Sometimes I find it helpful to frame everything I'm writing in this way. I'm able to see the big story beats from the minutiae of the details, to separate the forest from the trees. It can also help underscore the archetypal characters in your story and press you to kick your conflict up several notches. Thinking of your obstacles as dragons, your antagonist as the evil villain, I'm reminded that a story runs on conflict, on BIG problems.

(Also, doing this exercise helps later on when you come to the pitch stage so you don't get bogged down explaining cool asides that aren't essential to the story.)

I like to do this with current movies too to see how they mirror these ancient stories. Take Slumdog Millionaire for example.

It might go a little something like this.

Once upon a time, there was a lowly young pauper who fell in love with a beautiful girl but the two were separated by a rich evil prince who built a fortress for the girl and put her in it. But the pauper refused to give up faith in his first love and decided to enter a dangerous joust in the hopes that fame would lead him back to his lost love. But when the pauper improbably progresses to the final stages of the contest, the king's dragons descend on him, convinced he is a trickster who must be punished. Can he stay the course despite ever decreasing odds that he'll win the joust and be reunited with his love?

Ta-da. There's the heart of the story without getting sidetracked into our hero's relationship with his boyhood friend or mean gangsters, the funky soundtrack, or the dance scene at the end in the train station. Viewed this way, it's clear that the "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" stuff is merely an easy tool to ratchet up tension, not nearly the heart of the story.

What I find interesting about "Slumdog" is how the first decision screenwriter Simon Beaufoy took to depart from the novel completely changed the film. Recently the novelist Vikas Swarup has been complaining about not being given more deference this awards season because he wrote "Q&A" the source material behind "Slumdog Millionaire"... But the Swarup novel was all about a pauper's rise to the top on India's version of "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire." End of story. It was a successful and sought after literary property, a fairy tale in its own right, but for Beaufoy it lacked heart. And so he introduced a love story and put a princess in a castle. Fable upon fable makes it truly resonate.

So, is there a fairy tale in your script...aside from the part where you sell it for a million dollars?


Illustration by artista blog

Nothing's Too Precious to Lose

I heard back from the ex-boss with feedback on the "problem child" screenplay.

He's a writer as well as a producer and whereas most people giving notes attack specifics in the given plot or characterization, he came at it from a premise angle. When I first wrote this script I was very attached to the idea of putting on screen a character and a field of work that's not often seen (an immigration officer) but the more I work it, the more I realize why it's not on screen. It's not very sexy and it doesn't work that well with the other elements I've got.

So he came up with an idea that opens up the screenplay a whole lot more, makes it more comedic and probably fixes some tone and stakes issues the piece has. It's big picture stuff that I feel story consultants and even writer friends might be wary to touch because they figure they've got to work within the parameters of the story you've sent them. In fact, I've been in situations where I've had big premise-changing thoughts about other people's scripts but bit my tongue because you figure, oh but that's an entirely different story.

But the question should be...is it a better story? For me, nothing's precious and I find throwing out things that work and that I love, liberating. What I learned crafting a specific scene or sequence doesn't change just because I have to jettison it.

All this is a lesson too that you've got to get the story of the script working before you prune and polish. I'm glad I showed it to Mr. Ex-Boss but now I kind of wish I'd plucked up the courage and showed it to him earlier.

Screenwriting Book Review: "Writing A Great Movie"

A while back, I promised to share the occasional screenwriting book review. When I was starting out, I'd view these books with skepticism but now I find that a good, well thought out guide can introduce a new tool, sharpen your skills or allow you to better analyze a script's problems ...it's just a matter of separating the dross from the gold. Yes, Third World Girl's age of cynicism with regard to books on screenwriting is dead. It died right around the time I discovered Jeff Kitchen's “Writing a Great Movie: Key Tools for Successful Screenwriting.”


“Writing a Great Movie: Key Tools for Successful Screenwriting” targets the experienced, adventurous writer willing to go outside the usual starter-kit when it comes to crafting the salable screenplay.

Kitchen brings forth a mishmash of approaches that defy easy categorization but are exceptional at refreshing a stalled script. Using six hit movies—“Training Day,” “What Women Want,” “Minority Report,” “The Godfather,” “Tootsie” and “Blade Runner”, “Writing a Great Movie” brings to light seven approaches, or tools, to turn mere story into drama. In addition, once Kitchen explains how to use these tools, he mimics the writer’s creative process, building an original story from scratch using the methods presented.

Many screenwriters will already be familiar with some of Kitchen’s kit like “The 36 Dramatic Situations” and the “Enneagram,” a blend of tradition and psychology that comes together in a personality profile of nine behavioral character types. Other familiar concepts have been recast as tools in surprisingly effective ways. Kitchen shows, for example, how writers can use dilemma to shape an entire plot and how theme is the lens that brings drama and clarity to an unfocused story.

Rounding out these tools are “The Central Proposition” and “Sequence, Proposition, Plot” which both use the power of logic to help bring order to the chaotic creative process. The Central Proposition strips the script down to three sentences. “Sequence, Proposition, Plot” extends this approach to outlining the entire script working backwards from the final outcome of the story.

Kitchen makes this all much more entertaining than it should be with his easy style, practical strategies and continuous check-in with his chosen movies. Though “Writing a Great Movie” sometimes feels like several different books because of the lack of a cogent theme, and because any of the tools could spawn two hundred pages in their own right, Kitchen does an admirable job of showing writers the “road less taken” when it comes to ratcheting up drama.

Shelf or Toss: Shelf. I turn to this book as a diagnostic tool to help solve script problems at the end of a draft or to brainstorm upping the conflict on a rewrite.

I'm Not Reading, I'm Staring

I recently did a rewrite on a comedy I've been working on for a while... you know, the one you no longer have perspective on because you've been chipping away at it for so long?

Anyway, I promised myself I would at last send it out to an old boss at production company I used to read for. I would usually have printed it out, given it a read to make sure all was in order, and then sent it off, but instead of the usual "last read" I made a PDF and did *not* read the script.

Instead, I just gave each page the once-over like I was checking out a spring catalogue. I stared at it for about ten seconds. How did it look? Too dense in the action lines? Enough white space? Any weird thing happening with the MOREs and CONT'Ds?

I was just amazed at how many of the little gremlins you catch this way: dialogue blocks given to the wrong character, paragraphs that accidentally repeat themselves, "widows", i.e. words hanging by themselves taking up valuable "page real estate" in the script.

I've now become an instant believer in the stare test. We so often read our scripts from beginning to end our brains compensate for errors on the page and read the version in our heads. The stare test shakes up that dynamic and allows you to look at things in isolation, giving you a better chance of catching errors. (Naturally, you can print and read too, but I wanted to save some trees.)

The stare test is such a quick way to make sure your "slip isn't showing" before you & your script step out into the world, I don't know how I ever lived without it.

Photo by pimpexposure

Shelf or Toss? An Ongoing Guide to Screenwriting Books

I used to write articles for a screenwriting magazine that's since gone under. And for a while I thought I wanted to keep writing about screenwriters and screenwriting because I guess like via osmosis it was going to make me a better writer. (The jury's still out on that one.)

On the plus side, I did get to do some cool things, bag some free software, and go to a couple conferences and screenings on their dime so it wasn't all bad. And I did get paid which is always good. I also ended up with quite a few screenwriting books that you are possibly thinking of buying, have already bought and never since picked up, or are thinking of trashing to your wannabe friends even though you've no idea what they're about!

So...here's your cheat sheet to a couple that landed on my review desk. I'll be sharing my 0.02 on a few from time to time.


PRACTICAL SCREENWRITING
Charles Deemer/Portland State University


It’s not just an analogy. According to the laws of probability, by way of a California math professor, it’s easier to win a million dollar jackpot than sell a humble screenplay. That’s the dose of cold reality dispensed on the opening pages of “Practical Screenwriting”, a book aimed at redressing those odds in favor of the unsold scribe.

Written by playwright turned screenwriter Charles Deemer, “Practical Screenwriting” is designed to teach the novice writer craft. Specifically, Deemer seeks to prune the young writer’s enthusiasm for setting down overblown rhetoric, a symptom he traces to the recent trend of publisher’s publishing screenplays that has made today's hopefuls think of screenwriting as literature. Deemer believes just the opposite. He believes for a screenplay to stand out in the crowded contemporary marketplace it must be clean, crisp and clear: an architect’s blueprint that invites a collaborative builder’s vision.

As such, economy, both structural and rhetorical, tops Deemer’s list of new screenwriting essentials. “Practical Screenwriting” also highlights the usual suspects: character development, structure, format, collaboration and concept. Not all of these are given equal screen time, however, with the book delving into three-act structure a great deal more than characterization, for example.

This skewed perspective is part of the reason “Practical Screenwriting” isn’t a traditional textbook. For one, it’s more casual, but that’s part of its appeal. The matter of fact tone is pitch perfect for the overwhelmed beginner as are the do’s and don'ts of screenwriting, illustrated by excerpts from produced and student scripts.

The Bottom Line: If you're looking for a solid beginning primer or you're one of those "outline, schmoutline" types, this might be your cup of tea. If not, move along. There's not much new here, though I guess Deemer's appeal (It's the economy, stupid) could prove useful even for older hands.

Shelf or Toss: Toss. As the Chicklet says "not for me." I need a little more meat on my screenwriting how-to bones.

How Do I Turn This Thing Off?

I keep being hit by all these ideas at 2 AM in the morning, just after I've crawled into bed after doing whatever writing I can. My mind is on fire when I'm supposed to be drifting off to dreamland. I can feel the synapses crackling, exploding while the rest of the house sleeps: the perfect line of dialogue, the great title, the best characterization, the best edit, the reason the opening doesn't work...

I wish somebody would write something in one of these writer's magazines about how to switch off the creative impulse so you can get at least five hours sleep. As a parent, there's a kind of desperation that sets in as you lie on the pillow and watch the time tick away, cause you know your very precious alarm clock is going to be up at 8 AM ready and rearing to go.

Of course I shouldn't be writing at night. I should be getting up at 5 AM and writing for three hours before the babe wakes up. But waking up early to write has never worked for me. It takes a tractor to get me out of bed in the morning and I am the original night owl. What this means is that I generally have to wait for her to fall asleep before I write...so my work days start at 10:30 PM, after the usual decompression that consists of surfing the web and watching MSNBC.

So...anybody got any non-pharmaceutical ideas about how to fall asleep fast, other than the great advice below?

True Confession: I'm Cheating on My Writer's Group

I belong to two writers groups that meet biweekly. This is a luxury for someone always complaining about not having enough hours in the day. I have to travel to the city, with the one hour commute both ways that entails in order to share pages.

It happened by accident. About a year ago I was looking for a group to join, partly to reconnect with writers like in the old grad school set-up and partly to get out of the house...I work from home with the 2.5 year old. When I see daylight up ahead I run for it.

I joined this writing group affiliated with one of the film groups in the city. Writers Group A meets in a public space in the city, has great, friendly non-professionals and is run by this astute earth mother type. I learned so much testing pages and hearing them read. And then about four months into it, I get an e-mail from the earth mother saying the biweekly meeting's canceled and that she'll no longer be running the group. What's more, we get a notice that the group is on hiatus. I fall into a paroxysm of grief. But I'm on page 30 of my rewrite...I need to get through my draft. (Yeah, yeah, it's all about me.)

So when I hear murmurs of another group starting up with one of the one-time attendants of Writers Group A, I'm there. But it feels weird to dump pages on them from the middle of the script so I bring in something else, a new social drama, which Writers Group B tears apart. Writers Group B is run by quasi-professionals, from a cozy loft on the West Side. Unlike Writers Group A where you can bring in pages every session, you have to sign up to read in Writers Group B, though no one ever seems to want to sign up. Writers Group B is far more social than Writers Group A. There's a person assigned to bring munchies for each session and I'd bet about 45 minutes goes by in chit chat, writing exercises I'd rather not do, and interaction with the resident dog.

Then out of the blue, Writers Group A resurfaces. Earth mother returns and having only been to a couple sessions of Writers Group B, I go back to the old fold. And it's good. The sunny musical comedy is well received. I get great suggestions for how to make pages work better. And I know the fact that the script is in semi-decent shape is a result of having workshopped it for the last couple of months with cool, unpretentious Writers Group A...but I still feel the need to prove myself to Writers Group B. I like their toughness...the professor who rolls his eyes as he says, there's no tension. I miss that in the over polite industry world that never tells you your work sucks to your face.

Right now, of course, I'm putting off making the choice. I love them both. The West Side artist's loft with the gourmet snacks and cynical semi-pros who never seem to want to bring pages, and the energetic group of largely unproduced writers who meet in the public space where you have to speak up because the guy's cleaning the tiles with that floor vac, and where out of your eye you can catch the homeless man taking a nap on two chairs pushed together. But at some point I'm going to have to give up one. They will clash...I will get caught... and I will have to choose.

I ain't got a clue what to do.