Writing A Screenplay That Will Sell To Hollywood

Hang in there guys!

I have spent the last four months schmoozing in West Hollywood.  Meeting Stars, Directors, and Producers who can get my screenplay sold and produced – as soon as I finish writing it. 

I’ll be in West Hollywood until the end of March and will be moving back to Tennessee for awhile, once I’m done networking here.  At that point in time, I’ll start posting on the Craft of Screenwriting again.

As for right now, I’m taking an eight week class with Jack Grapes, and I’ll be attending a killer Screenwriter’s Summit conference this weekend.  Then, next Sunday I’ll be attending a Romantic Comedy seminar at Universal Studios, here in California, that the Los Angeles Film Meetup Group is hosting.

So, you can see that my plate is full for the next 7 weeks I’ll be here in Hollywood.

Keep on Writing!!
ScriptGirrl

Please bear with me a little while longer.  I am in the middle of home renovations and have been extremely busy.  Well, not too busy to go shopping yesterday.  I finally broke down and got a big screen TV for my office with a bit of the 401K money I withdrew.  I know.  I’m supposed to save money while I’m unemployed, but I’ve been hankering for a big screen TV for a long time – you know, so I can examine those movies I’m analyzing for technique, more closely.  ;)  God.  I do love rationalizing!!  I also got the snow leopard update for my Macbook laptop.   I can’t tell you how hard it was to leave Best Buy yesterday without buying that beautiful, Mac desktop.  But I gritted my teeth, and pulled my eyes away from that big screen beauty!

During my renovations, I took over the kids playroom and turned it into my office, leaving the little bedroom I had for an office, free for my son to move in to so he has his own bedroom.  He’s only 4, but I think it’s time for him and Lucy to have their own private spaces.  And of course, the playroom is huge with a big picture window, if front of which I put a brand new glass and chrome desk.  I’ve turned the room into my own little ’sanctum’.  It will be a place where I can get away from everything to write.

I didn’t mean to get so wordy.  Anyway, until the end of October I will be extremely busy with my renovations and getting ready for my first travel nursing assignment in early November.  But, I’ll try to post a tip or two during that time.

Thank you for your patience with me.

Script Girrl

I was laid off my nursing job of 10 years yesterday, and I found my 5 year old, Betta fish dead, floating in his aquarium this morning.  Sheesh!

At least I still have my health!

I’ve decided to turn my job loss into something positive and adventurous.  I’m going to take a couple of months off and really pound out my current screenplay, ‘Killing Jewels’.  Then, in November I’m going to pack up my kids and my mother – the baby sitter, and do some ‘Travel Nursing’ until next year when Jack & Lucy start Kindergarten.

Travel Nursing is when a nursing company assigns you to a hospital, in a state of your choice, where you work anywhere from a 4-12 week assignment.  They pay top salaries, travel expenses and your rent.  Not a bad deal!  This way, I’ll be able to see some new places, meet some new people, and get some ideas for future screenplays.  It sounds more like a vacation than work to me.

I’ll be posting another screenplay tip, hopefully by Sunday.

I’m excited about this time off!!

Script Girrl

Tip #3 – Your story must be interesting to more people than yourself.

Your life is interesting and exciting to you because you are the one living it.  You have emotional connections to the people and events you interact with, therefore those people and events strike emotional cords in you and mean something special to you.

What you want to keep in mind when writing your screenplay is that while your life may seem interesting and exciting to yourself, it will probably bore others to death.  They don’t have the same connection to your old Aunt Sally, so they won’t really care that she died in her sleep.  They didn’t live in your childhood home for 25 years, so they won’t really care that you were devastated when you had to sell it.

My point is that you should steer clear of writing a screenplay about your life.  Unless of course you do something extraordinary like work as a hired killer, or as a high class call girl who only screws well-known movie stars.  You are much too close to your own experiences to write about them objectively.

On the other hand, what you should do is take an event in your life that rocked you emotionally, and weave a fictional story around that emotion.  How you ‘feel’ is universal. Use those universal emotions in your writing.

The basic Universal Emotions are:

• Joy
• Acceptance
• Fear
• Surprise
• Sadness
• Disgust
• Anger
• Anticipation

(Click on this link for a complete list of emotions.  Just reading through the list will give you tons of  emotions and spark ideas to write about).

Write about what you know, but fictionalize it and load it with universal emotion.  Then, you’ll have something that will be interesting and exciting for other people.

You want people to feel bad about your old aunt Sally dying?  Weave some fiction around her that will make them care.  Tell how she was so crippled up with arthritis that every move caused her extreme pain.  Tell how she painfully made her way to the kitchen to cook you your favorite breakfast for your birthday and accidently caught her sleeve on fire over the gas burner.  Tell how her screaming woke you up, and how you rushed to the kitchen and saw her writhing on the floor in flames.  Tell how despite your efforts, she died in your arms before the paramedics arrived.  Talk about grief, shock, and guilt!  Oy Vey!!

What about that childhood house you had to sell?   Weave some emotions and fiction around it to make people care.  Tell how the farm house and 120 acres of land have been in your family for 0ver 100 years.  Your great grandfather homesteaded that land.  Built that house.  The old graveyard out back has 100 years of your relatives in it, including your parents who were killed by a drunk driver last year.

Your 5 year old daughter was recently diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer.  There is an experimental drug available that is known to completely cure this type of cancer but it is not FDA approved so your insurance won’t cover the monumental cost of the treatment for your daughter.  Not only that, but the drug is only available in Sweden and you’ll have to stay in Sweden for 6-9 months for the weekly treatments.

For the last 5 years a big corporation has offered your family a ton of money for your land.  They want to tear down the house, re-locate your dead relatives, and build a nuclear power plant.  You are a tree-hugger and despise nuclear power.  But, they are offering more money than anyone else so selling to them is the only way you’ll be able to afford the chance at a cure for your daughter.  You have no choice if you want her to live.

A bit wordy, and off-the-cuff, but you get the idea.

Write using universal emotions if you want to create a screenplay that will be interesting and exciting to other people, besides yourself.

Script Girrl

I’m working on posting a new screenwriting tip today.

In the meantime, last week a stray female kitten showed up on my porch.  At first she wouldn’t let me within 10 feet of her.  Now, after putting out food twice a day for her to eat, she will let me reach out and touch her for a second or two, but still keeps the little fence on my porch between us.  I’m guessing I’ll be able to pick her up and take her inside in the next couple of days.

She needs a cool name.  Any ideas?

Script Girrl

I just learned on Twitter, that Blake Snyder passed away Tuesday morning from cardiac arrest.  I’m shocked.  He was only 51 years old!

For those of you who don’t know,  Snyder is probably best known to the masses as the screenwriter of  Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot and Blank Check. But much more importantly, He was the author of two best selling books on screenwriting: “Save the Cat! The Last Book You’ll Ever Need On Screenwriting” and “Save The Cat! Goes To The Movies – The Screenwriter’s Guide To Every Story Ever Told.”  And, he also created the “Save The Cat” The Last Story Structure Software You’ll Ever Need, which is a wonderful tool for putting your screenplay beats together.

I don’t know the man personally, but I learned a ton of stuff on the craft of screenwriting from his books and software.  And, I have friends who rave about his workshops and claim he’s a screenwriting genius.

Thanks for everything, Blake!  You’ll be greatly missed!!

Script Girrl

I was thinking today of something Stephen King said in his book, ‘On Writing‘.  Which, by the way, was a most excellent read on the Craft of Writing and it gave some wonderful insights into Stephen King’s life.

What he said was that the best memories he had of writing, were when he wrote sitting at a child’s table in the laundry room of his mobile home, cramped up between the dryer and stacks of folded clothes.

With that in mind, even though I have a killer office with a ‘view’ of the coast and a beautiful desk surrounded by tons of books on shelves, I prefer to sit at my kid’s wooden dinner table in my dining room, in front of the brick fireplace.

Not only does it give me a bird’s eye view of the kid’s playroom so I can make sure they’re not killing each other, surprisingly the height of the table is perfect for typing and the wooden chair helps me keep a decent posture preventing back aches and such.

Of course, being 5′2″ makes that little table work for me.  ;)

Where do you find inspiration writing?  Post a comment…

Script Girrl

The most important lesson in screenwriting is this: Contrary to what you may believe, you’re not trying to write a great story, or a blueprint for a movie.  What you are writing is ‘ACTOR BAIT’!

If your idea doesn’t excite an actor, if they don’t think that the character and dialogue is going to win them an Oscar, make them look cool, make people cry, or get them laid, then your movie won’t be made.

In order for your script to reach the actor, you must first excite the Script Reader from page one of your screenplay, all of the way to the final climax.  Otherwise they’ll stop reading and your script will never make it through the chain of command to the Actor.

An interesting book on this subject is: ‘Romancing The A-List (Writing The Script The Big Stars Want To Make), by Christopher Keane.

In the meantime, I will continue posting my 100 tips on writing a screenplay that will sell to Hollywood.  All of these tips are geared toward Romancing The A-List.

Script Girrl

Tip #2 – Find an idea that is vibrating with originality.

You’ve heard it said that any idea you come up with has already been thought of and done.  That’s true.  But, you can take any idea – even one that has been worked to death,  and put a spin on it to change it into something original and interesting.  Something the same, but different and exciting.

While I’m on the subject of ’same but different’ I’d like to make a suggestion.  The people who will be buying your script are not interested in producing a film that is totally off-the-wall and different from the usual Hollywood fare – especially if it is written by an unknown screenwriter.  Those kinds of films are only accepted and produced if you are well-known, like Woody Allen.  It’s too much of a risk for failure and money loss.

Sticking with a screenplay that touches on subjects people are familiar with are much easier to sell.  But, you need to take those well-worn ideas and put an original spin on them.  And I mean a nice, big, interesting spin – not just little tweaks here and there.

Spend time bouncing your idea on its head, turning it inside out, twisting it around to make it more interesting.  Ask yourself questions about your idea:

• What can I do to make this better?
• Is this like another movie I saw?
• Is there something here we’ve never seen?
• Why will anyone care about this story?
• Is this something people will be busting to tell their friends?
• Will it force a strong emotional reaction?
• Have I seen it before?
• How have I turned the genre on its head?
• What can I do to make it cooler?
• Am I just rehashing somebody else’s movie?
• Is there a piece of my soul here?
• How can I take this idea and explode it into something amazing?
• What parts are going to make my screenplay sell?
• Do I have explosions, or steamy romance, or some other exciting action that can be shown in the movie trailer?

Ask yourself which ground-breaking scenes you remember from movies – and then create some that work strongly for your story.  Following are some examples of those kinds of scenes…

• The food fight in Animal House.
• When Bambi’s mother dies.
• In Pulp Fiction, when Samuel Jackson recites the Bible verses and then kills the drug dealers.
• In Lawrence of Arabia, when Lawrence has to kill Gasim, the mane he saved in the desert.
• In Crash, when the cop rescues the woman, he’d molested earlier, from a burning car.

You get the idea.

Just think of movies you’ve watched and the scenes that have really stuck in your head.  Then, ask yourself, why are those scenes so memorable?  What emotional cords do they pluck for me and why?  Once you have the answers to those questions you can go on to create some ground-breaking scenes for your own script.  Scenes which will stick in the minds and hearts of the script readers and get your screenplay sold.

Yesterday, during a lull at my job, I went surfing for a list of ‘best movies’ and came across of 101 movies which the Writer’s Guild West had compiled.  Most of those movies I’d seen at some point in my life but as a ‘watcher’, not as a movie analyzer.

So, I went through the whole list and added them to my Netflix que.  I intend to watch them all in my spare time, but this time with an eye for analyzing what makes them so great that they made the 101 Best Movies list.

Here’s that list for anyone who is interested…

I actually downloaded the script for Casablanca yesterday, read it at work, and then watched the movie last night – it was a free, ‘watch now’ movie on Netflix.  God, I love instant gratification!

Embarrassingly, I’ve never watched Casablanca and thought, “What can a 1942 black and white move show me?”  But, looking at it with a screenwriter’s eye, I was amazed at the filming techniques and the intricasies of the script writing.  The dialogue was written differently than it is today – much less slang, but all of the script writing rules used today were present in that film.  And, the romance was palpable and exciting.

Casablanca was definitely worth the watch and I’m looking forward to going through the rest of the list at my leisure.

God, I love watching movies and living in a fantasy world when I’m working on a screenplay!

Script Girrl

I discovered the most amazing script writing program while reading the latest issue of Script Magazine.  It’s called Movie Outline 3.

I downloaded the 30 day trial of Movie Outline 3 and I can hardly drag myself away from it.  It does everything! You can:

• Outline your story step-by-step by scene
• Auto completes your typing
• Create characters – their profiles and arcs – by scene
• Drag and Drop scene index cards
• Analyze story pacing – tension and conflict – with graphs
• Keep track of notes and ideas by scene
• Outlines and analyses successful movies by scene to compare with your scenes
• Isolate dialogues and voice overs
• Color codes your structures
• Lets you exchange your work between Mac and Windows
• And of course, it lets you write your script.

I started off a couple of years ago using the Final Draft Software.  Then I moved on to Magic Screenwriter.  But I’ve got to say that Movie Outline 3 is the easiest screenwriting software I’ve ever used.  Everything is in front of you with simple tabs to click on.

I’m loving this program!

Go to the site and watch the Product Tour Video.  Then, download the 30 day trial and give it a go.  I’d love to hear what others think of this program.  I’m betting that most people will think that it totally rocks!

Crap.  Looks like I’m going to be shelling out another $199.  LOL

Script Girrl