Silver Screenwriting

Archive for the ‘Silver Screenwriting News’ Category

David Milch Interview

The WGA – Writers Guild of America West, presents a series of free articles by members on writing for episodic television. Check it out here.

Google Books has some great titles listed already. Try them here.

The Writer’s Store continues a fine series of articles with a good overview of how to break into television from Lee Goldburg. Click here to read it.

Crafty Screenwriting has a fantastic selection of professional tv writing faqs from the trenches. This is an extensive resource, available here.

The BBC in the UK has a well respected Writers Room which includes plenty of help on writing television, plus some BBC scripts to help you understand the format.

Television Writing Links

We’re into the last two weeks, and scripts continue to flow in from around the globe. We’ve seen some great concepts and wonderful writing already. We’re hoping for many more as we have production companies hungry to read. In fact, we’ve had so many requests, across such a broad range of genres and styles, that we’re looking to pitch both the winning scripts, and those which make the grade and meet production criteria.

A major trend this year has been multiple submissions. Many writers are sending two or more of their scripts. Each entry is a small, valuable investment in each project, and a great, low cost way of moving a script forwards towards that sale at the end of the rainbow.

We’re delighted with the range of scripts. The mixture of settings, styles, genres and approaches to the craft is fantastic, and it shows that it isn’t the dull, middle of the road studio fare which is inspiring you, it is eclectic global cinema and quirky Hollywood artists.

So, please keep ‘em coming. We can’t wait to read more…

A renewed, two year, 7 figure deal from Fox has been announced in the trades!

Fuse Entertainment, in case you didn’t know, is headed up by Michel Bondeson and is the company behind Burn Notice (search the archive for my interview of Matt Nix in 2009).

How lucky are we, at The Silver Screenwriting Competition, that our top scripts will be judged by Kristen Campo, VP of Fuse – a company which has got some serious jingle jangle in the pocket when it comes to developing scripts!

Hey, maybe our winner will be on the Fuse slate in 2011!

We’re delighted that True Blood star, actress Kristin Bauer has submitted her screenplay. Bringing an insiders grasp of dialogue, character and how written elements translate to the screen, actors and actresses are increasingly turning to writing as another string to their bow. We asked Kristen to sum up her artistic worldview:

“I act, I paint and I write. In Acting – the actor is the last piece of the puzzle, most of the work has been done before we step in and ice the cake. It’s a very specialized job, with an enormous support system. But with painting and writing, from the first hint of an idea to the final stroke, it’s all me — for better or worse. And the balance of those two worlds, makes the perfect trifecta for me, all three arts.”

The regular deadline expires today, May 15th, enter now to take advantage of our $49 reduced entry, and check our extended prize list with the hottest production companies out there lined up to read…

Getting notes for free (or cheap) from message board types can be heaven and it can be hell. Some who offer free notes really are quite good at it – and others – well, they aren’t very experienced.

Bad note givers are totally SUBJECTIVE. They give their opinion based on what they like and how they would write this story. But it’s not their story. They make overt suggestions ala what THEY would do if the story were theirs. Sometimes they’ll change or suggest dialogue to the way they would like to see it written. Cardinal no-no.

Bad note givers have an unearned sense that they KNOW what is good and what is bad. And usually this vibe comes across in the notes. Ergo, bad note givers put the writer on the defensive.

Because some free note giver on a message board offers to give you notes doesn’t mean that they’ll be bad – or good. The stumbling block is that you’ll be on the defensive very quickly because the free note giver has very little experience doing this. So the jumping off point is dysfunctional; they aren’t experienced, so they have no authority in your view, and you’ll get defensive and they might be too subjective…and the whole experience can be a mess.

Free notes are hit or miss. The problem is that if they are a miss, the writer is left with a feeling of having been judged by someone not qualified to judge them…and even if there were salient points, they will not hear those points. It’s like I said about the spoonful of sugar.

Giving good notes is like being a therapist – oh, sure, the therapist sits there in their cashmere scarf sipping tea, all curled up in their chair and they seem very ordinary – they don’t discuss your issues with you from a technical standpoint – they get you comfortable but while you’re talking, they’re running your issues through their Psychology Degree Learning Background and searching for and addressing issues that have distinct jumping off points from an academic point of view. But when they talk to you, they put it in such a way that makes you feel comfortable. Something good is happening in this interaction but it’s beneath the surface. If they asked you questions more directly, you’d shut down and now the session is useless. It’s about how to get people to open up and hear you.

Free (and bad) note givers don’t have enough experience working with writers to use this methodology. They may (or may not) have some good points to make on the script but they don’t know how to deliver that information in such a way that the writer feels empowered. And though they’d never admit it in a million years, they get ego-gratification about pointing out what’s wrong with your script because somewhere deep inside there’s a little voice saying I could do this better than you.

A professional reader doesn’t have that voice because they just don’t care enough. They don’t know you, they have nothing invested in who’s a better writer. It’s a job. On a message board, there’s sometimes a weird, gossipy thing that goes on where someone offers to give you notes, and then they can sort of say on the board, in hushed tones – Oh, I read that script – it really isn’t that great. It’s one-upmanship. Professional readers aren’t into that. They aren’t going to go to CURLYGIRL3 and say Hey, did you know that FOXYCHICK isn’t a very good writer? Did you know that? She posts so much about her accomplishments but she’s really not that great!

A lot of writers can fall into one-upmanship. It happens. A writer is getting traction on a script and suddenly everyone wants to read it. Know why this happens? Not because they are truly curious as to what makes a script gain traction but because they secretly want to say – Oh. It’s not really that great. I have NO idea why that script is at William Morris. Hmmph.

Free notes can be a nice thing to receive but please, please consider the source. And if you OFFER to give free notes, ask yourself this – what is your agenda? Can you set aside your ego and just be honest? Are you really qualified to do this? I mean, sometimes a person will say hey, I just want your knee-jerk opinion. Did you laugh? Did you like it? Well, just about anybody is qualified to do that and that’s a nice thing. But do check in with your motivation on giving or receiving free notes. If you are getting the notes, are you secretly looking for praise or respect? If you are giving them are you secretly hoping to establish that YOU are the better writer?

Seven signs that your super cool free read was a very bad idea:

1) You feel defensive and upset.

2) The notes contain snarky comments and put-downs.

3) The person who offered is a blowhard on your local message board.

4) The notes are specific, not global and the reader offered advice that you dislike.

5) The person uses the word “I” a lot. (I liked this. I didn’t like that. I would do this. I wouldn’t do that.)

6) The person actually rewrote or suggested dialogue.

7) The person made plot suggestions that do not fit and spin the script in a totally new direction.

So (non) buyer beware. Free notes are a blessing and a curse. You need to vet who’s offering. And you need to check in with yourself – can you set your ego aside? Can you take what makes sense and dump the rest? Do you respect this person? Do they know a lot about screenwriting or do they just claim to give totally honest feedback? I will be totally honest with you is often a code for: I’ll rake you over the coals to make myself feel better. Believe it. I’ve been on the receiving end of that and I do think that experience in some ways led me to my current philosophy that giving notes must be done in such a way that it is respectful and palatable. Because if I’m going to take the time to read your script I want you to get something out of it.

It gets hard to

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