CS Daily Archive > The Big Picture > 05/14/04

So You Say You Want to Write a Screenplay?

By TOM MATTHEWS

There are a million reasons to write a screenplay. Here's 11 reasons you shouldn't.

You encounter them everywhere: those civilians who hear you're a screenwriter, and blithely announce that they're thinking of dabbling in the craft as well. Even here in the Midwest where I live, they're all over the place: "You're a screenwriter? You know, my uncle is the biggest kook, I think he'd make a really great movie…"

These people must be stopped, because the market is already glutted with unsold screenplays. And because they might be more talented than I am, and if the woman who cuts my hair signs a high six-figure deal with DreamWorks, I will have to kill her.

So I have formulated a response to the next person you meet who announces they want to write a script. My harangue is a little long, but that's the point: If they knew what they were really up against, they'd knock it off. And leave the field to us.

Again, it starts with "I'm thinking of writing a screenplay." To which you say:

You Won't
Life's too short. Screenplays run over 100 pages. You haven't written something that long since college, if ever. Try poetry.

Even if You Start a Script, You Won't Finish It
See above.

Even if You Finish It, It Probably Won't Be Very Good
Please allow me to assert some pride in what I do. Screenplays are hard. Despite common belief, not just anyone can write one. Screenwriting is a very mechanical and rigid form, which allows for very little error. Don't be deceived: scripts are hard to write because of all that white space you see on the page. Sometimes I think people look at a page from a novel and a page from a script and think: "Hey, there're fewer words in a script. I'll write me one of them!"

If you channel surf as much as I do, inevitably you'll come across one of those ghastly programs that feature close-up images of an actual surgery. I seriously doubt that anyone sees such a show and thinks, "Hmmm, knee replacement surgery. I think I'll give that a try." But someone catches the second half of Joe Dirt on Cinemax, and all of a sudden they're a screenwriter.

Yeah, as a matter of fact I do find that kind of insulting.

Even if It's Good, You Won't Be Able To Get an Agent
As with lottery tickets, there are perpetually just enough "First-time writer hits big" stories in circulation to make civilians think they could beat the odds. But the fact is, if you want to have any shot at all of selling a screenplay you have to have an agent. And guess what? Any agent worth having already has all he can handle keeping his current roster of clients employed. Recent downturns in production have seen most agencies actually thinning out their client lists, cutting loose talented writers who weren't generating revenue. And they knew them. You're a stranger not generating revenue.

If you can get a referral or win a screenwriting contest or are willing to perform some sort of distinctive, quasi- legal sex act, you can get your script read by someone at a top agency. And that someone will be an agent's assistant, who in between answering phones and administering pharmaceuticals to his boss will give your script a read. And if he doesn't like it, there goes your shot at the top agency.

Try writing a script about an agent's assistant. Who fights crime. While looking hot. A little tip from me to you.

Even if You Get an Agent, He Won't Be Able To Sell It
You do not want to know how many scripts are put on the market each weekend. You do not want to know how many of those scripts are written by established writers and still go unsold. You do not want to know the capriciousness and outright ignorance of the marketplace, which says it wants something bold and edgy and new but actually wants something precisely like whatever was number one at the box office last weekend, just completely different. But not too much. With a part for Ashton Kutcher. Or whoever the new Ashton Kutcher is. Whoops, too late: the new Ashton Kutcher has already been replaced by the new new Ashton Kutcher.

Seriously: poetry. It's a wide open market. I'll give you the first line: There once was a girl with angina…

Even if You Sell It, It'll Never Make It Out of Development
But congratulations. Seriously. If you've made it this far, someone pushed the magic button and scads of big-time Hollywood money have rained down upon you. Your talent and tenaciousness have paid off in one handsome paycheck, which, as cynical as it sounds, may be the grandest accomplishment you'll see out of all this. You are now a professional screenwriter. Enjoy yourself.

And say hello to everyone else in the development swamp -- almost none of you are going to make it out alive. Studios only produce 15-20 films a year; they perpetually have dozens upon dozens of projects in development. They have numerous deals with actors, directors and producers, and they all have a couple dozen projects in the hopper. Each one could be in active development for years, but if Russell Crowe all of a sudden decides he wants to make a movie about a rodeo clown with irritable bowel syndrome, he jumps to the head of the line and has a greenlight by sundown. While you just keep churning out producer drafts for free.

(Note to self: Register logline about rodeo clown with irritable bowel syndrome.)

Even if It Makes It into Production, You Won't Be Around
You're gonna get fired. Either you won't be able to satisfy their fuzzy-headed, endlessly morphing desires, or they'll lose interest, or a new regime will be brought in to sweep clean all existing projects, or you'll do such a good job that you write yourself right off the project. Here's how they did it to me: "Your latest draft is brilliant. The studio is extremely happy and we're ready to go out to actors. But you're new; your name won't mean anything to the caliber of actor we hope to cast. So we want to bring in a guy who's well known, have him do a quick character polish. And once we have our cast, we'll probably bring you back on."

The movie came out six years ago. He's not going to call, is he?

Even if You Don't Get Fired, the Movie Won't Be Very Good
Because if you really think about it, Hollywood movies should never work. They are fragile, bloated, stitched-together messes which may have begun years and millions of dollars ago as a sincere creative thought, but which even in the best of circumstances have had to run a gauntlet of ego and commerce guaranteed to spit them out the other end compromised and flawed.

Playing nightly at 6:05, 7:00, 8:10, 9:05, 10:20, 11:15, and 12:30 at a mall near you. And probably starring Ashton Kutcher.

Even if the Movie's Good, Not Enough People Will Buy Tickets
You've invested years of your life to get to this point, and if you don't open big on Friday you're dead by lunch on Sunday. The movie tested wrong, or marketing put together a weak campaign, or you open against the Russell Crowe blockbuster Cramp, Clown, Cramp, and you finish a disappointing third for the weekend. You're going unrented at Blockbuster before your head stops spinning.

Next.

Even if the Movie's a Hit, Your Mom Still Won't Be Able to Explain to her Friends What You Do
You've written a hit; your career is made for the next several years, so whining would be unseemly. But while America is abuzz with your movie, America pretty much gives a rat's ass about you. You will not have taken part in the press junket, you will have groveled to the publicity department simply for enough tickets to get your parents into the premiere, and now you get to sit back and watch as the director and the cast take credit for much of what you did.

But it was never about fame and acknowledgment. It was always about sex. You won't be getting much more of that, either, but now you get to work with movie stars and directors who get it all the time! Wait until your mom tells her friends about that.

And Even if You Start the Script and Finish the Script and Get an Agent Who Sells the Script which Gets Produced and You Don't Get Fired and the Film Is a Hit Both Critically and Commercially and You Are Duly Celebrated for Your Role in the Entire Endeavor…
I don't know. Hasn't happened for me yet. That's why I'm writing a new one. Is your agent reading?


Read Tom Matthews' feature article "Second-Act Troubles: Sustaining Your Screenwriting Career" (about the unforeseen challenges which can derail a career, and offering helpful warnings for aspiring screenwriters before that first sale) in the May/June issue of Creative Screenwriting magazine (on newsstands now.

Tom Matthews wrote the 1997 Warner Brothers film Mad City starring Dustin Hoffman and John Travolta, and has written scripts for most of the major studios. His satirical novel Like We Care will be published this September by Bancroft Press.

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