Screenwriting Groups

Whew… Still working through the sleep deprivation. Hallucinating is good for the soul… LOL.

The next structure post will have to wait a little while longer because I’m on and off the road till after the next week to ten days. All of a sudden I’ve been getting email from a lot of first time visitors and lurkers asking me about screenwriting groups… I’m probably not the best guy to ask about this.

About three years ago, I actually put one together. I thought it would be fun to have someplace to go talk screenwriting for a couple of hours. God knows regular people don’t want to hear me talk about it.

So I happened to have this list of email addresses of locals… 53 to be exact. Please make note that every one of these people had discussed with me and others I know about how they would love to get into a screenwriting group.

Cool. Out of 53 people, I figured we’d get lucky and come up with at least 10 interested screenwriters and wanna-be screenwriters.

I created a mailing list. Kind of like a Yahoo Groups thing so we could all communicate. So a month ahead of time, we worked out all the details. My favorite coffee shop was more than happy to let us use them for our venue.

Round and round the emails went. The list grew. A month went by. We all voted on Thursdays nights to be our meeting night.

The first Thursday rolled around.

3 people showed.

The next Thursday, 2 people.

The next Thursday, 1.

Guess who?

But that’s okay because what they didn’t know won’t hurt ‘em. LOL.

Some visitors have asked me how to go about starting their own screenwriting group when they don’t know anyone who wants to be a screenwriter… Well, I do have an answer.

I mention this service because I’ve actually recommended this service to quite a few people in areas where screenwriters aren’t growing on trees like in Los Angeles… The good news is that it has worked really well for a lot of people. True, a few people that have written me, tell me they have to drive almost an hour to get to the meeting place but hey — they probably have to drive a friggin’ hour to watch a movie.

In other words, you gotta go where where you can…

Which brings up a list that I’ve had for a while… A list of things you really need to consider if you’re going to start a group or maybe even help improve a group that you’re already a part of…

You’d think this would be obvious but you’d be surprised. I’ve been a guest of a couple of groups that held their meetings in places that were really fucking loud. I would avoid places like that if you’re actually trying to improve your screenwriting. One person I know gets to hold her meetings where she works. Another one at a church. You never know.

Will it be once a week? Twice a month? Whatever it is, figure it out ahead of time. Make a schedule and both email and print it out for everyone. If possible, create a simple web site or forum for everyone to discuss screenwriting until the next meeting.

I’ve been told that some groups do a lot better with less members… Probably true but I’ve also visited groups that had 20 members and seemed to do well.

Probably a good idea to keep things moving. I’ve visited groups without leadership and quite honestly, all they did was talk. Sometimes talking is good though. LOL.

Whatever those might be.

Goals. Do you want to simply improve your writing? Do you want to sell a spec script? Figure it out and share it with your group. Some people are completely content with writing their Worm Farm Debutante screenplay that is never going to sell. It’s too local. It’s boring. Yada yada but they still want to write it as a screenplay for some reason. LOL. More power to them. Only problem I see here is having that person critique one of my screenplays but you never know.

I’ve also seen groups travel together to workshops and seminars and then share notes at a meeting with those that couldn’t attend.

Reading screenplays. Some groups read screenplays and then talk about it at a meeting. I think if you can keep the meetings scheduled with different kinds of activities, you probably have a better chance at keeping the group going — a lot of groups fold because nothing ever gets accomplished.

Whew. I’ve seen it all! In an informal group like this, being constructive is always best. In other words, you have to qualify why you don’t like something in a member’s script. Let the person who wrote it explain where they were coming from. Know up front that they won’t like what everyone has to say but that’s not the point. The point is for them to gain some valuable perspective that they didn’t have before. To see and understand how someone else views their work and then toss what they feel isn’t going to improve the work.

Together as a group. Not literally together… LOL. But as in preparation for a future meeting. This is where good schedules come in. Planning events like this ahead of time make it a lot easier than coming up with the idea at one meeting and making it the topic of the next meeting.

I found a pretty decent PDF eBook by that discusses all this quite well so why reinvent the wheel?

Download

Some other decent links:

American Screenwriting Association

List of compiled by

So if you’re having a hard time finding someone to discuss this fine art and craft with, consider joining a group or starting one. Worse case scenario is starting one online using Yahoo Groups or something similar.

If you’ve got some ideas, links, suggestions, recommendations, whatever — sound out.

Unk

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