But maybe to get another perspective on this issue, you should also read this article The Widening Chasm

It seems to me that rather than things getting worse for writers, they are actually getting better, providing the writers values themselves and see their role as a partner in a creative venture, rather than as an employee.

Employees always get the shitty end of the stick.

Personally I think it will be good for the industry, because it will mean that everyone will only be as good as their next script.

EVERYONE has read that article… LOL. It’s got a lot of writers running scared too.

This goes back to a previous post I made about screenwriters needing to keep churning out the specs EVEN when they get a lot of script doctoring (everybody seems to hate that phrase) to do.

Now’s a really good time to consider (when selling a spec) negotiating coming on board as a producer even if that means taking a lower fee on the front end. If you really believe in your writing, take a little less UP FRONT and negotiate a decent back end BASED on your writing and the (hopefully) eventual film that gets produced. This can hedge your bets probably a little better than selling your spec outright.

If your spec is really good, it’s definitely possible to be brought on as producer right away… No, you probably won’t be doing much except LEARNING and you probably won’t make as much on the backend as the producers ahead of you but you do set yourself up quite nicely for other opportunities later on down the road assuming your film makes money.

And a producer that can WRITE is way ahead of the curve than a producer that can’t — everything else being equal.

One of the biggest things to remember here is that you need to keep TOPPING yourself and I think you really need to think of it in exactly that way i.e., your last script was great — your next script has got to be greater. The next script after that has to be even better and on and on.

Sounds hard — sounds difficult but it’s EXACTLY these kinds of challenges you need to make to yourself to flourish.

Let’s face it… We have no one to blame but ourselves in a way…

Why?

Derivitive work. Not unusual enough. Not unique enough. Too formula.

Once you fall into that trap, you essentially start slamming RED “Xs” on your calendar.

Unk

Have a great weekend!

I was at a three day Wendall Thomas workshop a few months back and had exactly the same experience. Two of those days were on three act structure and all around me maybe fifty screenwriters were frantically scribbling notes.

Now, actually Wendall is a good speaker and the day she did on subtext was superb. In fact she even had one or two interesting thing to say on the first act turning point. (I actually wrote a note!)

But what freaked me out was that I seemed to be the only writer in the room for whom three act structure wasn’t a revelation!

These guys were getting more excited that I could have possibly believed.

All the time I’m sitting there thinking, hasn’t anyone noticed that no one talking about three act structure wants to talk about the second act!

I mean they’ll quite happily talk about the first act, about set ups, the inciting incident, the decision to enter the new world, all that good stuff — but the moment they get into the second act, silence! The second act is a sixty page desert to these guys.

The only thing they seem to have to say about it is that half way through, the stakes should be increased!

I mean, WOW!

The more I do this, the more I realize that people who study, people who research, people who read screenplays, people who watch films and break them down, people who rewrite, people who take notes, people who look for expert advice are in the minority.

The vast majority of screenwriters are out there without even a clue about how to do the basics.

And yet, with just ten minutes worth of googling you can find reasonable information on almost every aspect of screenwriting.

One of the reason I’m so very impressed with unk, is because I know that he really works at this — in fact it shames me to think how much more of this he does than I do (but I’m catching up fast! LOL)

It took me eight years of floundering about, until I realised I needed to sit down and take this seriously.

So when Unk says “98% of the screenplays circulated in Hollywood are unreadable” I believe him, because those screnplays are being submitted by people who have never even heard of three act structure, who have absolutely no idea what high concept is, who have never had their work read by a professional reader.

Oh dear, I intended to leave a short note and somehow it turned into a rant! LOL

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is, screenwriting is a highly technical form of writing, it’s not like prose, it has a specific form and very particular requirement.

Unless you are always going to self produce and self distribute you are going to have to understand those forms and those requirements, even if you then decide to reject them.

I don’t mind anyone making a non-high concept, non-three act structure movie — but at least understand what it is you’re rejecting first.

On my current project I’m writing a multi-protagonist, fractal four act structure — you just couldn’t plot it in three act terms — you’d go insane trying! You’d also go mad asking for help with it from some the gurus out there

“A multi-protagonist four act what? Would you like to repeat the question in English, son” LOL

But the point is, to get to the point where you can radically change the structure of a movie you have to understand the basics first.

Heck, I must stop writing before this becomes a thesis!

The best part of sharing, in my opinion, is that when you begin helping someone else, you often end up helping yourself. I can’t tell you how many of my own writing issues have been solved this way.

What you’re doing here is pushing the status quo and there’ll be resistance. People hate change! But I think you’ve got a good core of listeners here. I predict great things for this group!

Like the YouTube video “Charlie The Unicorn” says: Shun the disbelievers! LOL.

What I’m trying to say here is that I’m fucking sick and tired of hearing the same old shit again and again and again — which is why I threw up a blog of my own.

I hate to dispell the rumor or theory that 3 Act Structure is in fact the SECRET to breaking into the business.

But it ain’t.”
————-

Oh my fucking god… the 3 act structure … this is becoming a pet peeve of mine.

Yes. It’s absolutely basic stuff & the 1st thing you learn when you pick up a SWing book. Any SWing book you can pick up FREE at the library.

And YES, the 3 act structure thing is very TIRED!

1st time i read Field’s book (in the early 90s) i knew right off it had some serious gaps & limitations. I’m not saying it’s wrong or i disagree with it. I agree the 3 act paradigm (or whatever you want to call it) is valid & somewhat helpful. But the thng is, it’s usefuness is very limited.

After you say a screenplay has a biginning, a middle, & an end… and something big should happen on page 30 and page 75… then what???

It’s all after-the-fact analysis that doesn’t really help you with the nuts & bolts of designing a story.

It’s like a person who wants to learn how to build a house asking a “teacher” how to do it, & that teacher saying: “A house has walls, a roof, some doors & some windows.”

The person is just gonna look at the teacher, like, huh?? What the fuck??

It may be quite true that, “A house has walls, a roof, some doors & some windows”, but that’s of limited use when you actually go to build one. You need more information.

My writing didn’t really take off until i grasped what conflict really was & started using SEQUENCES.

And what’s crazy is that sequences have only been mentioned in SWing books in the last couple of yrs. No wonder–even after all these tons of books by so-called gurus– that most screenplays still suck ginormous donkey dicks. LOL! :-)

Great post.