I see that part 13 is up on ice rocket but it isn’t showing on here. I was able to read it on google reader but thought you should know in case other people are having same issue.

SS

I’ve tried to reply to the comment for days but each time, I get a knot in my stomach.

I hate it when you people make me think.

It may be time for you to climb out of your batcave, rip off your mask and show the world who you are, if only so you can write a book about this stuff and get real credit for it . . .

Yep, that’s my plan. And, it should be your plan too! LOL

More dreck and fewer good writers means less competition in the marketplace.

Nah, not really…

Even if I thought I could really persuade the writers who flood the market with train-wreck scripts to quit writing to take up ballet, sculpture or worm farming I wouldn’t. Mainly because I know just how long it takes to develop as a writer and how many train-wrecks I had to write to get to the point where I could finally write something worth reading. So far it’s taken ten years of almost constant screenwriting and the development of eight feature scripts, with at least a dozen rewrites on each, to get to the point where I can put stuff into the market place and get it read at the right level.

The point I was really trying to make was, the marketplace for spec scripts looks the way it does because there is so much dreck and at the same time a shortage of good scripts.

Anyone looking to sell their spec has to understand why it is the way it is and why the industry operates the way it does.

The truth is producers are desperate to find great scripts, but for them it’s needle in the haystack time. That’s the reason the industry looks so impenetrable from the outside.

What I’m not convinced by is the idea that you can turn bad writers into good ones, no matter what information you give them. Not because writing is that hard. It’s not that, it’s more to do with the fact that too many people want to succeed for the sake of succeeding. In my experience there is a real difference between writing a script because you have something to say, because you are carrying a story that needs to be told and the endless struggle of many people to validate themselves as human beings by achieving success in what they perceive to be a glamorous industry.

That’s where this all links back to a discussion on theme. Themes are by their very nature an expression of the core values of the writer. The writer needs to have something to say something about the world and the way human beings interact with each other. These ideas and values get played out in the drama. If the writer has no ideas or values beyond that of getting recognition or making a sale, then the story is all form and no content.

The irony of all this is that in the chase for success many writers decrease their chances of achieving it, simply because the scripts they write don’t resonate with anyone. The thing that really hooks people into reading a script is when they find an idea in a logline that fascinates them. In the main, a film with a strong theme, written by someone who has something to say and who then has the technical skills to tell that story in a filmic way, is almost bound to find a producer who will be as passionate about it as the person who wrote it.

Where Unk and others, myself included, can pass on the knowledge we’ve gained as both writers and filmmakers, what none of us can do is pass on that passion for story telling and an innate interest in humanity. Yet, it’s in that passion and fascination that the real work happens.

Charles Bukowski was once asked by a grad student “Is writing a good career” to which he answered, drunkenly “Son, you don’t choose writing, writing chooses you.”

I so agree with him and once it’s chosen you, success or failure are irrelevant, sales or not sales is irrelevant.

My personal experience is that once writers stop trying to figure our how to succeed and figure out what it is they are supposed to be writing, just because they HAVE to write it, at that point the good stuff starts happening.

John McLane’s major turn in Die Hard came in the restroom fixing his foot while talking to Sgt. Al Powel thru the Walky Talky admitting his mistakes and love for his wife.

Every character needs a flaw, even the minor ones. The more the better.

and the plethora continues. I thought I was crazy for dumping the 3 Act structure. Now I think it was the best thing for my style.

I think beginning, middle and end but I don’t like to have a static structure for a dynamic task.
I let each movie determine what it is.