Reviewed by Charles Deemer
HOW TO WRITE IT, HOW TO SELL IT
by Linda Palmer
St. Martin's Griffin, 1998
300 pages, $14.95
ISBN 0-312-18726-2
Here is the only screenwriting book I've seen that includes an exercise
program. Here it is, which the
author calls "The Writer's Strength and
Stamina Exercise Routine":
"I don't care what exercise you choose - the point is that for
fifteen
minutes a day, five days a week, you exercise while reciting the
following:
"'I am a writer. I am
exercising to be strong mentally and to increase
my stamina because I need both mental strength and physical stamina to
have a career as a writer.'" (pp6-7)
My University screenwriting class, it must be said, did not embrace
this
routine with warmth, and you may not either. One student pointed out that
his cousin, a successful screenwriter, used gin for the same
purpose.
Gin, of course, is a politically incorrect methodology for acquiring
strength and stamina, while the author's routine above has a
fashionable
New Age ring to it. But I don't
belabor this to endorse or poke fun
at Palmer's suggestion but rather to illustrate how much of her own
personality goes into this book, which is both its strength and its
weakness.
Palmer is trying to do two things here, teach craft and teach
marketing.
She has the credentials to know about both: a published novelist, a
former VP at Tristar, a produced screenwriter. However, as a teacher,
she does the second half of her goal better than the first.
Her chapters on craft can be misleading and, when she quotes from her
own work, sometimes contradictory.
For example, at one point she writes,
"Here are some examples of the various genres" (p140), but
then goes on to
discuss only romantic comedy, farce, parody and satire
(pp140-142). The
beginner who rightfully questions if this is all one can say about
genre
and who turns to the index to learn more will be disappointed because
the book has no index.
Palmer cautions against long single-spaced descriptions in the action
element,
which instead need to be broken up into smaller paragraphs, adding
white
space to the page, advice which most screenwriting teachers would
endorse.
Yet her own descriptive writing frequently contradicts this advice,
where
plush prose and long paragraphs sound more like her novelist-self.
Palmer frequently presents the basics of craft in a straight-forward
and
readable way. Some useful tools
are provided: examples of the worksheets
readers use to provide coverage; a complete step outline of MIDNIGHT
RUN;
structural examples from many movies.
But it is when she turns to
marketing advice that Palmer shines.
This book, more than others, looks into the craft of writing query
letters
and pitching concepts. She
provides a detailed guide to writing effective
query letters - and a good one it is.
She gives examples. She spends
a lot of time discussing pitching strategy and method (phone, fax,
email,
letter?).
Palmer also draws on her professional experience to provide a
behind-the-scenes
look at the business of Hollywood.
Occasionally her focus drifts to gossipy
chit-chat rather than to matters a student can use, but the stories are
always interesting.
I recommend this book, then, primarily for the HOW TO SELL IT part of
its
title. Palmer presents an
individual, sometime eccentric, voice here, but
she is worth listening to, even if you are politically incorrect enough
to prefer gin to exercise.
---
Charles Deemer teaches screenwriting at Portland State University and
is
the author of "Screenwright: the craft of screenwriting."