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The Screenwriter in Cyberspace
By Charles Deemer

Column #14: New Plan for a New Year

New Year's resolutions are an American institution but usually have to do with correcting personal bad habits such as smoking or over-eating. But as a writer, or a budding writer, why don't you use the occasion to articulate your writing plan for 1997?

A writing plan for a "screenwriter in cyberspace" might look something like this:

  1. Make a realistic evaluation of where you now are in your screenwriting career. Are you still learning the craft? Do you feel you know the craft well enough to market your scripts? Are you still trying to get the courage to enter that first contest?

    What you do in 1997 obviously depends on your present skill level. It is not easy to become your own best/worst critic, someone who can take distance from your own work and look at it with a tough critical eye - but this is a skill every writer needs to develop early.

    One way to fine-tune your critical tools is to read screenplays, as many as you can get your hands on. And read critical analyses of them by others, such as those that appear in Creative Screenwriting and other journals. Look at movies with a critical eye, paying special attention to dramatic structure. (A note of caution when reading screenplays: screenplay format changes often, so be aware that many scripts are not formatted according to current fashion, even if they are only a few years old.)

    Become a screenplay critic and turn that critical eye inward.

  2. Improve your craft. Apply the insights you learn as a screenplay critic inward, to your own work. There are many formal ways to improve the craft of screenwriting:

    Informally, you can improve your craft by applying that new critical eye to your work and asking yourself, page by page, why is this scene here? Remember, above all else, that screenwriting is a craft of extraordinary economy, a focused visual method of storytelling.

  3. Improve your marketing skills. Many of us, I think, would much rather write than market our work. Marketing, however, is at least half the battle in establishing a screenwriting career - and this is true both before and after you have your work represented by an agent.

    Here are some practical things you can do to improve your marketing skills:

    • learn how others market their work
    • become familiar with online marketing resources, such as agents lists and producers lists.
    • enter screenwriting contests, being careful to choose among the growing number of them. The most highly regarded contests are also the most competitive.
    • learn the advertising agency's art of brevity and apply it to your own query letters
    • set aside a day a week when you use your normal writing time to practice marketing chores

    Don't be in too big a hurry to enter the marketplace. Make sure your craft is good before you write agents and producers and probably it is a good idea to enter a few contests, testing the waters, before you begin marketing - although, at the same time, rejection in a contest does not mean you are not ready to market. Contests, however, are a relatively painless way to enter the commercial world of screenwriting.

    Don't be discouraged by rejection. It comes with the territory. As long as you are your own best/worst critic, as long as you continue to study and improve your craft, as long as you enjoy writing, you will continue to grow - and then, it's just a matter of time before success comes your way.

  4. Make a writing schedule. No matter how busy you are, no matter what obligations you have, set aside time to write on a regular basis. Give this the highest priority.

    Writers are people who write: it is that simple.

  5. Set some specific goals. Decide today that you will enter a script in the 1997 Nicholls contest. And/or another contest (such as the Columbus Screenplay Discovery Awards). Or that you will send a script to such-and-such a production company, who produced a movie you really admire. Or that you will send out 100 query letters to agents.

    Set specific goals for the year - and meet them. This will help keep your writing in focus and give you the sense that you actually are not writing in the dark, a feeling that is all too easy to get.

  6. Have fun. If you don't enjoy writing, quit. There are many, many better ways to make a living.

      This, then, is a possible Plan for 1997. I hope I've given you some food for thought and that you already are revising what is here into a plan more suitable to your needs.

      The important thing is to take control of your writing career, to get your energy into focus and to make sure your various efforts (both in writing, studying and marketing) are all pulling in the same direction.

      I have a feeling this is going to be a very good year for me. I hope it is a good year for you as well.

      --Charles Deemer



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      Originally appeared at the Hollywood Network.