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The Development Process

What happens if your marketing efforts are successful? In most instances "success" is not an outright sale but rather the selling of what is called "an option." This is the first step in the script development process.

The script development process in Hollywood has always been unstable and changing but perhaps never have writers suffered more from a crowded "buyer's market" than in 1999 when new if "unofficial" practices began.

Script development used to happen this way:

A beginning screenwriter would option a screenplay to an independent producer. This option would give ownership of the script to the producer for a set period of time, usually a year, during which s/he would try to put together a deal with a studio to make the movie. Payment for the option typically was 10% of the selling price, which in turn typically was 3-5% of the movie's budget.

In other words, a writer optioning a script for a low budget 2 million dollar movie could expect to sell the screenplay for about $80,000 and to option it for $8000. A prolific writer could make money optioning scripts.

Producers, of course, want to pay as little up front as possible, and the volcanic explosion of interest in screenwriting gave them the numbers to change the rules of the game. In the July/August 99 issue of Creative Screenwriting, columnist Nancy Hendrickson summarized the dire results for writers: "With the spec market at a new high and development money at an all-time low, writers are getting more pressure to give over control of their material for little or no money."

An anonymous producer told Henrickson, "We never pay for options anymore. If an agent tries to hold us up for even a small amount of money, we tell them to take the script someplace else."

This is the Buyer's Market in Hell, as far as writers are concerned.

So until this situation changes, be prepared for the worst.

Understand that I am talking about options here, not development money, which is what a studio will pay a writer for rewriting a script that has been purchased. The "option" is the step before this part of the process, during which a producer tries to put together a package to sell to the studio, which then initiates further development of the script.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

This atmosphere can result in difficult choices for a screenwriter. Let me share a personal example from August, 1999.

A producer held an option for one of my screenplays that was up for renewal. By the contract, a $500 fee would extend the renewal for six months. The producer, however, called my agent and said he wanted a free extension.

My agent's advice was that we should tell the producer, no deal. Pay up or shut up. And this makes perfect sense: a contract is a contract. So I agreed, and my agent called the producer with the news.

The producer was very upset. He finally called to talk to me personally.

And he made "the real world" argument, which went this way. If I don't renew the option, then you may find another producer to option it - but in today's market, that option will be free anyway, so you are not going to make any money by turning me down. Moreover, I am familiar with the script like no one else, I have worked on rewrites with you for nine months, I love the script, and I am the best salesman for the script. Why go back to point zero at this late date?

I asked my agent what she thought we should do with the script. Shelf it, she said. I exhausted my contacts the first time through, finally getting this option.

In other words, I had three choices: shelve the script; market it myself, for at best another free option; or let the producer run with it for another six months.

I finally chose the latter. It seems to me that this was the only alternative with a longshot attractive outcome. The producer is excited about the script and he does know it as well as I do now. Another persuasive fact was that our collaborative rewrite resulted in a better script. And yes, he had something to do with that.

But this was not an easy decision for me. None of the options are what writers should be faced with now. I don't see the WGA doing anything to improve this new market climate, however. So there you are.

But sometimes something good can happen from the leap of faith associated with a free option. One screenwriter shared this success story on the Internet's screenwriting newsgroup (misc.writing.screenplays):

"A spec of ours that hadn't sold was noticed by a pair of young would-be producers, who asked us to give them a free (non-exclusive) option. They were nice, bright, and seemed to be go-getters. We let them run with it. They set up a negative pickup deal, the film got made, and the whole thing turned out to be a pretty good experience. (And brought us a nice hunk of change.)"

Keeping the Faith

It can be a long and thankless process, this screenwriting business. Perhaps no one has expressed the life of a screenwriter with more wit than Susan Cummins:

You send the script to the agents & the agents ignore you. For years.

You send the script to the producers & they ignore you. For years.

You write 4 more scripts. The agents still ignore you.

The producers start noticing you. If you sent them a small character-driven story, they will tell you that they love the writing, but they're only looking for special effects event pictures. If you sent them a special effects event picture, they will tell you that 4 stories like yours just went into production last week.

Other popular responses include ... "The second act drags," "Your main character isn't likeable," and the ever popular "I don't feel passionate enough about your script."

So, here's what you do:

1) Write another script.
2) Query every agent & every producer.

Repeat 1 & 2 as needed. Into infinity. Until you go insane.

Any working screenwriter will quickly see the truth here, even in a wee bit of exaggeration.

On the other hand, maybe there's no exaggeration there at all. Listen to what writer Robin Cohen Westmiller went through when she thought there was film interest in her novel, Red Wine for Breakfast. Robin's horror story.

Talent, unfortunately, often is not enough. Craft, unfortunately, often is not enough. You need something else:

ENDURANCE.

William Faulkner had it right at the end of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech: we need to endure. In life. And in the screenwriting business.

I find the best way to endure is to keep busy, putting one foot after the other, daily, steadily - and enjoying my work every step of the way.

[NEXT]


MODULE 11: SCREENWRIGHT: the craft of screenwriting

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