21. STORY ARCS (ie: meaning the plot points in any given main story or subplot): Checking them out before writing or revising can produce handsome rewards. Once story arcs are completed, look them over. Look at each story on a microscopic level. Does it have a beginning, middle and end? Is it fat or skinny or just right? Is it balanced? Does it have a surprise or two? Does it have a payoff? Has it fulfilled whatever thematic idea you're going for? Can you tell the story to someone clearly, confidently and without their eyes glazing over? Do the scenes work? Is it ready?
22. RESIST the temptation to start marketing your idea to Nollywood before it's ready. you don't need an agent yet. Nor do you even need a query letter. The impulse that Nollywood must be alerted must be muted. You must remain in the role of the mad scientist mixing his/her elixir and letting it brew.
23. SELLING a script is a magical experience but the route to success can be unpredictable, mercurial, often maddening and it usually doesn't happen on your timetable. Thus in this effort, ATTITUDE is paramount. Writers are often made or broken in how they handle this effort! If your expectations are too high and your timetable is too ambitious, you're probably going to derail yourself. Agents and producers are important only AFTER the material is READY.
24. SOME MAY THINK, If my script isn't perfect, surely the industry bigwigs will see the potential. Whatever's wrong can be fixed in the rewrite AFTER the big sale." Wrong! The notion that if your material is "almost" there, surely smart professionals will recognize the potential just doesn't happen. Material must be HOT and READY or you're wasting your time!
25. Spend a percentage of your time pushing the material and the majority of the time working on your NEXT SCRIPT. Taking all that wanting and energy and projecting it into the next project is a lot healthier than agonizing over the inevitable frustration of wanting and waiting. Under these conditions, time is on your side. You're dug in for the long haul, the battle will be on your terms.
26. REMEMBER, the business of screenwriting is not a lottery. It's a process. You get better. You develop an inventory of material and ideas. If lucky, you begin to get compliments. You start to experience breakthrus that, at first, only you notice. People start to genuinely like your stuff. You get turned down but someone asks what else you might have. The stakes are raised--you get romanced by the wrong people but it's proof that someone's interested. You almost get a deal. Finally, you may get lucky. The point of critical mass has been reached. It's happening now. This takes time. It can be a circuitous process.
27. APPRECIATE and covet any sign of life (re your writing).
28. BE AWARE that people do sell scripts.
29. WITHIN REASON, continue to write from the heart and not for the
marketplace.
30. In life and art we RELY ON ANCHORS, predictable and reliable structures we can hold onto that permit us to relax into an often chaotic and nonsensical reality. Screenplays demand that no matter how avant-garde, experimental or conventional your writing, there be some basic elements that hold us inside of your fantasy.
31. The mind is a funny thing. Sometimes what we perceive to be true is not true. This happens often with screenwriting when writers think that there’s something on the page that isn’t on the page. We must closely examine our manuscripts making sure WHAT’S IN OUR MINDS AND HEARTS HAS ACTUALLY BEEN WRITTEN.
32. There is hardly a situation in any movie, dysfunctional or otherwise, that can’t be justified by some movie somewhere that got away with it. But consider the other 2000 MOVIES IN WHICH IT DIDN’T WORK!
33. Developing ideas is an interesting activity. Two things happen when you do it on a regular basis. One is that your relationship with your subconscious and your “creative guide” gets keener and ideas begin to flow. If you’re lucky, you begin to flow to such an extent that you begin to “WRITE ON THE WALLS.” The other is that as you grow ideas, some take flight as if on their own. This is powerful stuff.
34. If you have to stretch reality, do it judiciously and surround it with a bedrock of credibility and truth in other issues.
35. Succeeding as a screenwriter is a PROCESS. It's less about hitting a home run with the big script and more about doing the next right thing that propels you and your material a step further up the ladder.
36. Although it's natural for writers to do what they do best, it's necessary to also use other methods to accomplish our creative tasks. The humorist may need to access real drama in order to steady his screenplay and give it a realistic foundation. The sci-fi aficionado might be Einsteinian in her imagery but still has to find a way to tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. And so forth. The point of this is simple. It’s imperative that you sometimes turn your back on your “A” weaponry and take care of business in areas of craft that may not be your first love. For many writers, particularly those who are not working under the lash of producer or studio, this kind of discipline can be elusive.
37. Have another (nice) way of making a living while you're trying to make it as a writer. This will give you space to grow and create without going nuts.
38. The funniest writers on God’s earth still need a keen sense of reality, relatability, normalcy and even poignancy and drama in their scripts. Is this “rule” ever broken? Sure. But most of the time, the result of these digressions is failure, and often just on a developmental level, since material that’s gratuitously funny and lacks the other needed elements usually ends up on the dust pile. The trick is to create multidimensional situations and amply utilize the honest tragic-comedic human condition as the predicate of things to come. In other words, reality is very much the comedy writer’s friend.
A FINAL NOTE--MIRACLES DO HAPPEN
39. I have witnessed and personally experienced miracles in this business, namely when good things happened for long shot projects and people. I remembered that these good tidings ALWAYS came as a result of a “patron’s” (ie agents and producers etc) pure and infectious belief. And how winning a combination it could be; the supportive individual paired with projects which with a little TLC, seemed to take on lives of their own. Observing otherwise “tough as nails” movers and shakers softening and supporting when their hearts were touched, was always a sight to behold. Passion, the magical ingredient in all of these cases, is surely the decisive factor. And it’s nice to know that it’s still alive and well and making things happen. Stars-to-be, scripts that will find a home, and other worthy product can find warmth in the prospect that after all is said and done, it still can be about deserving talent and material getting caught in the throat and the heart of folks, finding ways to break through. My own personal experience has borne out this truth. Perhaps it has something to do with deep energy which transforms into something tangible. If you believe, like many do, that all things are ultimately created from one’s most passionate beliefs and desires, then maybe “being on fire” has inevitable physical consequences, even in a seemingly impenetrable world
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