Just Effing Entertain Me

Homicide School for Writers!

Hi everybody! I saw this class, presented by my dear friends Andrew Zinnes and Genevieve Jolliffe, and I had to let you know about it!

Filmmaker Junction is pleased to present: Writer’s Homicide School.

Police dialogue and protocol is highly specific – so much so that if you don’t get it right, your story or script will fall flat on its face. But how do you get that information if you don’t know anyone in law enforcement? Fear not! The Writer’s Homicide School is here.

The Writer’s Homicide School is an intensive two day seminar that walks writers through police procedures for investigating murders. Lead by Sgt. Derek Pacifico, a 22 year veteran of the San Bernadino Sheriff’s Department, writers will learn about Interview and Interrogation techniques, reading crime scenes, handling evidence, proper police jargon and a lot more.

If you are writing crime, thrillers, mysteries or police procedural TV – this seminar is a MUST!

Date: SAT/SUN June 2nd & June 3rd, 2012, 9AM-3PM
Location: The Satellite, 3110 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90405. (3rd Floor)
Click HERE for more info or to register. Use coupon code WHS to get the discounted price of $299 (normally $350).

Competition Season Tips

Every spring, just like birds returning to their native habitat or the migrating butterflies of San Juan Capistrano, screenwriting competitions open their doors for yet another season.  And what a flurry it is!

Every year, it seems there are more and more competitions available!

So – what’s good about competitions? Well, aside from the prizes, what competitions really provide for writers are goals and deadlines. But more than that, competitions can offer a way to gauge your writing against that of other writers. It helps you test the waters, in other words.  How is your writing compared to other screenwriters? Is your premise as unique as you think? Is your writing fast, fun and engaging? Going up against thousands of other writers is a good way to find out how you are doing.

There is of course a great deal of subjectivity in competition judging. I had a script optioned at Fox that just for fun I entered in the Austin Screenwriting Competition. It quarter-finaled only. Oh! The sound and the fury! But I didn’t take it personally. I have run a screenwriting competition for five years now and I get that while there are guidelines and minimums every writer has to meet, there is also just plain old subjectivity.

If you do well in more than one competition, or if you place as a semi-finalist in at least one, you can indeed know that your writing is competitive. And that knowledge does two things: it gives you perspective and it energizes you to keep writing.  It is validation, in other words, and we writers really need some good old fashioned “you done good” approval once in awhile.  Can you really put a price on that?

The truth about being a quarterfinalist is that it simply means that your script was better than average. But the thing is, that the average script entered in a competition isn’t very good. Your initial competition is writers who jot off scripts too quickly and enter under-cooked scripts with a thin premise, two dimensional characters and humungously dense action lines.  But that’s only the first wave. After that, as the judges sort through the scripts and compare them to established criteria of competency, artfulness and originality, the competition can be very fierce.  That’s your REAL competition, so aim high.

Entering competitions, in my opinion, is a fun way to get and stay motivated, to find out how you are doing compared to others, and to maybe – just maybe – collect some pretty cool prizes.

Not all competitions are the same. Some provide notes and feedback, most don’t. Some are new, some have very old track records (Nichol comes to mind). Some offer big cash prizes, others offer smaller, more pragmatic prizes. Yes, you can enter your script into as many competitions as you like.

Before entering a competition, ask yourself what your desired outcome is.  Of course, everybody wants to win, but you should also seek something more pragmatic and that is to simply see how your work does compared to that of others. If you only get to the quarter-final round, you can certainly mark that as an accomplishment –but when the semis are announced, read the loglines and try to figure out where those writers parted ways from you in terms of premise.

Make sure that the competition you entered is an established one. Winning a semi-final in the Downtown Albuquerque Lion’s Club Competition doesn’t exactly do you any good. No offense, Albuquerque or Lion’s Club.

Writers usually have pretty limited resources – most of us have day jobs or other obligations. Nobody has an endless supply of competition entry fees. So choose 4 or 5 comps each year that you submit to.

For my money, the top competitions really worth entering are:

The Final Draft Big Break Competition (final deadline June 15^th, 2012)

The Nicholl Competition (hurry, May 1^st is the deadline this year!)

The Blue Cat Screenwriting Competition (November 15^th, final deadline)

The Austin Film Festival Screenwriting Competition (June 1^st, final deadline)

The Just Effing Entertain Me Competition (final deadline July 12^th)

What? I just listed my own competition! Well, of course I did and here’s why: because I am a writer and have entered many of these competitions before I directed my own. I get what’s hard and what’s fun about these competitions. So I designed a competition that awards the winners something much more valuable than cash money – an experience.  Click HERE to read about the experiences of past winners.

The bottom line is that like anything else, screenwriting is full of opportunities and widgets and classes and conferences and books that you can spend your money on.  But there’s a more important bottom line for writers and that is to write and write and write and write. Even as I write this, it is a beautiful, sunny day in Tel Aviv outside. I would LOVE to go to the beach or do something fun. But I have a lot of writing to do. And it won’t write itself. So there are sacrifices we have to make. Nobody got rich writing one script and then going to a conference to talk about writing scripts. No, chair in butt, unfortunately, is the only way and that’s a fact.

Spend more time writing than you do on online forums about screenwriting. Spend more time writing than you do going to conferences about writing. Spend more time writing than reading about writing. Be judicious with your time and your money. Conferences, books, dvds, etc. are a wonderful way to bone up on your writing. But choose carefully and well how you spend your money and your time.

Entering a couple of scripts in 3 or 4 competitions each year is a good motivator to get your writing done – on time – and it is also a pretty low investment for what can be a very high return.

Here are five tips before entering any competition:

1) Make sure you’ve gotten and implemented feedback from at least 2 or 3 sources.

2) Proofread your script to within an inch of its life. Don’t let a typo or eighteen cut you loose.

3) Write a great logline for the script, whether it is requested or not. Stay under 50 words.

4) Follow entry directions carefully and provide all materials requested so you don’t get disqualified on a technicality.

5) Submit and don’t look back Send those scripts in and get right back to your writing, in other words. Let the announcements come as a wonderful surprise.

Julian Rigby & the Keepers of Time

Just a shout out to my client and friend, the talented John Grammatico (interviewed on Just Effing a few weeks back, on shifting from screenwriting to novel writing) whose book, Julian Rigby & the Keepers of Time is selling like hotcakes on Amazon!

John is grateful and amazed at the sales the book is receiving and I know that the readers who purchased the book are going have such fun reading the book. It’s win-win for everyone!

Your Script Is Done: Now What?

A Just Effing reader emailed me recently and asked a very simple question that doesn’t have a short answer. So I thought I’d answer it here.

After weeks and months of the frustration, joy, hard work and amazing moments, you have finished your script. Now what?

Here is what I recommend.

• First, you must ask yourself – is the script really done? Did you get feedback? How many drafts of the script is this? If it’s anything less than 3 rewrites based on feedback, the script isn’t in fact ready to go anywhere. You can get feedback from a number of sources; friends, writing pals, online writing resources or a professional.
• After you have received feedback and done a rewrite based on that feed back (for a fun Twitter experience about rewriting, go to Twitter and follow #scriptchat this Sunday, April 22nd – I am the guest and the topic is rewrites!) then you need to go through the script again and proofread it within an inch of its life. Look for and eradicate typos, homonyms and format mistakes. Make sure the script is perfect, in other words.
• Then make sure that you have an effing entertaining, short (50 words or less) logline that represents your script at it’s finest. Make sure the logline features the hero, the main conflict, the villain and the entertaining upshot of the whole enchilada. I cannot overemphasize the importance of having a great logline ready to go before you consider doing a thing with the script.
• Now we can talk about getting the script out there. You can do this in a number of ways. First of all, this is screenwriting competition season so it’s great timing. Competitions are a great way to test the waters and see how your material does out there in the world of other screenwriters. Screenwriting Competition Season usually happens in the spring of each year, with winners announced in the late summer or fall. I encourage you to enter your script in several competitions so you can get a snapshot of how competitive your writing is. The Just Effing competition just opened its doors and is accepting submissions now, so you may want to give that a whirl. Other competitions that can be rewarding are the Blue Cat Competition, The Final Draft Big Break Competition, Nichols and Austin. Google ‘screenwriting competitions’ and see what comes up. The total cash prize is not necessarily the thing to look for.  Look for the number of years the competition has been in business and the experiences and opportunities that the winners have since had.  You can also go to MovieBytes to see what competitions are listed there.
• The next thing you can do is to shake your network tree – really hard – and see if you have anyone who knows anyone who is a lit manager, producer or agent. You might be surprised who you know who is willing to read new scripts. Be polite, be professional, be unattached to the outcome and give it a try.
• Next, you can go to the Hollywood Creative Directory online. You can go directly to their website or purchase a copy from Amazon.   Actually, when I went to their website I got a page that doesn’t look like it’s active anymore, so that’s weird. Try also IMDB Pro. This is a paid membership but the fees are nominal and it’s well worth it as an overall resource for you.  On either of these sites, you can look up movies that you really loved and the companies that produced them. Find a production company that has made movies that you not only love but that you would compare your script to. Match up your tastes and theirs, in other words.
• Write query letters to the agents, managers and production companies that you have targeted. A good query letter should be short, to the point and contain your amazing logline, contact information, etc. Production companies receive hundreds of queries so make yours stand out in its simplicity, authenticity and its great logline. (A good query letter is a whole other blog post, by the way. If you are interested in the topic, email me HERE and I will address the topic.)
• As you are doing all of these things concurrently: networking, researching, entering competitions and querying, you need to doing something else that is hugely important – KEEP WRITING. Don’t let the whole process stall out while you wait to get interest in your current script. One of the first things you will be asked, if you are lucky enough to get a read, is what else you have. Don’t come up short on that answer.  Ideally, you should be writing all the time. And if you aren’t writing, you should be outlining, networking, learning more about screenwriting and querying too.  Keep all of those balls up in the air at all times. I know. It can be exhausting. But it is, in many ways, a numbers game. No good ever came to a writer who put all his eggs in one script. Be competitive with other writers.

Just Effing Competition for 2012

Well – it’s not been easy to gain the momentum necessary to get the 2012 competition off the ground, but I’ve finally done it. We were supposed to open our doors on March 30th but that didn’t happen. In fact, I was this close, really close, really, really perilously close to not doing the competition this year but a number of people hectored me to get off my behind and make it happen.

I am so very honored and tickled that entrants have enjoyed the JFEME competition enough to hector me. And it worked.

Click the JFEME competition button to the left of this blog post to read up on our new prizes and new award categories – I’m particularly excited about those! We have some other stuff we should be announcing soon but patience, grasshopper, patience…

Not all of our links are working, prizes will be updated and added to, things will change. Those of you who have been reading this blog for over six years or who have entered this competition before know that everything on JFEME unfolds in a perfect way. Read what Jared Kelly says about winning last year and I think you’ll see just how fun this competition is.

We will be accepting scripts as pdf’s and you can pay through paypal until we have our Without a Box account all up and running. If you have any questions about submitting or about the rules or anything else, please email me here and I’ll get back to you soon as possible.

Here are the deadlines, so you can do your planning:

Early Bird Deadline: May 12th ($45)
Regular Deadline: June 15th ($50)
Extended Deadline: July 1st ($55)
Final Deadline: July 12th ($65)

SUBMIT HERE

Time to Update the GASP List

Well, hello, everybody!

With 2012 well underway and the Oscars behind us, it is time to update the GASP list. Most of you already know what the (in)famous GASP list is all about but for those of you who don’t, the GASP list is a list of movies that those who are working or who would like to work in the entertainment industry – in whatever capacity – really should watch.

I recently did a really fun podcast with Pilar Alessandra which was about Stories Without Borders but also, very much, the GASP list. Give that a listen here (it’s number 3 on the list).

I will list the criteria for inclusion for the GASP list below, but also very much open up the floor to discussion – what new films of 2011 and 2012 should be included in this ever-growing and organic list? Are there films listed that you just cannot agree with? Why?

GASP list films should:

A) Be easily accessible on DVD or in a theater (i.e. most German expressionist films do not qualify. Or you know, Eisenstein. Exclude serious, nerd-core film school stuff, you get me?)

B) Showcase an iconic performance (A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, GRAND HOTEL)

C) Have cultural impact (E.T., BEN HUR, GONE WITH THE WIND)

D) Offer innovative or seminal direction or filmmaking (THE MATRIX, INCEPTION)

E) Serve up screenwriterly story innovation, tongue-in-cheek or otherwise (SCREAM, AIRPLANE, GROUNDHOG DAY)

F) Elicit a GASP of disbelief upon being informed someone has not seen the film. Like – wha-? (STAR WARS)

G) Have achieved cult film status (THE BIG LEBOWSKI, THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW)

So here’s what we’re gonna do – we’re gonna trot out the new, improved, ever evolving GASP list. The Just Effer who can send me this list with not only the most movies seen (honor system, people!) AND include a key to the reason(s) each film is on the list at all will receive a free script coverage from Yours Truly.

Also, as ever, if you can give me a film title that isn’t on the list and should be – using the prerequisites above, tell me why. Alternatively, if there is a film listed that you disagree with – ‘splain, please. BUT REMEMBER, ‘SPLAIN USING THE PREREQUISITES.

127 HOURS

40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

AIRPLANE

AMERICAN GRAFFITI

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

ADAM’S RIB

ADAPTATION

AFRICAN QUEEN

ALIEN

ALL ABOUT EVE

AMADEUS

AMELIE

AMERICAN BEAUTY

ANIMAL HOUSE

ANNIE HALL

APOCALYPSE NOW

ARTHUR

AVATAR

BACK TO THE FUTURE

BEN HUR

BIG

BLACK SWAN

BLADE RUNNER

THE BIG LEBOWSKI

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

BLAZING SADDLES

BLUE VELVET

BONNIE & CLYDE

BORN YESTERDAY

THE BOURNE IDENTITY

BULL DURHAM

BROADCAST NEWS

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI

BRINGING UP BABY

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN

BUTCH CASSIDY & THE SUNDANCE KID

CARRIE

CASABLANCA

CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

CHARLIE CHAPLIN (any or all)

CHINATOWN

CITIZEN KANE

CLEOPATRA

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND

COOL HAND LUKE

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON

DAZED AND CONFUSED

DELIVERANCE

DIE HARD

DIRTY DANCING

DIRTY HARRY

DOG DAY AFTERNOON

DO THE RIGHT THING

DOUBLE INDEMNITY

DR. STRANGELOVE

EASY RIDER

ERIN BROCKOVITCH

E.T.

THE EXORCIST

FARGO

FATAL ATTRACTION

FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF

FIELD OF DREAMS

FIGHT CLUB

FINDING NEMO

FORREST GUMP

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

FULL METAL JACKET

THE GENERAL (Buster Keaton)

GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES

GHOST

GLADIATOR

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS

THE GODFATHER

THE GODFATHER II

GOLDFINGER

GONE WITH THE WIND

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

GOODFELLAS

GOOD WILL HUNTING

GHOSTBUSTERS

THE GRADUATE

GRAND HOTEL

THE GRAPES OF WRATH

GREASE

GROUNDHOG DAY

GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER?

THE HANGOVER

HAROLD & MAUDE

HARVEY

HIGH NOON

HIS GIRL FRIDAY

INCEPTION

IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT

IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE

JAWS

JERRY MAGUIRE

JUNO

THE KARATE KID (original)

THE KING AND I (original)

L.A. CONFIDENTIAL

LA DOLCE VITA

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

LETHAL WEAPON

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

THE MALTESE FALCON

MARATHON MAN

M*A*S*H

THE MATRIX

MEMENTO

METROPOLIS

MICHAEL CLAYTON

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

MILDRED PIERCE

Monty Python  (THE HOLY GRAIL or THE LIFE OF BRIAN)

MOONSTRUCK

MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON

MY DINNER WITH ANDRE

NETWORK

NORMA RAE

AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN

O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?

ON THE WATERFRONT

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST

ORDINARY PEOPLE

PAPER MOON

PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN

PLANET OF THE APES (original)

PLATOON

THE PLAYER

PRETTY WOMAN

THE PRINCESS BRIDE

PSYCHO

PULP FICTION

RAGING BULL

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

RAMBO

REAR WINDOW

REBECCA

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

RED RIVER

RISKY BUSINESS

THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW

ROCKY

ROSEMARY’S BABY

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE

SABRINA (original)

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN

SCARFACE

SCHINDLER’S LIST

SCREAM

SEVEN

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION

THE SHINING

SHREK

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN

THE SIXTH SENSE

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

SOME LIKE IT HOT

SOPHIE’S CHOICE

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

STAR WARS

SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS

SUNSET BOULEVARD

SUPERMAN

TAXI DRIVER

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

TERMINATOR

THIS IS SPINAL TAP

TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

THELMA AND LOUISE

THE THIN MAN

TITANIC

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

TOP GUN

TOOTSIE

TOY STORY

TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

WALL STREET

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY

WITNESS

THE WIZARD OF OZ

The Good Self-Publish Sheriff in the Wild, Wild West

Everybody who reads Just Effing knows that I am crazy about this new wild, wild west of self-publishing opportunities for writers. Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Shannon and Toni, the power duo who run Duolit, a great blog, website and service that helps writers interested in self-publishing machete their way through what can seem like a jungle of confusion!

Julie: Why is self-publishing so effing awesome?
Toni & Shannon: Because it puts YOU, the author, in control of your writing career. Let’s be honest — working your butt off on a book only to have to wait months or years to hear back from agents and publishers is totally the suck. Even if you are lucky enough to nail down an agent and a publishing deal, that dream of private island living is a ways off — the bulk of the book marketing still falls to you. Indie publishing is a lot of work, to be sure, but *you* are in control every step of the way — not some old-school dinosaur publisher.

Julie: Who benefits the most from self-publishing?
Shannon: I think right now indie authors themselves benefit the most from the self-publishing process. Just the ability to take control of their projects and share them with the public without the need of a big wig’s approval is very freeing. But I think (I hope) in the near future that self-publishing will benefit readers, giving them more options to find a book they love instead of yet another teen vampire novel.

Julie: So, what’s the deal with Duolit?
Toni: Shannon and I have been through the self-publishing wringer and understand how lonely and confusing a process it can be. We want to give every writer with the passion and determination to make their book a success the tools to do so — with the understanding that just because it’s “self-publishing” doesn’t mean they’re on their own. We (and a whole community of other indie authors) are here for help, friendship and commiseration. Check out our website to get a full sense of everything we do, but we offer something for everyone — whether it’s simply free tools and information, an indie author support group or custom services like web design and marketing help.

Julie: I am curious – is there a particular type of author best suited for self-publishing?
Toni: Someone with endless free time and oodles of cash? Just kidding (mostly)! Self-publishing can be as cheap (it’s free to put up an ebook on Smashwords) or expensive (private printing, custom design, outsourced marketing) as you wish, but the biggest variable is the amount of work you’re willing to put into it. The more time, patience and planning you give your book and its release, the more successful you will be. Pay for professional editing, have a compelling cover and plan your marketing strategy in advance. The time (and money) spent in those areas will give you the biggest return on your investment. But you also better be ready to work your butt off to reach your goals and get your name and book out there!

Julie: It is my sense that the rise in popularity of eBooks create more opportunities for indie authors. What do you think of this idea?
Shannon: Most definitely! eBooks are the bomb (kicking it back to the 90′s) for indie authors. It’s a very inexpensive way to test the waters and start building a following. That said, I would hate to see it permanently take the place of paperbacks in the long term. I think the eventual goal for any author should still be to produce a quality paperback, but in the meantime eBooks are the perfect way to get started.

Julie: If you could give one piece of advice for authors to follow what would it be?
Shannon: Before you start writing, set your goals. If you want to make some sales and especially if you want to make a career of writing, you should know that from the start so that you can start laying a foundation for your marketing efforts as you’re writing. This is something I wish I’d evaluated more before I wrote my first book, but I have no regrets. Every step on the path is just as important as the one before it and the ones to come!

Thank you two gals for making yourselves available on Just Effing! It takes a village!

If you’d like to read much more about DuoLit, please go to their website and check it out!

Productivity & Facing Your Addictions

The Just Effing Entertain Me Screenwriting Competition for 2012 is on, baby, on, but may open its doors a couple of days after March 30th, so please watch this space. The final deadline is July 12th, so it’s a good, long time to submit this year. Yes, the early bird submission rates are lower, but I advise you to use this long submission period to give those scripts ONE more polish. Get some feedback, proofread. Send in only your best. Last year’s winner, Jared Kelly, is about to sign a deal with the producers of Paranormal Activity, so winning is no joke – and it’s also not a done deal, so really send in your finest this year.

Just days after I arrived in Tel Aviv, I lost my oxygen supply. That is to say that my computer is on the fritz (yes, water was involved) and will be down and out for 2 whole weeks. GASP. I am blogging from an internet cafe on Allenby Street in Tel Aviv right now. Not on my own, cozy little Macbook Air. I have to walk about 20 minutes to this cafe in order to get online outside of the limited capabilities of my smart phone. I have to pay about $4 an hour. I have to bring a list of what I plan to research, who I plan to email, and what I plan to do with my time.

And it is MARVELOUS. Mind, you, I can’t wait to get my computer back – I won’t lie, folks – but my productivity has SHOT through the roof. I have been reading and covering scripts in concentrated quiet, with no email to check. I have been sending more concise, thoughtful emails, I have outlined my book, Israel: the Musical and begun to write it – long hand.

I have realized that I was really addicted to being online and that I was wasting a tremendous amount of time. It took my computer literally being out of my hands to force me to use my time in a different way. I am 100% more productive now.

I do not suggest that you spill water on your computer whilst in the Middle East, take an expensive taxi to a repair place and leave the computer there for two weeks, then walk 20 minutes to an internet cafe where you have to toggle the keyboard to write in English in order to relish the experience of UNPLUGGING from the net. No, I do not suggest that at all. But I do suggest you experiment with going OFFLINE a few hours a day.

Do it for your writing, do it for yourself. You will feel calmer, more focused and you will simply get more done. You will definitely go through withdrawals, believe me! The first few days were pretty rough. Until I just gave in one day and outlined my book by hand. It wasn’t horrible after all! Then I began to write – which also wasn’t horrible! I began to read more. A book – a REAL book! I am half way through Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons and I am loving it (although it is inferior to the equivalent gilded age writings of Edith Wharton in my opinion).

So give it a shot – unplug for a few hours each day. Don’t let surfing the net eat away at your reading and writing time.

And get those scripts ready for the competition this year. Prizes, etc., will be announced soon. Doors open on or around March 30th-ish. I have already received quite a number of scripts for feedback for my competition and others, so do as the smart writers do and make sure you only send in your absolute best work.

Character Descriptions

By now, many of you Just Effing readers have seen my other blog, Stories Without Borders, detailing my experiences as an expat in Israel and the nascent doings of this exciting non-profit!

So you know that I am experiencing culture shock, or as I would rather more humorously call it – SWOD – stressful to walk out the door. It’s been very swoddy lately. Big time. My sense are on overdrive. New sounds, sights and smells surround me. Is this safe? Is this polite? Who is this person? Where am I? What is that person saying to me? How do I ask for something? These are some of the things that make it stressful to walk out the door. Or SWOD, lol.

The other day, as I am won’t to do, I read a script and send the writer some notes. One of the notes I sent the writer was that there were some characters that were simply not described. At all. They were minor characters, I think that’s what the writer was thinking. But even a minor character needs SOME signifiers for us.

Why? Because the feeling of SWOD – the discomfort with what is unfamiliar, is one that we humans try to avoid at all costs. When you experience a new situation, or sight, or person, your brain immediately fills in some blanks so that you can access the situation. Particularly when we see a new person. Is this person a threat? Which gender are they? What is their general vibe and description? This is information we need to know, in the most primal part of ourselves, in order to move on in comfort.

When you have a character that you only describe as JANITOR, even though I am reading this in a script, not walking down a street in a foreign city, I feel uncomfortable. What kind of janitor? Old and pleasant? Or someone more jaded and perhaps on parole? what kind of person am I dealing with here? I need to know so that I can keep reading the scene and building up information about the story I am reading.

[For a really awesome TED video featuring NEMO writer Andrew Stanton about how information gathering and how audiences prefer the puzzle of 2+2, not being told the answer is 4, click HERE.]

You want your reader to be cruising along, going deeper and deeper into the story and the world you are writing, right? You want to keep that reader effing entertained and curious.

One part of that is giving the reader information on an as-needed basis. We need to know what kind of POLICEMAN stands before us so that we can information gather on a very primal level, and go on. A rookie? A jaded cop? A fat cop? Nervous cop? Don’t be lazy and overlook basic character descriptions.

We don’t need to know the CLERK is still living at home, has brown corduroys on and is 23, for instance. But we do need to know this clerk is a slacker or hipster or frat boy – it grounds us in the moment as a reader and as a human being. Without that grounding, even as we go on reading the script pages, a tiny part of us is still saying yeah but what kind of janitor was that? And it distracts from the read.

Guest Blog: From Script to Novel

Following is a guest blog by my friend and client, the very talented John Grammatico. I have been working with John on his YA book Julian Rigby and the Keepers of Time for some months now and it has been a gloriously fun experience. I asked John if he’d tell us about making the move from script to novel and just how he did it:

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I remember when I first learned the term, “hero’s journey”.

I became suddenly aware of all those tenets of great storytelling and I wanted them for my characters, too. I wanted my protagonist to have a goal that was difficult to achieve. One that was in direct conflict with his emotional self. I wanted to give him impossible odds and insurmountable obstacles. I wanted it to feel satisfying when he finally reached that goal.

But never did I think that that these things would pertain to me in the process. It was 2007 and I was framing together yet another treatment for yet another screenplay that was sure to go nowhere just like so many before it when I decided that I’d share this one with a script doctor.

(I won’t say her name but it rhymes with Julie Gray.)

She told me that she loved my treatment, but with one catch. She suggested I write the story as a novel, not a screenplay.

Insert record scratch right here.

Wait just a minute, I thought. I’m a failed screenwriter, dammit. Not a failed author! Geesh, the nerve of some people. No. It was simply too daunting a goal.

One that was in direct conflict with my emotional self. The odds were impossible, the obstacles insurmountable. This was a journey far too heroic for me.

So, I did the responsible thing and backed down to fear. I forgot about my story and went back to my day job. Back to not writing. Then, in 2011, I found myself in the unique position to have extra time on my hands And that story kept nagging at me. I knew Julie was right. And now I had no excuses.

Ah, F&@K it! I’m gonna write a book.

I put a sticky note on the wall over my desk that read, “Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.” And I set my goal. From treatment to outline to step outline to index cards to reference photos – my office was a total freaking mess. But it was my mess.

And though it wasn’t easy and many days I had to send myself to the office like a boy to detention, I found that a bond had formed between that story and I. I was falling in love with my story.

The further I got the more fragile it became to me. The closer I got to finishing it the more worried I became that anyone else would love it like I do. It was like sending my kid to school for the first time. I hope nobody picks on him! I hope they can see how special he is!

By the time my first draft was done six months had flown by. It wasn’t perfect but hey, it was a draft.

So I called back that same script doctor from four years earlier to tell her that I finally wrote that novel and I asked if she would read the full manuscript.
Julie called me back once again. And once again she raved about how much she loved my story. She told me I was an author. An author? But I’m a struggling… oh, right. I’ve written a novel, haven’t I?

We talked about next steps when I realized I would soon need an editor and who better for the job than this person who loves my “child” as much as I? From there things went very smoothly. I rewrote chapter one and sent it to her. Julie moved some things around, edited out the unnecessary stuff (I tend to have a lot of that) and she polished up some other things a bit.

Chapter by chapter we did this until today, where I now sit with a completed manuscript before me.

Against impossible odds, insurmountable obstacles – I faced my fear and achieved that goal. And let me tell you. It is ohhhhhh, so satisfying. In fact, just yesterday I wrote the dedication page to my two, little sons and while typing it, I actually cried. Why? I’m not sure.

Maybe it’s because I’m emotionally exhausted from my journey. Maybe it’s because I’m still a little bit scared that people will pick on my story and not see how special it is. Or maybe it’s just because I want my sons to look at me and think that they can do anything. And I realized at that very moment, as I wrote that dedication, that I’ve given them a reason to now believe it.

John Grammatico
Author of Julian Rigby & the Keepers of Time

Click here for a link to John’s hilarious award-winning commercial to help raise breast cancer awareness. John’s spot was chosen as one of 10 winners of TED’s Top Ads Worth Spreading out of 39 countries of submissions.