Just Effing Entertain Me

Do You Write?

…and when I say write, I mean WRITE. Not just scripts. Not just grocery lists.

Do.

You.

Write?

When you email with a friend, what do you talk about? What happened at work? What time you’ll see them Tuesday night? To say happy birthday?

Or do you take the opportunity to effing entertain them?

Is is possible that email – yes, the mundane email – is a good place to practice story telling and good writing?

So I emailed a friend just earlier this evening, the following, relatively unremarkable accounting of my day. But, because I am a writer, I couldn’t resist – I HAD to make it entertaining. The following is unedited:
*****

I go to work. No time for a shower. Day goes by in a dreamy/hazy flash. The Italian and I email back and forth sporadically We’re fighting.

I Skype with a Spanish screenwriter in Madrid. It’s 10pm her time. I tell her it would be fun to teach story in Madrid for a semester. She is going to ask around. Wow, I feel uplifted. Son of a bitch, I could do some work in SPAIN.

Another email from The Italian. He has a “temperature of 102F” and he’s angry at me. Stupid yet very lengthy fight. WTF is this guy’s problem?!

I’m still at work. I go outside for a smoke. This old man falls and hits his head. Medic comes, it’s very hot, the old man is confused. And I get another email from The Italian and now security wants to talk to me because I witnessed the fall.

I break away at last, and read The Italian’s last email. It’s so mean. He’s SUCH A JERK. I’m angry.

I grab my stuff and decide to head home when suddenly, i have to go to Trader Joe, buy The Italian some soup, some orange juice and some of his favorite wine and some chocolate.

On the way to his house, I hear all these cars HONKING at this old Cadillac that doesn’t go when there’s a green light. I feel bad for the driver! He’s probably old! And short! He’s probably sitting on a copy of the yellow pages. I pull alongside the driver a couple of lights later. It’s a blonde girl. And blaring out her windows is Dreamweaver. I laugh to myself.

I have to go many streets out of my way until I can turn left. I finally park. I throw teeny pebbles at The Italian’s window (and it’s just like in the movies until I realize I’m pelting the wrong window!) until he grumpily, hair mussed, comes to the window. What? I’m not leaving until I give you these groceries. He tosses the keys, I come up. He’s drenched in sweat, he’s so sick. I put away the groceries, make him a cold compress and give him his medicine. He opens one eye and asks how long I’ve been there. I lie down next to him in the gathering dusk.

We talk about Spain.

He cries a little.

And I go home.

****

Yeah, I really wrote that to a friend today. Did that all happen? Yup. Was it really that touching or entertaining or weird? Well – not incident by incident, but viewed later, altogether, yes it was. In essence.

And that is what we write – always – the essence of what happened. And this is something you should practice every single time you have a chance. Not just in your script(s). In your letters, your emails and in your journal.

Don’t just tell me what happened. Effing Entertain Me.

Online Learning!

Hello, everyone! It has been so warm and beautiful in Los Angeles; summer has come early! I have a couple of reminders and Media Bistro classes for you today.

I’m teaching at the new Writers Store location in Burbank on Thursday, January 27 at 6:30pm.

Writing Organic Characters Straight From the Heart (90 minutes)

Start off your new year right with new ways to create characters that undergo truly satisfying metamorphoses. Move your main character from an old way of being to a new one through a plot that unfolds because of your main character’s flaws and vulnerabilities. Learn how not to fall in love with your character on page one, but rather, the new, improved self they will become by the time you type FADE OUT. Try an exercise that demonstrates that looking inward at your own wants, desires and fears gives you permission to be much more honest (and dramatic) about those of your main character.

If you’re a Westsider loathe to tackle traffic, I’ll also be teaching the same class at The Writers Junction in Santa Monica on Monday, February 7 at 7pm. All proceeds are to be donated to the Afghan Women’s Writing Project in Kabul. Suggested donation $25.

In addition, I came across a couple of Media Bistro online classes that sound SO fun and enriching!

Travel Writing Bootcamp

Travel writing is a way to engage with the world and to build a bridge that brings faraway places home. It wakens the senses and stands everything we take for granted on its head. This class looks at the romance and realities of this exciting and lucrative market.

Over the course of eight weeks, you’ll consider the various forms of the field, from travel-related news items to personal essays, with the goal of selling these pieces to local, regional, and national publications. Each week, students will be assigned a travel-related article up to 1,000 words, along with an optional pitch letter, and will be expected to investigate unfamiliar neighborhoods, seek out experts in the field, and demonstrate the highest levels of research and reporting. This course generally requires a commitment of at least eight hours a week of outside work.

In this class, you will learn:

• The components of great travel writing
• How to use where you live to break into the travel market
• How to find and develop your beat
• How to make travel a conduit to writing beyond the travel section
• How to write perfect pitch letters
• What to do when you get to your destination
• How to negotiate with your editor for travel compensation

By the end of class, you will have:
A complete portfolio of eight publishable articles and pitch letters to match that will impress any travel magazine editor. Although subject to change, assignments will generally include a travel-related news item or trend story; a service round-up on hotels or local attractions; a destination piece on a cultural landmark; a day trip within the region; a historical research piece on a neighborhood, local tradition, or attraction; an article on the tourism business; and a personal travel essay.

Find out more

Our next Personal Essay Writing: Advanced online course starts Monday, January 24. You’ll generate and workshop short drafts of new ideas — and revise longer work that has you stuck.

Instructor Liza Monroy was once a Mediabistro student herself, and quickly went on to publish prominent personal essays in The New York Times‘ Modern Love column, The New York Times Magazine Lives column, and The Los Angeles Times Magazine. As a teacher, she’s happy to share her experience and contacts with you. A student wrote to say:

“Liza brings a wealth of knowledge. She suggested publications where our pieces would fit and has an address book of editors to die for. I sent my piece out the next day and it was published within a week.”– Tara Bishop

So be good to yourself this new year and invest in your creativity and writing!

Episodic Writing

Has your script ever been called “episodic?” This is a subset of a narrative problem. If structure is the spine of your script, narrative is the muscles on that skeleton. Gross – but you know what I mean. Structure is the mast and narrative is the sails.

The narrative should be like a rollercoaster going up up up and then releasing into a thrilling ride with many twists and turns, gaining speed as it goes. Episodic means that your script is not like this. Instead, it feels like a series of episodes that don’t seem connected to a larger build – a rollercoaster with no thrills.

The cure for an episodic script first lies in reexamining your premise – full stop. In fact, I’ll go on record as saying that taking a bird’s eye view of your premise is the first thing to look at when any big problems arise in the script. Check and recheck the premise for the overarching conflict facing the main character. What’s at stake? Is it pretty huge, relative to the character and the character’s world? What’s your premise, and is it unique and entertaining?

Now think about your scene work. We know each scene needs a beginning, middle and end – setup, conflict, resolution – complication, resolution, new conflict – and so forth and so on, during each scene and for each sequence and each act. But there’s the thing: As you resolve something toward the end of one scene, that same resolution kicks something else into gear in the next. Scenes are causal – linking to one another, always causing something else to click into motion.

In poorly written, episodic scripts, characters move from one slugline to the next but what they are actually doing doesn’t build. It becomes like reading a diary of what someone did that day. I went to the gym. I took a shower. I drove to work. I had lunch. I went home. I had dinner.

As opposed to: I went to the gym and stubbed my toe. I took a shower and slipped because my foot was hurt. I drove to work and got in a fender bender. I had lunch at the insurance office. I went home. I hacked up my wife.

Compare this:
Esther does this
Then she does that
Fred meets her and they talk
Esther does this
Then that
Then this

With this:
Esther does this BUT
She stumbles into that AND
THEN she discovers this
WHICH leads her to overcome THIS
And eventually she learns THAT
EXCEPT she will have to sacrifice THIS

The emphasized words indicate turning points in the scene. Surprises, setbacks, reversals. Static scenes guarantee a static story. You only have about 100 pages, people, so light a fire under it. And don’t get accused of having a soft, episodic script – because that’s just another way of saying PASS.

Getting in the Mood

I probably don’t remind you guys often enough that I am also a writer. Of scripts, of copy, of essays, of this blog, of my book. I write all day every day. But not always on my own writing. When I settle down to my own writing I, like you, can find any excuse not to really get into it. Today I actually played hooky and went to the Santa Monica library to settle down for several hours to work on the book.

They have wireless there, thank god. And of course there are texts to respond to. And send. Have you seen the cute little cafe they have there? Is it too warm in here? Lo and behold, two hours had gone by and what had I done? A whole lot of not much. Then the library closed early because it’s Friday. So I had to relocate to a Peet’s Coffee. Did you know they have free wifi here if you ask for the code? And the parking – boy  – the parking. Oh hey, this might make a good blog. How hard it is to get in the mood to write! Gah!

I’ll tell you guys one thing, I have exactly four months to deliver 24 chapters of BOOK and it has to be GOOD. And, it strikes me, it’s not going to write or edit itself. But it’s so hard to get in the moooood! The sun is out, the people-watching is great and digging into chapter five feels an impossible task.

Until I did something radical. I just. Started. Doing it. I opened a chapter and read through it. Then I read through one of the already accepted chapters to go over what the template is supposed to be like. Hint: NOT like the blog from whence it came. Sadly. So I spent some time doing a couple of laps around the pool of what was already done and what needed doing. And then I typed in a change. Then I moved a paragraph. Then I referred to another chapter. And over time, god damn if I didn’t get two chapters fully edited and rearranged and lookin good. But it took me awhile to get in the mood.

This is why it takes SO MUCH time to write! Because we have to waste half of it before we dive in!

So we have two choices:

1) Feel terrible, hurried, guilty and awful while we mess around waiting for the mood to strike.

OR

2) Allow for the inevitable messing around time and give ourselves a break. To lighten up about it, in other words.

Because I am all about feeling good as much of the time as possible, I choose the second option. If messing around some and getting in the mood before writing is as inevitable as the Rite of Spring (and it is) why not just go with it and build it into writing time?

So if I set aside three hours to write, I know for a fact I will want and need some messing around time, so I give myself three-and-a-HALF hours to get to it. And I feel much better.

Speaking of which, after I relocated to the Peet’s Coffee on Main in Santa Monica, I decided to write this blog and then text my friend Steve who lives SO nearby (!!) to come on over and say hi! Oh – wait – DAMN IT.

Well, there goes another 30 minutes.  Sometimes it feels like to be a writer is to be enslaved by oneself and one’s lazy, crazydreamer-schemer habits. Oh well. Long as we get SOMETHING done each day. And this blog post is my gift to you and to my guilty conscience. Will you buy that for a dollar? If I show you a cute picture of a smiley coffee?

Script Frenzy

Hello, everybody!

My life is so weird. I just looked out the window here on the Lot and somebody walked by with a limp crash test dummy. Then, moments later, Angela Kinsey of “The Office” walked by primly.  I’m waiting for the Eveready Bunny to make an appearance.

The beautiful, warm, gorgeous weekend approaches and I want to encourage all of you to SPEND IT INSIDE getting your Script Frenzy on! This is a really neat, crazy chance to really write your fingers to the bone.

What does mama always say? The secret to writing is WRITING! Wait, I didn’t say that, the Writers Boot Camp says that. Of which I am an alum. Ha! Six degrees of separation, there you go.

As a reminder, Effers who live in Chicago, the San Francisco Bay Area or the Los Angeles area, you can sign up and take my Just Effing workshop on the following:

Chicago: Saturday & Sunday April 17th/18th at Columbia College

Los Angeles: Saturday & Sunday April 24/25th at The Writers Store (sign up here)

San Francisco: Saturday and Sunday, May 1st/2nd site TBA.\

Email Naomi if you are interested in signing up for any of these locations. ‘Course, I’ll be in Nashville and Vancouver this summer, so mark your calendar if you live in either of those areas.

I do need some help publicizing the event in all three locations so if you’d like a free admission to the course, please contact me ASAP. Did I say FREE ADMISSION. Yes, I did. 4 rlz.

Deadlines Looming!

The Paramount, agent, jelly fish deadline looms! It’s tomorrow, March 11th at midnight, GMT. That’s LONDON time to you, bub. Or in LA, that would be this Friday the 11th at 4pm. I’ve received a number of entertaining scenes so you’ll have to up your game – these Brits have rapier sharp wit!

Turn your submission in HERE please. NOW please. HURRY UP please.

Speaking of which, saw the changing of the guard yesterday with my friend Daniel, and went on the London Eye and survived to tell the tale. London is a beautiful international city with a New York vibe but a very different look. Daniel and I did feel the changing of the guard could use more cowbell or, minimally, a Bollywood dance number to really pep it up. It mostly consists of soldiers marching along in the cold with a brass band, standing stock still, yelling at each other for awhile then switching places. So. You know. I just think Michael Bay could do something with that.

Daniel and I then went to the Sherlock Holmes pub, drank pints of Guinness, ordered just about every dessert they had just to try them all and came up with 10 fun, dramatic ways I could meet my end in London before it struck us we were being morbid. This is the short list, mind you.

“Julie Gray tragically failed to MIND THE GAP. Body found in Thames.”

“Julie Gray mistakenly rushed the gates of Buckingham. Bullet riddled body found in Thames.”

“Julie Gray PLUNGES 5,000 meters to a tragic death from the London Eye while leaning too far to the left. Body found in Thames.”

“Julie Gray horrified by wannabe Jack the Ripper copycat killer in White Chapel. Body found in Thames.”

So. Just some ideas for you there. Write your own ridiculous obit.

Readying to teach another class at Bristol University tomorrow, which is a train ride that shall whisk me past Stonehenge. God I hope I see a crop circle. Please, please, please god.

Hey, and what of the Silver Screenwriting Competition?! Are you guys getting your drafts in on time to make the early bird deadline of March 15th?! Save money – send early!!

Be The Change

Howdy Wavers! Is it still Wavers? “Effers” hasn’t caught on yet? We need to work on that.

Michael Brownlee here. You might remember me from such memorable posts as So You Think You Can Read. What a difference a couple of months make. After passing Julie’s Learn to Be a Hollywood Reader course I decided to cash in my thermal undies and move from The City of Big Shoulders to The City of Big Brother 11. It’s been quite an eye-opening experience and a great reminder that change, while scary at first, is good.

Speaking of change, I’m sure you guys have noticed some of the new and exciting things happening in the Just Effing Universe. Julie has been feverishly working away on new projects to help screenwriters everywhere reignite their passion for the craft while, at the same time, shedding a light on this crazy business so those of us just starting out can learn the ropes. To help her out, and make her plate a little more manageable, I’ll be assuming blogging duties on Fridays. (At least until her schedule cools off .)

Besides chatting about what it’s like to be a new transplant in Hollywood (people are much nicer than I expected), or how you should become our friend on Facebook (everybody’s doing it), I’ll be coming at you with inside news from world of The Script Department. I’ll let you know what kinds of scripts we’re seeing. What genres are being neglected. The prime times to get your contest-bound script in for coverage. And, of course, the all-important discounts and specials on courses and services.

To show you that I effing mean business I have a special offer for the Learn to Be a Hollywood Script Reader Course. (It seems only fitting since it’s the reason I’m here today.) If you sign up for this course in the next two weeks, you’ll receive $75 off the tuition by mentioning this post.

I know you’ve heard it a million times, but it’s worth repeating: Script readers are the gatekeepers of the movie world. No script ever reaches the production stage without, first, passing through the hands of a reader. Understanding what they red flag in a screenplay can help you move your script from the Pass Pile to the Consider Pile. Plus, you’ll be learning a marketable, industry-related skill that is way better than fetching Mr. Junior Executive’s iced caramel macchiato every day. So sign up already!

While we’re on the subject of professional readers – if you want Julie, personally, to give you feedback on your script, you should get your name on the list now. You don’t want the Nicholl deadline bearing down on you without giving yourself time for a polish after you receive coverage.

Okay. I think that’s enough shameless plugging for one post. I’m looking forward to getting to know you Effers better. If you have any questions about the reader course or any of the services offered by The Script Department, feel free to drop me a line: michael@thescriptdepartment.com.

Now stop procrastinating and get back to those scripts!