Write What You Don't Know: The Art of Literary Cross-Training

by Paul Krueger

[My esteemed colleagues here on FTWA have previously covered the topic of creative cross-training in these informative posts here. Today, I'm offering up my own experience with the phenomenon.]

I’m not purely a novelist. Prose has always been my most comfortable home, but about once a year, I’ll suddenly find myself thinking in terms of scenes or verses instead of chapters. I always end up wandering back into my copy of MS Word (yes, I’m a serf who doesn’t use Scrivener; COME AT ME, BRO), but every sabbatical from prose has actually made me a stronger prose writer.

I studied screenwriting in college. My school didn’t have a screenwriting program, so I MacGyvered one together by taking a Communications major, a Creative Writing minor, and spackling them together with a healthy helping of parental disappointment. For three years, everything I wrote was in present tense, twelve-point Courier New. But one day, I got an idea too big for a screenplay. I realized that for the first time in forever, I had a novel rattling around upstairs. And when you’ve got an Athena sitting pretty up in your head, you’ve got two choices: let her spring out, or try to stop her and immediately fail, because she’s the goddess of war and you are but her feeble mortal shell.

I let her out.

To my surprise, this attempt at novel-ing went far smoother than any of my others. But I was able to pinpoint the reason right away. Screenplays are, by nature, incomplete works of art. They’re skeletons upon which the bones of artistic direction, production design, and unwelcome studio meddling can be hung like California-tanned flesh. So it stands to reason that anyone who wants to write a screenplay worth a damn has to know their story structure cold.

(Which isn’t to say that a novelist shouldn’t, but a novelist also has other tricks they can fall back on. A screenwriter’s main tricks are Joseph Campbell and a bunch of guys who say all the same things he did.)

So there I was, knowing my story structure cold. And once I’d opened my brain to the idea that storytelling principles could be refined in one art form and then applied to another, I found myself casting about for every other trick I’d picked up. My semester in a poetry workshop taught me how to make every sentence of my new project shine. My experiments with stage drama keyed me into character voices, which helped me bring even the most incidental spear-carrier to life on the page. Even a radio play I’d once written proved instructive. In that form, I only had a single sense to convey my ideas with. Knowing what it was like to have no sensory information made me that much more thoughtful in how I doled it out to the reader.

There’s no better practice for writing a novel than writing a novel, but writing almost everything else first shifted my mental feng shui for the better. Drafting that project was like being Daniel LaRusso at the moment he realized all his house chores had made him black belt material. I saw small but significant improvements in my technique that I don’t think I could’ve ever achieved if I’d stuck to prose alone. Years of hard-earned wisdom from so many different crafts coalesced into a single work, then calcified from a draft into a manuscript. It was, without a doubt, the single best thing I’d written up until that point.

It was summarily rejected by seventy-eight agents, and cheerfully gathers digital dust on my hard drive today.

But conveniently enough for the purposes of this narrative, right next to it in my trunk folder is another document. That other document is dated to the day I received both my Calls: the one telling me I had an agent, and the one telling me my newest manuscript was going to be a book. It’s the document I created to celebrate those Calls, because I didn’t know how else to celebrate a deal except by writing something.

It’s a TV pilot. And it took me to school.

Are there non-prose pursuits that have given you insight into prose writing? Of course there are! So why don't you share them in the comments below, eh? C'mon. You know you want to.

Paul Krueger wrote the upcoming NA urban fantasy, The Devil's Water Dictionary (Quirk Books, 2016). His short fiction has appeared in the 2014 Sword & Laser Anthology, Noir Riot vol. 1, and in his copy of Microsoft Word. You're most likely to find him on Twitter, where he's probably putting off something important.

The Art of Hangin' Out

by R.S. Mellette

I've been a bit quiet recently.  I haven't posted here or the Dances With Films blog in a couple of months. On Agent Query Connect, I'm lucky if I get to pop on for a quick word association post.  Not that I expect anyone to notice my absence, but I have.

Soon I'm going to have some happy news to announce, and it is due in no small part to both the amount of time I've hung out with my favorite groups, and the time I've selfishly stolen away from them.

That combination of time with, and time away from, my peers got me to thinking of the art of hangin' out.

Over the years I've been involved with theatre companies, writing groups, online communities, film festivals, film production companies, etc. and I've come to realize there is a delicate balance in the ratio of the individual helping the group, and the group helping the individual.  There's a Zen quality to this balance.  Each individual in a group wants to better his or her life by being a member, but members who only lookout for themselves rarely gain anything from the group.  Similarly, an individual who disregards their needs to only support the group, can become very important within the group, but have little success outside of it.

Writers, especially, struggle with this balance.  Without a trusted collection of beta readers, editors, walls to bounce ideas off of, etc. a writer's skills will wither.  Yet, I'm sure we all know writers with sage advice from past experiences who eagerly say, "Here's what I think of what I've read of your manuscript...", but haven't put their own words to the page in decades. 

So when I find myself in a group, I constantly measure my surroundings.  Are the people I'm working with on my level?  Are they too far above or below me?  That can be neither an exercise of inferiority nor snobbery, but an honest judgment.  I find myself most comfortable in a group where I fall somewhere in the middle.  I can learn by teaching others, and hopefully follow colleagues through doors they've opened.  Often, the doors are opened by a person you taught not so long ago.

There is a trap in staying with a group where your talent and experience is head and shoulders above the others. Laurels become easy chairs and ego strokes fill you up with empty calories.

In a group where your resume doesn't come close to the others, you can quickly become the king or queen of the servants.  Sure, your peers will be impressed, but what chances do you have of standing out or making your mark in the world?  These are good places to learn and move on.

In my current groups: Dances With Films, Agent Query Connect, and From The Write Angle, I feel at home.  So much so that I'm comfortable stepping away to work on my own stuff for a while.  Then to humbly return.  Sure, I want to show off what I've done - but I also want to find out what I've missed.  Whose success can I be happily jealous of?  What has changed?  What has remained the same?  How can I help the group?  I don't need to ask how the group can help me, because they have done so much already.

They've given me a home.  I suppose that's the best way to gauge a support group.  Do they feel like home?  And by that, of course, I mean that ideal home we see in all of the commercials and 1950s TV shows, not the dysfunctional homes that turned so many people into artists in the first place.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's good to be home.


R.S. Mellette is an experienced screenwriter, actor, director, and novelist. You can find him at the Dances With Films festival blog, and on Twitter, or read him in the Spring Fevers, The Fall: Tales of the Apocalypse, and Summer's Edge anthologies.

Letting Go of Your Vision

by Charlee Vale

Today, I'm going to talk about something a little different. (More because I can't stop thinking about it than anything else)

This past weekend, the play that I wrote for my Master's Thesis opened. It's called Always and it's been in rehearsal for a little over two months. I have a beautiful cast, and I'm so happy with how everything turned out. We opened to a sold-out audience!

Here are some pictures because I'm so proud!

Here's the catch—I'm not the director.

My thesis partner was the director of the show. And she's been with me since the very first version of the script. She's been honest about what she thought, and how it could change and improve. (And BOY did it change!)

I think this experience is in some ways similar to both: a writer working with an editor, and a writer seeing their work turned into a film.

As a means of making your work better, you have to let go of the image you had when you wrote it. I'm not saying you should compromise your ideas in any way! There were certainly things I stuck to my guns about, but instead, letting your mind be open to possibilities bigger than what you had imagined.

Yes, I loved the story I had written. But without outside vision, it never would have turned into the beautiful production that it was.

So don't be afraid to consider other things. Don't be afraid to completely tear your story apart and build it back up in a different way. Don't be afraid of things outside of your 'vision.' Because maybe what's out there, is JUST what your story needs!

CV

Charlee Vale is a Playwright, Young Adult writer, photographer, and tea lover living in New York City. You can also find her at her website, and on Twitter.

Could The Next Hollywood Be New York?

by R.S. Mellette

To work in the film industry, one goes to Hollywood; for publishing, New York. But could that paradigm change in the near future?

Way back in the 1990's, a book was something that came on paper and a movie on film. To buy a book, you went to the bookstore. To see a movie, you went to the theatre or a video store. They were two very different businesses.

Today, both movies and books are digital files. If you want to buy a book, you go to Amazon, iTunes, or Nook. To see a movie you go to ... Amazon, iTunes or Nook.

For computers, the only difference between film and literature is the size of the file. Tour a publishing house or a digital film lab without looking at the computer screens and you'll be hard-pressed to know which was which. They are both transcoding files for different platforms, QCing those files, preparing metadata and art (posters or covers), checking chapter breaks, compressing, and uploading them to the providers.

So, consider ... Motion Picture Studios don't really make movies anymore; haven't for a long time. Sure, they find the projects. They develop the material. They finance the productions, and they distribute them, but the nuts and bolts of turning ink-on-paper into images on the screen is jobbed out to production companies. Imagine makes movies mostly for Universal. Village Road Show for Warner Bros. etc. Of course there is a tight partnership, since the Studios are often putting in most of the money, but even that is beginning to lean more heavily in the direction of the production companies.

Let's say you're a publishing house. The book industry has become so volatile that you need some ballast. You need to leverage the assets you have in a way that can spread the risk. But what assets are those? You have a company full of people who know a good book when they read one, and they are willing to read a ton of them to find the gems. You have a library of good stories, and you're buying new ones all the time. But does that make you a valuable company, or the most insane person in your neighborhood book club?

What's the first thing a movie studio does? They find the projects. You, as a publisher, are sitting on a mountain of them. Not only have you found the diamonds in the rough, you've polished them and presented them to market. You have developed the material.

In your library are Romance Novels that could become a money machine in your own Harlequin YouTube channel. And you're buying new stuff. You just shelled out cash and resources for Mindy McGinnis's Not a Drop to Drink, which is screaming for a wide theatrical release. If you're good, you can lock up the film rights before Hollywood knows what hit them.

In fact, the right of first refusal on the movie is now going to be in your standard contract.

What's the next thing a studio does? They finance. You're a publishing company. You're in New York. You can't swing a big black cat without hitting a handful of hedge fund managers who would love to place a bet on a Big Six project. Where the independent film producer has to beg and explain what they are doing, you can say, "I'm the person who found Hunger Games and Harry Potter. Wanna play with me?"

So, you've got the money. You've got the properties. Now comes the tricky part every homeowner can attest to, finding the right contractor to build on your property. If only there was a high turnover rate in Hollywood. Then there would be plenty of experienced executives looking for the chance to get back into producing. They'd have the connections to put together a string of companies to produce your entire slate.

Oh, wait! There IS a high turnover rate of executives in Hollywood. You can't swing a hedge fund manager without hitting a former studio executive. Or, in my case, a current festival director who gave you this idea in the first place.

So if this is such a brilliant plan, why hasn't anyone done it before?

Not everyone has access to the intellectual property you do, and there's distribution. In the theatrical days, a company had to have a strong relationship with the theatre owners to squeeze their films into the crowded market. That's still true of theatres, but the future is on line. You, as a new studio, are going to have to have a working relationship with the platforms that distribute films, and – bingo! You do.

Amazon, iTunes, Nook, etc. You've been delivering to them for years. You have servers and staff in place to QC, package, and upload to all of these platforms. Once you are delivering films, Netflix, Playstation, Hulu, Vudu, Cinema Now and more will come knocking.

And you're vertically integrated. When people like the book they just read on their iPad; one click and they're watching the movie. What? The movie hasn't been made? They can pre-order it You'll send it directly to their device as soon as it's ready. Talk about crowd funding, a movie could be profitable before it's even shot.

And none of this takes into account the lower budgets on films. The guilds all have "made for New Media" contracts in place with attractive rates. Shooting digitally is a fraction of the cost of the old film days. You could crank out low budget Romance Movies as fast as Cali MacKay can write the books. For the bigger budget theatrical releases, you can partner up with – and learn from – a major studio. In fact, they probably own your company anyway, so the good faith negotiations will be a breeze.

But what about the writers? Will new writers be willing to sell their film rights at the same time they do their book? That's an individual choice, of course, and I hope agents and writers alike will comment here about their thoughts on the subject. Personally, I'd say yes for a few reasons.

First, you're not selling the rights, you're selling the exclusive option to buy the rights within a certain time period. At the end of that time - if they haven't sold it - you get to keep the money you were advanced, and go try to sell the option to someone else. If your agent is good, you might sell a 3 year option from the contract date. It will take two years to get your manuscript to market, and then one year to establish sales. Hollywood will read an unpublished manuscript, but they won't take a lot of interest if it doesn't have sales behind it, so you've been paid for three years of an option, when it's only costing you about six months of post-publising time.

Another reason to sell your film rights to your publisher is that they will be into your project for a lot of money. Turning the red ink on your balance sheet to black is a big motivator in the corporate world. They are going to want your manuscript to be as big of a hit as possible, and that larger investment is going to keep you on their hot sheet.

And finally, it's money! Take it! Sure, most Hollywood movies are based on books these days, but most books don't get made into movies. Yes, there's a chance that they'll hold onto the rights and do nothing, but they paid you. That's better than you and your agent shopping the project around to production companies for nothing. Let your publisher take the project to the same producers with the sales pitch, "and we have the money to produce it." You're in a win-win all the way.

Now, if only I could figure out how to make this a win for me... because, you know, it's all about me.

R.S. Mellette is an experienced screenwriter, actor, director, and novelist. You can find him at the Dances With Films festival blog, and on Twitter, or read him in the Spring Fevers and The Fall: Tales of the Apocalypse anthologies.

Buzz vs Word-of-Mouth: What Hollywood Could Learn From Publishing

by R. S. Mellette

I moderated a conference of film industry professors a while back, and when one of them said that Hollywood relies heavily on word-of-mouth marketing, I laughed.

I couldn't help myself. Here is an industry that considers a 20% or 30% drop in sales a success! That's not word-of-mouth. Or if it is, good words are not being spoken.

Interestingly, the Hollywood insiders on the panel thought I was the crazy one for doing a spit-take with the Koolaid they were serving. But of course, none of them had theatre or publishing experience.

In those disciplines, word-of-mouth marketing means sales INCREASE with time, not drop. A play that is worth the time, money and effort of going to see will build an audience. A book worth the read will see an increase in sales.

In Hollywood, my filmmaking brothers and sisters have forgotten the difference between Buzz and Word-of-Mouth. So let's take a look at them side-by-side.

Buzz: "I want to see that movie," says one friend to another before it premieres. "Yes," says the friend, "I've heard it's good."

Word-Of-Mouth: "I saw the best movie this weekend, you should see it."

In writing, we call that passive vs. active voice. In court, it's called a firsthand account vs. hearsay.

Marketing generates buzz. The product itself creates word-of-mouth.

Why is that a distinction worth discussing? Because buzz owes only a passing fealty to the quality of the product. Producers in Hollywood will actually judge a script on "trailer beats," meaning juicy stuff they can put in the preview to create buzz. A script that tells a good story but has no trailer beats will be passed over in favor of another script that is more easily marketable.

Compare this to the world of self-publishing today. Sure, sure, there is a sub-culture of writers trying to get good reviews—or spam their competition with bad ones—in an effort to increase buzz. There is nothing wrong with an honest pursuit of good buzz, but the runaway hits in the self-publishing world come almost exclusively from word-of-mouth marketing.

And word-of-mouth marketing is entirely dependent on the quality of the work. It is first-person, active, marketing. One friend telling another, "I enjoyed that, and I think you'll like it, too."

What does this product-oriented marketing technique look like on the sales charts, graphs, and tables? That's easy. No drop off. Sales go up the longer the product is available. And when the same people create a new product, their sales start higher because they have become a trusted brand. As long as they keep up the quality, then their work will generate its own buzz.

And the opposite is also true. How many of us have been fooled so many times by a great preview for a lousy film that we no longer trust the studios? Like so much of the rest of American Industry, studios have lost sight of long term success in favor of instant gratification. They have confused buzz with word-of-mouth.

So the work suffers. We, as consumers, suffer. And worst of all, we artists who must try to make a living in this environment suffer.

R.S. Mellette is an experienced screenwriter, actor, director, and novelist. You can find him at the Dances With Films festival blog, and on Twitter, or read him in the Spring Fevers and The Fall: Tales of the Apocalypse anthologies.

Not "Just" a Hobby

by R.S. Mellette

When I graduated from college with a BFA in Theatre I learned a new term, "Theatre Jock." I had spent four years inside of a theatre. With a BFA, I didn't even have to take a foreign language, a science, math, or anything outside of my major. Not only that, but all of my peers were in the same boat. None of us knew this, of course, because we spent most of our time with each other.

After graduation I was at a family reunion telling a story and found that my dad had to translate for me.

"Oh, it was terrible production," I said to some relatives about a play I'd been in. "They finished the set just before strike."

Everyone looked at me funny. Wouldn't it be a good thing to finish the set before going on strike? My dad stepped in. "'Strike' is when they tear the set down after the play is over."

Realization came to everyone. My relatives figured out what I was talking about, and I realized I was a Theatre Jock. Having learned all there is to know about the great and noble art of performance, I would now have to re-learn what it is to be a functioning member of society.

And as time went by, and I slaved away at my career, I realized that I had turned my hobby into my job. This left me with nowhere to turn when I needed to escape work. I found that I had to go out hobby hunting.

And, of course, finding a life outside of the Arts gave me a new angle to view my work. Instead of being an Artist trained to do Art, I became a person with an ability to observe and report on the human condition—of which I was an active member.

For some here, writing is a hobby. For others, published or not, it is a career track. Either way, a writer who only experiences writing doesn't have a lot to say. What gets you out from behind your computer? What opens your eyes? What excites that narrator in your head? What non-writing activity do you have in your life that makes your writing better?

R.S. Mellette is an experienced screenwriter, actor, director, and novelist. You can find him at the Dances With Films festival blog, and on Twitter, or read him in the Spring Fevers anthology.

A Physical Experiment

by R.S. Mellette

Let's play a game.  It should take about 10 minutes, and be fun for you and educational for us all.  I'll explain why after the game.

Here are the rules:

1. Read the following few words of a work in progress.

"You're in a lot of trouble, young lady." 

Adults say the stupidest things sometimes.  Of course twelve-year-old Suzy Quinofski was in trouble.  She was covered in dirt and dried tears.  Her fingers were cracked and bloody from digging in the ground, and she was being questioned in a police interrogation room.  The man informing her of the obvious was Detective Mark Danner. 

"You don't know the half of it," she said to him.  Actually, he didn't know a tenth of it.  He didn't know a millionth of it.

"Then why don't you fill me in?"

"Because you couldn't comprehend it if I did."

"Suzy!"  Janice Quinofski, a.k.a. Mom, used what Suzy called her "bad dog!" voice, reserved for those rare occasions when Suzy needed disciplining.  Obviously, Mom wasn't accustomed to seeing her sweet, straight-A, multiple-scholarship-contender, daughter acting like a street kid.  This was a whole new world for both of them.

"What, Mom?  It's true."  Then to Danner, "No offense.  I don't think there's anyone on the planet who could understand it."

"It's not that complicated.  I just want to know what happened to Billy Bobble."

"I told you.  He disappeared."

"Disappeared to where?" asked Danner.

"If I knew that he wouldn't be 'disappeared,' would he?"

"There was an explosion," said Danner.

"No, there was an endoplasmic eruption of what we think might be Bose-Einstein condensate on an OTC scale."

"OTC?"

When Suzy didn't answer, Danner turned to her mother.  "Off the chart."

"Out of all of that what you didn't get was OTC?" asked Suzy.

"Maybe I'm not as dumb as you think."

Suzy nodded her head toward the two-way mirror that filled a wall of the interrogation room.  "Maybe you've had too many lawyers complain about abbreviations in your transcripts."

"Call it what you want," said Danner to Suzy ...  "Something blew up and it took Billy with it."

"Maybe so," said Suzy, "but not in the way you think."

"How then?"

"If Billy exploded his guts would be all over the school yard.  Did you find any bloody remains in Linda Lubinski's hair?"

"Suzy!  Billy was your friend."

"Is my friend, Mom.  Billy is my friend and I wish they would let me out of here so I could help get him back."

"How would you do that?" asked Danner.

She hung her head.  "I don't know."

"Okay, good.  That was honest.  Keep it up and together we can find Billy."  Suzy's silence passed as capitulation. 

"Your friends have told us—"

"They aren't my friends."

Danner stopped to acknowledge what she said, then went on.  "They told us you and Billy were working on some sort of elaborate magic trick."

"Not a trick.  Actual magic."

"Hey, I need that honesty.  You're smart enough to know there's no such thing as actual magic."

"Okay, if you want to get all Arthur C. Clarke on me; 'Technology advanced to the point of being indistinguishable from magic' - which for you would probably be a cell phone."

"Suzy!"

"That's all right, Ms. Quinofski.  Suzy, you can be as surly and sarcastic as you like, so long as you tell me what happened.  How did Billy disappear?"

"It's a long story."

"I get paid by the hour."

"You won't believe me."

"Try me."

"Okay."  Suzy glared at him with as cold of a stare as she could muster and told the truth.  "Billy Bobble has a magic wand."

###

Done?  Good.  Now:

2. In the comments section write a sentence or two describing what the characters in the excerpt look like WITHOUT GOING BACK TO RE-READ IT and WITHOUT READING ANYONE ELSE'S DESCRIPTION. 

3. When you've done that, read the rest of this blog, then feel free to add another comment at the end and read the other descriptions.

You've had to go through this experiment because I am still bitter about something a high school teacher did to me grade-wise decades ago.

It was my senior year.  English Composition.  We were told to write a paper describing a person we knew.  I'm sure our teacher – whose name escapes me – was just following along in the lesson plan.  I don't think she'd been out of college a full year yet.  We were supposed to learn about descriptive paragraphs, so the assignment was to describe a person.

I happened to have an afterschool job in an ice cream shop at the time, and a girl I worked with was extremely annoying, so I wrote about her.  Thing is, I never wrote about what she looked like, only what she said.  The story was nothing but dialogue.

My teacher gave me a B+.  I think.  I do remember she thought I'd be all excited about the plus.  "It's really good," she told me, "but you didn't do the assignment.  You didn't describe the character."

"Sure I did," I complained.  "Tell me what she looks like."

I kid you not, a police sketch artist could have drawn a picture from her description, and you'd have sworn it was a photo of this girl.  I nailed it.  I put the image of the character in her mind.

No go.  Still a C+.  Or B+.  Whatever it was, it wasn't an A.

Flash forward years later to someone giving me advice on screenwriting.  "You don't want to paint too clear of a physical picture of the character because you don't know what star might read the script.  If you say she looks like Pamela Anderson, and the script lands on Meryl Streep's desk, then you've screwed up."

But now I write novels as well as screenplays, and I like using actions and dialogue to make the reader think I've told them what the character looks like, when in fact, I've only given them clues and they've filled in the rest.

OR...

I'm fooling myself and what I think is style is simply laziness.  Honestly, I don't know, which is why I created this experiment.

If you wrote a description in the comments – and I hope you have, because this post will be embarrassing without them – go back and re-read the excerpt to see if you can find where you got your ideas from.  The writing is from my latest WIP, Billy Bobble Has A Magic Wand.  I'm curious if the magic has worked.

R.S. Mellette is an experienced screenwriter, actor, director, and novelist. You can find him at the Dances With Films festival blog, and on Twitter, or read him in the Spring Fevers anthology.

Perspective on Our Times

by R.S. Mellette

My neighbor will turn 100 years old this month. She was as old as I am now when I was born. When she was one year old, the first drive-in gas station was built, bringing the total number of gasoline-purposed buildings up to 3 in the whole country.

I think of her every time I see commercials on TV for natural gas drilling in America, where they say that—using fracking—we have 100 years of gas reserves. By the time I'm my neighbor's age, the country will be halfway out of gas. By the time someone born today is her age, we will have no gas reserves at all, so I wonder what the gas lobby is bragging about.

Why do I bring this enviro-political hot potato up in a writing blog? Because of something a Turkish acting teacher told our class at North Carolina School of the Arts 30 years ago. "Know the politics of your character," she said, and followed up with, "the politics of most American characters is none at all, which is just as telling."

And I think of Steinbeck, who was 10 years old when my neighbor was born. He told stories of families and working class individuals against the backdrop of the only economic times worse than those we are living in today.

I think of Mark Twain, who died just two years before my neighbor was born. He recorded the voices of America from his youth, when this was not a free country for many of the people who built it.

And I wonder what young Twain might live in Arizona? What Steinbeck might now be on the road to a North Dakota oil boomtown? For the first time in world history, we have to change our economy from a high-density fuel source (fossil fuels) to a lower one (hydrogen, solar, wind). Will we have a writer to take us through this change the way Charles Dickens (died 42 years before my neighbor was born) took us from wood to coal, or Upton Sinclair (34 when my neighbor was born) from coal to oil?

Sure, you might not write about these world changing events, but if your stories are contemporary, they should be included. They play in the background. They are the undertow to the waves your characters face. And we, as authors, owe it to our society to record their effects.

We writers are all Tom Joad. He promised to "be there" and so should we.

R.S. Mellette is an experienced screenwriter, actor, director, and novelist. You can find him at the Dances With Films festival blog, and on Twitter, or read him in the Spring Fevers anthology.

What Happens to Your Manuscript in Hollywood? Part Three: Strategies

by R.S. Mellette

If I had all the answers about how to turn your work into a finished blockbuster movie, I wouldn't be writing this blog. Or maybe I would, but the sound outside my office window would be waves crashing on a Hawaiian beach, not cars on the 405 freeway.

In past installments (see Part One and Part Two) I wrote about what not to do. Don't send your work directly to a studio. Instead, you want to build a team of supporters.

What your team looks like will depend entirely on you. If you're not in Hollywood, I'd say look around locally. Most universities have film departments now, which means kids will be making movies. Talk to professors there, see if you can volunteer to help. Get in touch with the filmmaking teams in your area and work your way up. Six degrees of separation starts with your first crew credit.

But if you don't want to go that route, you can do the query thing. Query letters are not standard in the film business, so you'll have a hard time finding the data you need. Start with a current copy of the Hollywood Creative Directory and a subscription to IMDBpro. You're looking for a manager, not an agent.

Whole textbooks have been written on the differences between a manager and an agent. "Manager" has really become another word for producer. They will work to get the project of yours that they like produced. If they can stay on as a producer, then you don't have to pay them anything, which is nice. If not, they generally get 15-20% of your cut. These days, agents act more like lawyers. They really earn their money when it comes to collecting contract bonuses and participation money. In other words, stuff you don't need to worry about yet.

Managers come in all shapes and sizes, and they aren't governed by California state laws the way agents are, so you have to be careful who you deal with. They are also one of the few groups that will read your query letter.

One of the other groups is a production company, which basically does all the work you think a movie studio does in terms of making a movie. The bigger ones have deals with studios – like Imagine with Universal, Village Roadshow with Warner Bros. etc. A major production company can be as big and impersonal as a studio, so best to avoid those without an introduction by a manager or agent.

Small companies might be more approachable. This will take some research. For example, say you've got a nice little Christmas story. These things show up by the thousands on the Lifetime Network, Hallmark Channel, etc. So, research the titles, get on IMDBpro to find the production company, and send them a query.

Summing up. You need to build a team. Start small. Be patient. Keep at it.

Now it's time for me to take my own advice and get some of my own stuff sold!

What Happens to Your Manuscript in Hollywood? Part Two: Coverage

by R.S. Mellette

When last we left your intrepid novel's journey through Hollywood, it had just been logged into the tracking software and sent to the Story Department, where it sat patiently awaiting a reader.

Readers are people who basically write book reports for a living. They read whatever is submitted, from Steven Spielberg's next project to the janitor's best friend's niece's creative writing assignment that her parents know will be the next blockbuster.

The report they write for your submission is called "coverage."

Coverage is always 3 pages long. Page one has a header that includes: Type of Material (Screenplay, Manuscript, Novel, Article, etc.), Number of Pages, Publisher/Date, Submitted by (agent, manager, production company, author), Submitted to (that's the person who works for the Studio), Analyst (the Reader), Title, Author, Submission (Project, Speculative, Sample), Circa, Locations, Drama Category, Elements.

That last one is key. That's where any attachments will be listed. If that's left blank, and the submission is a spec—meaning a speculative script hoping to find a producer—the result will be a pass. At least on the studio level.

Below the header is the log line. This is one or two sentences written by the reader that sums up the whole story. Hopefully, this will read just like your elevator pitch. After that is a straight plot synopsis that runs about a page and a half. On the last page is the comment section where the reader writes a brief review.

Back on the top page, there will also be a little chart like this:

	Excellent	Good	Fair	Poor
Premise				X
Character			X
Dialogue			X
Story				X

And:

Project: ____PASS____ Writer: ____Consider___

There is an unwritten rule that all submissions to a studio without talent attached will be given a PASS. No one in the corporate world wants to put their kid's college tuition on the line for a risky project.

For this reason, you should never submit anything directly to a studio.

Why?

Remember that tracking software? The coverage for your project never goes away, and your work won't be read twice—not without some major pull, and even then it's given "comparative coverage." That means the same reader reviews their old report, reads your new version, and writes new coverage that talks only about the changes. Both sets of coverage are then sent to the executive who requested it.

So, say on a whim you send in your unpublished novel to a studio. Since you've got no clout behind it, they automatically pass. The analyst makes sure to write in the coverage good reasons for the pass. Your review will not be a good one.

Then, your sell your manuscript. Two years later it's a minor best-seller and your agent submits it to the same studio.

The first step of logging in a submission, is to check to see if it hasn't already been read. If it has, the assistant will print a copy of the old coverage, clip it to the nice new hardcover of your book and put it in their boss's inbox, skipping the Story Department entirely.

In other words, you're screwed.

In Part Three, I'll discuss ways to avoid bad coverage.

What Happens to Your Manuscript in Hollywood? Part One: Solicitation

by R.S. Mellette

Since the late 1980s I've worked in just about every department at Universal Studios, including Motion Picture Development—which is where your manuscript would land if you were to submit it to a studio. I thought you guys might like to know what would happen to your novels, screenplays, treatments, stories, etc. after you've put them in the mail or hit send.

First and foremost, no unsolicited material will be read by a studio without a release. So many writers obsess over the release that they miss asking the question, "What does 'unsolicited' mean, and how do I get my script to be solicited?"

A project (which can be anything from an unpublished manuscript to an idea written on a bar napkin) is solicited when a production executive asks to see it. So, say you're riding in that mythic elevator with Ron Meyer who says, "You're a writer? What have you written?"

And you say, "A novel about an elephant that gets into the New York City Ballet Company."

"Really? I'd like to take a look at that, can you send me a copy?"

Your work is now solicited. You get to write in the cover letter, "Per your request..."

Anything else is unsolicited. Most of an agent's job is to get their client's work to be solicited, or at least sent in as a writing sample.

So let's say you know that your novel about the dancing elephant is exactly what Hollywood needs, and you only dreamed about the elevator ride. Still, you're going to send it right to a studio no matter what. When you do, it lands on the desk of an assistant who opens your package, looks at the cover letter and sends your manuscript back in your SASE with a form letter stating the Studio will not read unsolicited material without a signed release, which is enclosed. The release basically says, "There's a good chance we have a project in development that's exactly like what you're sending us, so if we read your work and pass, you have to promise not to sue us."

You sign the release and send the manuscript back, where the assistant eagerly awaits its arrival.

Said assistant will then log the submission into the studio's tracking software. When last I did this job, the standard was a program called Studio Systems from a company called Baseline. The program is huge, and each studio and executive has it tailored to their needs.

Once logged, your work will go to the Story Department. Here it will be assigned to a reader. Of course, since your novel has no one "attached," it will sit in a pile for a long, long time. Having someone attached means they have agreed to work on the project. This isn't always a good thing.

"Charlie Sheen has agreed to star in the film version..."

Attachments can be directors, production companies, stars, or to a lesser extent famous cinematographers or executives. If you're reading this for advice and want to cut to the chase, the rule is that you should never submit a project to a studio without major attachments.

What happens to your words in the Story Department and how do you better your chances in Hollywood?

Stay tuned...

Crossing the Bridge: Song Structure and Plot

by J. Lea Lopez

I was marveling the other day about how some of my favorite singer-songwriters can really tell a whole story in a four-minute song. I love a good ballad, especially. The music, lyrics, the singer's voice, everything works together to take you on a roller coaster ride of emotion. I tend to write character-driven stories, and it's that same gut-wrenching ride that I strive to impart to my reader. This got me thinking. What can fiction writers learn from songwriters? The answer, I believe, lies in structure.

Thinking back to your elementary and middle school English classes, you may remember charting the plot of a book using something like this:

Look familiar? Was I the only one who felt constricted by this particular diagram? Exposition and rising action were no problem. For the most part, falling action was a no-brainer, and denouement was easy peasy. But I often faltered around the climax. (Please, no psychoanalysis of that statement is necessary.) In many books, the climax felt more like a series of events—a plateau, if you will. And that straight line of rising action is really more of a procession of peaks and valleys. When you break it down, it looks a bit like a song. (For these purposes, "song" refers mainly to current popular music. Song structure varies greatly, not only within but across genres as well.)

The exposition is your basic intro, and the rising action starts with the first verse, followed by the chorus. The verse tells the story, and the chorus gives you the overall theme of the song. (Don't ask me why, but I'd never realized this basic premise of storytelling vs. theme until I read it in those concrete terms, and then I thought of just about every song I'd ever heard and—whaddya know? It's true!) Many songs also have a bridge, which I have come to realize is my favorite part.

Let's take a listen to one of my recent favorites, Take it All, by Adele.

The verse does indeed tell you the story, and the chorus gives you the theme. When the chorus comes in for the first time, there's a burst of new emotion, like a mini-climax, before we come back down a notch for another verse. The bridge starts around 2:08—this is where you hear things change, and instead of coming back down to the emotional/dynamic level of the verse again, we start another build of emotion. It's not a one-note type of climax, it's a gradual build toward and satisfying release from the point of highest emotional impact. The repetition of the chorus closes the song and drives home the general theme again. Was it as good for you as it was for me? A great song has you yearning for that bridge, for those few bars where it all comes together and makes the hair on your arms stand up.

So let's go one more time. Gravity, by Sara Bareilles, is another song that gives you the same ebb and flow of tension in the alternation of verse and chorus, then knocks your socks off with a great bridge (which starts at 2:25). I dare you to try not to get swept up in the tension. I've listened to this song hundreds of times, and I still take a deep breath at the peak of the bridge, when she sings the word "down," and hold it until she releases. Exquisite.

So what can we take away from this (besides learning of my penchant for soulful female singer-songwriters)?

Instead of a three-act structure, or the linear rise and fall in those old plot charts that seem to turn on a dime at the apex, think of your story as a song, or a series of songs. Tell your story in the verses, intertwined with conflicts that help us understand the overarching themes of your novel (the chorus). Build toward that spine-tingling climax. I want you to take me over the bridge. Give me a few moments to savor the dizzying heights before you wrap me up in another cozy chorus and send me on my way.

You can use this structure on both a micro and macro level to weave a story rich with tension and emotion that reaches nearly addictive highs. If you can do that, you'll have me coming back for more of your product again, and again, and again...

What other aspects of songwriting can you apply to fiction? What songs intoxicate YOU with their emotion and powerful storytelling?

What Do You Say...?

By R.S. Mellette

There's something missing in the literary world that is prevalent in the performing arts. That is a unique way to wish an artist good luck.

For various reasons theatre, dance, and opera all have their special way of wishing someone good luck—or, because it is bad luck to wish someone good luck, wishing them bad luck as a way of fooling the Fates.

In theatre, we say "break a leg." There are a thousand stories about the origin of the saying, so take your pick as to which one you like.

In ballet, they say "merde," which is French for "shit." Having known my fair share of dancers, I'm surprised they don't say "chienne." God knows they call each other bitches enough during rehearsals.

In opera, Wikipedia tells me that they say "Toi, Toi, Toi." They'll also knock wood and spit—or pretend to.

But we writers have nothing. What do we say to a fellow scribe who says, "My manuscript is going out to editors today," or "My agent is reading my next book"?

"Good luck." How lame is that? "I'll cross my fingers." What are we, twelve?

So, I'm issuing a challenge to our readers and writers everywhere. A call to arms! Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the literary world is on the hunt for our own, new tradition, our own new way of communicating to one another that we are in this fight together. We might be lone wolves in the creation of our art, but we are not alone in spirit.

So writers, write! Come up with a phrase that clearly means, "I am an author in the same hell as you, and I am wishing you well."

Some parameters:

• There should be implied history behind this saying.
• That history should have something to do with the literary world.
• It should sound old before its time.

Once found, we must make sure we use this phrase so that others might hear it and pass it on without knowing the origin, but thinking it has been a literary tradition throughout time.

Here are my two proposals: "Dante's Luck" or "May Virgil find you."

I like them because they both come from Dante's Inferno, a great literary work, and they both speak of one making their way through Hell to get to eternal paradise.

But I'm not the only writer here. What say you all? Offer up a suggestion of a phrase and why you think it should be the one to pass from generation to generation. We will know the winner when we hear it in a writer's group decades from now.

An Artistic Cross-Training SAT with Hilary Graham

by Mindy McGinnis

On my personal blog Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire, I've been hosting a series of interviews focused on gleaning the secrets of success from writers who have been there, done that. I call it the SAT—Successful Author Talk.

In the course of my internet wanderings I came across Hilary Graham, a screenwriter turned YA author whose artistic journey fit in so perfectly with our philosophy here at From the Write Angle that I thought I might relocate an SAT to my second blogging home.

Hilary Weisman Graham is a screenwriter, novelist, and director whose work spans nearly two decades. Her debut young adult novel, REUNITED (Simon & Schuster), is due out in June 2012.

Hilary's essays have appeared in The Sun, Utne Reader, and Imagine Magazine. An Emmy-nominated television producer, her broadcast credits include WMUR's Chronicle, the nationally syndicated television show Wild Web (CBS/Eyemark), as well as freelance work for The Discovery Health Channel, Access Hollywood, A&E's Biography, and PBS's Zoom.

In the summer of 2007, Hilary was selected as a contestant on the Mark Burnett/Steven Spielberg produced reality series On the Lot: The Search for America's Next Great Director. Out of a pool of 12,000 submissions, Hilary made it onto the show as one of the eighteen finalists and stayed in the competition until only nine contestants remained, making her the longest-standing female director.

MM: What skills do you find come in useful in both screenwriting and novel writing?
HG: One of my most prized skills as a writer is my ability to allow myself to write crappy first drafts. It took me YEARS to learn to do this, but it's really an invaluable part of my process. RARELY do I get it right the first time. As in basically never. So it's nice to be able to let myself off the hook for getting it wrong and so I can give myself the space I need to work it out in rewrites.
I am also a very disciplined writer, a skill that gives me the benefit of creating lots of new material (and occasionally gets in the way of my self-care). i.e, there are times my writing (and my sanity) would probably be better served by stepping AWAY from the computer and going to yoga class. ;)

MM: Are you a Planner or Pantster? Do you find that you use the same approach in both screenwriting and novel writing?
HG: I'm a Planner with Pantster tendencies. I ALWAYS outline my fiction, though in the past, I have written screenplays without outlines. As I've matured as a writer, I've learned that it's crucial for me to know where I'm going plot-wise before delving into a screenplay or a novel. That being said, I view my outlines as malleable things and use them with the assumption that there will be changes. A strong structure also gives me freedom to explore my characters and plot without worrying that I might go off the rails. Some of the best moments in my work are the result of discoveries I've made along the way.

MM: Do you work on one project at a time, or are you a multitasker? Do you tend to focus on screenwriting all at one time, then novel-length works? Or do you mish-mash?
HG: In a perfect world I'd focus on one project at a time, but since this is reality (sigh) I've learned to live as a multitasker. Luckily, I do it quite well. Of course, there are stretches of time when I'll only work on my book, or a screenplay, and I feel that's the ideal way to work. However, there have been weeks when I've juggled my book, a screenplay, a treatment for a TV show, AND a pitch for a new screenplay. And yes, it was exhausting as it sounds. But if I can get myself into the right frame of mind, it can actually be creatively stimulating to have multiple storylines rolling around in my head, and sometimes, if I'm lucky, the various plots and characters end up informing each other. Though I might not be the most pleasant person to be around when I've got four different projects in my brain. ;)
And I will say that in the screenwriting world, it pays to be a multitasker since the ability to generate new material is so important.

MM: Have you ever quit on a project, and how did you know it was time?
HG: I have a really hard time letting go of a project and I almost never do it. In fact, the only project I can recall giving up on is a recent effort to make a video trailer for a completed script I've written. I wanted the video to be hilarious and have the potential to go viral, but it just wasn't gelling. So I tossed it aside and I haven't looked back.

But typically, I'd rather work myself to the bone to try and fix something I care about and make it great than to give up on it. However, there are TONS of ideas in my filing cabinet that will never even get off the ground, because the concepts don't seem appealing to me anymore, or because they fail to excite me in the way they (presumably) did once. But even then, I still can't bear to throw ANYTHING away.

MM: Who is your agent and how did you get that "Yes!" out of them? Did you consciously choose an agent who repped both screenwriting and novels?
HG:I signed with my amazing manager—Seth Jaret of Jaret Entertainment—after I was on the FOX reality show ON THE LOT: THE SEARCH FOR AMERICA'S NEXT GREAT DIRECTOR (which aired on FOX the summer of 2007 and was produced by Mark Burnett/Steven Spielberg). Seth represents my screenwriting efforts and he hooked me up with my book agent, Steve Malk at Writer's House. I think Steve and Seth share quite a few screenwriter/YA novelist clients.

MM: How much of your own marketing do you? Do you have a blog/site/Twitter?
HG: It's funny you should ask because I'm doing it all right now! My website (which currently only details my film career) should be updated in the next couple of weeks. I also have a brand spankin' new blog, an Author Page on Facebook, I'm on YouTube, and of course, I'm on Twitter.

As REUNITED's release date gets closer (June, 2012), I'm planning to do a HUGE online campaign to promote interest in the book. I've already shot a killer BOOK TRAILER (since I'm a filmmaker, too) and it will be released as soon as the book's available for sale. (But watch for teasers on my YouTube page & Blog.) And as June 2012 gets closer, I plan to start doing contests and giveaways on my blog on my blog as well as creating a big web presence for the band in the book, Level3.
Because REUNITED focuses so heavily on music (it's the story of three ex-best friends on a cross-country road trip to see their old favorite band, Level3, in concert) I figured there was a huge opportunity to promote REUNITED using Level3's music.

So, I've actually gone and created the band!

Level3

A professionally produced version of Level3's hit single “Parade” is already in the works! This song will be available for download on my website (for free) and possibly even in the e-book version.

I'm really hoping to attract a following for the band, and Level3 Myspace and Facebook pages should be live within the next few weeks.

MM: When do you build your platform? After an agent? Or should you be working before?
HG: Hmmm. I'm not sure I know the answer to this one. I think these days, it never hurts to “brand” yourself if you've got something to sell.

MM: Do you think social media helps build your readership?
HG: Gosh, after all I'm planning to do, I sure hope so. ;) But going to the Book Bloggers Convention in NYC this past May meeting so many wonderful bloggers really helped me understand the power the internet has to foster a book's success. And on a personal level, I'm really looking forward to being able to connect with my readers online.

A big thanks to Hilary for participating in the SAT here on FTWA!

Do you have other artistic outlets that help inspire your writing? What are they?

Good Art, Bad Art, Selling Out My Share

by R.S. Mellette

So, is a stop sign art?

By the previously stated definition a stop sign in the street is not art, one hanging in a gallery is—but does that make it good?

Like most words in the English language, Art has many meanings and uses. When I talk about Phil Jackson's job as the Lakers' head coach, I might say, "The man was an artist." Do I mean he was an actor, writer, painter, director, choreographer, composer, etc.? No, of course not. I mean he was a great coach. I might say, "He raised the job to an art form," but again, I'm not talking about The Arts, I'm using a metaphor.

In talking about The Arts, when we say something is "a work of art," it is often interpreted as meaning "it's a work of art that is also good." If you'll excuse the play on words, an object of art is objective. It either is art or it isn't. The quality of that object of art is subjective. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Back at UNC-C I once asked an acting teacher for advice on being a playwright. She said, "I don't know anything about writing, but I know this: A Broadway ticket costs $75 dollars." Okay, I've just aged myself. "You have to write a story that's worth $75 to the average working person."

I only asked her the question because I had a crush on her, but damned if that wasn't the best advice I've ever been given when it comes to the arts.

Decades later I sat in on a workshop of a one-woman show in a Los Angeles garage theatre. After the reading, the audience—all theatre artists—were encouraged to comment. One person said, "I don't mean to say you should concern yourself with the audience, but ..."

That's a phrase you hear a lot in theatre and it has two sources. The proper one comes from acting. An actor has to forget there is an audience out there in order to stay in the moment of their character. At the same time, they have to keep their artist's eye aware of the same audience they're trying to ignore. An actor can't face in the wrong direction, block the audience's view of another actor, mumble, etc. If an actor misses this balance, they may hear from the director, "Don't concern yourself with the audience, that's my job."

The not-so-proper use of that phrase comes from bitter artists of all disciplines. As I write this I'm sure there are novelists blogging about what a bad piece of writing Twilight is and how they will never simply "cater to the audience."

No one is saying you should, but...

I raised my hand in this workshop to say, "I think you should consider your audience. They're paying you. A 99-seat theatre ticket costs $15. You've got to take your audience on a $15 ride, at least."

No one agreed with me. Some were downright offended. I would understand if they'd said, "Give them a $100 value if you want your play to show to more than just your friends and family," but they didn't. I was chastised for trying to put a monetary value on art.

And they wonder why theatre is dead.

Yes, it's true that an artist who tries to guess what the world wants to see is guaranteed to miss the mark. It is just as true, and infinitely more pretentious, for an artist to claim that they don't have the audience in mind when they work.

How far would a restaurant get if the chef claimed, "The customer is not my concern. They don't have my knowledge of the culinary arts, so they cannot possibly appreciate my explorations of the taste of human shit."

The artist who faces the blank page, or canvas, or sheet music, is exactly like the performer on stage. They must split their focus between the work they are creating and the people they are creating it for. Like so many things in life, this is a balance. On one extreme is a journal, where the writer has no audience but his or her self.

On the other extreme is... what? Network Television? Children's Theatre? Pop music? Sexy Vampire Novels? The sellout of your choice?

I don't think so. I've worked in network TV, children's theatre, film (independent and studio), the music industry, and publishing and I can tell you, there is no such thing as selling out.

How do I know? Because I'd do it in a heartbeat!

But there's no one standing on the corner of Hollywood & Vine saying, "Hey, buddy, come here. You want to publish a book, make a movie, be a star? You just take this money and do what I tell you and I'll make it happen." Even if you want to do porn, there's a line around the block of porn star hopefuls. You have to work your ass off to show your ass off.

Music aficionados particularly like to accuse bands of selling out, or saying some kind of music is "just pop music." In the visual arts, their counterparts talk about "pop culture" like it's evil incarnate. Well, I have news for those people. Culture that isn't popular isn't culture, it's just a bunch of crap no one has heard of.

The artists who create Pop Music like Pop Music. The people who put out the poster of Farrah Fawcett in a bathing suit like hot chicks with luscious hair. They aren't selling out, they are making the art they like and appreciate.

By the same token, my learned professor of music from UNC-Charlotte, as smart as he was, would probably not do as good of a job composing "Lollipop" or backing up Jim Morrison. If van Gogh had painted Farrah Fawcett's poster, not as many young men would have held it up with one hand—and consequently, she would not have become the icon of a generation of Americans.

And no one would ask these artists to create that kind of work. It's not their voice.

Only Michelangelo could find David inside that rock. Others tried and failed. Only The Kinks could turn a 3-cord riff into a new class of Rock & Roll. Each artist does what they do, keeping one eye on the work and one on who they are working for, the audience.

So is a stop sign art? On a street, no. On a wall, yes.

Would I buy one to hang in my living room? Hell, no!