The Third Draft

Relationships are crucial in this business, and I've been good at making friends and contacts from far away.  It was high time I met  them face-to-face, so here I am in Los Angeles for a two-week immersion in the biz. Tomorrow begins a 4-day Sherwood Oaks event with Gary Shusett and fellow screenwriters from Hal Croasmun's Pro Series. On the 27th, I'll be attending  the IFTA Production Conference. The rest of the time, I'll be networking, networking, networking. Stay tuned for updates!

I was offered the opportunity to pitch my script in front of a live audience, and silly me--I took it. There's a long-running play-reading series here in Paris called Moving Parts, and I was allotted 10 minutes before one of the plays. So up I got in front of about 30 people, most of them writers or actors, and pitched.

Well. The good news is I did it.

The bad news is nobody liked the story.

I see this as a three-part problem.

First, I was pitching a genre piece to Parisian expats, who tend to be literary in their tastes.  Already the genre was a bad fit, and my pitch emphasized the dark and creepy setting. Lesson learned: Do my homework before pitching a producer. If they're not looking for what I have, I might as well spare us all the agony.

Secondly, I wanted to be respectful of the time limit (this was, after all, the playwright's evening), so I left out the anecdote about how I came to write the story. Unfortunately, that was my chance to explain the more unusual elements in the script and involve the audience more. Lesson learned: never skip the set up.

Third, although I thought I had trimmed to the bare bones, the pitch was still too detailed. Too heavy on plot line, too light on emotional moments. Big mistake. Huge. Lesson learned: A pitch is about selling the story--not  telling the story. And selling is all about emotions.

 (It could also be that the story sucks. Always a possibility. I'm looking at a rewrite.)

So there you have it.  I'm more nervous  than ever, despite having been told by a former Hollywood studio executive that I was in control and professional. (Huzzah! I cling to that as my one small consolation.)  But while it wasn't fun, it was  useful, and I  know my next pitch will benefit from having bombed in front of a live audience. A big thank you to Stephanie Campion of Moving Parts for creating such a safe space to fail and grow!

I went a little crazy last week. I spent too many hours looking up producers, and by the end I was a cross-eyed basket case.

When I couldn't figure out how to log my submissions and my contacts, I knew I was in trouble. Excel list? Too unwieldy. Free manuscript tracker program? But I can't export or import the data. What else is on the Internet? FileMaker? What's FileMaker? Oh wow, I have it on my computer. Should I learn it? Looks complicated. Lemme try... This sucks! I should be writing. Why am I not writing?... I sat there staring at the screen, unable to make a coherent decision.

Somehow I found the wherewithal to shut down the computer and go to bed.  And the next day I gave the queries a rest.

So far, I've received 6 responses--all saying "no thanks." 

With my rewrite on track, I devoted more time to name gathering today.

Out of every 10 producers I look up, 5 are too established and 4 are too small. I feel like Goldilocks, desperately searching for  the one that's "just right."  

But truth be told, I don't have a clue how to judge "just right" yet. Like the time years ago. Fresh out of college, I had a job to put together a directory of Greek bankers in the US (don't ask). I was told to go through the industry listings and contact anyone who had a Greek-sounding name. Totally ignorant of the banking & finance industry but confident in my ability to spot Greek-sounding names, I sent our form letter to one George Soros. I got a very nice letter back informing me that Mr. Soros was Hungarian, not Greek. I showed my boss, and he nearly fainted.

It was then I realized that I had pitched our dinky directory (think the equivalent of a wrongly-formatted script full of typos) to the Steven Spielberg of the finance world.

Today I'm older and wiser, and yet just as green. I know that despite my best efforts, I will make some inappropriate submissions (not to mention a whole host of other mistakes). But I'm going ahead anyway. And I'm even looking forward to it.

Hey, think of the anecdotes I'll have to share!

With the writer's strike now over, it's time to put some energy into marketing. In anticipation of this moment, my screenwriting group has been working on pitches. I pitched them my current script, a monster-in-the-house thriller. They hadn't read it, so I was happy when they responded enthusiastically to the pitch and asked all the right questions. I'm not a natural at pitching, and was very pleased.

Except...one of the writers made a comment that suddenly gave me this incredible idea for my script. With one tiny shift to my antagonist, the script would have more energy and drive. How cool! I couldn't wait to dive into the rewrite.

But instead of acting on that impulse right away, I took a minute to ask myself some tough questions. Was the rewrite  necessary? Would my idea improve the script? Or was I deluding myself out of nervousness, tinkering with the script to avoid marketing? These are not small questions. I know from experience how fears can manifest and express themselves, how easy it is to make excuses for why you're not taking the next step. How easy it is, at least for me, to fall ill with the flu or have some other kind of crisis (such as "but it's not ready!") at a crucial moment.

But the truth was, the idea WAS good. It WOULD make a significant difference. I couldn't NOT do it.

I decided to do the rewrite, but to not let up on the marketing side. Now the rewrite is almost done, and I have gathered about a dozen prodcos to query.