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This
week's answer:
"Cornering"
The Script Market
Well,
Bob, one thing you can be thankful for is that you're coming
to the realization slowly and not quickly. Those quick
realizations can really knock your socks off. And us
screenwriters need our socks (unless we need authenticity
and are writing a sequel to "Barefoot in the Park"
-- which Neil Simon might not take too kindly to -- or a
sequel to "The Barefoot Contessa" (and, as far as
I'm concerned, contessas need their socks, too. But don't
get me started on that subject.)
And,
since we started with the one thing, the second thing, Bob
is that, like many, you seem to have a prejudice about
corners. Corners so often get a bad rap. They're very
important in a room so we know that we're in one (a room,
that is). How else would two walls know they were
meeting at a right angle? Personally, I do some of my best
writing in corners (or on corners -- street ones,
that is, while I'm standing there, watching the girls go
by. But, when I sing about it with a bunch of other
guys there, it draws a little too much attention since guys
who spend a lot of time watching girls go by usually don't
sing about it.)
And
a third thing is that there is nothing wrong with a 150- or
180-page script. Of course, a story analyst (or
"reader" as they are often called, even though
"story analyst" sounds a lot more important) might
tear out his or her hair when they feel the weight of your
screenplay and look around for a place to burn it before the
producer sees it. Also, they, 180 or 200-page screenplays,
make good doorstops and even bookends -- for other
screenplays. And if you don't like the length of your
script, just tear out sixty or so pages. Nobody will
know.
And,
as Frankenstein would so aptly put it: Simple
characters... bad. Complex characters... good.
Or,
another way of addressing the subject would be (and I'm
centering the following section to make it look stylish and
sort of like a long haiku -- even though I don't think there
is such a thing -- so it looks like I know what I'm talking
about):
I know that feeling of being overwhelmed or confused
when your story seems to keep expanding before your eyes
and you're not sure how to "contain" it all.
TV is harder to break into, not that it can't be done.
My advice is "seek and employ" your best
storyline, work with that, and know that you can always
write a sequel or a television show that develops the
original, including the characters.
It's a good sign when a screenplay keeps calling out for
more.
It's a sign that the author (you) are equipped to
embrace what's next.
(I
even changed the font to make the above seem like ancient
wisdom -- which is quite a trick when one uses words such as
"storyline" and "television." But I
think I pulled it off and nobody noticed. Don't you
like how "TV" looks like in this font? I
think I'll use it every time I write a TV spec script and
want to impress studio people when I pitch it.)
And
don't worry about getting off track. Soon there won't
even be any tracks and we'll all be hovering above the
ground in our crafts... still stuck in hover traffic.
Which
will give you plenty of time to write another 250-page
script.
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