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    The Screenwriting Quick Start: Basics of Development, Politics, Networking, and More in a One-Night Read
    The Screenwriting Quick Start: Basics of Development, Politics, Networking, and More in a One-Night Read
    The Screenwriting Quick Start: Basics of Development, Politics, Networking, and More in a One-Night Read
    Ebook88 pages1 hour

    The Screenwriting Quick Start: Basics of Development, Politics, Networking, and More in a One-Night Read

    By Richard Whiteside

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    About this ebook

    Building upon his previous book, The Screenwriting Life, Rich Whiteside delivers another marvelous insider look at the screenwriting industry. The Screenwriting Quick Start is written from the heart in a fast-paced, conversational-style that delivers tip after tip for the first-time screenwriter. Whiteside explores rarely talked about vagaries o

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRichard E. Whiteside, Jr.
    Release dateAug 31, 2017
    ISBN9780999274514
    The Screenwriting Quick Start: Basics of Development, Politics, Networking, and More in a One-Night Read

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      Book preview

      The Screenwriting Quick Start - Richard Whiteside

      Introduction

      In these pages are insights I wish had been available to me when I began my screenwriting journey—they would have saved me from a number of missteps. A vital part of career building in any industry is effectively playing the political game. However, to play the game effectively, you must first understand the game. In this book, I’ve condensed down what I have learned through twenty-eight years of incredible and career-dashing experiences working in and around Hollywood to provide a basic understanding of what I now know about how the industry works.

      This book is for those who lack industry contacts. Those who are connected have far more viable options for learning and launching a career than those of us who have none.

      This book is intentionally short to follow my number one technical-writing rule: be clear, concise, and compelling. It’s also short because you don’t need to be an expert storyteller to begin your screenwriting life, nor an expert in industry politics to launch a career. To be a screenwriter, write and don’t stop. To launch a career, a basic understanding of where the potholes lay and landmines are buried is indispensable.

      My focus is on helping you decide where to best invest your time, money, and effort and where not to waste your time, money, and effort. You’ll gain insights on screenwriting skill sets, story structuring approaches, development, politics, networking, goal setting, and more. While I do embellish a bit here and there, I’ve edited to keep the rhetoric minimal.

      The overarching reality of Hollywood careers is that exceedingly few work full time. Most who work in the industry have full-time jobs outside Hollywood that allow them to take on the occasional industry jobs, when they come. It makes no difference whether you are a writer, actor, director, cinematographer, or any other artisan. The preponderance of industry people land work only intermittently and therefore need a highly flexible outside income stream (basically, a day job) to pursue their dream. Thus, all the jokes about being a writer/waiter. Accept this reality and plan accordingly.

      One unfortunate truth about launching and maintaining a career is that, too often, success depends on factors outside of your control—it’s often about politics and timing. In one instance, timing led to one of my screenplays being optioned. A director was quickly attached, and it moved toward production. A couple of months later, politics killed the project when an unexpected threat of a Screen Actors Guild strike (from the commercial division) hit the news. That loss cost me a half-a-million-dollar payday plus WGA rewriting fees. Timing and politics are out of your control. All you can do is put yourself in the best position to win. So, part of my message is to not waste time dwelling on aspects of career-building that are out of your control. Instead, put your efforts into activities that will give you the best chance to realize your dream.

      When it comes to writing, the most important edict I can pass on is to write. Write every day. A daily writing habit is the gym workout that is essential to grow as a writer and compete. An athlete cannot be competitive unless he or she commits to a regular training routine. Imagine an athlete who trains only every now and then and expects to win at the highest levels. It’s not going to happen. Also, don’t fall into the trap of feeling that you are growing as a writer if all you do is study how-to books and attend screenwriting conferences. Unless you are writing, you are not growing. Writing is the true teacher. Focus on writing first.

      The first action most aspiring screenwriters take is to buy a how-to book, and each year selecting that book becomes harder as more new books flood the marketplace. The chapter on structure will help you identify which broad approach to structuring is likely to work best for you. Given that insight, you will be better able to filter through the pile of books to select one that best resonates with you. While I do mention books that have greatly influenced me, I do not recommend any particular one on how to structure a story because, from my point of view, that first book is best if it matches how much hand-holding you need. Some writers only want to know the basics and then be left alone to get at it. Others want a complete step-by-step roadmap. Others need something in between. The chapter on structure will help you determine which lane in the road is best for you. Whatever approach you choose, it should be one that will get you writing, keep you writing, and pull the creative best out of you. This is the best value of a how-to book.

      Some Hollywood writers claim never to have read a screenwriting book or taken a screenwriting class. These are people who find that books and classroom learning fail to motivate them or inspire their creativity—they are at their creative best by working from the gut. They learned this craft by writing and getting feedback from experienced writers. In the end, they learned the same storytelling principles taught in the books and schools, but they succeeded because they do the one thing that the preponderance of aspiring writers fail to do: they write and kept writing. Others need a proven path to follow, and without a path they remain dormant. What gets you writing?

      No matter which approach works best for you, writers write. As Lew Hunter advises in his book Lew Hunter’s Screenwriting 434, Learn to swim in the deepest part of the pool.

      In the long run, I believe the more approaches to story development and writing styles you become familiar with, the more unique and polished your storytelling will become. Your writing style (your writing voice, as some refer to it) will come out of a balance of writing, reading produced and unproduced scripts, and studying books on screenwriting.

      I love the study of writing and, admittedly, I have invested an excessive amount of time studying the many approaches to storytelling and story structuring. My dedication to this is not remotely necessary to turning out quality scripts, but I am fascinated with how writers create, and you can benefit from my obsession.

      So, who am

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