Mind Your Business. Michele Wallerstein

a consultant my work with writers includes helping them get their work into shape so that it is marketable for the Hollywood community. However, I've found that learning to master the creative aspects of writing is not enough to secure success as a writer. This is true whether your medium is motion pictures or television.

      Through my tenure as an agent, I was involved in the lives of hundreds of writers, producers, directors, and the occasional actor, and I saw how little they knew about their “business.” Artists may be famous for their craft, may be lauded and given awards, but can still spend years at the mercy of the system that defines them. This is neither a productive nor a safe state of being. The fact that artists often don't understand the business of their creative careers can, and often does, destroy them. As an artist, you can be led to the slaughter by well-meaning but inadequate advisors as well as mean-spirited, selfish egotists who somehow manage to gain your trust. These people are only one small part of the problem. You need to understand just how much you should believe what you read in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety and how to figure out what is really being said. You need to know if you should trust your agent, manager, lawyer, and business manager, as well as which deal is right for you and which one is wrong. The list of questions is infinite.

      A writer is really a small business. The creative portion of your career has a world of its own and the business side is like a foreign country.

      It has often been difficult and in some cases impossible to teach artists what they need to know to protect themselves, their work, their reputations, and their livelihoods. Most creative folks simply don't want to be bothered with this side of their lives. Watching writers make poor business decisions has brought tears to my eyes, and these bad choices have ruined their careers. Writers have jumped to the wrong agents at the wrong times, trusted their money to poor-advice-givers, gone with the wrong producers who filled their heads with compliments and lies, and not trusted good agents and sat at home with excellent screenplays because they didn't know where to go or what to do with them.

      

      Creative people are surrounded with advisors; however, in reality, you, the artist, are the one truly in charge of your life and career. As Harry Truman said, “The buck stops here.” You are ultimately responsible for the final decisions you make. Make sure that you make them with all the information at your fingertips.

      While working as a literary agent I represented writers, directors, and producers in motion pictures, movies for television, television series, and books. During that time I have represented and guided the careers of writers including Larry Hertzog, Christopher Lofton, Peter Bellwood, Ronnie Christensen, Carol Mendelsohn, Randall Wallace, and many, many more. I've watched my clients make wonderful decisions and terrible decisions.

      If I can share some knowledge with you now, I will be happy indeed. Someone said that “knowledge is power,” and this still rings true.

      

EXERCISES

      1. Call at least five well-known writers for an interview.

      2. Ask what decisions helped their careers.

      3. Ask what decisions hurt their careers.

      4. Ask about the turning point in their careers.

      5. Ask about their best and worst agent experiences.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, START YOUR ENGINES 2

      There are many reasons people believe that they can become, or already are, writers. Sometimes their friends and/or relatives tell them that they are great storytellers. Perhaps they are avid readers, or they love movies or television. There are those who feel they have an important story to tell, and many, many people believe that writing is an easy gig that brings in lots of money.

      Then there are all of those who go to the movies or watch television and say to themselves and anyone else who will listen, “I can write better than ‘that’.” They may write to entertain themselves and others. They write to make money, or they write because they have ideas that they feel they must share. They write to express their feelings or to hide them. The reasons go on for miles.

      Whatever the impetus, the result is the same: All writers want to share their stories with others. Writers want their stories to be seen, read, or heard. Accomplishing that goal can be a great challenge. Choosing your medium is crucial. Trying to make up your mind whether to tell your story as a novel, TV sitcom, or drama, or as a screenplay, short story, poem, or a play will be one of your most important life decisions. I've often read projects that were in the wrong medium, and thus failed to see the light of day.

      The expression, “Follow your gut,” applies to the type of writing you choose as well as the business aspects of your creative life. With that said I must advise you to try different types of writing to find your comfort level.

      Your first big surprise will be that you cannot simply sit down and write a great script. No one can and that's the truth. Believe it. I know that you want to argue with me on this, but don't. Even if you have a great story or wonderful action sequences, your first script is practice. You will need to see if you can figure out the three-act structure, and if your characters are flat or alive. You will need to learn the difference between a good plot and a humdrum one. There are a multitude of things you will need to learn about the narrative process before you begin to put words on paper.

      You will need to acquire a great deal of knowledge about form and substance, and about style and imagery, before you even begin to write that first script. You will need to learn how so many things that comprise a great screenplay must fall together to make it work. You can do this by attending film school, taking individual classes and lots of writing seminars, and learning from all of those kind and patient professional writers who might be willing to spend their time with you. Film schools can give you a head start on the process, as will many writing seminars, books, and CDs. Just be sure these courses are given by people who are excellent in their fields. If you are going to use a consultant, check out his or her qualifications thoroughly. There are many great books and videos on the subject of screenwriting and even great screenwriting magazines. Read, research, and study everything you can get your hands on.

      Subscribe to good writers’ magazines like Creative Screenwriting; go to the The Writer's Store in Westwood if you are lucky enough to live in or near the Los Angeles area. Go online and get information about other magazines and writers’ books. There are zillions of them. Go to every lecture and seminar that you can get to. Listen, ask questions and learn, learn, learn.

      Okay, now, let's say you've decided to write a screenplay. It's time to proceed to the next step: writing your first script. This is a monumental task.

      First you need to find a story that:

      a. you want to tell;

      b. has not already been told in exactly this way;

      c. has an enormous amount of people all over the world who will be interested in seeing it (not just your relatives);

      d. is a story about which you know something; and

      e. is a story that has some truth and underlying meaning to it.

      Not as easy as you thought, right? Let's keep going.

      Now that you have an idea (story) and some characters in your mind that will make the story work, you may begin. The process will be much slower than you thought it would be. You might find that the characters don't seem to make sense, the pacing may seem all wrong, the comedy (or drama) falls flat, and you will forget why you thought this was such a good idea in the first place. Don't let those things stop you. Writing involves a great deal of rewriting and a great deal of thought. Continue with the work until the screenplay is complete; then put it down for two weeks, pick it up, and read it straight through. Whether you hate it or think that it's the best writing in the world, now rewrite it again and then again.

      After