MOVING YOUR WRITING CAREER FORWARD

If you've written a couple of great screenplays and are not sure what to do next or if you are wondering how to get and keep an agent you should sign up for my new on-line course via the world famous Writers Store at:  http://www.writersstore.com/moving-your-writing-career-forward/.

You will learn an in-depth, insiders knowledge of how to keep a great agent/client relationship and much, much more!  Sign up asap.  The course will be extremely helpful to you.

Hope to have you with us.

MICHELE WALLERSTEIN THE WRITER'S CONSULTANT & THE AUTHOR OF "MIND YOUR BUSINESS": HOW AGENTS THINK

MICHELE WALLERSTEIN THE WRITER'S CONSULTANT & THE AUTHOR OF "MIND YOUR BUSINESS": HOW AGENTS THINK: After wracking my brain for weeks I believe I've come up with sharing some vital information with all of you writers.  Do you want to kn...

HOW AGENTS THINK

After wracking my brain for weeks I believe I've come up with sharing some vital information with all of you writers.  Do you want to know how agents think?  Do you want to know what motivates them?  If you do then continue reading and I will explain these things.  This information will help you to get an agent and to have a great relationship with them.

The first thing you need to realize is that the job of being an agent is work.  It isn't fun and play time in Hollywood.  It's very hard work with long hours, huge disappointments, heartbreak, and even mental abuse.  Being an agent is not a secure job with the receipt of a gold watch at the end of a long career with one company.  They don't always get health insurance and retirement packages.  They often work on commission and must survive and support families through strikes and bad times.  Agents often get fired for political as well as financial reasons.  They are often replaced by younger people with good connections.  Do you get it?  It ain't easy.

The first and most important thing that pushes agents is to sell.  They must make deals to make a living and keep their jobs.  If their clients do well, then they do well.  It's actually a wonderfully symbiotic relationship.  Agents want their clients to work and to make tons of money.

They are often very bright and well educated people yet they live in fear of losing their clients who sometimes change agents the way other people change their clothes.  Small agencies often do the hardest work because they build up new writers.  The boutique agencies are the ones that clients leave so that they can go to big prestigious firms.  Those big firms invariably disappoint these clients because they have so much inter-office politics and pressure that they can not give individual writers the time they need.

Very often agents get personally involved with their clients in that those clients tell their life stories and problems to their agents.

Agents are often thrilled to find new and great writers who they can work with and mold into big and important careers.  But they also know that those people, for which they work so hard,  will someday leave them.  It is simply that clients feel that if their careers start to slide it is easier and emotionally safer to blame their agent than to take responsibility for their own failures.

Believe me agents are most often the good guys and gals in your life.  Hope this helps.

Working in Hollywood

It seems that everyone wants to work in Hollywood.  It doesn't matter if they live in Los Angeles or Timbuktu, they think they can become a (fill in the blank) in the entertainment industry.
They write letters, join web sites, direct 5 minute short films or write a 10 minute script.  They call people they don't know and they ask strangers for referrals. 

I've been in the Hollywood mainstream for over 25 years and I can tell you that it ain't that easy.  It's time to face reality and get to go to work on a positive and pragmatic design to make your dreams come true.  Yes, they can come true.  If it happened for me it can happen for you.

I didn't have relatives that owned a studio or 15 great screenplays.  I wasn't strong enough to be on a film crew and I didn't want to direct.  I had two things going for me; I could type and I lived in Los Angeles.
That's it, that's all I had in my favor.  When I began there were no women executives in any facet of the business, I had no connections and no particular talent, except that I loved the movies and I loved to read.

The first truth of getting in is to live in Los Angeles.  If you don't live here no one will wait for you to move here.  You must come here first, then try to get your career moving. 

The second thing you must be able to do is to have enough money or rich relatives to work for free or next to nothing.  That's right.  It's all about paying your dues to get in.  You will need to work your butt off trying to get an internship without any pay at all.  You will have to be a driver, messenger, assistant to an assistant (who might be younger than you).  You will have to do and learn things fast.  You must act as if you fear nothing.  You must make yourself seen and heard in a crowd of very formidable professionals.

There is no school that gives you a degree for becoming an agent or personal manager, or part of a film or television production.  Everyone learns on the job.  Getting in is the key to moving up to the particular arena for which you strive.

To become a writer you will need to have written half a dozen scripts.  To be a director you will need more than one 5 or 10 minute short films.  You cannot direct a film without dialogue or actors.

Get here, make contacts, give, give and then give some more.  Ask questions, remember to thank people and always behave ethically and morally.

Go get 'em tiger!

Musings

OK, here's what's on my mind today.  If someone wants to be a writer of scripts or novels, etc. why don't they take English classes to improve their spelling and grammar?????  I can't stand it.  The mistakes that I read are appalling.  I'm a member of LinkedIn and a sub group on that site called "Aspiring Writers".  The people who write questions and comments on that site are wannabe novelists.  They often can't write a decent sentence.  I find that infuriating.

Is it our educations system?  Is it our lack of good parenting?  I suppose it's these things and many other reasons that our people are almost illiterate today. 

If you want to write professionally then you MUST learn how to write anything.  You are embarrassing yourself.  Yes, I edit for a living, but come on, an occasional mistake is one thing, but I find that these writers are way past the need for a little help.  As a consultant and editor, I don't think my job should be to re-write people's work.  My job is to help make it better and catch some errors.  You are the writer.
Pay attention and respect yourself and your work.

It's never too late to learn!

WRITING AND THE INFO YOU NEED

    

 Becoming a successful screen or television writer is not as hard as you think it is.

"WHAT?" you are yelling.  That's right it's not too difficult.  Just follow some simple rules and grab the brass ring.  Here are a few of the rules and some advice from someone who has lived it (me):

STOP asking for an agent and START becoming a better writer.  Learning how to write a good script takes years.  You are often putting the cart before the horse by writing to me and to so many others in the Biz wherein you express your readiness for representation.

You aren't ready! Have you taken writing classes by really good teachers?  Have you read David Trottier, Michael Hauge, Blake Snyder and Linda Seger?  Have you hired a professional consultant to give you notes on your latest project?  Have you written five to ten original screenplays?  That's right, original.  No true stories, no adaptations of books or plays.  

Agents, managers and producers are looking for people who can write a basic story with interesting characters.  They want strong male leads who are in every scene of the film

They don't want you to direct the actors or to describe every scene, movement, weather report, colors, ages and looks of supporting characters, noises, who's sitting where, etc.

Every single time I consult on a project, I must edit out all  of the above.  You aren't writing a shooting script.  You are writing a spec.  It's different.

Have you spent time learning about the Biz of being a writer??  Have you spent time with professional writers?  Look around....they are often writing teachers in your area who have retired and now teach at local colleges.

Do you know how to be a good client of an agent or manager?  Do you know what will transpire if you are lucky enough to get a meeting with a development person or producer or studio executive?

If you want to know these things and much more, read my book:  MIND YOUR BUSINESS: A Hollywood Literary Agent's Guide to Your Writing Career".  I wrote this book to help YOU.  (www.amazon.com, book nook, book stores, etc.)

Here's a review by professional writer Alex Epstein:

    "It's about time an agent wrote a screenwriting book. In her book MIND YOUR BUSINESS, veteran lit agent Michele Wallerstein gives you a perspective another writer won't. What is an agent looking for in a script? How do you score in a meeting? How do you handle your side of a negotiation? How can you tell when your agent isn't into you anymore?
     Many good writers put all their efforts into their scripts. But a brilliant writer can screw up his own career by what he does or doesn't do. Minding your business -- and agenting your agent -- is almost as important as your screenwriting craft.
     When I was starting out, Ms. Wallerstein was one of the agents people recommended I contact. She really knows her stuff. Check it out." –

ALEX EPSTEIN, Writer

ARE YOU READY TO WRITE THE RIGHT SCRIPT??

          It seems to me that everyone I meet thinks they can write a script and make a quick sale of it to Hollywood.  As soon as they hear that I am in “the biz,” they drone on about how terrible movies are now and how they could write better pictures.  “Well,” I reply, “why don’t you?”   Of course it’s not as easy as it seems.

Just ask anyone who has really sat down in front of that computer and seriously tried to write a good movie.  Yes, it’s lonely, scary, frustrating and often infuses one with a real sense of panic, but it’s more than that.

Writing is very really, really difficult. The reason it’s so difficult is that there are some hard and fast rules that you are not born knowing.  You have to learn them!

          As a former Literary Agent in Hollywood, and now a working

Screenplay consultant, I have and do read an enormous amount of

scripts.  I am constantly amazed that so many writers have the same

problems.  They are missing the most important rules of screenwriting basics.  There are no character arcs.  The three (3) act structure is missing, the star doesn’t resolve the conflict, or there is no real plot development.   These and other script rules are ignored.  Finally I realize, as I work on these pieces, that the writers have not taken any writing classes and are “winging it.” 

          If a first time writer spends their hard-earned money on a script consultant without having studied writing, they might as well set fire to their cash.  Consultants are not Teachers, per se.  We are here to help make your scripts better and more saleable and ready to be seen by agents.  You must first know how to write a script.  We can only help to improve that work.

          When we go the movies we see writers portrayed as people who sit down at their computers in great looking homes (often with desks that overlook lakes or the ocean) and simply begin to write for

hours at a time.  Well, this ain’t the way it works.  First you take the class, and then you read the books by Michael Hauge and/or Linda Seger, Pilar Alessandra, Syd Field, Paul Chitlik, and me, etc., then you come up with a great idea, then you write an outline, then you write a treatment, then you try to write a script, then you re-write it over and over and over again, then you put it in a closet and start your second screenplay and do the whole thing all over again.  You will find that the second script is far better than the first script and you can’t believe that you wrote that first script.  Finally, you might be ready for a script consultant.

          Now you are on your way to becoming a screenwriter.  There are no shortcuts.  It is a long and arduous road.  However, it is a very gratifying and potentially rewarding trip in many ways.  Remember that it is possible to get that great agent who believes in you and does a great job for you.  It is possible to sell screenplays to major motion picture studios that will pay you lots and lots of money for your efforts and cast wonderful actors to say your words.  It is also possible that millions of people will sit, transfixed for two (2) blissful hours, in theaters around the world, watching a movie that exists because of you.