An article on page 3 of the Business section of this morning’s Los Angeles Times titled, “Times are tough for screenwriters, WGA figures show,” said that according to the annual financial report of the Writers Guild of America, employment among TV writers declined 11% in2008.  “Companies responded to the economic downturn by reducing the size of TV series staffs,” the WGA report said.  “Even harder hit were movie writers who saw employment drop 14%,” the LA Times stated, citing additional statistics in the WGA report.

What should you take away from this depressing news? 

I think this is an opportunity to be honest with yourself about how much you really want to be a TV or movie writer.  If you really want to earn money as a screenwriter, you’re going to have to work even harder to get your Lucky Break in Hollywood because the number of opportunities that were available as recently as two or three years ago is now greatly diminished.

When I wrote and published my book, Elephant Bucks, in 2007, it looked as if the sitcom was coming back. Also, the entire economy hadn’t yet crashed. 

Sitcoms have come back a little from their absolute nadir of five or six years ago.  Ratings hits like The Big Bang Theory and critics’ darlings such as 30 Rock have helped breathe new life into what looked like a dying genre. Sitcoms are still coming back, but in fits and starts, in large part because there is no big break-out sitcom hit, such as The Cosby Show or Cheers back in the 1980’s, that a network can use as a search light that draws viewers to its entire schedule.  Two and a Half Men has been a tent pole for CBS on Mondays, and The Big Bang Theory has added strength to the Monday line-up.  But CBS has not been able to launch a successful second night of sitcoms.  Wednesday night remains anemic for CBS, with only the lackluster New Adventures of Old Christine to anchor the night.  Other networks have not enjoyed the ratings success of CBS with their own sitcoms. NBC’s The Office and 30 Rock have never cracked the Top Ten in the ratings, and seldom even make the Top Thirty. ABC has no sitcom hits, and Fox has never been able to move beyond The Simpsons.

As the LA Times reports, TV series writing staffs are smaller than they have been in years. The freelance writing assignment in TV no longer exists.  Your opportunities for a job are fewer than ever, and if you’re going to make it, you are going to have to work harder than ever to get your start.

What do I mean by working harder?

Since I wrote the book, started teaching TV and movie writing classes, and began reading and responding to e-mails on this website, I have learned a few things about at least some of you wannabe writers out there.  Some of you aren’t able or willing to do the work necessary to make it.

For those of you who are willing to do the work, here are four steps you can take to improve your chances of finding work as a writer in Hollywood:

1)  WRITE MORE SPEC SCRIPTS

The more you write, the better you get.  Having specs for several different series improves your chances of pleasing the person who might hire you or at least help you. 

If you want to be a TV writer, you should be writing specs for both sitcoms and dramas.  You should also write a few screenplays.  You should write three or four spec pilots.  Oh, and you should be able to do all of this within a year.  Does that sound like more writing than you can make the time for or motivate yourself to do?  If it does, it may be time to put away your dreams of being a professional screen writer.

Write every day. The only way to crank out a large portfolio of scripts is to write every day.  I write for at least a few hours a day seven days a week.  You’re still trying to get your first job.  If you aren’t working as much as I do then you may not be as serious as you think you are about becoming a professional screen writer.

I’ve had a few writers tell me that they have ADD, and it’s hard to make yourself work when you have ADD.  It is hard.  If you have ADD, then you probably won’t be successful as a writer unless you decide to seriously tackle your ADD and learn how to succeed in spite of it.

2)  GET TOUGHER ON YOURSELF ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE WRITING.

Write what will sell. Unless it’s your first script and you are just writing for practice, it is a waste of time to write a spec script that no one will want to read.  I have given advice again and again on this site about which shows to spec and which shows to stay away from. 

If you are writing a screenplay, write something similar to what is already out there.  Don’t write a movie set in the past.  Don’t write about your family or your experiences in college.  I’ve had contact with people in the screenwriting world in the last few weeks.  The spec market for movies is nearly dead. There are three types of spec movie scripts that have even a slim chance of selling:  The special effects action movie (District 9), the R-rated comedy (The Hangover) or the low-budget horror movie.  That’s it.  That is all they are buying.  If you see a movie like 500 Days of Summer and think that’s what you want to write, I am telling you that unless you have the financing to make that movie yourself, you will never sell the script.   

Rewrite.  You have to write many drafts of any script before it will be good enough to get you a job.  If you hate rewriting and can’t make yourself do it, then it is time to find another dream to follow.  Writing in Hollywood– and everywhere else - is 90% rewriting. If you can’t motivate yourself to rewrite now on something that is your idea, you will never hack it rewriting something that you hate in order to get a paycheck.  A huge part of TV writing, and almost all of movie writing, is about rewriting a script that you don’t really like very much.  The money will not motivate you enough to stay with it. If you hate rewriting, it is time to get honest with yourself about that and move on to another profession.

3)  DEVISE AN IMAGINATIVE AND AGGRESSIVE PLAN TO CREATE OPPORTUNITY 

“I wrote my spec script but now I don’t know what to do.  Will you read it and give me some advice?”  I get that e-mail over and over again.  The short answer is, NO.  I won’t read your script.  I don’t take money for evaluating scripts, and I don't have time to do it for free.  I wrote a chapter in my book about what to do with your script.  If you can’t figure out what to do after you wrote your script, you probably wasted your time writing it.

I say in my book that most of the work that you will have to do to make it as a writer in Hollywood will involve pounding the pavement to try to get your Lucky Break.  There isn’t some magic post office box where everyone mails their spec script and then a team of impartial judges decides who gets to be rich and famous.  I have no idea how you will get your Lucky Break as a writer.  Maybe your break will come from joining an improv group in LA or New York or Chicago or San Francisco. Maybe it will come from a brilliant video that you post on the internet.  Maybe it will come from renting the guest house of a famous director.  I don’t know!

There are a million ways to make it, but you have to think of one yourself.  You have to be really creative and really aggressive.  And you have to be lucky.  There is no sure-fire way to do it. 

The people who make it in show business, people like Tina Fey, are incredibly talented, incredibly hard working, incredibly aggressive and competitive, and incredibly lucky. If you are shy and insecure, if you are struggling with ADD, if you are not very motivated, then it’s time to look elsewhere, because show business is not someplace you are likely to end up.

4)  LIVE IN LOS ANGELES

If you want to write for the screen, you are going to have to move to Los Angeles at some point.  There is no way around it.  You can move to LA before you have success someplace else, or you can come to Los Angeles after you were in the hottest comedy troupe in Miami, or you worked for the hottest ad agency in Las Vegas.   

If you live far away from any place that is a center of art and culture and media and money then you need to get yourself to the closest place that has all of those things.  You can get started in theater or comedy or even film in a place like Chicago or San Francisco, and if you make it there, you can perhaps use that success to move on to New York or Los Angeles.  If you live in Seattle or Denver or Houston or someplace like that, maybe your first step is to become the hottest playwright or the hottest comedian or the hottest film maker in your home town.  Maybe you can use your hometown fame to get you from Philadelphia to New York or from Madison to Chicago or from San Diego to LA.

Going to college or grad school in LA or New York is a smart way to get your foot in the door if you want to be a screen writer.

Sooner or later, you will have to move to Los Angeles if you want to be paid to write for the screen.  How or when you get here is up to you.

If I were trying to make it as a screen writer, I’d respond to this bad news from the WGA by tripling my efforts.  I’d write a lot more.  I’d figure out how to make my mark in a new and creative way.  But you have to be smart enough and motivated enough and aggressive enough to find that new way.