ELEPHANT BUCKS

Independence from Delusion

Sheldon Bull — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 16:40:00 GMT

The article below was printed in the Business section of today's Los Angeles Times newspaper:

ScreenwriterDavid Steinberg was invited last fall by a producer to pitch his ideafor a rewrite of a "high-concept comedy" about an adult slacker for amajor studio.

Steinberg figured he had a good shot at theassignment with credits like "American Pie 2" under his belt, eventhough he heard there were many other writers competing for the opening.

Afteran initial meeting, the producer asked him to prepare a more detailedproposal, known as a "beat sheet," outlining each scene and character.Steinberg reworked four drafts of his pitch and met with otherproducers, each one offering a different take while praising him for a"great job."

Normally, jumping through all those hoops signaled hehad the job in the bag. Not this time. Steinberg was vacationing withhis family in Aruba over the winter holiday when his agent e-mailed himthat the studio picked another writer.

"I was devastated," saidSteinberg, a lawyer before turning to screenwriting. "If I was going tobreak into the business now, I don't know if I could do it because thereare so few opportunities to sell a script or get an assignment."

Suchis the dreary lot now facing many of Hollywood's screenwriters, whoemerged from a bruising strike two years ago only to be hit by therecession that forced a sharp retrenchment in filmmaking at the studios.

Thisweek the Writers Guild of America, West reported that while earningsfor screenwriters have bounced back to pre-strike levels, there is a lotless work going around: employment has fallen 11% in the last threeyears, with 226 fewer screenwriters working in 2009 than 2006, the yearbefore the 100-day walkout and the lowest level in at least six years.

Indeed,the recession has given the movie studios a reason — or an excuse,depending on the perspective — to adjust in their favor how they employscreenwriters.

When screenwriters do get a shot at work, they areincreasingly subject to "sweepstakes pitching," in which as many as adozen are pitted against one another, with producers picking the onethey like best.

Or writers are often paid only for the first draftof the script in "one-step deals," and no longer offered a fee forsubsequent drafts, as in the past. Writers also are expected to produceelaborate outlines of the script before they are hired for the project,losing valuable time if they are not selected.

The practices haveraised the ire of the Writers Guild of America, West. The union'spresident, John Wells, and other guild members recently met with studioexecutives at the Beverly Hills Hotel to air their concerns aboutpractices they view as exploitative and harmful to the creative process.

"Whatsome members are telling us is, 'I'm being asked to write a film beforeI've been hired to write a film,' " said David Young, executivedirector of the Writers Guild of America, West. "It's not just bad forwriters, it's bad for the entire industry."

Studio executives whoattended the meeting, including Tom Rothman, co-chairman of Fox FilmedEntertainment; Warner Bros. President Alan Horn; and Donna Langley,co-chair of Universal Pictures, all declined to comment. The Alliance ofMotion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains contracts onbehalf of the studios, also would not comment.

Two people whoattended the meeting, but who asked not to be identified because theproceedings were confidential, said studio executives vowed to reexaminethe practices but at the same time emphasized the right to protecttheir financial interest.

After the meeting, Warner Bros. moved tophase out one-step deals while also insisting that writers meetdeadlines for work.

Of course, writers aren't the only ones inHollywood to be squeezed. Confronted with a sharp decline in DVD sales,studios have been clamping down on the fees paid to top stars andfilmmakers, who are being asked to defer their share of profits inmovies until studios have recouped their production and distributioncosts.

To cut expenses further, studios have slashed spending ondevelopment — the industry's equivalent of R&D — while scaling backthe number of movies they release each year: the guild bestowed writers'credits on 237 films last year, down from 299 in 2008.

Withthe closing of several independent distribution labels, studios havebeen purchasing fewer scripts in favor or adaptations of comic books,graphic novels, remakes and TV shows.

All of which has meant fewerjobs for rank-and-file writers, especially those who are trying to selloriginal scripts.

"Except for current A-list writers, the pictureis as bleak as I've ever seen it," said former Writers Guild PresidentDan Petrie Jr.

Writers think the crimp in what the studios arewilling to pay puts a cramp on creativity since it doesn't encouragerisk-taking.

"When a writer is working on a one-step deal, he'sgoing to be risk-averse because if he takes a flier on a wildly creativeor inventive way of telling the story, he might wind up getting fired,"said Billy Ray, writer of the thrillers "Flightplan" and "Color ofNight," whose last four projects have all been one-step deals. "He won'thave another draft or two to make it work, so he's going to write itdown the middle."

That's because, as agents who representscreenwriters note, a script often doesn't come together until aftermultiple rewrites.

"In my opinion, it's shortsighted," said NicoleClemens, head of the motion picture literary department forInternational Creative Management. "In terms of the development process,what's unfortunate about the one-step deal is that the movie is often'found' in the second or third draft."

Which means that if writersdon't succeed with the first draft, they won't get the chance to try,try again.

richard.verrier@latimes.com

The story is about how tough it is for writers to get jobs writing movies these days.

This site has been about becoming a TV sitcom writer, and will likely remain so. If you've visited this site before, you also know that I am not full of dizzying encouragement. I'm not a rah-rah kind of guy. I'm a realist. I feel my job is not to pump you up, but to open your eyes.

I post this LA Times article about movie writers for the following reasons:

1) To show you that I'm not making all this stuff up. Here's a pretty honest and sobering article in the hometown newspaper of the entire movie and TV industry.

2) My dear friend, Blake Snyder is no longer with us. We're about one month shy of the anniversary of his untimely death last August. Blake was the wannabe screenwriters' guru for several years. I have heartily recommended his Save the Cat books. Blake was a big booster for wannabes. He was always full of enthusiasm and high hopes, and I loved that about him. He was a lot of fun to be around because he was so excited about everything. He was also a real screenwriter who had sold scripts for big money and seen those scripts turned into actual feature films.

I collaborated with Blake off and on for several years, from about 2001 through 2005. Blake and I used to call ourselves the hottest unpaid screenwriters in Hollywood. We were very busy for a few years there, cranking out four or five spec screenplays, going to "meet and greets" at Hollywood production companies, going to pitch meetings at Hollywood studios, reading scripts written by other writers that had already been purchased and then offering our advice to studio executives on how the script could be rewritten, and writing proposals and outlines for Hollywood producers. We got meetings all the time. Drive-on passes were left for us at the gates of every studio in town. There was only one problem. We weren't getting paid. Not a dime. Blake and I never earned one dollar as a screenwriting team. We worked hard at it together for about four years, this after both of us had worked hard at it (and gotten paid for it) for a number of years beforehand. None of our hard work together ever earned us any money.

As I read the article in the LA Times this morning about what the current crop of screenwriters is going through, I thought to myself, "That sure sounds exactly like what happened to Blake and me." So if you take a few minutes to read the article, know that I have read it, and that what you are reading is accurate. The only thing wrong with the article is that it makes it sound as if all of this stuff is new. This stuff has been going on for ten or fifteen years. The point of the article is that the WGA is finally trying to do something about it. Good luck, WGA.

3) I also post the article in today's LA Times because I've gotten e-mails lately, similar to ones I've been getting since this site went up, asking me to please explain the secret formula for getting your spec scripts read by people in Hollywood. When asked this question, I always refer the asker to the second half of my book, Elephant Bucks, which talks about all of this in detail. But the short answer is: You have to figure that out for yourself. The article in the LA Times this morning may help you to appreciate how tough this business is. The hardest work you ever do in your life will likely not be on any script that you write. The hardest work you do as a writer will be getting your first paid writing job, and getting your second, and getting your third, and keeping any job that you do get. Writing is easy. Getting paid for writing is very, very difficult.

I don't offer the link in order to ruin your Fourth of July weekend. I do post the link in order to disillusion you.

The Buddha said that the path to enlightenment requires constant disillusion. He didn't mean that in order to be enlightened you have to walk around bummed out all the time. He meant that in order to see the truth you must remove illusions which blind you to the truth.

The truth, as you will read in the LA Times article, is that it is more difficult than ever to get anything read in Hollywood. It is even more difficult to get paid as a writer. It is even more difficult than that to keep getting paid.

I've known for years that most of the work that movie writers do is for free. Movie writers spend weeks and months preparing pitches, outlines, even writing entire scripts for free, trying to get an assignment. I have been through this grinder with Blake Snyder. Once a writer is hired, the work they actually get paid for usually takes only a short time. It's like playing professional golf. Over 95% of the time that professional golfers spend is on the practice range. The time they spend actually earning money is a matter of a few hours.

This "working for free" agony that used to only exist in the feature film world has worked its way into television. I heard an unconfirmed - but I am quite certain accurate - story about aveteran TV writer and producer who recently got a freelance assignmenton a scripted TV series. (Freelance assignments on scripted TV series are, for all practical purposes,extinct. I was amazed that this person got the gig at all.) Thisveteran writer/producer hoped for a staff job on the TV series, sothe writer/producer worked for free on staff for several weeks, offering advice to the producers for no pay, hopingfor a shot at a paid staff job during the upcoming production season that is now under way. It didn't work. Theveteran writer/producer was not hired and had to settle for that onefreelance assignment. Seems like a lot of work for nothing, doesn't it? Welcome to Hollywood.

All new scripted TV series are developed at the TV networks and major Hollywood studios by veteran TV producers with a hit show, or two or three hit shows, already under their belt. When those series are put on the air, the veteran TV producer hires his or her friends to work on the show. How do you become the friend of a veteran TV producer with a show on the air? You have to figure that out for yourself. I can tell you how to write a good spec script. I can tell you the basic rules of how to get yourself in the right place at the right time, but the heavy lifting is up to you. There is no secret Starbuck's in West LA where Hollywood heavyweights sit in their Mercedes and accept spec scripts from wannabe writers who just got off the bus from Pittsburgh.

As the article in the LA Times this morning also points out, there is virtually no market left for spec screenplays. Almost all feature films are now developed in-house at the studios and are based on comic books or graphic novels, video games, old TV series, other movies, best-selling books, blogs, or popular toys. Writing a spec screenplay is a bigger gamble than ever. As many veteran writers are saying to each other these days, "You might as well just forget the writing and buy a lottery ticket every day. Your chances of winning the lottery are probably better than your chances of selling your spec screenplay."

If you're gearing up to shoot me an e-mail asking, "How do I get my script read by a Hollywood big shot?" my answer is: I don't know. If I knew, I'd tell you. You have to figure that out.

As the article in the LA Times also points out, even if you do get your spec script read, don't think that you can now buy your house in Malibu. If your script gets read, and somebody loves it, you still may end up working for free for months if not years before someone ever actually pays you.

I'm here to open your eyes, not fill you with false hope so I can sell you more books. My book, Elephant Bucks, is valuable in helping you learn how to write a solid spec sitcom script. Getting an actual job is entirely up to you.

I wish you all the luck in the world. I also wish you a happy, safe, and enlightened Fourth of July weekend.

Cutting and Trimming Your Scripts

Sheldon Bull — Sat, 08 May 2010 20:58:00 GMT

Someone asked about rewrites and making scripts tighter. I posted the comment under my previous blog.

The simplest answer for how to tighten a script is to remove all dialogue that isn’t necessary to move the story forward. If you give your script to others to read, they may have notes about exchanges of dialogue that are too long. The notes might be stated as: “I got bored in this part,” or “This part seemed to go on for a long time.” There’s a place where you need to trim or cut.

Writers fall in love with jokes or exchanges of dialogue, even entire scenes, that aren’t needed to move the story forward. If your script is too long, you are going to have to cut something. Likely, what you are resistant to cutting are your little darlings, your favorite jokes or tangents that don’t move your story along.

A student of mine was in love with a long opening bit in a spec script. The bit did nothing to advance the story. The bit, in fact, delayed the story from starting. But the student was in love with this bit. It took weeks of my prodding and criticizing for that student to finally let go of two pages of dialogue that weren’t necessary to the story and were actually harming the script.

You may also be a long-winded writer who hasn’t learned yet how to write more efficiently. If a scene is long, but you feel you must have that scene, then take a hard look at your dialogue because there absolutely is a way to make any scene shorter with more efficient writing.

William Goldman, the great screenwriter of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid among countless other screenplays, always said, “Start a scene at the last possible moment.” In other words, don’t start a scene with John and Mary saying hello to each other and asking what’s new. If the point of the scene is for John and Mary to discuss the murder of Fred, start the scene with: “Oh, my God, did you hear about Fred getting killed!”

When I was producing series, and we had a script that was a page or two too long – and this happened every week – we would go through the script as a group and trim little couplets of dialogue here and there that weren’t essential to the story. Sometimes that meant cutting a joke that some writer had contributed and loved. Sorry. The script must be cut for time. The network isn’t going to give us ten more seconds of air time this week just because one of our writers fell in love with a joke.

Cutting a script down to the proper page count is part of the maturing process of a writer. If you childishly cling to every word you wrote, you will stay stuck in writer’s adolescence. If can learn how to maturely trim your scripts, you will have a better chance of being seated someday at the adult writers’ table.

Can I Ask A Favor?

Sheldon Bull — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 00:51:00 GMT

If you liked Elephant Bucks, will you take five minutes, go to Amazon.com, go the page for my book, and write a quick positive review? I'd appreciate it, and my publisher would appreciate it even more. New reviews help keep up the interest.

Thank you.

How to Create A Hit Sitcom

Sheldon Bull — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 22:00:00 GMT

The following was sent to me by a friend. It was written, as credited, by Chuck Lorre, the creator of "Two and a Half Men" and "The Big Bang Theory." Thought you might enjoy bitter cynicism from someone other than me for a change:

HOW TO CREATE A HIT SITCOM
A simple, step-by-step guide to prime time success.
by Chuck Lorre

Start drinking early. I don't mean early in the day. I mean early in
life. Eight years old oughta do the trick. Heavy drinking isn't
necessary. All you need is enough hooch to get through a Cub Scout
meeting without tearing your skin off.

Your ability to make the big bucks as a sitcom writer is directly tied
to the sickness of your parents. Stop whining to your therapist and
send mom and dad a thank you note for royally fucking you up.

Fail to become a member of any group worth joining. Once again, this
is something you need to get an early start on. Whether it be
athletics, academics or crime, make sure you don't measure up. Social
rejection combined with the hard-wired damage done by your folks
creates the insecurity and self-loathing necessary for a writer to
"know where the funny is."

Nurture your fear of women. Long for them. Ache for them. But always
keep in mind that you don't deserve them. If you should happen to get
involved with one, always remember: If she loves you there is
something fundamentally wrong with her. You just can't see it yet.

Don't start as a sitcom writer. Find something you love more than life
itself and then fail at it. Once the reason God put you here has been
revealed to be a cruel hoax, you'll be a better team player.
Thoroughly defeated people are more inclined to take those tough
network notes.

Don't be afraid to experiment with soul-crushing poverty. You'll find
yourself ahead of the pack when it comes time to write that warm,
family sitcom because you know what it means to enjoy a big bowl of
ketchup soup.

Don't cheat yourself out of being a colitis patient in a rundown
teaching hospital. Dealing with psychotic sitcom divas is a snap for
someone who's had an anesthetic-free colonoscopy in front of twenty
giggling med students.

Marry a woman who is beautiful, kind and loving and encourages you to drink.

Have a kid when you're poor and uninsured. Convincing an OB-GYN and an
anesthesiologist to perform a caesarean section on credit is
invaluable training for really tense pitch meetings. In fact this is
such a helpful exercise, have another kid so you can do it twice.

Walk in the first door that opens. It doesn't matter if it's the door
you want. Someone wants you to write shitty Saturday morning cartoons
in order to sell a bunch of shitty toys? What do you care? You left
your last shred of personal dignity in the teaching hospital. And your
kids still don't have medical insurance. Write the damn thing and see
if the check bounces. If it doesn't, write as many as you can before
they find out you don't have a clue what you're doing.

Ignore your ignorance and make yourself irreplaceable. Work harder
than everyone else. If it helps you get through the night, con
yourself into thinking that your My Little Pony script will actually
impart life lessons to some snot-nosed, lead paint licking kid
somewhere.

Eat staggering amounts of condescending shit from condescending
assholes who don't have children and whose only hope of getting any is
with candy and a panel truck.

Now that you've scratched and clawed your way into a stable,
well-paying job writing Saturday morning cartoons, watch passively as
your wife runs out and buys a house. There's nothing like a big
mortgage to make sure you don't quit a job that has already begun to
kill you.

Don't be complacent. A moving target is harder to hit. When the
limited animation geniuses go home at night you stay late and write
sitcom and drama spec scripts. It doesn't matter if your next job
involves writing, "Hey, which one of you kids put a chicken in my
pants?" Or, "We caught a floater in the East River. John Doe, shot
twice at the base of the skull with a small caliber pistol. Probably a
twenty-two." Your goal is to charge through the first open door that
has health insurance, residuals and enough prestige to show those
morons in high school just how wrong they were about you.

Slowly start to destroy your marriage because of many of the
unresolved issues mentioned above.

Now that you're working it's easy to get an agent. Don't dwell on the
fact that the little bastards wanted nothing to do with you when you
were unemployed. Get one anyway. It doesn't even matter which one you
pick. For the sake of simplicity, take the first one who says they
love your writing. Don't get hung up on whether or not they're lying.
You'll be firing them soon.

Get your first freelance, sitcom writing assignment for which you are
paid the incredible sum of six thousand dollars. Become a proud member
of the WGA for the incredible entry fee of six thousand dollars.
Attend a 'new members' cocktail party and feel like you've finally
joined a club worth belonging to. Enjoy the night immensely because
you're blissfully unaware that the next WGA event you'll attend will
require you to carry a picket sign.

Roll your freelance success into your first sitcom staff job. Sure
it's an embarrassingly silly show, but you don't embarrass easily. You
still have vivid memories of playing guitar and singing "Big Bad Leroy
Brown" at a wedding in Long Beach for forty dollars and all the lamb
kabob you can eat.

Continue to work harder than anyone else so you can't be fired. Turn
in your first script which follows the executive producer's outline
beat for beat. Almost get fired. Quickly write another script which
follows your instincts and get an atta boy. Learn a priceless lesson
that you will ignore over and over again during the course of your
career.

Write four scripts in succession that are produced and get paid for
none of them because "term writers don't get script fees." This is
your first clue that the WGA is not completely on the ball.

Continue to eat condescending shit from condescending assholes while
working fifteen to seventeen hours a day and six days a week. Discover
the boundless joy of driving home when the sun is coming up. Make
friends for life with the aforementioned assholes because you are now
one of them.

Drink more. You can afford the good stuff now.

Notice that writers further up the food chain are quitting in
frustration. Take this as an opportunity to ask for a promotion. Get
one. What the hell, ask for another. Get it. Rise from term writer to
supervising producer in two and a half years because you are a glutton
for punishment and everyone else quit.

After three years of miserable, seventy hour weeks someone at the
network belatedly realizes that when the premise of a show is two men
who have never met agreeing to live together and raise the daughter of
a dead woman they both slept with twelve years ago because either one
of them could be the little girl's father but no one wants to go to
the trouble of taking a blood test, the show should be cancelled.

Facing unemployment, fight to get on a hit show that everyone else is
fighting to get off of because the star, while undeniably talented,
has a few personal issues not to mention a coke-addicted boyfriend she
just made executive producer. Consider the shit you've lived through
and think, "How tough could it be?"

Quickly discover that working on this show causes you to look back at
the anesthetic-free colonoscopy with fond nostalgia. Sign
non-disclosure forms that threaten you with dismissal and legal action
if you tell anyone the truth about what actually goes on there.

Take more abuse than you ever considered possible but hang in there
for two years and fifty episodes because you're making more money in a
week than your father made in a year. Think to yourself, "The
suffering and sacrifice of my ancestors is redeemed through my
success," in order to avoid thinking, "If I'm a whore, does that make
my agent a mack daddy?"

Become single again and, after an initial surge of joy and freedom,
discover that she was not the reason for your misery. Oh, well, no
time for self-reflection now, you're on your path to creating a hit
sitcom!

Quit drinking. For almost a whole day.

Roughly nine years after walking through that first door, finally get
a chance to create your hit sitcom. But it won't really be yours. You
have no creative clout. Your employers have lots of clout so, ignoring
the priceless lesson, rely on their series premise, their casting
choices and their comic instincts. Your hit sitcom is cancelled in
five weeks. Your employer calls it a "noble failure", but noble isn't
the word used in any of the reviews. The word putrid is used twice.

Get back on your feet by pitching a single-camera film comedy based on
Douglas Adam's "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency." Your
employers think it's a swell idea but instead want you to write a
sitcom about a blue collar single mom on videotape. You see little
room for compromise.

Write a heart-warming script about an heroic single mom who struggles
against overwhelming odds to raise her children and make a new life
for herself. Fail to take into account that the gal cast by your
employers to play mom, hates kids, hates people, hates sitcoms and,
most importantly, hates you.

Wake up to discover you have created a hit sitcom and Ralph's doesn't
sell enough Stoli to ease the pain. Find yourself looking back at the
bent superstar and her twitchy consort with fond nostalgia.

Quit the hit show you created and get right to work creating another
hit sitcom for another wack-job diva because you are just plain
stupid. Get fired from your second hit show because the co-star wins a
fucking Emmy... and you're stupid.

FINALLY learn from your mistakes and create a hit show with wonderful,
loving people. Late in the second season during a rehearsal suddenly
realize they are not going to hurt you.

Stop drinking.

Marry again. This time to a beautiful, warm and loving woman who
encourages you to drink water.

Write a half dozen pilot scripts that are used as landfill. Write and
produce three busted pilots in a row because you think you know what's
wrong with TV comedy, but are really still stupid.

Then, when you're about to quit the business in disgust, write a pilot
script with an old friend. Not because you like him. No one really
likes him. Write it because he has two young kids, dental problems
that would scare English people, and if he doesn't write something
quickly he'll lose his WGA health insurance, which is something you
know about. Anyway, a script is written and when it's time to come up
with a title, the phrase "two and a half" effortlessly floats into
your consciousness.

To everyone's surprise and delight, the script attracts an incredibly
talented, easy-going, warm and generous star. The star attracts a
green light. Green lights attract Jimmy Burrows. He has script notes.
You have creative clout now, ignore them.

Brilliant, sane actors join the cast. A young boy who was obviously a
world-class actor in a previous life and is simply picking up where he
left off makes the whole thing feel like it's really going to happen.

A group of extraordinary writers overlook that you're a condescending
asshole pummeling them with condescending shit and help you make a
great pilot. Great pilots get killer time slots. Killer time slots get
lots of viewers. Lots of viewers are required for a sitcom to be
considered a hit... if the viewers come back week after week.

They come back.

Drive to your big, fancy house in your big, fancy car, drop to your
knees and whisper, "Thank you, God, for showing me this simple,
step-by-step guide to prime time success but couldn't we have done
this without the teaching hospital?"

Share the guide with others.

A Great Time in Toronto

Sheldon Bull — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:46:00 GMT

I’ve just returned from the first annual Toronto Screenwriting Conference, which was held at Ryerson University in the heart of downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Several thoughts come to mind as I sit back at my desk here in Los Angeles:

First, I left too soon. I didn’t know I was going to have such a good time, so when I was given the option weeks in advance of the conference for a one or two-night stay in Toronto, I opted for the single night, figuring that if my presentation really sucked I could get out of town fast. What I did not expect was to meet so many writers to whom I took an instant liking, and to meet so many wonderful young people who volunteered to make the event happen. I also did not expect to so thoroughly enjoy myself in Toronto, a city I had not visited since 1971. What a great town, the little I had time to see. I’ll have to go back and see more. I was having a wonderful time, and just as I was finally relaxed, feeling that my presentation had gone well, it was time to get on a plane and go home.

Second, my deepest thanks and appreciation to and admiration for everyone involved in staging this very professional and useful event.

My very special thanks to Glenn Cockburn, the head honcho at Meridian Artists Literary Agency in Toronto. This conference was Glenn’s idea. He, his partners at Meridian, and a host of tireless volunteers did a stellar job of organizing a great weekend for writers to get together, give each other support, share ideas, make new friends, and learn a thing or two from each other in the process.

More thanks to Bryce Mitchell, Jon Davis, Quinn McCutcheon, and all of the other volunteers who steered me skillfully and gracefully through my brief stay in Toronto and through my presentation on Saturday.

Third, my deep appreciation to the new friends I made at the conference. In chronological order:

Pam Douglas, who lives in Los Angeles and ended up as my traveling companion to and from Toronto. I’ve now spent more time in airports and on airplanes with Pam than I have with anyone other than my wife. After a successful career as a TV writer, Pam now teaches at USC. She’s bright and funny and insightful. If you’re interested in writing the one-hour TV format, I’d look Pam up on the internet.

Ellen Besen, a teacher and animator in Toronto, who graciously organized a very enjoyable evening on Friday for us MWP authors. I was tired when I got to Toronto on Friday night, and frankly a little nervous. What a pleasure for me, after checking in at the hotel, to come down to the restaurant and find Ellen waiting there, as she had promised. I made an instant friend, and had a wonderful conversation about writing, animation, films, education, the arts, philosophy, you name it. Thank you, Ellen. You got my very short stay in Toronto off to a great start.

Jennifer Van Sijll, a writer, educator, and MWP author, joined Ellen, Pam, and me on Friday night. Though Jennifer now lives in the San Francisco area, she is a Toronto native, and treated me to a walking tour of downtown Toronto on Saturday morning. What a pleasure for me. I would have just stayed in my hotel room brooding about my upcoming presentation. Instead, I got to see a bit of the city with a bright, talented, fascinating fellow writer who will remain my friend and colleague.

Rob Sheridan and Rhett Reese joined Glenn and me for lunch on Saturday. These guys are two very successful and talented writers. The four of us barely had time to talk before I had to rush back to the conference to give my presentation. I hope to get to know both of them better.

I extend my best wishes to two of the other speakers, Dara Marks and Linda Seger, who I met only briefly.

Thanks, also, to Ken Lee at MWP for making sure copies of my book were waiting at the conference for me to sign.

My only regret is that I missed the presentation of my good friend, Ellen Sandler. Ellen was scheduled to speak on Sunday and came in to town on Saturday as I was leaving.

The conference attendees were professional writers who asked great questions. I had a wonderful time speaking to them and listening to them after my presentation.

If you’re a writer and you live anywhere near Toronto, make sure you attend the conference next year.

A final thought: During the winter Olympics from Vancouver, I heard and read so much about how friendly the people of Vancouver had been to visitors. I can say that the people of Toronto that I met were equally warm and welcoming. I can’t wait to get back to Canada.

Toronto Screenwriting Conference

Sheldon Bull — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 03:42:00 GMT

I will speak at the Toronto Screenwriting Conference in Toronto, Canada, on Saturday, April 10. If you live in the area and/or are interested in attending the conference check out their website at torontoscreenwritingconference.com. A number of good speakers are going to be there. I'm looking forward to the event.

Where Do Sitcom Writers Come From?

Sheldon Bull — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 20:25:00 GMT

Often on this blog, I have reminded you that there are no talent scouts. The movie studios and TV networks are not now, nor have they ever been, on a desperate nationwide search for new talent. The manufactured myths of American Idol aside, Hollywood is not looking for sexy singers, pretty actresses, hard-charging producers, visionary directors or even clever sitcom writers. They don’t need to look for these people. Those people are already here.

Ten thousand incredibly talented people, more talented people than Hollywood will need for the next twenty years, are camped outside of the studio gates at this very moment. (If you come to Hollywood, the people that you literally see camped out in front of the studio gates are actually in line to see Ellen DeGeneres or The Price Is Right. When I say “camped,” I mean that metaphorically. The talented people already live here. They can show up for a studio audition or a network pitch meeting in ten minutes if their agent calls.)

So where do TV sitcom writers really come from?

Let me rummage through my memory and give you a short background on some of the writers that I worked with when I was writing and producing network TV sitcoms.

On my first TV writing staff, one of the older writers had been an actor on radio when he was a kid. He kept acting when he grew up, but when that got frustrating he tried his hand at writing. Since he knew a lot of people in show business already, he was able to talk friends into hiring him as a writer. He acted sometimes and wrote sometimes and made a decent living at it for many years.

One of the other writers on that first TV writing staff started out writing the celebrity ad-libs on game shows. (I hope it won’t come as too big a shock to you that celebrities don’t actually think up those clever things that they say to Bonnie Hunt or David Letterman. That stuff is written for them by professional writers.) Through connections that this game-show writer made at the TV networks, he worked his way into sitcom.

Another writer was the step-son of a well-known TV writer. One writer was the girlfriend of the step-son of another well-known TV and movie writer. Another woman was the daughter of a well-known writer.

I once worked for a writer/producer who had started out as a trumpet player for a popular singer. He pitched jokes to the singer. The singer liked the jokes and used them in his act. The trumpet player started making more money selling jokes to singers than from blowing his horn. He eventually got a job writing for TV when one of these singers landed a prime time variety show. When variety shows disappeared, the trumpet-player-turned-writer moved to sitcom.

A number of the sitcom writers I knew started out writing jokes for comedians. I worked with several sitcom writers who had worked as joke writers on the late-night talk shows. Some of these men and women had started out as stand-up comics themselves.

One writer I worked with was the son of a famous cartoonist. Several writers with whom I worked were former actors. I worked with a number of women writers that started out as secretaries on TV shows or for production companies. One woman had been a page at NBC, showing people to their seats when they came for a taping.

I worked with a writer who got his start at the Harvard Lampoon. Another came from advertising. One writer was the brother of a Playboy Playmate.

In the early days of my career, some of the sitcom writers I worked with had a background in the New York theatre as playwrights or actors or just working in an office on Broadway. Later, more and more writers came from cable TV.

The point of all of this is that over the course of my career I worked with and knew dozens of sitcom writers. Everybody had a different story. Almost every story was interesting. But no two stories were alike. I knew writers who started out as journalists or documentary film makers. One woman was working in a post office on the east coast when she sent a spec script to a former college roommate who had gotten a job in Hollywood. Several writers started out on children’s shows.

As I think about it now, years later, I may have been the only sitcom writer that I ever knew who started out actually wanting to be a sitcom writer. Most of my colleagues seemed to have stumbled into sitcom from somewhere else.

Where do sitcom writers come from? Everywhere.

There are no talent scouts. There is no shortage of talented people in Hollywood. Hollywood is not waiting for you to finish your spec script. There is no line that you can stand in to sign up for a job on a sitcom staff. There is no magic address to send your pilot or screenplay to. There is no person at any studio or agency in Hollywood whose job is to read the scripts sent in by people that no one has ever heard of. If one of those unsolicited scripts does get read before it’s thrown away, it’s because some receptionist or junior assistant got bored.

In my book, Elephant Bucks, I devote a sizeable chunk of Chapter Seven to offering suggestions on how you can get your Lucky Break in Hollywood. But there are a thousand other ways to do it. It’s up to you to figure out the way that works for you.

What You Can Learn from Jay Leno

Sheldon Bull — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:30:00 GMT

I opened The Los Angeles Times this morning – yes, I’m so old-fashioned that I still read a printed daily newspaper – and found three, count them, three articles about Jay Leno and NBC. One article was on the front page of the entire paper – below the fold but there it was nonetheless. The other two articles were on the front pages of the business section and the entertainment section. You may have also noticed or even stopped to actually read articles about Jay and NBC this past week at various sites on the internet and even in the vaunted New York Times.

In case you’ve missed all of this, NBC seems to have finally admitted to itself what everyone else already knew, that The Jay Leno Show, which airs five nights a week on NBC at 10:00 pm, is not succeeding. About twenty million people could have told NBC that last summer when The Jay Leno Show was announced, but more about that later.

If you don’t understand much about how network television works, or you don’t really care – and if that’s true, what are you doing on this site? – the main purpose of 10:00 pm programs on the broadcast TV networks is provide viewers for the 11:00 pm newscasts on local stations. “Really?” Yes. “You mean to say that the real purpose of CSI: Miami is just to funnel viewers to the late news on some station in Baltimore?” Yes, that’s precisely what I’m saying, and every TV executive or ad executive in the world will tell you the same thing. “Why?” Because pretty much all of the money that local stations earn comes from selling advertising time on their local newscasts. If local stations aren’t making money, they can’t afford to buy the expensive series produced by the network. (You can read dozens of articles to back this assertion up. I interned in the newsroom at a local TV station when I was in college. I can tell you from my personal experience that the 11:00 pm newscast is the bread and butter of any local station. If the 11:00 pm newscast isn't doing well in the ratings, everyone panics. It really helps a local 11:00 pm newscast to succeed if the network show that comes on at 10:00 pm is popular.) If a TV network like NBC doesn’t have thriving local stations to air its prime time programs, then the network can’t charge as much money for advertising time on those prime time programs. The network also risks losing some of those local stations to another network. The way to have thriving local stations is to help them promote their newscasts. The way to promote local newscasts is to provide the local stations with popular series at 10:00 pm, which is the time slot right before the newscasts come on at 11:00. See how it works now?

So, if this site is here to try to help you break into sitcom writing, why should any of this brouhaha with Jay Leno matter to you? Why am I writing about this today? Jay Leno isn’t the star of a sitcom and there are no sitcoms on at 10:00 pm.

One of the reasons that I blog on this site is to try to help you to think clearly about what kinds of sitcoms succeed and what kind don’t. If you understand what succeeds, you can write what succeeds. And one way to possibly encourage you to think realistically about what succeeds is to show you how thinking unrealistically leads people away from success.

I keep telling you that the series you should be watching and studying are the series that are the most popular. I keep harping about Two and A Half Men and The Big Bang Theory on CBS because those are the two most popular sitcoms on TV, and they are the most popular by a lot. It’s not as if those two series are just barely edging out 30 Rock, The Office or Family Guy in the national ratings. Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory are miles ahead of those other shows and way ahead of all other sitcoms in the ratings, and that’s why I think you should pay attention to those series. Unlike Jay Leno, Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory are succeeding. If you were trying to break into screenwriting, would you study the movies that flopped and ignore the giant blockbuster hits? I hope not. So if you want to be a TV sitcom writer, or even a one-hour drama writer, or even a TV sketch writer, shouldn’t you try to understand what succeeds on television and not just focus on what your friends think is hip or what some critic likes?

The lesson I want you take away from The Jay Leno Show is that the hippest, most aggressive, most opinionated, most confident, brashest, most in-your-face people are often the stupidest. In fact, those people usually are the stupidest. We had eight years of proof of that between 2001 and 2008 with a brash, confident, swaggering, boastful cowboy in The White House, and the country nearly collapsed because of him and the incredibly idiotic decisions that he made. We also had boat loads of brash, confident, boastful, swaggering businessmen running some of the biggest corporations in the world – corporations like Enron and Bear Stearns and AIG and General Motors and Bank of America. Those companies are all now bankrupt or nearly bankrupt.

Well, now NBC is on the verge of collapse because of the brash, confident, swaggering, boastful executives that have been running that network for the last few years.

The Jay Leno Show was a bad idea. The network was thinking unrealistically. When NBC started falling behind the other networks, they should have looked at the Neilsen ratings, seen which shows were succeeding, watched those shows, and tried to learn from their success. But they didn’t. A few brash, confident, swaggering executives decided to let themselves be distracted by costs, deluded by their own ill-considered impulses, and dazzled by Emmy awards and industry buzz. As a result, they stuck with shows that weren’t popular, dropped shows that were popular, and made themselves believe that they could succeed with a bargain basement retread of The Tonight Show in prime time. It didn’t work. It didn’t work in a spectacular way. If the executives in charge of Comcast Corporation, the new owners of NBC, are smart guys, they will first fire all of the swaggering executives now working at NBC, they will open the latest Neilsen ratings, they will look at what is succeeding on their rival networks, and they will realistically try to learn from other people’s success.

I’m currently reading a very interesting book called Dangerously Funny – The Uncensored Story of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour by David Bianculli. If you are under forty years old, you may never have heard of The Smothers Brothers, but they were an extremely successful comedy act back in the 1960’s. They starred in a short-lived but groundbreaking and wildly successful one-hour variety series on CBS, back in the days when variety series were extremely popular on network television. The Smothers Brothers were cutting edge comedians, but when they were awarded their own prime time variety series, they did not decide to get boastful or impulsive or swaggering. They decided to be realistic. They decided to do what worked. They developed a very traditional variety series based on other successful variety series on which they had been appearing as a guest act for years. What made their series so successful, and ultimately so controversial, was that rather than thinking outside the box, they stayed in the box and then pushed hard at the sides of the box. They did comedy sketches, but their sketches were hipper and smarter. They booked musical acts, but the acts they booked were edgier and fresher. They also used established acts and familiar performers. They mixed everything together in a new way. What made The Smothers Brothers successful was that they studied what was already successful, then followed the example of success in their own unique and innovative way.

If you want to succeed in television, look at what is already succeeding. Look at the Neilsen ratings every week. See which shows are the most popular. Watch those shows. Study those shows. Try to understand why those shows are successful. Then try to learn from their success. I’m not saying that you should never think outside the box. But before you can think outside the box, you have to watch what’s on the box, and see what works in the box, and then try to imaginatively and realistically apply that knowledge to the space all around the box. NBC and Jay Leno forgot to do that, and as a result, they fell on their brash, swaggering, boastful faces.

Year End Wrap Up and Funny People

Sheldon Bull — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:16:00 GMT

CBS continues to dominate the sitcom world with their Monday night lineup anchored by Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. These are the only two sitcoms on TV that can reasonably be referred to as hits. How I Met Your Mother does okay opening the night. I guess it’s there to help Jason Segel’s movie career. Accidentally On Purpose, the sitcom knock-off of the movie Knocked Up, is no knock-out and likely won’t be knocking around next season.

I still think The Big Bang Theory is the best sitcom on TV, despite the critics’ and award givers’ undying love for the wildly unpopular, sketchy, uneven, and often cringingly bad 30 Rock.

CBS’ sitcom hour on Wednesday of Gary Unmarried and The New Adventures of Old Christine continues to eek out lackluster ratings and no buzz.

NBC has basically given up. Their anemic Thursday night lineup, anchored by an increasingly tiresome The Office, limps along unnoticed by the public. Neither Parks and Recreation nor Community has found an audience. I suspect the audience for 30 Rock is made up entirely of critics and award givers.

ABC’s ringing return to sitcom has been mostly a dull thud. Cougar Town whimpers without a growl. Hank clanked after only a few airings. The Middle is a muddle. What is the premise of that show exactly?

The one semi-bright spot for ABC is Modern Family. I’m not thrilled with their “let’s shoot is just like The Office” faux-documentary approach. I suspect it was the network’s idea, and perhaps this conceit can be dropped if the series is renewed for next season. To the extent that Modern Family works, it is because of the break-out character played by Sofia Vergara. When watching, I live for the moments when she is on screen and endure the long stretches when she is not.

I expect Modern Family to survive and would pick it as most spec-worthy for 2010.

The problem with every sitcom that isn’t on CBS, and why the sitcoms on other networks don’t grow into hits no matter how many awards they receive, is that the characters are unlikable. Sitcom has been stuck for over a decade in the same rut: “Let’s do a show where everybody is a selfish, clueless, immature jerk with no moral compass.” It was fun on Seinfeld for a while. It hasn’t been fun on any other sitcom for the last ten years. Does anyone at the networks other than CBS remember when sitcom characters were people that we liked and sometimes even admired? Does anyone remember when sitcom characters aspired to be decent people? Does anyone remember Everybody Loves Raymond, Cheers, Frasier, The Cosby Show or The Mary Tyler Moore Show?

On another but not entirely unrelated subject:

When the late Blake Snyder and I were collaborating on movie scripts, a question that Blake always insisted that we answer for ourselves was, “Who are we writing this script for?” Who is the intended audience for our screenplay or TV pilot? Blake wasn’t talking just about which studio might buy the script, although that was part of the consideration. More importantly, Blake wanted to know precisely who our ultimate audience was going to be. Who did we expect to be sitting in the movie theater or in front of the television watching this story? Was it teenage girls or twenty-something men or married women or who?

Why did Blake feel that it was important to identify the audience? Doesn’t a writer just write whatever story comes into his or her head and then leave it up to fate to decide who is going to want to hear it? Blake always said, “No. You can’t leave it up to fate. You have to know who you are writing for!” If you know who you are writing for, your story will have focus. Your structure will include the plot elements that your target audience wants to see. A studio considering your project will understand what kind of movie or pilot you are trying to sell. It is critical for every screen writer to know who she or he is writing for. Without that knowledge your script will likely become a muddled mess.

And to make that point – know who you are writing for - let me use the movie Funny People as an example of what can go wrong when you don’t know who you’re writing for.

I was watching a DVD screener recently for this Judd Apatow movie. I didn’t see Funny People when it was in theaters. (Apparently, millions of other people didn’t see it either. According to IMDB, the movie grossed about $70 million worldwide, which was also the estimated budget. When you factor in the costs of marketing and distribution, probably another $70 million, the movie was a bomb.)

As I watched Funny People, I kept asking myself Blake’s old question: “Who was this movie written for?”

Judd Apatow’s regular audience is young adults. His hit movies, and he has had quite a few of them, have been aimed at the eighteen to thirty-year-old demographic, which is a smart demographic to shoot for. Other than thirteen-year-old boys, young adults are the people most likely to go to a movie. Executives at the major studios and at the TV networks are most interested in making movies and TV shows that will interest this demographic group. Judd Apatow has shown a real gift for developing hit movies for young audiences: The Forty Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, and Superbad.

So what happened with Funny People? Why did it perform so poorly at the box office if Judd Apatow’s fans are among the people most likely to go to a movie? Was Funny People written for Judd Apatow’s regular audience of eighteen to thirty-year-olds? And if it wasn’t written for them, who was it written for?

The elements for a successful movie seemed to be in place for Funny People. The movie starred Adam Sandler, who has been a popular star among younger audiences. It co-starred Seth Rogen, who seems to be in every Judd Apatow movie. You had Apatow himself writing and directing. You had strong supporting players in Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman. You had cameo appearances by half the comedians in show business. And yet, when Funny People was released, the audience stayed away. What happened? Was it bad marketing? Was it bad timing? Was the movie swamped by some giant blockbuster disaster movie that came out the same weekend? Or was the real problem with Funny People that the creators never honestly asked themselves, “Who are we writing this movie for?”

The string of successful R-rated sex comedies that started in 1999 with American Pie and continued through The Hangover all have important story elements that are appealing to the target audience of young adults. I participated in a seminar at UCLA a year or two ago on the subject of writing comedy for the screen. I shared the dais with several other veteran comedy writers including a guy who was teaching a course titled, “Writing the R-rated Comedy.” This writer said that R-rated comedies are based on one stupid act, such as getting drunk at a bachelor party or going to bed with Seth Rogen. (The One Stupid Act in The Forty Year Old Virgin was Steve Carell revealing to his male friends that he had never had sex.) The story that follows becomes the hilarious consequences of that One Stupid Act. (In my book, Elephant Bucks, I refer to a similar moment in a sitcom script which I call the Unwise Decision. One Stupid Act or Unwise Decision, it’s the same critical plot element.) I’ve also noticed that even though R-rated comedies are marketed as broad and offensive - That’s the hook, right? You’re going to see something offensive - the fact is that almost all of them turn out to be very sweet stories about growing up. At the end of the movie, the socially inept main character has matured significantly. Like most good stories, successful R-rated sex comedies are about redemption. The main character ends up a better, happier, more complete person as a result of going through the ordeal that follows the One Stupid Act. (In The Hangover, the main character is all three of the guys. Since the three characters act in tandem throughout the movie, they really count as only one inept main character. The One Stupid Act is drinking the booze laced with the blackout drug.)

In watching Funny People, I noticed that these vital story elements – inept main character, one stupid act, and redemption - were not clearly defined. I think the reason these elements weren’t defined is that Mr. Apatow never decided who he was writing the movie for.

Who is the main character in Funny People? Is it Adam Sandler or is it Seth Rogen? Adam Sandler’s character is hardly inept. He’s rich and famous. He has sex with any woman he wants. Yes, he’s lonely and miserable, but that isn’t because he’s socially backward. It’s because he’s a selfish jerk.

Is the main character of Funny People Seth Rogen? Rogen’s character better fits the successful R-rated model. He’s inept. He’s a struggling comic working in a deli, bombing on stage, and striking out with women. But he’s also the second banana in the story. You don’t usually make the second banana the main character. Sandler and Rogen can’t be counted as a single character since each of them has a separate story.

So right away Funny People is in trouble because the audience doesn’t know who or what they are rooting for. The audience doesn’t know what the goal or problem is. Sandler has a potentially fatal disease, but so what? He’s a jerk. We don’t care if he dies. Rogen is working for Sandler, but so what? We don’t care if he succeeds at his degrading job.

What is the One Stupid Act in Funny People?

If there is One Stupid Act for Adam Sandler’s character, it is the pursuit of his ex-girlfriend who is now married to someone else, but that plot line doesn’t get going until halfway through the movie.

If there is One Stupid Act for Seth Rogen’s character, I guess it’s when he agrees to work for Adam Sandler.

But there is no clearly defined One Stupid Act in Funny People. Without One Stupid Act early in the film – Katherine Heigl getting pregnant in Knocked Up, Jason Segel checking into the same Hawaiian hotel as his ex-girlfriend in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the three guys waking up in the trashed Las Vegas suite in The Hangover – you don’t have any hilarious consequences to play out in the rest of the story.

Before the audience is fifteen minutes into Funny People, two of the three critical elements in a successful R-rated comedy – inept main character and One Stupid Act – have been either irreparably muddled or simply tossed aside.

Is there redemption in Funny People? At the end of the movie, Adam Sandler is slightly less of a jerk than he was at the beginning, but he hasn’t really changed very much. Seth Rogen is somewhat less of a wimp, but he still goes crawling back to Adam Sandler. So where exactly is the redemption?

Did all of these mistakes result from the creators of Funny People not knowing who they were writing the movie for? I think so. If they had been writing the movie for their usual audience, they would have included the critical elements that would have made the story work. I think Judd Apatow was writing Funny People partly for his regular audience, who he perhaps took for granted. But mostly I think he was writing the movie for the critics and the award givers, the same tiny audience that Tina Fey is happy to court with 30 Rock.

Here’s the problem with writing for critics and award givers: There aren’t enough of them to justify a $70 million movie or an expensive single-camera TV series. And surprise for Judd Apatow, the critics mostly hated Funny People, and it isn’t going to win any awards.

There are elements that I can admire in Funny People. It’s pretty realistic and unapologetic in its depiction of people in show business. Most creative people in Hollywood are soulless, vain, selfish, uncaring jerks, just like the characters in the movie. The only character in Funny People who isn’t a complete jerk is Seth Rogen. But he’s such a wimp throughout the movie that you can hardly admire or root for him.

Frank Capra, the three-time Oscar winning director and producer of the classic comedies It’s A Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, and You Can’t Take It With You, said that you can’t be successful in movies unless you are entertaining. Funny People is not entertaining. At two hours and thirty minutes of cynicism, bitterness, and ennui, it’s an ordeal. Who did Mr. Apatow think was going to be up for this ordeal? Who was he writing this movie for?

Keep these things in mind the next time you start a spec pilot or screenplay. You need to know who you are writing for. The writers of the CBS comedies on Monday night know who they are writing for. The writers of practically every other sitcom on TV don’t.

Tenacity

Sheldon Bull — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:11:00 GMT

I was poking around the house earlier this afternoon, trying to find my copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. I think it is in that book that Gladwell talks about tenacity as one of the key elements of success. I wanted to see if I could find a pithy quote for you because I was thinking about tenacity this afternoon. Well, I can’t find the book. I gave it to my wife many months ago. The book has disappeared into the black hole of her stuff. It could be anywhere. If I were more tenacious, I’d keep looking, or ask her where it is. But right now let’s move on to talking about tenacity rather than demonstrating it.

Lest you think that I spend my days peacefully basking in my own success, I want you to know that I spend my days writing, and I haven’t enjoyed success in a long time. I was a hot-shot TV writer and producer from 1976 until early in 2000. At that point, my long lucky streak ended, rather abruptly I might add, and I went back to being the struggling writer I had been in 1975. I’ve been struggling ever since. In the last nine years I have written or co-written ten spec screenplays. I have sold exactly none of them. I wrote four spec TV pilots. Again, no sales. I wrote one book, Elephant Bucks, which, according to the publisher, has sold about seventeen copies. I am in the process of writing my fourth play. No productions are yet scheduled.

With success becoming more and more a faded memory, I still spend some part of practically every day writing. Seven days a week. (There are vacations here and there. Last week my wife and I went to Lake Arrowhead, a man-made body of water in the mountains about an hour and a half drive east from Los Angeles). I do all of this work, tenaciously, not because I am such a great writer (because I’m a pretty mediocre writer) or because I have so many ideas that it takes me all week to jot them down (because I struggle for ideas) or because I’m so self-disciplined. (I am self-disciplined, but that is hard-wired in me. It has nothing to do with character or will. My inborn self-discipline has also caused me to miss out on all kinds of fun over the course of my life that I could have had were I a little less self-disciplined. My personal self-discipline has a Puritan, self-punishing quality to it that I don’t really enjoy all that much.) The bottom line is: I write because I can’t think of anything else to do.

Is this tenacity? And if so, is tenacity something that helps you to succeed as a writer?

Pretty much every day during the last nine years, I’ve asked myself the same question about writing: “What in God’s name are you still doing this for?” And the hectoring voice that poses that question goes on to place the following argument: “You’re never going to sell anything ever again. You had your shot. It’s over. Move on to something else. Be like Ed Begley, Jr., and get into the ecological household cleaning products business or Dick Van Patten and sell organic dog food. But for heaven’s sake, get over the writing because you’re finished at that. And frankly, you were never that good at it to begin with.” When I’m done with the self loathing, I go back to the writing. You may have noticed that self loathing and writing get along really well together.

As I continue to write, day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out, approaching decade in and decade out, and continue to not succeed at writing, am I being tenacious? Am I laying the groundwork for future success? Or am I kidding myself? Am I merely being stubborn and delusional and mono-focused on something that isn’t ever going to go anywhere?

Dunno.

My wife found Outliers. She found it in two minutes. How tenacious of her.

I thought I remembered a section in Outliers about a writer who had toiled for many years without success and then suddenly found it. I paged through the book, perhaps not as tenaciously as I might have, but I didn’t find the story about the writer. I think that story is not in the book but rather in an article that Gladwell wrote for The New Yorker magazine when he was promoting Outliers. I’m not going to get on The New Yorker website to find the article about that writer. You can if you’re tenacious enough.

I did find the chapter in Outliers on "The 10,000 Hour Rule." That rule states, basically, that if you’re willing to work at anything for 10,000 hours, you’re bound to get good at it. So there’s a vote from Gladwell for tenacity.

On the other hand, here’s a quote from another part of Outliers: “People don’t rise from nothing. We do owe something to parentage and patronage. The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves. But in fact they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” In other words, on the road to success, accidents and dumb luck can also be a huge help.

So, as I sit here writing without success, am I being tenacious, putting in the rest of my 10,000 hours, approaching a second career as a playwright? Or am I foolishly swimming against a tide of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities that are destined to lift and carry someone else?

Well, here’s the thing: I don’t know what else to do. I’ve gotten used to this writing thing. I’ve been at it, almost non-stop, since 1972. At this point, giving up writing would be like giving up Scotch and baseball and chocolate and sex and Mexican food and Preston Sturges movies and Hawaii and Gershwin and my dogs. I might be able to give up three of those, but I can’t give them all up.

Tenacity? I don’t know. It’s just what I do.

A New Way

Sheldon Bull — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 19:14:00 GMT

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.

CBS' 'The Big Bang Theory' Becoming a Hit

Sheldon Bull — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:54:00 GMT

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: August 18, 2009

NEW YORK (AP) -- It's looking like CBS has a companion hit to go with ''Two and a Half Men'' on Monday nights.

The audience for summer reruns of the sitcom ''The Big Bang Theory'' is up 52 percent over last summer. Nielsen Media Research says the show had nearly as many viewers as television's top-rated comedy, ''Two and a Half Men.''