From Idea to Script to Sale
Before I get to today’s blog…
Thinking about doing more with your writing? Why not join me in Paris June 2-7 for my Masterclass in Screenwriting? Come be part of a dynamic community of writers and literary agents to learn, to write, to network, to energize your literary goals—and just to have fun in the City of Light!
The Paris Writers Workshop is the longest running literary program of its kind. This program offers 6 masterclasses by renowned authors, each a specialist in their field—and I’ll be teaching the Screenwriting Masterclass—in English, of course.
The workshop will be held at Columbia University’s beautiful Reid Hall campus in the heart of literary Paris—Montparnasse.
Registration is now open: https://wice-paris.org/paris-writers- workshop
We’ll have a great time getting your story ideas off the ground!!
What??? 200?!
Once I realized what this week was, I thought I’d take a break from talking about summer films. Because this is the 200th blog post I’ve written on writing and movies and so forth.
Why? Why keep talking about this subject?
I guess it’s because I wished when I was starting my life out—going to college, etc.—that I’d thought about a writing career. I didn’t. I just didn’t imagine anything so amazing like writing was open to someone like me from a small town in Iowa. Why was that? Well, writing was so amazing to me. I was an avid reader—just devoured books. And I went to the movies every Saturday… I revered stories so that I think I felt you had to be someone really important to write one. And I was hardly important. If it hadn’t been for scholarships, I never would have made it out of my hometown to go to college, let alone have any aspirations to do anything really exciting like write.
And I didn’t for a long time. But when I decided to give it a shot—that meant moving to L.A. for me—I felt like I just had to try. I didn’t want to be on the porch of the old folk’s home at 95 wondering if I could have done it.
So I guess that’s my message—it’s OK to try. But to really try, you need to be well versed in what you’re trying to achieve. Anyone can head for L.A. and say they want to write, but if they don’t know anything about writing, if they haven’t tried to write, and tried again and again and again, they probably won’t make it.
Part of ‘trying’ means educating yourself. So you write a script. Then another. Then another. My friend Michael Arndt [Little Miss Sunshine, Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens] and I spoke at a writer’s conference where he told the story of how he got started… about how he wrote screenplay after screenplay while holding down a ‘job-job’ to pay the rent. When he finally broke through, after close to a decade, with Little Miss Sunshine it was about his 9th script. And after Sunshine’s success, his agents said, “Give all the others to us—we can sell them all.” And Michael turned them down—said he wasn’t a good enough writer then.
Very smart. He realized the learning curve involved in writing. Sure, you occasionally hear the Cinderella story about someone selling their first screenplay out of college, but that’s so rare. Most people break through after writing a LOT of spec scripts.
So that’s why I’m doing this blog—I want to see you writing… EVERYTHING. Try a comedy, try a teen film, try a horror film, try a period drama… wherever your passion lays, that’s where you should work. I tried TV, film… just everything. And after 3 ½ years, I made my first sale.
As it’s summer, we’ve been looking at great summer films so that you can think about a summer film you might like to write. Next week, we’ll continue with an important summer film from 1989… stay tuned… and keep writing!!
Copyright © Diane Lake
23Aug20
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Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com