Maybe about twenty-five years ago I decided that I was going to give Hollywood a try. Oh no, don't worry. I have no acting ambitions. I like to help out my filmmaking friends by being in their movies or helping behind the scenes occasionally, but I have no serious desire to be an actor. No, I decided I was going to be a screenwriter.
My first lesson was that this is even harder to do than getting a book published by one of the Big Five. Since I already had experience getting rejected by the Big Five, I figured I'd give it a shot anyway.
So I started reading screenplays of movies that I thoroughly enjoyed. Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs comes to mind. So do the Coen Brothers' The Big Lebowski and Barton Fink. Mario Puzo's adaptation of his own book, The Godfather. And one of my favorites, Unforgiven by David Webb Peoples.
This, by the way, was before the internet was so ubiquitous, so I found them the old fashioned way. Some of them I bought from Borders in book form. Some of them I was able to hunt down at the Elmhurst Public Library in the 800's section, which was the section I worked in as a page. I know it will not come as much of a surprise to you, but I sat on the floor reading these things when I should have been working. The problem with actually doing my job was, I was good at it, and I was fast at it. So they would give me other people's work to do. I'm opposed to that sort of thing, so I started hiding out in the stacks when I was done with my own work, pretending to make sure the books were in order.
So I started writing screenplays using their example as opposed to how-to books, which is essentially how I taught myself to write prose. I thought I was decent at it, but I'll bet if I looked up one of my screenplays now, I would be horrified by how bad it is. Perhaps, as an object lesson, I should post one of them for your perusal. It would make a lovely entry into the John Bruni Museum of Mediocre (At Best) Shit, which I've not added to in many years.
The key to writing for Hollywood, though, is you kinda have to move there, and I didn't want to do that. Also, the more I learned about the preproduction process, the more I realized that kind of thing just wasn't for me. I deal with enough narcissists at my various jobs. I would not want to work with any for the writing part of my life.
It's been a while since I thought about these things, but then I read the horrifying account that I'm about to share with you. And shockingly this is only part 1. Part 2 has yet to be posted. Ultimately I think what I'm trying to say with this GF column is to be open to constructive criticism, but you should have confidence in the writing you believe in. Don't let anyone tell you that you're unprofessional, especially not a fucking producer.
This is long. You might want to save it for tomorrow, but if you're a writer thinking about a Hollywood move (after the WGA hands the studios their ass, of course), you should really give this a read.
(Hey, if you work a desk job with no internet monitoring, save this for when you're at work looking to kill some time. I know that's what I would do.)
Without further ado, brace yourself for the horror.
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