by Robert Crane

Created on: May 25, 2007

If you are unpublished, you are one of my peeps. We are a nation of millions of poor saps who scratch our heads in constant angst with every killer query letter returned in standard issue rejection, while we squirm in our Costco leatherite desk chairs to take pressure off the birth of a new hemorrhoid.

For my own sanity, I'd like to share some things I have learned over the past ten years. It is the least I can do. But before I begin, I must warn you, remove any loaded guns, put the arsenic away, tuck the noose under the bed, and pull the box of Kleenex near.

Are you ready? Let's do a little sharing then, shall we?

One: Contests

I dabbled in writing scripts about ten years ago, entering two in some smalltime but legitimate screenplay contest in Monterey County, California. When informed that both made it to the second round, I secretly allowed myself the simple pleasure of imagining my acceptance speech at the Academy Awards. When I daydream, I don't mince fantasies. A month later, I received the "sorry but" letter for both scripts. I realized later that the second round was reserved for those scripts that were submitted in the correct format and with a payment that didn't bounce. So much for HollywoodI filed my acceptance speech away.

Lesson One: the second round of any writing contest only means two things: 1) your work was formatted correctly, and 2) your check/credit card entry fee was approved.

Two: Paying to be read

Undaunted, I decided all I needed was to have one of the scripts read and critiqued by a literary agency/service. I found one, The Star Literary Service in Tucson Arizona. It was before Google was around. So I forked up $90 to have it critiqued, believing that once read, they'd clamor to represent me. I soon received a boilerplate response with a few standard critique paragraphs essentially saying, "The writer has promise but the script is not marketable. Thank you very much."

In all fairness, having dusted off the script recently for a reread, it was amateurish but not because it was not marketable. In fact, a few years later "You've Got Mail" was released, a slightly modified version of my story called "Roomance", right down to the actors I had in mindso much for no market. The truth is, the script was amateurish because, other than the dialogue, the scene descriptions read like a Tolstoy novel, making it about sixty-eight pages longer than it needed to be. Regardless, I would have been better served if I had just played the slots in Atlantic City

• 1
• 2
• 3
• ...
• 8
• Next Page >>