It’s a bit of a two-parter.
(QUICK NOTE: I’m thinking that for now, the blog will be updated on Mondays. That’ll give me enough time to panic all weekend on figuring out what I want to write and make sure I have something great to start the week)
Years ago I was at the Screenwriting Expo of 2008 (shoutout to David and Mike and all the other folks I met that weekend) meeting writers from all over the world, all walks of life, all ages. I was pitching projects, going to workshops, and listening to working writers talking about their time in the trenches.
Introverted as I am, it took just a few drinks to loosen up and start talking to everyone about the projects that they were working on. I met a guy who had spent 20+ years working on a fantasy series, a dude in high school just looking to meet people, and a few other gals my age who were just dying to break into the industry.
At the end of the day, just about everyone there had the exact same goal: Find someone to buy their script.
Ah, the good ole days in the early 2000s when spec sales were aplenty (this was just after the writer’s strike so studios were hungee for some delicious tentpoles) and our dreams of a quick 6 figure sale were more like a low fudge brownie in the hills instead of a high apple pie in the sky kind of hope.
Then I met a gal from West Virginia who is the topic of today’s post and who taught me the value of the important question. She pitched me a project that was trying to be a coming of age story but ended up being something more akin to a long, boring, angry facebook update. It was a tale about a girl in a trailer park who lived a life of meaningless drugs and bluegrass and who ends up leaving her abusive mom to go live a few trailers down.
I held my best smile and nod, but then she ended with my favorite pitch ever: “And this story is perfect because it’s about me.”
HO BOY. I could go into the finer details, but I do want to give her the benefit of the doubt. She admitted she never wrote the script, only was pitching and hoping someone would buy her life story. I watched her move about for the rest of the night, telling her tale of woe to anyone who would hear it and I do still think about her to this day because of what she taught me.
I recently watched a youtube video that suggested you, as a writer, should assume that you are the rule and not the exception. This is geared towards authors, but dang is it true of screenwriters as well.
Now there are exceptions to this, right? This lady was no Wolf of Wallstreet, no Antwone Fisher, no Tanya Harding, but she thought she was. If anything, her screenplay about her life might’ve made more sense as a self-printed book at a local town’s bookstore. The pitch didn’t have any twists or turns or inciting incidents. It was just word vomit. There’s an argument to be made that her story, properly handled could exist:
This leads me to the purpose of this blog. What’s the one question every writer needs to ask themselves before starting their story? It’s this:
Who will want to see this movie?
Or
Who will want to read my book?
You know I’m making my point because I’m bolding and underlining.
Here’s the second part to this, emphasized by font choices:
Who will want to see YOUR movie?
and
Who will want to read YOUR story?
If you’re just trying to write something to assist with your existential crisis, by all means, do it, but don’t bet on any studio paying $50,000,000 to purchase, produce, distribute, etc. That’s entirely unreasonable.
Look at the box office right now:
…Okay bad example.
Look at the box office for 2019 and look at any of the 4 quarters of the year
Jan-March
April-June
July-Sept
Oct-Dec
I’m not hear to argue originality vs remakes. That’s another day.
What I am betting is that at least a few of these made you go “yeah I’d plop down $30-$50 to sit in a dark room with a bunch of strangers ranging from extremely rude to gentlefolk to be entertained for a few hours.”
Even academy award-winning best pictures have some sort of appeal despite whether or not they sound interesting to the bulk of the population (That’s what you need to be shooting for by the way)
Books are a little different, but every friend I have that is an author targets specific quadrants from children to young adults to recently divorced mothers in Wisconsin who happen to live on 5+ acres.
The point is, when you’re creating your story, it never hurts to ask that question. If you find that you’re writing a story just for the sake of pushing a theme or an idea or trying to get on THE BLACKLIST, you need to consider your reader. Chances are, that little red wagon you had as a kid that took you on all sorts of adventures and is a symbol for childhood innocence just isn’t going to be enough for the typical full-time worker to want or desire to spend several hours of their hard-earned cash. They’d rather buy Cyberpunk 2077 for the same price as taking someone out on a date, paying for their dinner, the gas to go to the places they’ll go to, and then pay for the movie.
What am I saying in this rambling mess? Consider your audience.
If you can do that, you’re already farther along than some of your peers.
If you made it this far, here’s a meme.
~Nic
