Your shit has more stink than you think

There is a common self-confidence strategy - the faulty comparison. Have you ever sat down in a classroom of really smart people who seem to know infinitely more about the topic at hand than you? What do you do? Find that one person who's more lost, more tentative, more idiotic, and latch onto them. "At least I'm not the dumbest person in here." It makes you feel, if not good, at least competent. Same when it comes to attractiveness, "At least I'm not the ugliest person here." Yeah, the more we look down, the higher we feel up.

Well (as I exit Analogy Land), it's also a common and accessible confidence strategy employed by us screenwriters. Bad movies are made by the shit-load (literally). And we watch those bad movies. We latch onto them. We say, "At least my script is better than _______." Or, probably more common, "If that piece of shit can get made, so can mine."

And there's the faulty comparison.

The truth is, us struggling writers are not competing with completed movies. That would be too simple; a competition that has only a few hundred movies for us to compare to. No, instead we're competing with the tens of thousands of screenplays circulating this town on a given year. Many of those scripts will utilize the EXACT same premise as our masterpiece. And all are 100% dependent on the writer's ability; there hasn't been a director, actor, editor or set-decorator that screwed things up yet. It's our script vs tens of thousands of other scripts. All fighting for the same, small "in development" pie.

But don't all screenwriting books, instructors, and agents say that 99.5% of what's out there is total crap? How many times have we heard, "And to this day, I'm surprised with how many writers don't have a clue about screenplay format"? Surely, this narrows the field in our favor. I mean, you own Final Draft, so the format is correct, right? You spell-checked everything, right? You went to college and have a basic idea of how to string together words into a coherent sentence, right? That alone should put you in the top .5%, right?

Here's a sad truth - anyone can write a screenplay. It ain't that hard. And guess what, many of them can write it well. They can string scenes together and come up with witty dialogue. They know the proper format and spacing. They use Final Draft or some equivalent program. They've gone on script-o-rama and read all of their favorite movies. These masses know how to write a screenplay.

So, yeah, GI Joe says "Knowing is half the battle" but it takes more than half a battle to sell a script.

Remember this - Your knowledge of screenwriting is NOT enough to get you through that Hollywood door.

The rest of the writing world is not clicking at keys randomly from their harness-restrained seat on the short bus. They've bought the books, they own the software, they go to the classes.

This was a hard lesson for me to learn. I grew up in a mid-sized city far from LA. I went to college in a school bereft of a film program. When I told people I wanted to be a screenwriter, the dream itself was enough to garner me a sliver of celebrity status. "Don't forget us when you're famous, TJ!"

I rode my friend's enthusiasm for some time. The pats on the back were frequent. The intrigue constant. As the only person I knew who wanted to write screenplays, I got it into my head that I was the only person who could. Once I moved to LA, all of Hollywood would feel the same way my friends felt. Doors would open.

And then I arrived.

After a year of no contracts, no contacts, and no credentials, I swallowed my pride and took a screenwriting course. Amateur! Bush-league! Was I gonna have to explain "INT" and "EXT" to these kids, or worse, adults in mid-life crisis mode? And who was this professor who had obviously failed at his attempts to become a writer, and was therefore now a teacher, "Those who can't do, teach"? The class was on writing romantic comedies (my most marketable script having been a romcom, I thought I could "touch it up"). And it slapped me in the face.

The first day, we went around the table and read our loglines aloud. 20 different romcoms, all on the same f-ing thing! Whether it was the marching band geek and the all-star jock falling in love or the grocery clerk and the business woman falling in love, all romantic comedies are identical! None of them stood out. No query letter could dress up these ideas enough. And the same was true of mine. Nothing special.

But, I had written mine. These other guys were just in the pre-writing phases. Once I brought my pages in, eyebrows would raise. The world would open.

Nope. My pages were met with a massive "ho-hum." Other students had pages ready that day. We read them aloud and each was better than mine.

I had submitted this script! I had pawned it off on coworkers who might have a connection! I bragged about this script to anyone who would listen! And, what do you know, it was utter shit! I was not special. I thought it was brilliant, I thought I was ahead of the curve, but I was buried in that 99.5% pile of crap.

But I learned something in that class. I learned more than any of those other students who worked to twist their storylines together. I learned what it takes to, at least momentarily, stand out.

Writing is not enough. Perfecting is essential.

First, you need a concept. Everyone knows this, but few people understand it. In that romcom class, almost everyone thought they found the perfect concept. Something that had never been done before. But (in the romcom world), it must be more than "Quirky Person A meets oppositely quirky Person B in this unusual, yet familiar situation." It must be bigger. More engaging. Something that makes an exec say, "Wow, that's an idea."

And you can't come up with it by comparing it to movies that are out there. Or else you'll simply take "When Harry Met Sally" and set it in a law firm. Oh, and let's make Harry a dentist, and Sally a British woman with stereotypically bad teeth and a fear of drills!

The idea needs to be something that nobody has ever seen before. It needs to flip the film-making world on its head while still obeying all natural story-telling conventions. Don't think outside the box, don't think in the box. Instead, sit on the edge of the box and look around.

And then, execute, execute, execute. Go Anne Boleyn on that script's ass! Words on paper aren't enough. It has to be perfect. The story needs to flow like dominoes in a riverbed after the dam bursts. The characters need to walk off the page and tell the reader, "God, I bet you wish you knew me in real life." And don't think that nobody will notice the problems that are pecking at the back of your mind. They'll stand out. They'll scream for attention from readers.

The point is, don't be lazy. Don't compare yourself to every piece of shit that floats around this industry. Compare yourself to the gems. And then beat them. Strive for perfection, and if you fall short, you'll at least land at "pretty damn good."