9

The Life

There are many paths to success as a comedy screenwriter. Unfortunately, almost all of them go through Hollywood. I’m not just talking about the geographic Hollywood, though the fact that you’ve read all the way to the last chapter of this book tells me that you may be thinking of gassing up your car and heading out there.

I’m talking about the whole movie industry, which is run by a veritable handful of people. And those people live and work as a herd. If one of them likes you, it’s a solid bet they all will. And if one of them dislikes you … well, as I wrote earlier, it is actually possible to live in Hollywood and be, for all purposes, thousands of miles away from the movie business. In fact, most of the screenwriting population of Hollywood is effectively on the outside, far from connection with any of the players who could help them fulfill their life’s ambition. I know. I’ve been there. In fact, I’ve parked my car and stayed all night.

Unless you get incredibly lucky, your struggle to break into the biz will take at least a few years, if not a sizable chunk of your life. This book will ideally be one of many you will read—hopefully, more than once—along the way. And while I am not an A-list writer, I have had significant success. I hope you can see the virtue in sacrifice and perseverance, whatever comes your way.

Of course, I’m just one example of a screenwriter who broke in.

We comedy screenwriters are an increasingly diverse group. However, there are some constants in our experience. One is that our ranks have no middle class. There are no blue-collar screenwriters. Nobody makes a “decent living” at it. Nobody punches in and out daily, knocking off at 5:30 and not doing a lick of work until they show up the next morning. That never happens.

And our peculiar profession tends to attract and cultivate certain personality types. Psychologist Dennis Palumbo—a former screenwriter who specializes in treating creative professionals—says screenwriters are “self-loathing narcissists.” I have found this to be true in my own case and in the case of the many screenwriters I have known.

Let me tell you more about what I know about you, or at least about the person you are trying to become.

You are a writer, but you are not a true artist—at least not when you are screenwriting. You are above-the-line talent, but you will likely be ignored on the set of any movie you write, if you are even allowed on set. (By way of disclosure, I was banned from the set of Bride Wars, which I wrote. Apparently my presence would have been jarring to the confidence of the writers hired to revise my work. And, yes, the first thing they did was to re-write my character names. They took my “Liz” and transformed her into “Liv.” My “Abby” became “Emma.” I often wonder, Did that take a long weekend or what?)

I digress. But that’s another thing you ought to know about us screenwriters; we pity ourselves with reckless abandon. Which brings me to the subject of …

Sacrifice

Just about all working screenwriters have a story about the days in which they were not working. The day they showed up in Hollywood, laptop in hand, ready to eat the bear.

For me, Hollywood was a last chance to become somebody and make my mark. Living on the East Coast, I had written songs for a rock band—songs that never made me a dime. I had written freelance articles for the Washington Post—again, you can’t live off that. I was a playwright—no money there.

But I wanted to earn a living as a writer. So I left the East Coast in a beat-up Toyota Tercel and headed West.

Los Angeles is no paradise for a newcomer. I rented a studio apartment in a bad neighborhood and took a day job. There I was, selling books for a publishing company while toiling away on my scripts at night. My biggest advantage was my unpopularity—without a girlfriend or social life, my nights and weekends were open … for writing.

I experienced near-constant depression mixed with occasional exhilaration—it was scary, lonely, and, yet, thrilling. I was on my own in a strange land without friends.

I wrote, but I also researched. Every night I watched three or four movies, which I rented at a mom-and-pop video store just across the street from my apartment on Venice Boulevard. I stayed up late to get it all done and went to work groggy-eyed every morning. I was in my groove—my desperately lonely, hard-typin’ writer’s groove. In fact, I was so caught up in that groove that I paid little attention to my surroundings.

One night, right before closing, I walked into that mom-and-pop video store to return the movies I had rented the night before and rent some more. I was working my way through the comedy section—determined to watch and diagram every movie they had. And as I stood in the back corner of the store, reading the DVD box for a movie called Eddy and the Cruisers, a guy walked up and put a gun to my head.

The thief had already robbed the cash register and made the cashier and his girlfriend lie face down on the floor. He had locked the front and back doors of the store, trapping us inside. And now he was demanding that I empty my wallet. I had only spare change and a gum wrapper to give him. With the gun shaking in his hand, he berated me: I’m gonna kill you, motherfucker! KILL YOU!

Luckily, he didn’t and eventually ran off into the night. When the cops came, I could tell them little about the gunman—my eyes never left the gun. I went back to my studio apartment, called my parents and friends back on the East Coast, told them what happened, and then lay down to sleep for what had to be the loneliest night of my life.

I just kept thinking, If I had died out here in L.A., would anybody have cared?

If you made a movie about my early life in Hollywood, that night would have been a good place to end Act 2. And by the way, if you do make that movie, I want producer credit. And Brad Pitt for the lead.

In any event, from that night onward, I felt I had paid my dues in Hollywood. I know it doesn’t make any sense and I know I could have gotten held up at gunpoint anywhere, but … to me it felt like God was exacting a price from me. Like I had passed through a gate and come out the other side.

From then on, I started staying up even later, writing even harder, and schmoozing even, uh, schmoozier.

Eventually I broke in. But I didn’t do it alone, which brings me to …

Collaboration

When people say that filmmaking is a collaborative business, they are usually about to tell you to make changes to your script.

In most cases, you have no choice. After all, screenwriters sell their work. Thus, we have no control over the product. That is often a good thing because the product can be hellaciously bad—a clusterfrick sandwich. And when that happens, we blame the director, the producers, the actors. Nobody listens, of course, but we blame them. And that’s fair because they blame us as well. The difference, of course, is that people listen to them.

For us screenwriters, filmmaking is almost never truly collaborative. We write, we sell. If we’re lucky, they make. And, while they make, we go back and write more—and in a hurry, because nobody stays hot forever.

Comedy screenwriters who toil away on features live on an alternate plane, far from TV writers who may go to an office every day and actually work with other writers. In other words, we’re loners.

But sometimes we find a friend, a comrade who walks hand in hand with us through the desert. I’m not talking about a spouse. I’m talking about someone who truly matters—a writing partner.

The classic comedy screenwriting partnership is two people sitting in a room—one pacing while the other types. That was Hank and I for five years. We worked two shifts per day, lunching together and often breaking only for dinner before working into the early hours of the morning. And by the way, this is still the most common and successful method of screenwriting partnership.

I have heard occasional stories about writing partners who don’t work in the same room. I’ve heard about writers who email drafts back and forth from miles away, re-writing each other over time. Or writers who divide tasks—one writes story, and the other writes scenes or jokes. Or maybe one writes and the other merely paginates.

But in our case—mine and Hank’s—we were both good at all the major elements of comedy screenwriting. One of us wasn’t stronger at dialogue or writing action. Instead, we were similarly talented and driven; we both contributed.

And that’s where partnership pays off and confers a benefit—when it doubles the comedy screenwriting power of the writers. The problem, of course, occurs when the partnership lacks competitiveness between the partners. That’s because two people working together to slay a dragon can either agree to take turns—one slashing at the beast while the other rests—or agree to simultaneously attack it with all their might. The second choice is the only one I’ve ever seen work.

Two comedy writers working at full capacity are an intimidating force. They bring double the assets, double the desperation, and, in the optimum, double the Funny.

And doubling the Funny is what a comedy writing team must do to succeed. This is where the competition between the partners actually helps serve both. When they are crafting a scene, talking their way through the actions and dialogue, they inevitably try to one-up each other. And when it’s time for punch-lines, they will throw the Funny back and forth, competing to come up with the best line. And that’s where the partnership brings something unique to the writing that very few solo writers can provide.

And producers know that. Just look at all the successful movies written by writing teams in recent years.

Now before you go running off to the local bar, Match.com, or JDate to find yourself a suitable writing partner, you need to know the downsides to being part of a writing team:

1. You Make Half the Money

Yup, half. Producers don’t pay you more because you’re a team. Hank and I sold our first script to a low-budget production company. They paid us $45,000. Sounds like decent money, right? And to a pair of struggling screenwriters, it seemed so until we paid ten percent to our agent and five percent to our lawyer. That left us $38,250.00 … to split. At the end of the day, we each walked away with a whopping $19,125.00—before taxes. For a feature film with a budget of more than two million bucks. Ouch.

2. You Are Joined at the Hip—Forever

At least it feels that way. Aspiring screenwriters work round the clock if they want to break in. So does a writing team, which means you’re spending every working minute in each other’s face. Which can turn friends into enemies. One of the benefits of a writing partnership is the enhanced brainstorming that comes with two people beating their heads against the same wall at the same time. But that also means experiencing the frustration and self-immolation of day-to-day screenwriting with another person. And I don’t know about you, but I’m like a cat—when it’s time to suffer and die I just want to crawl off into an alley and be by myself. Not that way with a partner—you take the good and bad together. And that can suck.

3. Did I Mention You Make Half the Money?

Yes, I think I did.

4. You Get Half the Glory

Have any success as partners and the industry will see you as one entity. One soul. Decide to break up—even amicably, as Hank and I did—and you may find yourself on the far side of the moon. Without a paddle. Your agent will scratch her head like she has lice, and the town will refuse to recognize what, to you, will seem obvious—that you each have talent and unique gifts. Don’t confuse us, the industry will say.

You’d think getting a divorce from your writing partner wouldn’t shock anybody in Hollywood. After all, actors make a ritual out of divorce.

But writers? Your agent and manager will cry as if their parents had split. And then been killed in a fiery car wreck, their bodies burned beyond recognition. So don’t do it unless you want to fight for your new identity, which is almost like starting all over again. In fact, you might as well pack up and leave Los Angeles, change your name, get plastic surgery, then move back to L.A. again.

Other Screenwriters (and Everybody Else)

Meet your new family. That’s right—other screenwriters aren’t just the competition; they’re your brothers and sisters in arms.

It is almost impossible for a writer to succeed in Hollywood without the help of other writers. Literary agents don’t read unsolicited scripts, so you need a friend—usually another screenwriter—with an agent to be read by an agent. Thus, you need to impress, and earn the respect of, other screenwriters. They should be your first and best fans.

You also need other screenwriters to be your advisors, mentors, and, sometimes, collaborators. They should be the first in your friendship circle to read early drafts of your scripts. Hopefully, when they do, it marks the beginning of your long march to victory and a house in the Hills. With a pool, of course. And a blonde (of either gender) lying next to it.

Which brings me to a subject you probably never imagined would be covered in this book: ethics.

I’m talking about how we screenwriters treat each other and how we treat the rest of the industry.

Hey, don’t laugh—this is important. I’m imagining a decades-long career for you in Hollywood, complete with Oscars, Golden Globes, and a private room in an assisted-living facility located within wheelchair distance of Canter’s Deli (where you can comfortably lunch with your old screenwriter cronies well into your nineties).

To make that happen, you’re going to need to need to get along with a great many people. Therefore, I suggest you adopt and live by …

DePaul’s Ethical Code of Conduct for Comedy Screenwriters

1. Treat Your Colleagues Better than the Industry Does

As I’ve alluded to many times in this book, Hollywood will kick you in the stomach, steal your milk money, and pedal away laughing. That’s understood, just part of the biz. But writers shouldn’t do that to each other because, as I said, we’re family.

And when your sister calls, you pick up the phone, right? When your brother needs help, you help him, right?

I’ve explained how you need your brothers and sisters to get ahead. I’ve told you how important they are to your writing—and reading and re-writing—process. So treat them well.

But if it takes your brother months to read your script, that’s not help; that’s an obstacle. If your sister gives you terrible notes that aren’t constructive, that’s an obstacle. And if you waste your sister’s valuable time by begging her to read work that’s not ready to be read and responded to—you’ve rolled a big boulder of wasted time in her path to success.

So put your family on speed dial. Read their scripts as soon as they show up in your email inbox, give your siblings your utmost attention, and respond with meaningful notes.

And by meaningful notes, I mean notes that are constructive. That help your sister re-write. Don’t overlook problems in the writing, but don’t beat your brother over the head, either. And, most importantly—never ask your brother or sister to read work that’s not ready.

After all, your first draft is probably barely readable for you. So don’t burden the rest of your family with it. Again, I implore you—don’t show anybody a script until you can’t do a lick more work on it. Only when you’ve run out of ways to improve your script should you foist it on other writers and ask for notes.

Until then, stay in the woodshed until your fingertips bleed and keep piling on the re-writes. The more you work on it before you hand it to me, the more I’ll respect you and come to think of you as worth my help.

2. Treat Actors with Respect

If other screenwriters are your siblings, actors are your cousins. And you know how cousins are—they don’t have to visit. They could stay distant, or they could be close. As I’ve already told you, you want them close so they can read your scripts—out loud, if possible—and you can quickly learn what’s funny and what’s to be cut.

But your cousins need to be respected. If you need to take an acting class to rub shoulders with actors and understand them, do it. The more you understand them, the more you can work with them.

If you ask them to read your work, make sure you provide adequate libation. Acting is thirsty work. And remember the cardinal rule of workshopping scripts with talented actors: never ask an actor to show up for a reading and then give the actor a tiny part.

Nobody wants to kill a night sitting around waiting to say one line. When you do that to an actor, the actor remembers—and doesn’t show up again.

So play nice with your cousins. Find out what they need to be happy and provide it. If you do, they’ll come around more often and you’ll get to hear your words more often. And that will speed up your learning curve.

Jack and I—metaphorical cousins literally rubbing shoulders.

3. Treat Directors with Respect

I know they don’t deserve it. After all, writers and directors can be like fire and water. But it pays to understand what directors do and how you can work with them.

If you are—contrary to all Hollywood norms—asked to collaborate with a director on a film you’ve written, consider yourself lucky and be accommodating. The set is the director’s turf; play by the director’s rules.

Now that you’ve read this book, you know a screenplay is nothing more than a proposal for a movie. Once you’ve turned in your proposal, stand back and let the director make the movie. Unless the director asks for help. And then tread carefully—it’s the director’s baby now. After all, if you had wanted to keep it, you would have written a play, a poem, or just about anything other than a screenplay.

Oh, and you would never have signed a certificate of authorship. Remember that? That thing they took from you when they handed you that check?

Also, you may not become a gun-for-hire screenwriter like myself. You may actually want to make the stuff you write, or even make stuff other people write. Well, good for you. Screenwriters who have any success put themselves in a great position for advancement. Get on set, mind the rules, watch, and listen. The people who could hire you want to believe you’re a team player. So play nice and maybe soon you’ll get to be the one behind the camera.

Until then, keep this book wherever you write. And buy another copy for the bathroom. Oh, and it makes a great Christmas present …

Pop Quiz!

1. 1. To make it as a comedy screenwriter, you will most likely have to:
   1. A) Sell everything you own, say goodbye to friends and family, load up your Toyota Tercel, and drive to Los Angeles.
   2. B) Get robbed at gunpoint in a video store while reading the back of the Eddie and the Cruisers DVD box.
   3. C) Write a really, really sincere letter to Stephen Spielberg asking for a three-picture deal.
   4. D) OK, it’s A. But you don’t absolutely have to drive a Tercel. Could be a Camry.
2. 2. I was banned from the set of Bride Wars because:
   1. A) I showed up dressed as one of the brides, which caused some confusion, though I did get to work with Kate Hudson for a few scenes until she noticed my Adam’s apple.
   2. B) Anne Hathaway and I couldn’t work together after what happened between us in that hotel room in Monte Carlo. OK, I’ve never been to Monte Carlo, so this answer may not be entirely truthful.
   3. C) One is simply not allowed to arm-wrestle Candice Bergen for money, even if she taunts.
   4. D) I fought for credit on the movie I conceived and wrote.
3. 3. Screenwriting partnerships suck because:
   1. A) You make only half as much as a solo screenwriter.
   2. B) It’s like being married, but without the sex. Actually, it’s just like being married.
   3. C) The industry will treat you as one writer, and nobody wants to be half a writer.
   4. D) All of the above. If you’re going to partner up, be sure you know the costs.
4. 4. You need your brothers and sisters because:
   1. A) Someone’s gotta read your work and give you notes before you show it to the industry.
   2. B) Somebody’s gotta start treating screenwriters with respect, and it only seems appropriate that it should be other screenwriters.
   3. C) Poor, struggling people need to stick together, if only for warmth.
   4. D) They’re your family, dammit! Just love them and hope they love you back.