Maplewoods Mirror #10

 

Welcome to my monthly newsletter on life and writing.  If you want to see my website for back issues and other news, please visit www.chrismeeks.com.  The back issues are on the bottom of the left column.

 

Before I get to my story about screenwriting and its career aspects, here are a few things first:

 

Upcoming Events

 

 

 

 

Upcoming Writing Classes Through UCLA Extension

 

For UCLA Extension in the spring, I’ll be teaching “Writer’s Workout,” April 17 – June 15.  It’s described in the course catalog this way: “Much in the way artists take life-drawing classes to grow and keep in form, this course is designed to get you writing right away and intensively in either fiction or narrative nonfiction forms. The Writer's Workout leads you through a series of exercises that strengthen your writing abilities, challenge you to achieve your goals, and perhaps even encourage you to set higher ones. It provides an honest yet supportive forum for your work as you learn to express ideas and emotions with greater clarity. You read and write, write, write--coming up with more stories and story elements than you might ever have thought possible in a short time. Enrollment limited to 20 students.”

I happen to use the books Creating Fiction and American Short Story Masterpieces, and after setting students into dramatic structure, they write stories.  This UCLA Extension class meets at Occidental College, which is particularly convenient for people in the Valley and north of downtown.  It’s especially close for those people living near Glendale, Eagle Rock, and Pasadena.

 

In the summer, I’m offering a new, intermediate class, also held at Occidental College, that will be titled “Fiction Writing with Rigor.”  It’ll be a six-week course at Occidental July 2 – August 6.

 

Here’s how it’ll appear in the catalog: “What do you need to become a writer?   As Natalie Goldberg says about cracking open the writer's craft, "Read, especially in your genre, listen deeply, and write."  This course does all three, and in the process, reinforces your habit of writing and your abilities to critique. We explore a series of highly regarded stories, study what a few masters say about the craft, and engage in exercises and assignments that lead you straight into writing stories, with special attention given to the power of plot, how to add desire to character, and how to connect through metaphor. While the course focuses primarily on short fiction, its techniques work well for novelists and writers of narrative nonfiction.  Prerequisite: The Writer's Workout or other fiction writing class.  Enrollment limited to 20 students.”

 

In short, it’s similar in structure to Writer’s Workout, but with more advanced looks into writing and with workshopping earlier.  I'll be using the book, On Writing Short Stories, edited by Tom Bailey, which contains the essays and short stories I want to cover.

 

If you’ve ever considered writing creatively, you might enjoy yourself in these classes.  For other Extension classes, all well-priced, check out www.uclaextension.edu/writers.

 

Writing the Great American Screenplay

 

One of the classes I teach in USC’s Professional Writing Program is screenwriting (the other is short fiction).  This week, I happened to bring in a speaker, Bayard Maybank of the highly regarded Hohman, Maybank and Lieb Agency on Sunset Boulevard. 

 

Boston-bred and Yale-educated with a degree in English, and comfortable in Los Angeles in a white shirt, blue tie, and blue blazer, Maybank nonetheless had no pretension.  He looks like a young fortyish Orville Redenbacher, lanky and handsome.  At ease, he chatted with students before we officially began, and he reminded me more of someone you might meet while traveling—personable, affable, and interested in where you’ve been.  As he later spoke to the class, he exuded a clear love of screenwriting.  After reading what has to be tens of thousands of screenplays in his life, he still loves finding good ones.  He began with how he became an agent.

 

Upon graduating Yale, he made a beeline for Los Angeles, knowing exactly he wanted to be an agent.  He started in the mailroom of a large agency, Triad, and he took classes in screenwriting taught by Syd Field and Robert McKee—not to be a writer but to understand how scripts were created.  He soon freelanced as a script reader. Within a year, Maybank became an assistant to an agent.  “That may sound glorious,” he told the class, “but I answered phones, got coffee, did errands during the day, and read scripts at night.”  He covered script after script.  Along the way, he met a wonderful woman who had been raised and educated in L.A.; they married and had children.  He rose to rank of agent, then founded an agency with two friends.  His clients include those who wrote The Devil Wears Prada, Saving Private Ryan, The Patriot, Faceoff, and many more.

 

“My job is about how to get writers paid and how to consistently make that happen.  There are six studios, and 95% of all entertainment dollars is from them.  The breadth of storytelling from them is greater than ever.  Daily I speak with producers and studio executives to talk them into seeing one of my clients.”

 

His company represents forty-five screenwriters.  The agency only focuses on screenplays.  If one of their clients writes a book, they hook them up with another agency for that.  However, Maybank looks for clients whose primary passion is to write screenplays because if they’re writing books, they’re not writing scripts.  They take on only about five new clients a year. 

 

For new clients, he needs to be impressed with a full screenplay.  A completely realized and polished screenplay is a writer’s calling card.  Great ideas for stories, scenes, half a script—he’ll consider none of that.  The best way to make a career in screenwriting is to be adept at creating memorable characters and an ability to write strong dialogue.  “The reason Spiderman worked so well is because the characters are real.  So many stories are about relationships, and it’s the little moments of a relationship that are everything.”

 

If he reads a great script, he’ll ask the writer for a second script.  If there isn’t a second script, he stops.  “I need to see two scripts,” he said,  “because I want to see if you can consistently write good screenplays.  After all, that’s what I’m selling to producers and studios—screenwriters who can write well consistently and on deadline.” 

 

If you’re to be hired on an assignment, studios want first drafts of scripts in twelve weeks.   “The script doesn’t have to be perfect,” he said, “but it does have to be on time.  If you’re late, then expectations go up, and you’re less likely to meet those expectations—and you’re less likely to get an assignment again.  Studios are business-oriented.  They work on deadlines.

 

“When my clients aren’t working on assignment,” Maybank continued, “I want them writing original screenplays.  My clients need to be writing three screenplays a year, on assignment or original.  You see, this isn’t about just one great screenplay.  I’m looking for people who want careers.”  He figures if he takes on a new client, it will take a full five years to get them making a steady living at screenwriting.  In those first five years, they might have to support themselves in other lines of work.

 

He explained if you have to support yourself while writing scripts, the trick is to work at something that doesn’t take away from your writing.  Hence, he doesn’t recommend freelance script reading because you’ll be tired out from that. 

 

One student asked him what kinds of scripts are marketable.  “I’m not like some agents,” he said.  “I don’t go for the high-concept stories.   While those, like the recent My Super Ex-Girlfriend, can be a one-shot wonder, it’s difficult to sustain.  Smaller, artful movies are what keeps you working.”

 

“What about period pieces?” someone asked.  He said they are difficult to sell, especially from new writers, but they make great calling cards.  When a producer or studio executive wants a sample script, the period pieces are often character pieces, and that gets you the jobs.  “Listen,” he said.  “Don’t censor yourself at this stage.  Look at Peter Morgan, who seemed to come from nowhere last year, and his films The Queen and The Last King of Scotland put him on the map.  These aren’t films that you’d say are sure money-making films.  They’re not high-concept pieces. Peter Morgan writes characters well.  Don’t censor yourself in terms of ideas.  If you have a high-concept idea, that can get you in the door, but your story has to be heartfelt, too.  Your scripts need heart and soul.”

 

He explained a huge difference in writing screenplays and in writing novels is that with screenwriting, you have to be comfortable talking with producers and executives.  You often are in a room with six people wanting to meet you.  “Producers might be friendly, but studio people don’t necessarily make you feel comfortable.  You may see no expression on their faces at all, but you have to talk with them as if that’s natural.  Your meetings are only about fifteen minutes.  Often they want to hear your other ideas and see if you’re friendly and someone they could work with.  Take acting classes if you need to—not to perform in movies but to learn how to appear comfortable in all situations.  To have a career, you need to build relationships.”

 

One student noted that Maybank’s website said the agency considers writers by referral only.  She said that most agents’ websites say that.  Is there a way around referral?  Maybank smiled and said, “If you can write, you can find a referral.  Referrals are easy.  Don’t be shy.  Say a friend of yours has an internship at an agency—even if he works in the mailroom.  That’s a referral.  You cousin’s boyfriend’s mother’s sister works at an agency.  That’s a referral.  Ask around.  It takes a lot of focus to make it in the movie business.”

 

One of the last questions was about what makes a script stand out when he reads one.  “Great characters,” he said.  “They stand out.  Strong dialogue, a good plot, and well-written characters become the most apparent things.”

 

To see what one of Maybank’s clients, Daniel Petrie Jr. (The Big Easy, Beverly Hills Cop) writes about how to get an agent, click on this link: http://tinyurl.com/2tdo3h

 

Processing the Above: My Life as a Screenwriter

 

I came to Los Angeles intending to be a screenwriter.  I knew it’d take more than two weeks, but I honestly thought it might happen in two months.  That’s because I’d contacted a few agents when I was living in Denver, and even flew out once to meet with one.  I thought it would happen. 

 

It did eventually, but less gloriously than I ever expected.  I’d won a screenwriting contest while I was studying at USC, I placed high for a Nicholls Fellowship in Screenwriting, and over the course of years, I had three scripts optioned.  In looking back, while I was persistent, I wasn’t completely consumed by it.  That’s because I found a love for both playwriting and fiction.  Screenwriting for me was a place to practice storytelling without worry if my wording was completely right. 

 

Between scripts, I was writing short stories, which, to me, made me more “naked.”  That’s because fiction is in its final form, and screenplays are merely the roadmap and inspiration for a film.  I’d be proud of a film, certainly, if it were ever shot, but I saw how it worked in filmmaking.  In my early years in Los Angeles, I worked on films as a production assistant and once as the sound guy, and I could see that it took an army to make a film.  The script is only one part of a film.  With fiction, it’s me alone.  I was frightened of that, actually, so I wrote my stories and kept them to myself.  (Some of those later became part of The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea.)  I kept practicing with screenplays.

 

I’m most proud of a screenplay I wrote about Albert Einstein before Einstein made it big.  He was a young guy with a love of physics and of women.  He was “living in sin” in 1905 and had a child out of wedlock, a fact only discovered just several years ago.  Einstein, who Time Magazine named “Man of the Century” in 1999, is primarily known as the old guy with wild hair who figured out E=MC2.  I loved researching him and finding his true character.  I loved learning he was just as confused about his place in life as I’d been, and that he’d been rejected plenty of times.  He been hurt and buoyed by love, too, and I could relate.

 

The problem I had in showing the script was it kept being seen as a “period piece,” and thus too expensive.  One agent had a different take: “This isn’t the Einstein people know.  They want the old man.”  That made me realize I wasn’t compatible with the industry.  It was time to brave another form of writing.  That led to my writing plays, and, after I had three produced, gave me the guts to start sending out my short stories, which then started getting published.

 

Even so, I love great movies.  This year I was moved by such films as Volver, The Queen, The Lives of Others, Little Miss Sunshine, and Borat, because I find truth in them.  Despite how the film industry is set up, good films get through occasionally.  I can’t help but love the art form when I see what it does at its best.  I love books, too, and in 2006 I fell for Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, Bill Deasy’s Ransom Seaborn, Nick Hornby’s A Long Way Down, and Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife.  Great stories in any form are fabulous, which is why a Yale graduate and English major like Bayard Maybank can fall for film and, despite the system, get a few great scripts through. 

 

What I realized when Bayard spoke to my class, by the way, is that a writer in any form has to focus on that form.  A novelist won’t write three novels a year, but he or she might aim for one a year.  I’m working on my third in four years, and I plan to start my fourth soon in a few months.  It’s all about trying again and again, writing while passion and your heartbeats let you.

 

David Mamet on Screenwriting

 

This seems to be the screenplay issue.  It wasn’t planned that way, but that’s where I’m going.  I happened to pick up a new book by David Mamet, Bambi Versus Godzilla: On the Nature, Purpose, and Practice of the Movie Business. What I love about Mamet is he isn’t shy.  He tells the truth as he sees it.  He’s not known as Mr. Happy as his cynicism can run as deep as Crater Lake, but he has a fabulous sense of humor.  These two qualities are perfect for someone to describe the film industry.  If you’re trying to get into the industry, this book can serve as an inoculation.

 

If there’s a truth in the human condition, it’s that we’re contradictory, and that truth runs through Mamet himself.  In an essay in this book entitled “How to Write a Screenplay,” he speaks about the perversion of the system, and yet Mamet knows he’s now a part of this system. 

 

He speaks of the neophyte who comes to Hollywood to write and turns in an impassioned work.  He catches the attention of a producer who gives him what’s called in the industry as “notes”—ideas how to make it more sellable.  The neophyte is told to turn his script about a cod in the ocean into one about a mackerel.  He makes the changes.  He’s then asked to make the story not take place in the ocean, but in a fish tank in a restaurant.  “Why not?” says Mamet. “What a great idea, thank you for the suggestion.”

 

The producer comes back after the next draft and says, “Instead of a restaurant, could it be Mars, and instead of a mackerel, could it be Woodrow Wilson?”  What happens, says Mamet, is that the producer feels this writer, like everyone else, has stooped to being degraded and that this writer brings him nothing special, so abandons him.  “The now-mangled script has become the fruit of the poison tree and must be discarded as unclean.” 

 

The writer becomes sadder-but-wiser and starts thinking that, with this new wisdom, he could write something really good now, and “perhaps one harbors the residual belief that learning to write a screenplay ‘better’ might improve one’s chances of selling it.  I don’t think so.  I, however, harbor the same delusion.”

 

His chapter on character, plot, and dialogue is particularly valuable as it’s the essence of what I’m trying to get across in my classes.  It’s simple, really, and yet it seems so hard for new writers to absorb.  It’s about looking at basic dramatic structure.  Who is the true protagonist?  What’s he or she want?  What’s standing in the way?  As Mamet writes, look at the “essential—what does the hero want?  What prevents him from getting it?… The progress of the film is her progress toward attainment of her goal.”

 

He says readers and filmgoers have a simple need.  It’s not about learning “the garbage of exposition, backstory, narrative, and characterization spot welds” that literally stop the show.  If the story starts with a good premise, people want to know what happens next.  He writes, “That is more or less the total art of the film dramatist: to make the audience want to know what is going to happen next.”

 

So do that in all your stories, no matter the form.