Everything I Hate About Being A Screenwriter

I’ve worked very hard towards trying to be a screenwriter. Went to school, read lots of scripts, seen lots of movies, and I’ve loved all of it. I honestly can’t see anything I could ever rather do with my life. But despite all the joy I get from it there are things about screenwriting that I absolutely hate. Hate with the burning hatred of a thousand white-hot suns. And while I don’t want to ever seem like I am complaining, I certainly feel the need to vent.

1.)  The Blank Page

Talk to any writer and they will probably all agree that this is the worst thing about the screenwriting process. Sitting down to start a brand new script and seeing a white void staring back at you is the most disagreeable feeling ever. I hate this part of the writing process. Rewriting and editing my work or coming up with the initial idea, those are fun and enjoyable parts of the process. But writing that first initial draft? I hate that. Realizing that I am starting on a script that I will end up spending months on and after a week having only a few measly pages to show for it can be extremely depressing.

2.)  Explaining my script

One of the big things I learned in film school was how to pitch a project. Coming up that perfect logline that you can slap on a letter or shoot in an email or even just say in a brief meeting. It’s a valuable skill that I’m glad I learned. Unfortunately it does no good when talking to non-film people. Film people are prepared for a pitch. And certainly if you are meeting with someone you have a pitch prepared. But when you’re just socializing at a cocktail party back home (where no film people are) that perfect pitch just becomes a staggering mess.

3.)  “I’ve got a great idea for a film you should write...”

If I needed ideas for scripts I wouldn’t have become a screenwriter. I honestly have more ideas for scripts to write than I actually will ever have time to write. Now of course if a producer is paying me for work-for-hire stuff then yes, please tell me your idea. I will gladly write a story about your dog if there is a paycheck involved. But for the most part I like writing MY ideas. They make me passionate and want to get the ideas down on paper. If YOU have a great idea for a story, then YOU should write it. You’re obviously excited enough about the idea to ask me to.

4.)  Rejection by Omission

This may sound weird, but I actually don’t mind rejection letters. It’s part of the game. And they are always polite, often encouraging. What I hate is when I send out a query letter and get no response at all. While a rejection letter is a clear answer, spending day after day waiting for a response about a particle script is infuriating. Because as far as I know, these people still want to read my script. But they haven’t asked for it yet so I can’t send it to them. And it isn’t like they are trying to save money on postage. I include and phone number and email address with every query letter I send (for which I DID waste postage on). The least they can do is give me a polite “No Thanks.”

5.)  “THEY STOLE MY IDEA!”

I have never actually accused any one of stealing an idea I had, but I have uttered that phrase many times. The simple truth is, as clever as most people usually think they are, the old phrase “Great minds think alike” is sadly very true. There are only so many ideas floating around the Ether and some people are going to beat you to them. The Muses are sparse with their gifts. I can’t get mad about it. I just get annoyed when I put a lot of work into something and then see someone else (who probably put in just as much work, if not maybe more) got his/her idea on the big or small screen before me.

6.)  Distractions

On a good writing binge I can usually get between five and ten pages done in a two hour period. That can mean I can get a solid first draft done in a few weeks. The problem is getting to that writing period. Suddenly everything becomes more important than writing. Books on my shelf scream to be read. The most amazing shows can be found on TV. And I have never felt a stronger urge to clean. Basically when I want to write I find myself wanting to do ANYTHING BUT write. Like many writers at some point I have come to the realization that there will never be the opportune perfect conditions to write. I just need to write. This is why I usually try to get into a routine so I know that when I do X it means it is time to write.

There are probably a plethora of other things I can think of that bother me about writing. As I type this I am sitting at Starbucks and the family sitting at the table across from me didn’t buy coffee and got frozen yogurt from next door. That really grinds my gears. But that’s part of the experience. Getting over all this minor nuisances and annoyances and eventually producing a creative work. For every little hurdle I encounter it just makes everything that more satisfying when I get over that hurdle and produce a piece of work. The more difficult it is to write, the more proud I am that I managed to write it.

TV Will NOT Rot Your Brain (but some other stuff might)

As a child of the latter half of the 20^th century I, like most of my generation(s), were raised in front of the TV. Television. The Boob Tube. The Idiot Box. Since it’s invention, parents have warned their children that too much exposure to this technological invention will destroy one’s brain. And too be fair, some of that was true. Certainly much of the content on TV has done nothing to expand the minds of its viewer. But over the past decade or so, the quality of television programming has expanded to a new level of quality. While at the same time some other media has started to devolve and become the brain rotting quality that TV was always accused of being.

Now I’m not delusional, there is still a lot of crap on TV. For Odin’s sake we live in a world where Duck Dynasty is one of the highest rated shows on cable and people get their information from Fox “News” (cannot and will not refer to that channel as a legitimate news source). But while a small minority of viewers enjoy trash, the vast majority of us are enjoying honest to goodness treasure. Paid subscription cable channels and digital delivery systems are allowing truly amazing programming to bypass the traditional survival of the fittest ratings system and show us true art.

If you watch the Emmy Awards the past several years, the major networks are getting fewer and fewer nominations. The big award winners are channels like HBO, AMC, A&E, etc. all channels on pay cable. As an art form, TV is far outpacing film, which was once the bastion of artistic story tellers. The market was saturated with independent filmmakers, making risky and unique films with complete unknowns. Now Hollywood churns out formulaic stories casting only a handful of stars. TV is where the risks are being taken. With direct to market distribution methods, even the riskiest of TV endeavors can find some kind of audience. Movies on the other hand need to make all their money back within the first weekend.

But film is the not the only medium to see a decline as the quality of television has improved. Books are now no longer something where a person gets improved and enlightened. The old adage of “Go read a book” does nothing when you see the quality of most books be churned out by publishers. Nearly every reality TV star or scandal ridden ideologue has a book deal. When a sleaze peddler like Rush Limbaugh can put out a children’s book, seeking to corrupt an entirely new generation, can any one really claim that books are any better than Television? His poisonous vile radio show has me envy the deaf.

And similar to films, books are also falling into the formulaic pattern. With the hits of series like Twilight, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games, there have been slews of imitators. Practically a cut and paste job has taken over the art of writing, replacing one supernatural protagonist with another and changing the dystopia future world the characters live from one allegory for the United States to another. All in an attempt to grab the disposable income of young adults looking to find an idolized versions of themselves in the pages of a different hundred pages they can download to their tablets.

In the age of binge watching, television writers are realizing that their shows are being enjoyed in different ways than the weekly viewership of traditional shows of the past. Despite the different delivery methods available to books and movies, only TV has felt the need to change with the delivery system. And perhaps this is because TV has always been a bit of a neglected child of entertainment media. Despite the rare instances of book burnings, or the occasionally boycotted film, TV is the one medium that has been called derogatory names since its inception. And yet TV has been the only medium that has truly tried to evolve and change. Books have been the same since the Gutenberg printing press. Movies have developed better technology for its production, but the basic movie going experience has not changed much.

One can only hope that this glorious renaissance of television will spill out into film and literature and encourage all media to reach new heights of greatness. However, having studied a bit the history of media I can only assume that instead of TV raising the rest up, the rest will simply drag TV down and this brief anomaly of greatness will end. For the sad truth is that while art is meant to inspire the elite, the business of show is to entertain the masses and appeal to the most common and basic sensibilities of the great-unwashed masses among us. So in the end, yes, TV will not rot our brains. We’re rotting its.

Fanboys are Evil

As I expressed in my articles about racism in comic books (see here and here) there are some very negative aspects of geek culture. There are some very bitter people who share the same interests I do. And when reading and watching movies I have come to the conclusion that the producers of geek content are completely aware of this fact. They know how evil we can be sometimes and they say so. In the world of fiction, Fanboys are Evil.

The best example of an evil fanboy is Syndrome from the Pixar film The Incredibles. When we first meet him, he is a young boy named Buddy who is obsessed with Mr. Incredible. He even goes so far as creating a costume and persona, that of Incredi-boy. Spurned by the rejection of his “idol” and desperate to prove himself a super hero, Buddy grows up to become Syndrome. Having witnessed Buddy’s inventive prowess trying to impress Mr. Incredible we see has taken that boyish hobby into a career of building weapons. Advanced weapons. Weapons he has used to kill many super heroes, all in an attempt to create a threat that only he could deal with as a new super hero. But unlike real heroes, Syndrome only does it for the fame and glory he thinks comes with being a hero.

Another group of evil fanboys are the Trio from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In season six of Buffy, rather than have the Slayer face evil demons or government experiments gone awry, Buffy faced a group of nerds she had encountered in previous seasons (well, Andrew was the brother of someone she encountered but Warren and Jonathan had both encountered the slayer before) who decided to put their evil nerd knowledge to the goal of becoming super villians. These three are the stereotypical nerds, almost annoyingly so. All their plots seem revolve around things they saw on old episodes of the Super Friends and they quote Star Wars so much that even I am annoyed. I hate these nerds and I am a nerd. And not only do they have the stereotypical fanboy interests but they have nerdboy rage, with one character even trying to gun down Buffy and friends (a sad Columbine analogy, one of many that is visited through out the run of the series).

An example of a Fanboy turning evil is Titan (though he spells it Tighten) from the movie Megamind. Megamind revolves around a costumed Super-Villian who loses his purpose in life when he finally manages to defeat his longtime nemesis Metroman (think Superman if he looked like Mitt Romney). Seeking a new purpose he decides to replace his nemesis and create a new super hero he can do battle with. Unfortunately he ends up giving the powers to a loser named Hal. And Hal is a loser. He lives in a tiny apartment, is obsessed with a girl out of his league, and spends all of his time goofing off. As soon as Hal gets his powers he doesn’t start being a hero, in fact he robs and takes over the city. There is no “with great power, comes great responsibility” sense of right or wrong. Hal feels entitled to whatever he wants since life did not meet up to his expectations prior to him gaining powers.

The problem with depictions of fanboys in the media (see a similar article here) is that they are all depicted as miserable. It is no wonder they turn into super villains in all these films and TV shows. They have no reason to like the world around them. But that’s wrong. In the real world fanboys are the best communities. They welcome all people who have a shared interest in any number of different properties. If anything, fanboys would become heroes not villains, having been constantly exposed to the rigorous moral codes of every super hero/heroine in their favorite books.

Television Super Heroes: Good and Bad

While comic books are the birthplace of super heroes and feature films are their new frontier, there seems to be one medium that has been very hit or miss when it comes to super heroes. Television has had an odd relationship with the cape and cowl crowd. You would think with television being the logical step in between big screen films and serialized comic books that super heroes would be a perfect fit for it, having seen such huge success in those two mediums. Sadly, small screen super hero success seems to be few and far between.

The one area where super heroes truly succeed is in animated form. A weekly cartoon show is how most super heroes end up on TV and gain fame and acclaim for the character. Challenge of the Super-Friends created a whole generation of new comic book fans. While the Tim Burton Batman films may have reinvigorated interest in the Caped Crusader, Batman: The Animated Series probably is what kept interest in the character alive for several years after and what allowed fans to forget about Joel Schumacher. Many people still feel Kevin Conroy, the voice of Batman/Bruce Wayne, was the best on screen interpretation of the character.

While the Tim Burton Batman films inspired an excellent cartoon, it also inspired a not very excellent live action show. The Flash ran one whole season on television before it was mercifully yanked off the air. While in the comics, The Flash had always been a light hearted and fun super hero, the TV show decided to follow the dark, almost Goth, tone of the Tim Burton Batman and show a darker take on the Scarlet Speedster. Setting the show almost exclusively at night, this Flash faced mostly murderers and violent criminals rather than his usually colorful cast of Rogues. Even the red of the costume seemed more blood like than bright. This is surprising as this version of the Flash aired on CBS which, before hit CSI, tended to try and minimize its questionable content.

The Flash is a good segue to the current crop of comic book super hero TV shows since the CW has a Flash show of its own debuting this season. That show being a spinoff of the successful Arrow, which tells the story of Green Arrow (minus the green name) as a tough vigilante. The success of Arrow has led to Gotham (an origin story for the characters in the Batman universe) on Fox and Constantine on NBC.

Gotham is a bit worrisome as we have already seen an origin story about a young hero’s beginning in the guise of Smallville. Smallville tried to show us how a young Clark Kent could eventually become the greatest hero of all time, Superman. Unfortunately that idea ran out of steam pretty quick and the show limped along trying to do a Superman show without Superman. Similarly, coming on the heels of Smallville, was Birds of Prey which tried to do a Batman show without Batman. The problem with these shows is that they want to mention the characters they are based on yet are restrained from doing so for fear that those characters will take over the show. Once you introduce Superman, Smallville ceases to be about Smallville and becomes about Superman. Same with Birds of Prey. Why would we care about a group of super heroines when we can get a show about Batman. My only hope for Gotham is that Batman is never reference ever throughout the series. That way it becomes all about the story of James Gordon and what was Gotham City like before super criminals took over.

Constantine is a different beast altogether. Constantine is based on the popular comic Hellblazer about British con man John Constantine who dabbles in the occult. This property was already developed as a live action property in the failed film starring Keanu Reeves. While the film was not bad, it was a failure and alienated the fans of the comic which is bad since the only motivation behind developing comic book properties because you have a built in fanbase. If you eliminate all the recognizeable elements from the comic it almost doesn’t make sense to develop. And that is what worries me. Hellblazer the comic is a dark mature title. While John Constantine has been folded into the DC Universe proper, he became famous as a Vertigo title and Vertigo titles are known for their mature content (that’s actually the whole purpose behind DC printing the Vertigo line). And network television is not known for its edginess. It’s known for whitewashing properties and taming them for the widest audience possible, which makes for good business sense but makes for terrible art.

Television is a hugely profitable industry and as long as comic book properties can be profitable in this medium we will continue to see more and more comics adapted into TV shows. It has been noted that comics have become less and less about their own stories and more just intellectual property generators for the big and small screen. There are probably more children today who know Spider-Man and The Avengers from the movies than from any sort of comic book. Which begs the question when will this goldmine become tapped out? When will comics just give up the goat and the only source of super hero material is movies and TV?