I slept in, got some laundry done, dealt with e-mails and another possible packing job, and had a nice long Skype session with a career counsellor, for my screenplays. I know I keep saying I have to drop writing scripts, but it's like an addiction and this was an opportunity I could not pass up. I figured it will be helpful for my books, as well.
She read some of Return to Darian's Point, and noted I have the format down, pat. I'm easy to read and have an interesting story. The only suggestion she had was pumping up the dialogue a bit, to better reflect the characters' personal interactions and not just be informative bits. I can see what she means. My dialogue is too real, and real dialogue can be totally banal. I've already been trying to do something like that with OT, so I had no argument with her observation.
Then we got into specifics, and there's where things got really good. I'm not a salesman; even when I worked in a book shop, I didn't sell people books...I suggested and informed and let them know what I liked and how I reacted to a book. So low-key as to be anti-sales. But books ain't cars, and doing the used car salesman crap will not work for them. What's nice is, she acknowledged this.
Then she suggested this is how I should sell my scripts. Not with the, "This is perfect for you" or "It's sure to be a blockbuster", push or anything like that, but to find out what a producer or actor or director likes or seems to always be interested in, and guide them to my work. A very soft-sell that will not always work but is probably workable for me. It would be more like I was interested in becoming a collaborator in a project...even though I can be a stubborn little cuss when it comes to my characters.
It's funny, but that reminded me of a time I met with an agent at Becsey-Wisdom; a major Literary Talent Agency in Hollywood. We were doing the chit-chat thing and he mentioned he liked classical pianists. I'd recently heard something played by Emmanuel Axe and suggested it; even sent him a CD. He took me on as a back-pocket client -- not a full client, but someone whose work he'd be willing to send over if I got a producer interested in reading something of mine. It got my scripts into a number of doors. Too bad my writing was crap, back then; things might have turned out differently. Then he left the business and moved to San Francisco to work in real estate, and I never did that, again.
Now I'm seeing how I should have...and wonder why I didn't...
She read some of Return to Darian's Point, and noted I have the format down, pat. I'm easy to read and have an interesting story. The only suggestion she had was pumping up the dialogue a bit, to better reflect the characters' personal interactions and not just be informative bits. I can see what she means. My dialogue is too real, and real dialogue can be totally banal. I've already been trying to do something like that with OT, so I had no argument with her observation.
Then we got into specifics, and there's where things got really good. I'm not a salesman; even when I worked in a book shop, I didn't sell people books...I suggested and informed and let them know what I liked and how I reacted to a book. So low-key as to be anti-sales. But books ain't cars, and doing the used car salesman crap will not work for them. What's nice is, she acknowledged this.
Then she suggested this is how I should sell my scripts. Not with the, "This is perfect for you" or "It's sure to be a blockbuster", push or anything like that, but to find out what a producer or actor or director likes or seems to always be interested in, and guide them to my work. A very soft-sell that will not always work but is probably workable for me. It would be more like I was interested in becoming a collaborator in a project...even though I can be a stubborn little cuss when it comes to my characters.
It's funny, but that reminded me of a time I met with an agent at Becsey-Wisdom; a major Literary Talent Agency in Hollywood. We were doing the chit-chat thing and he mentioned he liked classical pianists. I'd recently heard something played by Emmanuel Axe and suggested it; even sent him a CD. He took me on as a back-pocket client -- not a full client, but someone whose work he'd be willing to send over if I got a producer interested in reading something of mine. It got my scripts into a number of doors. Too bad my writing was crap, back then; things might have turned out differently. Then he left the business and moved to San Francisco to work in real estate, and I never did that, again.
Now I'm seeing how I should have...and wonder why I didn't...
No comments:
Post a Comment