Ask a Screenwriter!

As always, these are fake questions from actual readers. Please direct all comments and questions for publication to dearscriptguy@gmail.com.

Dear Script Guy,

Long-time reader, first-time advice seeker. After years of research and struggle, I've completed an amazing screenplay about my hometown of Lubbock, Texas. It's a powerful story of love and loss that reveals the power of the human spirit. Spanning decades and continents, filled with emotion, breathtaking spectacle and even a dash of humor, I'm 100% sure it's ready for the big screen. If only I could get it into the right hands! Unfortunately, I have no connections and all the agencies I called politely declined and quickly hung up. My question to you - how do I get people to read it?

Sincerely, 
Waiting On My Big Break

Dear WOMBB,

You must have called the agencies on a Monday to get such warm sentiment. By Friday the receptionists can barely bring themselves to answer the phone after a week of indignities both petty and soul crushing. This is to be expected when people have to go to an office dressed up as if they're going out on Valentine's Day with their boyfriend of two months and validate third-rate celebrities parking/sense of entitlement at the same time. All this and student loans is enough to bring anyone to a less than chipper phone demeanor.

On to your question, WOMBB. You can't get anyone to read your script. Stop trying immediately. But good news! This is not your fault. Nobody reads scripts. Hell, I'm not even convinced anyone writes them anymore.

If you do beat the odds and get someone to read your script, there is a 99.9% chance they hold no actual power and are therefore useless in your search to have your script produced. This is because important people do not have time to weigh themselves down with the written word, they only have time for coverage, and rarely even for that. Agents only ever read contracts and their own press clippings, actors only skim scripts to see how many lines they have and producers aren't looking for screenplays as much as searching for that impossibly perfect puzzle piece to fit into the zeitgeist that will ultimately get them invited to the good Golden Globe parties. Directors are too busy having sex and enjoying accolades, though rarely at the same time.

The only people who will read your script are assistants who haven't held their job for more than three months and friends who lack quality drugs to distract them from more fruitful pursuits. These are desperately unhappy people and you would be doing a great kindness not to burden them with your own dreams. They've suffered enough in this life.

My advice would be to quit now and write long-form hentai erotica for the internet. It will likely be more rewarding and will certainly be read by more people. And take heart. If your screenplay was read, produced and given theatrical release, you'd have to suffer through the horror of watching everything you loved about it falling by the wayside in order to please the Chinese financiers and the studio head's twenty-year old mistress, none of whom can spare even the tiniest of fucks for the power of the human spirit.


About the Author:

Stapleton J. Marleybone III, aka Script Guy, is a thirty-year screenwriting vet who has written the 'Ask a Screenwriter!' column since 2009. Born during a freak thunderstorm on a fishing boat not far from Bayou La Batre, Stapleton dropped out of high school to pursue a career in Hollywood. He cut his teeth as a production assistant on the never released Roger Corman classic She Rides to Hell at Midnight. His largely biographical debut feature grew from the experience and would go on to be nominated for two CableACE awards in 1978. He currently resides in Sherman Oaks with his third wife and her five unpleasant stepchildren.