Break into Screenwriting: successful script marketing tips, tools and resources from a popular script coach

The Screenwriter Web www.breakingin.net Screenplay Marketing Advice

Interview with... Michael Hauge

Part 1: Getting Started!

Get on the right track to that first script sale!

Michael Hauge, the author of Writing Screenplays that Sell - now in it's 22nd printing - offers advice on setting up a successful writing routine, how to learn from successful movies and tips for writers changing from another area of writing into screenwriting.

In addition to writing one of the best-selling books (ever!) on screenplay writing, Michael has two decades of experience as a very successful writer and script consultant. He offers two-day intensive screenwriting seminars throughout the US, Canada and England.

For seminar details---> mhauge@juno.com

Lenore Wright: This is a basic question, Michael, but one that always gets asked. How much time should an aspiring screenwriter plan to spend writing and rewriting their first few scripts and pitching stories before they get their first genuine screenwriting opportunity?

Michael Hauge: That’s an interesting way to put that question, because I don’t really think in those terms. I’m going to give you a ‘non-answer’. I think a question like that is self-defeating because if it’s taking you longer than some artificial deadline you’ve set, that will just get you frustrated and feed your fear, and that will eventually block you. And that will discourage you and you’ll stop doing what you want to do.

I approach it differently. You write because you want to tell stories for the movies and you love the process. Every six months ask yourself, “Do I still love the process?” As long as the answer is yes, then you keep writing. If the answer is ever no, then stop and choose another game to play because then you’re just doing it for some goodies at the end of the road and that’s not a reason to do anything – certainly nothing creative. So I discourage people from putting time limits on their process.

Having said that… I will say that the number one time consideration a writer should make is: You’ve got to commit to a regular regimen. If you could spend an hour a day working on your screenplay, that would result in amazing progress. But if it’s just something you pick up when you feel like it or when the spirit moves you, or you just save it to do on weekends that’s pretty tough. The writers that succeed have a real regimen. It’s like eating and sleeping. They eat, they sleep and they write - every single day. And that’s how they get the stuff done. Now writing could be in the form of research, it could be in the form of brainstorming, or it could be writing actual scenes.

One of my clients isn’t writing now because she’s drawing pictures of the scenes, kind of storyboarding and writing a lot of bios. She feels it gets her into the story deeper and deeper and then when she just can’t resist any more, she’ll start writing and it’ll be better. That’s her process. So the hour or more a day can be anything moving your story forward. But that’s the regimen you’ve got to make.

And the second thing is you can’t go into it thinking you’re going to be with the project any less than a year. Keeping in mind, you’ve got to rewrite it and rewrite it and polish it until it’s as good as you can get it. And then you have to give it to people whose judgment you trust to give you feedback before you try and sell it. And then based on their feedback, you’ve got to rewrite it and polish it again and again. And once you start trying to sell it (which is part of the job of being a screenwriter) that alone is going to take months to years.

So, don’t expect things to start popping in less than a year. After a year, you’ll get a good sense whether you’re doing something you love. And you can decide if you’re in this for the long haul or not.

Lenore Wright: This is obviously a job you learn by doing. Many people go to film school or take training programs or seminars. Does it help writers to write a film short and get it produced or write a one-act play and get it staged?

Michael Hauge: Are you asking is it helpful in perfecting your craft or helpful in getting a deal?

Lenore Wright: Both.

Michael Hauge: Writing a short film would be very helpful in perfecting your craft, but not essential. Most of the people who have succeeded as screenwriters did not start by writing short films. If you want to be a director, making a short film would be a big step in that direction. But talking just to screenwriters, writing a short fictional film would hone your skills and be a step towards it but certainly not a necessary one because most screenwriters begin by writing script after script for the arena they’re pursuing.

You won’t usually get a deal to write a feature because you have a credit on a short film as the screenwriter.

Writing a play is usually irrelevant, because plays are not movies. It’s a big error to think that novels and plays are the same as movies. They have distinctly different requirements. Of course anything that puts words on a page is going to hone your writing skills. But if you want to write screenplays, write screenplays. So I would say don’t think that writing in some other arena is a step to being a screenwriter other than just to get practice using the language.

My advice is to write for the market you want to pursue. If you want to be a comedy writer, write a feature comedy. If you want to be a sitcom writer, write a sample episode of a current sitcom, and so on.

Lenore Wright: Some of our readers are hoping to move from one arena of writing into screenplay writing or adapt their material into screenplays. What advice would you give to someone who is already an established professional? Are there any steps they can skip?

Michael Hauge: No. Sorry, no steps to skip. But I’m going to make it worse, I’m going to strongly recommend they don’t adapt their own material unless it has already been published and someone’s offering them money to do so. The best thing a writer can do who is a professional in another arena is come up with an original idea for a screenplay that meets the criteria for a movie rather than one that they like because it met the criteria for the other form they created first. You’re probably talking mostly about playwrights and novelists. However, if you’re talking about journalists who have encountered a true story with which they were involved, then I highly recommend they pursue that as a screenplay as well.

When we’re talking about fiction writers – novels have certain criteria, they’re very broad and they’re aren’t very many of them compared to screenplay criteria. There are very rigid rules to screenplays: They have to be a certain length. They only consist of action and dialogue. You can’t have any asides. You have to have a hero, and the hero must have a visible goal.

If the novel wasn’t successful in the arena they went to first, and they didn’t get it published, chances are it’s not going to work in their second choice arena. If they insist on pursuing it for that, what they have to do first is evaluate: Is this really a movie? Does it meet all the criteria of what a screenplay has? I can give you some of those essential components.

If the writer honestly, objectively concludes that their manuscript or their unproduced play really does have the components that would make it a movie then they can go ahead and try it. But then they have to be absolutely ruthless about letting go of what they already wrote. Most writers do not have that ability. It’s just too hard to let go of this precious creation that they already spent a long time on, so instead they try and bend the rules of screenwriting and they end up with something that doesn’t work at all in any arena.

It’s a much better idea to follow the model of William Goldman. He was a novelist who decided that he wanted to write screenplays. He’s probably best known for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (an original script), and for All the President’s Men, an adaptation of a book he didn’t write. He kept writing novels for his own artistic satisfaction. And he wrote screenplays because he was good at that and he could make a lot of money doing that. But he didn’t start mixing them until he was so well established that people would pay him to adapt his own stuff, like his novel Magic.

Lenore Wright: On the net there are numerous sites where you can download shooting scripts of current movies to read. Is this helpful for emerging writers?

Michael Hauge: It’s essential, especially for emerging screenwriters. You’ve got to read screenplays, that’s the form that you’re writing in and if you don’t read scripts you won’t have any models to use. Use the screenplays for movies you’ve seen:

Study how the writers have successfully tackled the problems of conveying action clearly and succinctly, given a very limited amount of description and still creating a vivid image of what goes on the screen.
Notice how they deal with dialogue, how long dialogue is, how dialogue varies from one genre to the next, both in length and frequency.

One of the things I often say is if you were going to become a novelist it’s ludicrous to think you would do that without reading at least a hundred novels in your life. Yet some people jump into screenwriting without reading a single script. They just see a movie and start writing some ideas down.

I’m making everything sound essential, but these are the essentials you need to do. When I give my seminars I say there are eight essentials things you must do and one of them is you’ve got to read scripts and another one is you’ve got to see movies. Writers need to see at least two movies a week – one in the theater and one on video of recent, successful films especially in the arena they’re pursuing. That’s how you learn. You learn by watching successful examples, or experiencing successful examples of what you’re trying to do.

Lenore Wright: Thanks, so much, Michael.

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Go to Part 2 of this interview ---> Michael discusses the essential components for a successful screenplay and how to ensure the audience connects with your hero.

In Part 3 of this interview we’ll be talking about how emerging writers can market their scripts successfully. Michael suggests techniques for getting your script read by people in power.

Check out Michael's new site ---> www.ScreenplayMastery.com (It's terrific!)

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To find out where Michael will be giving his legendary two-day seminar - Screenwriting for Hollywood: From Concept To Sale call (1-800-477-1947) or email his Hilltop Productions: mhauge@juno.com

To order Michael Hauge's best-selling book WRITING SCREENPLAYS THAT SELL Click Here!

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