Michael Rogan (ScriptBully Magazine) - How to Write a Screenplay That Doesnt Suck and Will Actually Sell: Your Ultimate, No-Nonsense Screenwriting 101 for Writing a Screenplay (Book 1 of the ... Writing Made Stupidly Easy Collection)

* * *

Now...you could go to film school and spend $125,000 on a film degree that teaches you how to write unsellable films about Depression-era potato farmers.

Or you could stalk Judd Apatow at the Santa Monica Whole Foods until he reads your 150-page script about college students on a road trip to Wichita.

Or you could enter every screenwriting contest on the face of the Earth, hoping the Tucson High-Desert Ladies Auxiliary Screenplay Hootenanny helps you get an agent.

Or...you could follow the 10 tricks in this book to help you BOOST your screenwriting know-how, WRITE a kick-ass screenplay and then put yourself in a great position to actuallyyou knowmake a frickin' living off your words.

I cant promise youll sell a script by following these 10 steps. (Not only would it be unethical, but Im sure the FCC would throw me in self-published prison.)

But I can promise if you commit to the steps I've outlined, you will:

• Know more about screenplay structure than 99 percent of the screenwriters out there. (And that includes the ones who get paid.)
• Accelerate your knowledge of the film business from naive wannabe to seasoned film industry veteran, virtually overnight.
• Learn an email query template for approaching managers and agents in a professional way that works. (And by works, I mean it gets your frickin' script read!)
• Discover ninja secrets to being perceived as a professional, and not some noob working at Home Depot.
• Be THAT much closer to converting your talent into an insanely marketable asset that lets you quit your job, sneer at your enemies and...rule the world!

As Yogi Berra said, You can observe a lot just by watchin'. And what better to watch than the movies?

Solets get started. Shall we?

M ost of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our own sunshine.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I know what the screenwriting books say. That you need a main character for your story thats likable. Relatable. Empathetic.

Sorry. But thats to-tal horse crap!

Rooster Cogburn (John Wayne) in True Grit is a bitter, obese sociopath. Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) in The French Connection is a corrupt, maniacal police officer willing to do ANYTHING to catch his target. Michael Coreleone (good, old Al Pacino) in The Godfather is the MOST evil person in a story filled with folks who decapitate horses and send dead fish parcels.

You do NOT have to center your stories around relatable characters who are kind to puppies, test well with focus groups and would pass a Government-mandated background check.

In fact in these morally murky and economically uncertain times I believe the less conventional and empathetic your main character, the better.

Butyour hero MUST have one thing: Drive.

And frickin LOTS of it.

Your hero must be driven whether by greed, jealousy, revenge, an obsession with Chinatown or a belief that men and women cant be friends to sacrifice MORE and compromise LESS than anybody else in your story. (And that includes your villain.)

Because the only way your hero will scratch the surface of their potential as a compelling story character and overcome all the crazy, insane obstacles you will put in their way is to be mad. Obsessed. Uncompromising. Driven.

This doesnt mean your hero needs to be a raving lunatic or get into a shouting match in every scene. (We arent writing a community college one-act play.)

But it means they NEED to have an obsessive drive to gain something tangible, and be prepared to let nothing even themselves stand in their way.

* * *

Im Gonna Make Him an Offer He Cant Refuse

The trouble us writers have in creating driven, obsessed characters iswellwere writers.

We like to stay in the shadows. Peek behind the curtain. Hide behind our Dell laptop and triple-shot lattes.

We arent (usually) type-A folks unless our name is Joe Esterzhas and we often see life in shades of nuance and ambiguity.

Which is great: This sensitivity to the nuance and ambiguity of life makes us the perfect vehicle for great stories. (And why professional athletes and talk-show hosts make such crappy writers.)