Will This Sell?

A Friend of the Blog hired me to do story notes on his script, and I did. Then he asked:

Q. But I have one important question: is this script worth working on? With your experience, would you say that this script could be sold one day if I would follow your notes?

Well, yes. I'm not one of those cheerleader script editors who says nice things to be nice. If I say "this could be good if you do this," it's because I think it could be good if you do that.

But the script I have in my head -- the script I think your script wants to be when it grows up -- is not your script now. Can you get it there? Or get it close enough that someone will buy it and hire someone else to get it all the way there?

How should I know?

What I tell everyone is: pitch your story out loud, to lots of people. Don't read it off the page, but tell people your movie story, out loud, without notes. Do this over and over, to anyone who'll listen. Ideally to the kind of people that you think are its natural audience, but also to any kid between 10 and 14. Kids are more open-minded than adults, and if a story is too subtle or too complicated for them, it's probably too complicated and subtle for a movie.

(Note: a kid might not like AWAY FROM HER, or LES INVASIONS BARBARES, but the story is simple enough to explain.)

If you pitch your story out loud, several things will happen.

You will immediately get a sense of whether people are interested in your story. If you give someone a script, they will say, "Hey, that was fun!" But if they have to sit through it, you'll know if they really like it.

You will improve your story. Parts of it will seem lame. You'll come up with better stuff as you pitch, or after you pitch.

Parts will seem boring. You'll cut them, or come up with better stuff.

Parts will seem confusing. You'll forget what comes next. That's where you need to fix your story logic.

Your listener will ask questions. That will help you track where the audience is. They will often spot your plotholes, too.

Your listener will make suggestions. Some of them will be better than you've got.

Pitching your story is scary and hard to do. But the more you do it, the better it will be.

Don't ask me if the script could work. Pitch it to your friends and neighbors, and you'll get a visceral sense of whether you believe it will work. And it's hella cheaper than hiring a story editor.

Is His Premise Unworkable, or Not Worked Enough?

Q. I'm developing a webseries for a screenwriting contest. I dove into creating interesting and relatable characters, but then it struck me that the premise seems really hard to explain, and hence to pitch. I don't have much trouble envisioning the finished product as something worth watching, but maybe that's because it's a work comedy and I've had jobs in the same field the series would be set (political communication consulting, which I guess is rather esoteric for the general public). So, does this mean the premise is unworkable, or is it just that the idea is still too raw and needs more development?

The premise may need reworking. You have to figure out how to pitch it so people get it quickly. You might need to restructure the show to include a point of entry for the public. For example, SPIN CITY and THE WEST WING are two takes on "political communication consultants," if you will. We get what they're doing, because one of them is a guy advising a mayor, and the other is some guys advising the President. We didn't know what the Deputy Communications Director did for the President before watching THE WEST WING, probably, but we know what the President is and does, so he's our way in.

If your premise is hard to pitch, it's not a great premise. A good premise is easy to pitch. We immediately get what your main characters are trying to do, whether it's run a restaurant, save a marriage, look cool or save American from terrorists.

However you can find a great premise in all sorts of unlikely territories, certainly including political communication consulting. You just have to work it a bit more than you have.

One mark of a good writer is the willingness to throw out good stuff in order to arrive at better stuff. You may, in reshaping your premise, have to chuck out wonderful characters. Maybe you'll be able to work them back in, maybe not. But "carnage" is a part of the creative process. Don't be afraid of it.

Q. Alternatively, do all series ideas just seem great at first and horrible a week later?

No. Great series ideas seem good at first and then get better as you develop the pitch and find your groove. My best premises ring the bell when we think of them at home, and then ring the bell over and over again when I pitch them.

The Rikers of Space

Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes pitch "The Rikers of Space," a sitcom based on Star Trek: TNG. What I love about this is that it's sort of a joke, sort of not. I mean, they would do it if someone bit. It goes on way too long, but this is how we work up series. And pitch them. Starts with a possibly ridiculous idea. Then you start working it out, figuring out what it is and what it isn't... Anyway, fun.

How to Pitch a Series

I'm setting up my pitch meetings at Banff. There's a section in your profile for "How to pitch me," which almost no one has filled in. Thom Sherman of the CW has, though, and his advice is good enough for anybody:

Be concise, please. What's the show about on a cultural/zeitgeist/human condition level? What is the hook for the series, ie. how can I market it? What is the story engine every week? How will episodes be closed-ended? Unique and fleshed-out characters, please.

That about sums it up, doesn't it?

Can You Sell a Pitch?

Q: if you're a new writer, should you even be considering pitching bibles and treatments? It strikes me that you need to have whole specs each time for awhile. Am I wrong on this? Would having a couple of specs as samples be enough to let me send out other shows simply as pitches?

Probably not. There was a run of networks buying shows even from novice writers, but I think most of that was networks buying spec pilots. These days there's a lot less development going on, and even experienced writers are back to writing spec pilots. At least, that's what my agent is telling me to do.

For experienced writers, it depends on the show. Lisa and I have a couple of high-concept pitches out there, where anyone can get what the show is just from the pitch. One of them I'm not speccing because the concept is so particular that we may not find a network where it's a fit, so writing a pilot might be a huge waste of time. The other one we're not speccing because it would require a ridiculous amount of technical research, and it's an execution-independent concept for which, really, any veteran writer could bang out a pilot based on our five minute pitch. (We're also not speccing them because we've optioned these to producers whose job it is to find me the money to write the pilots. But that doesn't really change the calculation.)

We're speccing everything that's at all execution dependent, particularly comedies, where you need to see the characters in action and hear their voices to know if it's going to work or not.

Even if your agent is willing to send out pitches, I wouldn't do it. Unless you're a TV genius, your pitch is not as good as you think it is. You'll discover how to make it better once you write the pilot. You'll discover elements that don't work. You may have to chuck out a core character or two. You may discover a brilliant new core character. You may change a character's personality when you realize it's not working on the screen. Why send out something that isn't as good as you can make it?

Write the pilot. It's easier to get someone to read a spec pilot than a pitch. A good spec pilot will get you further than a pitch. A pitch never comes alive. It's just a description of a show. A spec pilot is the show, and everyone wants to read a good one.

Where's the Fire?

Sometimes you have a great conversation with a producer or network exec, and you promise to send them something right away. Then you get a bunch of ideas. But you promised it right away!

Don't worry about being speedy. Unless you're in production, or the producer specifically mentioned wanting to read something before an important meeting with a potential buyer, the only deadline is in your head.

Make the piece as good as you can. If you like, shoot the producer an email saying, "I know I promised you this thing, but talking with you gave me some great new ideas, so I'll send it as soon as I'm done revising." 99% of the time the producer's reaction is: great.

They are probably not in a hurry to read your stuff. They may take two or three weeks to read it. So why rush to get it in?

It is not the speed of delivery, but the sheer quality of your work, that sets it apart from the vast pile of ordinary, unproduced material.

Everybody wants to read the best version of your pitch or spec, so take your time and make it as good as you possibly can. Even if that's just 5% better, it may be that last 5% that pushes it out of the "hmmm" pile into the "yes!" pile.

So take your time, get comments from your readers/friends/cronies, and send it in when it's ready. If you can make it better, you will lose nothing, and possibly gain everything, from the delay.

Pitching Kids' Shows?

If you're creating a show for kids, this guide to pitching at Kidscreen has extensive information on what each company wants. It also has email addresses for development execs. Useful stuff.

First Page

Lisa and I are working on a written pitch. The two things we're working hardest on are:

• Making sure the first page grabs the reader; and
• Making sure it's clear what the show is.

It's easy enough describing the characters, the world, the backstory. What's tougher is crystallizing what the show is going to be. What's the template? What's the franchise? What happens every week?

We'll probably want to pitch the thing in person, rather than send our prose in to producers or network execs. But we need to crystallize the show on paper for ourselves, so we can pitch clearly in person.

How to Write a Pitch

I'm reading through a slew of synopses for a jury. Most of them spend way too much on setting the opening scene, as if the writer was working his or her way into the movie.

If you're writing a pitch, do not tell me visual details. Do not tell me any details that aren't story elements. Don't tell me what the extras are doing. Just tell me the story.

These synopses are theoretically for a project that hasn't been written yet, which accounts for the "working their way into a story" feel. It's okay to work your way into a story (though it is less professional than breaking the story down first). But then go back and trim.

I often write a 10 page outline in order to distill a five page pitch. I need 10 pages to figure out what the story is. But I don't deliver ten pages. I deliver five.

Work out the story first. Then write the pitch.

That doesn't mean write the pitch with the story on your lap. Many synopses I've read for other juries seem to have been written with the script open. Page by page, we work through the script. It makes for a stilted read.

The best pitches are written off the top of your head. Anything you can't remember off the top of your head stands a good chance of being unnecessary. If you're truly stumped what happens next, you can check back to what you've written -- but the odds are excellent that there is a big gaping flaw in your story right where you lost your train of thought. If at all possible, fix it before you send your synopsis anywhere.

You should write your pitch, ideally, as if you are in a room talking with a producer. You have five minutes to tell him your story off the cuff. Write the words you would say if you were talking to a human being, in the same room, with the same level of detail. You wouldn't tell us what the extras are doing, would you? (You might use a bit of hype to sell a moment. But only the most arresting moments of the movie -- the "money shot" if you will.)

A pitch should sound as if you are in the room, selling the story.

Another way to look at it is: write your pitch as if you are selling your story to a rich uncle who is going to invest in your movie. You wouldn't tell him what the extras are doing, or how the light slants in through the drapes. You'd sell him the story.

Another way to look at it is: write your pitch as if you are telling the story to your 10-year-old nephew or niece.

A pitch is not a work of literature. It is you, in the room, selling a story.

Simplify, simplify, simplify, and never be boring.

Another Day, Another Lanyard

I spent the past 5 hours pitching two of my projects to about a dozen producers in the Telefilm "Grand Flirt" project.

Martine asked why I don't do leave-behinds. Partly it's because email leaves you with proof that you gave a project to someone, which a handout doesn't. And I hate schlepping paper. And paper is easier to lose. And paper looks raggedy after it's come home in a shoulder bag.

But the best reason is that after you've pitched your story out loud about twelve times, it's a better story. Before I send my projects off to the people I pitched it to, it's getting a little rewrite, you bet. I was pitching lots of stuff that doesn't happen in it. Yet.

You can even calibrate your story to a specific producer -- after you've heard what they're looking for.

PItch your stories! They'll get better!

Wanna Hear My Idea?

Q. Would a successful writer ever consider working with someone like me, who has no experience but a lot of potential? If I had a great idea that you felt could attract attention and you could get made, would you go to bat for it?

I've occasionally optioned a script I wanted to rewrite. The second-to-last screenplay I worked on was something by a non-pro writer. I found it, then attached a producer, who got money to hire me to rewrite it.

But I don't partner with other writers unless I feel that the other writer is bringing the same amount of clout and experience and bankability. If I partner with another writer, I've just cut my payday in half -- for the run of the show. So now the show has to be twice as lucrative -- or half as much effort -- or at least twice as likely to go -- as a show I came up with myself. Otherwise I'm shortchanging myself.

While a great idea is certainly valuable, if the other writer is not a veteran, I could end up doing the heavy lifting making the idea into a TV show, and turning that into scripts and season arcs. Your idea might have taken you five minutes. The development could take a year or two. If I'm going to spend a year or two developing something, I'd rather it be something I own completely.

So I very rarely partner with other writers, and then only with other potential showrunners.

Producers do sometimes hire me as a story editor to advise a writer -- I give notes, he executes them. I'm not doing the heavy lifting, I'm just reading and critiquing.

Alternately, networks often ask senior writers to take over a show that a junior writer has created. The junior writer might stay on the show as a creative consultant and write a share of the scripts. The senior writer is doing the heavy lifting, but is compensated accordingly. (That happens surprisingly often in Canada.)

I don't know any pro monkeys who take submissions. The script I optioned came to me through a class I was teaching. When a producer sends me a script, I'll read it, because I know there's a professional producer who sees a commercial future for the concept. It's validated.

Your best bet for getting your stuff read is still to get an agent, or one of the back doors: writer's assistant, etc.

On Not Paying Too Much Attention to the Market

I went to sleep the other night thinking hard in the general direction of a new TV pitch. Not having one in mind, I couldn't actualy think "about" one, I was more thinking at one. Coming up with a new idea is about the hardest part of writing.

What the market up here wants is episodic, procedural one-hour dramas. Unfortunately, I haven't come up with one. But I was thinking that I should try to come up with another show like NAKED JOSH, being as it's the only show of my own I've ever got on the air.

I woke up with, I think, a pretty nifty little idea. Almost more of a territory than a hook. Entirely execution dependent, and you know how I recommend against that. But very close in tone to the show I already did, which means that while it might be hard-ish to sell, it is less hard to sell coming from me. (Which also means that I have an edge in this particular territory.)

Now I'm happily writing away on my pitch doc. (Remember, up here we option pitch documents and then get commissioned, God willing, to write the show.) It's flowing really well. I've already got 8 pages on the concept and the core cast. Remains to write springboards (which are really the proof of concept).

And what does this have to do with episodic, procedural one-hour dramas? Not a thing. I just think this would be a good television show. If I had an episodic, procedural one-hour drama, I'd work on it. But writing something good is always better than writing something bad. If nothing else, it gets you in the door for meetings and reminds people you're good.

And people don't always know what they want. They might think they want one-hours, but if they fall in love with your half hour, they might remember that they could use a half-hour, too. The sitcom keeps being written off for dead until someone comes along with a good one. There's always room for something good.

So I'll take this to market this Winter and see how it does...

Coming Up With New Pitches

One of the missions we have given ourselves, Lisa and I, is to come up with new show pitches. Particularly procedural pitches, because that's what CTV tells me they want.

It's hard to come up with new pitches, because all of the obvious, fertile territory is already under cultivation. You have to find the strip of creek bottom up in the mountains that has grown over. It is much easier when inspiration just comes to you. But I find myself coming up on a New Year with a bunch of pitches under option, but nothing to pitch. You always want to have something to pitch.

A movie is a story. It's easy enough to come up with a new movie idea; just come up with a new twist on an old story. It's easy enough to come up with the characters: just figure out what characters you need to tell your story.

A TV show is generally a family of characters. Ideally it is a family of characters who spend their time at a venue: a cop shop, a couple of apartments, the White House, NCC 1701. For a procedural show, it is ideally a family of characters who spend their time at a venue where stories regularly walk in the door: a law firm, a hospital, a restaurant, a hotel.

That's why there are so many shows about cops, lawyers and doctors: it is not too hard to come up with new episode pitches so long as people keep committing crimes, going to court and getting sick, in so many different ways. A great episodic episode needs more than a clever new crime, legal situation or ailment. But for a show to reach 100 episodes, you're going to have to hack some episodes out. If you don't have a venue where stories walk in the door, or an ongoing story arc, you're going to really have to work for every springboard.

So we're trying to think of venues where stories walk in the door that are not cop shops, law firms, courtrooms, hospitals, hotels or restaurants...

Why It's Hard to Sell an Outline

Q. I have completed a detailed outline [for my script] from beginning to end with all major plot points in between. Is it worth my (or the agent's) time to send queries on either an outline or a treatment, or will they only accept finished screenplays?

Well, if you feel confident you can write the script and you've solved all the story problems and now it's just a matter of writing pages ... you could query as if it's a screenplay, and then if you get positive responses, write the screenplay then.

You probably won't be able to sell an outline. For one thing, if they don't know your work, they don't know how you'll execute the outline? In the technical sense, it requires less skill to write a paragraph of plot description than a dramatic scene. So how do they know what the finished product will look like?

But even pro screenwriters mostly can't sell outlines. Joe Esterhazs, at the height of the spec mania, sold a four page outline for about a million a page. But that was after BASIC INSTINCT. Some buddies of mine, one of whom is a Hollywood screenwriter you've heard of, sold a pitch for a ton of money. But I doubt I could sell an outline, for example.

That's because it's ten times harder to read an outline than to read a script. Outlines tend to read very plotty. The characters don't come through, because characterization exists in the myriad details of dialog and action that exist only in the pages. Tone rarely comes through well, either. Comedy doesn't come through at all -- comedy plots tend to read either ludicrous or tragic.

Outlines are like the score to a symphony. How many people can read a score and feel the music from it without playing it? Maybe composers and conductors, and some, but not all, musicians.

The same is not so true of an oral pitch. People can usually follow an oral pitch -- because they're getting tone and characterization from your delivery -- your tone of voice and attitude. That's why I try very hard to avoid giving an outline to anyone but a writer, unless I've pitched that person the story orally first.

If you are stuck giving someone an outline, do what I call the "subtitles for the nuance-impaired" pass. Go through and explain everything. Explain why things are happening. Explain what the events mean. Describe the tone. Describe how hilarious the hilarious scenes are. Add 10% handwaving. Basically, turn your outline into a written pitch. Make it no longer an aide-mémoire for the writer, but a sales document. Add the sizzle to the steak.

Come to think of it, always add a little sizzle. People in showbiz tend to be nervous Nellies about their own opinions, because the consequences for saying "yes" and guessing wrong are so much worse than the consequences for saying "no" and guessing wrong. It's not a bad idea to remind the reader every now and then, in subtle ways, just how exciting this is...

Congrats Heidi and Sarah!

I'm jazzed to see that my poker crony Heidi Foss picked up a CBC development deal for the family show she pitched on Thursday, and so did Sarah Glinski, whom I know from many a WGC cocktail:

Foss' comedy idea "Four Minutes Apart," about an anti-establishment female stand-up who moves in with her upwardly mobile brother and his family, and Glinski's "Sibling Rivalry," about a young woman's changing relationship with her younger brother, convinced CBC head of comedy Anton Leo at the annual Just For Pitching panel.

The Hollywood Reporter

Every writer I know, and I am no exception, suffers from Gore Vidal-ian envy ("every time a friend of mine succeeds, a little part of me dies"), but this time we knew going in that there was no way the show we were pitching was for the CBC. Let's just say that no one in it is a role model.

Jargon watch: when people talk about "the watershed," they mean the difference between 8 pm and earlier, when kids might be watching, and 9 pm, when if kids are still up, it's their parents' fault. Our show is probably a post-watershed show. Heidi and Sarah's are perfect family viewing.

You go, girls!

Pitched

Nelson Wyatt has a nice article in Macleans about our pitching session yesterday, with a few quotes from yours truly.

Doesn't it look glamorous?

Off to Pitch

In a few minutes we're off to pitch our mock rockumentary comedy I'M WITH THE BAND at the Just for Pitching event at Montreal's Hyatt Regency. It's Lisa's first pitching event -- really her first live pitch -- so we're excited.

It's a lot more fun pitching with two people than one. There's something exciting about one person jumping in where another person pauses. The whole thing just feels more dynamic.

Last year at Banff I memorized the whole pitch. But I think that took up way too much effort. We know our pitch pretty well off the page.

Meanwhile I'm pondering what to do with the rest of the summer. Stick around? Or head off back to the country? 'Cause this time of year you're either staffing a show in production, or kicking back your heels waiting for the network execs to come back to their desks from their cottages. Might as well get out of Dodge. I'm waiting for a couple of deals to close so I can get to work on them. Until then I'm working on another spec feature...

Wish us luck at the pitch!

Thanks Folks, You're Wonderful, I'll Be Here All Week

If you want to see what I look like pitching in front of an audience, and you're in Montreal on the 19th, check out the Just for Pitching event at noon at the Hyatt Regency. I'll be pitching a sexy comedy called ... well come to the event and you'll see!

The Kind of Email I Like To Get

Friend o' the Blog Kody Chamberlain writes:

I just sold my first film to Paramount without a script, or a comic.

I had pitched a high concept story idea to Ross Richie at Boom Studios (comic publisher who also sold TAG to Universal, the freelance gig I did with Keith Giffen) with the intention of doing a graphic novel or miniseries of the story. I worked my ass off to build a strong hook and rough direction for the story and dropped it in his email box.

He loved the premise and the concept and insisted we pitch it as a TV series instead, and we could still do the comic whenever. So I said sure thing and he sent it around to a few contacts and got some strong early hits. Ross had a few meetings set up with film studios about various other projects and dropped the concept for my project idea in a few of the meetings. Before I knew it, Paramount made us a pretty strong offer. Cut to a few meetings later and we closed the deal.

So there's proof of the power of a strong hook, and I thank you, sir, for offering up the advice on building a strong hook and insisting that it deserved more attention than most people give it.

See the Variety article about it.

Way to go, Kody.

Pitch Your Comedy

There's an open comedy series pitch at the Just For Laughs festival in Montreal. Anyone can apply, and you don't have to go to freakin' Banff to participate. If you're in the neighborhood, and have a 750 word comedy pitch, go for it. The deadline is June June 22 June 29.

And check out the festival site to see when the ten finalists actually pitch on stage on July 19!