As screenwriters, we have all come up against the agent, publisher, studio hack or fellow writer who when asked to give feedback on our story retorts, “Yeah, good idea, but… it needs to pop more. There’s no high concept.” Sigh. “High concept”: what the heck does that mean—really? What is a writer supposed to do [...]

September 2, 2012 To paraphrase an old military adage: movie-making is a lot like war—long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of life and death. And so … I (we) wait. Let us recap the process so far, the process every writer can expect after optioning a script: #1: Flurry of excitement, lots of Skype [...]

Yes, it’s true a writer might only get the opening pages of their script read — and it will likely be put down right away if those pages don’t immediately engage the busy industry professional who has given it a chance by opening it. Most screenwriters who have been at it for a while realize [...]

I was on my way from lunch to meeting at Paramount when my agent at the time called to inquire if I’d be interested in meeting a particular movie star to discuss a picture he had in mind. My agent said it was a passion project for the actor, but with solid commercial prospects in [...]

In May 2012, I optioned a screenplay to a production company in the United Kingdom.  Sadly, I’ve been in the screenwriting game long enough to know that optioning a screenplay is a lot like promising someone, “the check’s in the mail.”  Options tend to be black holes out of which nothing emerges; independent producers take [...]

I’m a lying liar. I admit the lie and that I’ve been lying the lie for some years now. I feel the need to confess. So here goes nothin’. But first, a little history. It was my one and only honeymoon. Hawaii (cliché alert). My spanking new wife and I were in a popular little [...]

Gary Ross, writer-director of films such as Seabiscuit and Pleasantville, invited me to join in a round-table luncheon with Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey. The congressman had shown interest in meeting with movie-making word-merchants to discuss a subject plaguing that particular news quarter: Violence in Movies. The tragic events of Columbine were still in the rearview [...]

I’m a big Michael Douglas fan. Have been since I was a boy and he was playing Karl Malden’s sidekick in The Streets of San Francisco. So I thought it was pretty cool when my agent asked if I’d be interested in writing a movie for his company. At the time, Michael Douglas was producing [...]

When I work with writers giving feedback and guidance on their material and career paths, I often end up giving advice about how to gain access to agents, managers, and producers – which seems to most writers to be the biggest challenge of this business. The common conception is that “who you know” is ultimately [...]