Screenplay News

Alas, Dear Reader, I’d overreacted. Turns out, I had not been irrevocably voted off Screenwriter Island.

 

Susanne called three weeks later with the ol' good news/bad news.

 

Good News -- She liked my script and thought it could sell. You heard me -- sell. For money. Awesome, right?

 

Bad News -- She felt it needed an entirely new Third Act. Susanne wanted to throw out everything I had and rethink the whole thirty pages from square one.

 

Sooner or later every screenwriter's life reaches a crossroads where the whole of their career -- the full possibility of what they may or may not become -- comes to rest in their own fragile hands. In that brief, terrifying instant, there's nobody and nothing to rely on save your own gut instincts -- not unlike the process when any of us face the empty page. All the solemn risks and rewards abruptly rest on your slumped shoulders alone.

 

My own crossroads came very quickly. On this very call, in fact.

 

Susanne insisted on a new Third Act before she’d go out with it. Not only didn’t I want to do the extra work, I honestly wasn't sure it was the right call creatively. I was exhausted, beaten down, my self-doubt was flaring up and the Imposter Syndrome had me by the throat. The concept of more time in isolation, the unique self-loathing only a writer knows, was simply too much to bear.

 

So, brain racing, I decided to sack up and pitch this --

 

Why not cherry-pick one of the many esteemed producers we'd met when I first hit town, slip the draft to them and get their opinion first?

 

It seemed the perfect solution. We could get an objective, world-class opinion without exposing the script and burning it around town. Further, the producer's take would serve as our tie breaker. If he/she agreed with Susanne, then I'd get to work on the third act straight away, without further whimpering or backsliding. Conversely, if the producer agreed with me that it was ship-shape and good to go, we'd fire things up and paper the town with it.

 

Susanne liked the idea. All that remained was to pick the producer.

 

We chose Larry Turman, the wise man who produced The Graduate among many others. Larry was a real straight-shooter with a ridiculous wealth of experience.

 

Susanne messengered my script (anyone remember those days?) over to Larry's office on the Warner Hollywood lot, and a few weeks later his assistant called saying Larry wanted me to drop by and have a talk about what I'd written.