Story Into Screenplay

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  • #16
    Re: Story Into Screenplay

    "Prepare yourself for a breathtaking example of overreach from a person utterly ignorant of all things screenplay-related."

    "I welcome any and all comments/ criticism/ advice. I don't have a clue about the first move to make."

    Are these the words of someone who needs to calm down and manage his expectations? Mixed in with lots of good advice are too many people who are looking for a soapbox from which to deliver self-righteous truisms.

    The hard part of the word into page count is that screenplays must adhere to a unique format, one that severely limits the number of words on a page. But that's a subject for down the road.

    I did get an "I'm interested" from a heavy hitter at CAA, so maybe I'm not so clueless after all. Would checking color choices from Porsche be managing my expectations appropriately?

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    • #17
      Re: Story Into Screenplay

      Please let us know how this turns out. We really would like for you to hit a home run.

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      • #18
        Re: Story Into Screenplay

        Thanks. Glad your pulling for me. I'm about to pay a down payment for a place in Malibu so it'd better work out or I'm sunk.

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        • #19
          Story Into Screenplay

          Originally posted by Jake Schuster View Post
          Writing here as someone who has been a full-time writer for 40 years, and who's published seven (soon eight) novels, and who's also been writing teleplays (for the UK market) and scripts for just as long, and who has also written novels built out of scripts I'd originally written, I must sincerely advise you to calm down.

          I have always hated being brutal honest when beginning writers ask for advice, but I remember well when a former college professor became my mentor. He had published several novels, and was the youngest writer ever to get a short-story published in Esquire magazine (this was in the 60s). But he also taught me how tough this business is, how the only people who are worthy of judging one's work are the editors, not one's mother or wife or husband or best friend, who are more likely to tell you just what you want to hear. And that little voice that keeps telling you The New Yorker will definitely want it...? That's just an echo, I'm afraid.

          First of all, as has been pointed out, your story hasn't been published. Publishing is a gateway to getting attention; it's an imprimatur and means that your work has credibility. Right now it seems the only credibility that's there is inside your head. Your attitude is exactly what I had when I was starting out in my twenties: "I'll write a novel, and someone will automatically publish it and it'll be huge and I'll be profiled in the New York Times Magazine and I'll go on TV and it'll turn into a successful movie and I'll go to Hollywood and have nibbles from craft service with the stars and then afterwards I'll go parties and chum around with them and maybe even get invited to their houses and meet girls and have fun and get high and and and...."

          And The New Yorker almost certainly won't publish your story. I mean, over the decades they've turned down even their own long-standing writers such as Updike, Cheever and Nabokov. They even passed on one of mine, though did say they wanted to see more.

          No they don't.

          So don't jump the gun. We all think what we've written is stellar; but it's the marketplace that'll tell you exactly what it's worth. And as for turning it into a winning screenplay...? Well, it's fun to dream, isn't it.
          i appreciate brutal honesty. it's good to have access to as many experiences as writers are willing to share.

          dream the big dream, but set a plan in motion that makes sense on how exactly you think you're going to get there. and when something amazing happens, count your blessings and pay it forward.

          thanks my little motto.
          Last edited by Done Deal Pro; 03-18-2019, 04:59 AM. Reason: Organizing posts
          "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy b/c you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -- Edward Snowden

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          • #20
            Re: Story Into Screenplay

            To FinalAct4:

            Yes, the New Yorker is the longest shot of them all. Word on the street is that in eight years as fiction editor, Bill Buford never took a single story from the slush pile. But, as you point out, I'll be going down in good company. And should lightning strike, I'll die a happy man. All this script nonsense would just become a detail.

            Good luck with whatever it is your planning. (It's beyond my understanding.) One good thought: SF/fantasy is the only subject I know of where the balance of supply and demand is anything like sane.

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            • #21
              Re: Story Into Screenplay

              If you really want to be a screenwriter, start by adapting your own short story.

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              • #22
                Re: Story Into Screenplay

                So as to preserve paul6001s thread for paul, I moved a few posts to an all new thread of their own: http://messageboard.donedealpro.com/...ad.php?t=84396
                Will
                Done Deal Pro
                www.donedealpro.com

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                • #23
                  Re: Story Into Screenplay

                  Originally posted by paul6001 View Post
                  To FinalAct4:

                  Yes, the New Yorker is the longest shot of them all. Word on the street is that in eight years as fiction editor, Bill Buford never took a single story from the slush pile. But, as you point out, I'll be going down in good company. And should lightning strike, I'll die a happy man. All this script nonsense would just become a detail.

                  Good luck with whatever it is your planning. (It's beyond my understanding.) One good thought: SF/fantasy is the only subject I know of where the balance of supply and demand is anything like sane.
                  Though I'm not a short story writer (I've written three, published two), I once sent one to Buford at The New Yorker. I received back a personal letter saying I'd almost made the cut, and there was an added, handwritten post script which asked me to submit again. But I'm just too busy right now fulfilling deadlines for novels.

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