One of the many workshops I've offered over the years to playwrights and screenwriters is a weekend intensive called Cracking the Producers Code. The goal of the 11-hr crash course is to arm script writers with some of the most important questions a producer will ask as she gets acquainted with your script and thereby comes to see it as more than a script but actually a property.
What do we mean by "property" in this context?
Something that can inspire the public to purchase tickets and thereby form an audience for the work. When talking to distributors or foreign sales agents regarding a small indie film, the most common question any writer/director will have to contend with is: Who is the intended audience for this film?
Most people who read between the lines of any one of my course descriptions understand a fundamental core of my approach to empowering writers.
I believe that writers are some of the most mistreated taken-for-granted unappreciated artists on the planet.
And because of this fact (and it is a fact) most of the structures that hold our theatrical ecosystems together are built on the assumption that writers are a dime a dozen and anyone who produces your work is doing you a huge favor.
Of course the opposite is true; writers do the world a huge favor every time we put pen to paper. Sadly, most writers (myself included) who are fortunate enough to ever write something remotely commercially successful generally don't recognize this fact until it's way too late for them to make requests or demands remotely in line with that value. This pattern continues from generation to generation for reasons which are deeply important and alarming and beyond the scope of this post.
Suffice it to say, the world is built with countless hidden (and not so hidden) signs which say to writers:
Be grateful we're letting your work see the light of day.
And writers, being the sensitive souls that we are, tend to shrink back into our corners taking the failure of certain powerful people to acknowledge just how essential and wonderful and alive we are as an indication that we must not be... essential and wonderful and alive.
And that's a shame.
But of course you already know that. Otherwise you wouldn't be in my Inner Circle.
I'll never forget the time I was finishing up another 3-day Self-Production Boot Camp for a roomful of Dramatists Guild members. The workshop is all about autonomy. I mean for three days all the participating writers go through a series of exercises aimed at demystifying the producing process, to help writers gain the confidence and the nuts and bolts tools necessary for taking matters into their own hands and producing their own shows.
We were entertaining one last 20-min Q&A and a hand shot up in the back of the Mary Rodgers Room. The question?
How do I get an agent?
While I do believe all of this with all my head and heart, I also am sure that 90% of the difficulty writers have getting our work seen is either entirely created or at least amplified by the actions taken and neglected by writers ourselves.
I'm also pretty sure that no matter how good it feels to complain about the myriad ways in which the marketplace is unfair and not in any way engineered to select the work of highest quality, complaining about the externals will not get you any closer to achieving your dreams. And by dreams, I mean the only dream, the one dream: the dream of work--your work--being embraced (passionately!) by an audience.
Don't ever try to convince yourself or your peers that the audience means nothing to you. If you actually manage to convince yourself of this kabuki, only you and your work will suffer. So just stop it.
So, to the title of this post. At the core of every workshop I teach is a choice.
What is that choice?
The choice to embrace, celebrate, augment, exaggerate, and vindicate your artistic autonomy. Think about it: You have a choice in every professional move you make to either act as though you are in the driver's seat, your path determined by your choices or to continue strolling along the same path, convinced of your utter powerlessness and passivity, simply waiting to be shown the next open door by a world that is beyond your understanding.
Which way of being do you suppose feels better in the long run?
To put this another way, yes of course there are too many choices along the way that will be made by people other than you. Of course that's true. That's the nature of working in any profession which involves other human beings. Nevertheless, there are countless choices that are still entirely up to you. And as long as you tell yourself you're powerless, you will be.
The sociologist W.I. Thomas put it most succinctly.
If you define something as real, it is real in its consequences.
Advanced Monologue returns December 26-28
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