Save the Cat! (23 page)

Think about it.

Everyone in China "gets" a love story. Everyone in South America understands a
Jaws
or a
n Alien
because "Don't Get Eaten" is primal — even without snappy dialogue.

But this can also go for little fixes of minor characters or subplots in a script that's not working. Are these characters motivated by primal drives? It 's another way of saying: Are these characters acting like recognizable human beings? At their core, they must be. Or else you are not addressing primal issues.

Let's say you have a high-falutin' concept: stockbrokers rigging the international bond market. Fine. All very interesting. But at its core, no matter what the plot is, by making each character's desire more primal, that plot is grounded in a reality that everyone can understand — suddenly it's not about stockbrokers, it's about human beings trying to survive.

Here are primal drives in the storylines of a few hit films:

> The desire to save one's family (
Die Hard)

> The desire to protect one's home
(Home Alone)

> The desire to find a mate
(Sleepless in Seattle)
> The desire to exact revenge (
Gladiator)

> The desire to survive (
Titanic)

Each of these is about a primal need that might be better seen as a biological need, the prime directive. The desire to win the lottery is, in fact, the desire to have more food, more wives, make more children, to be able to reproduce at will. The desire for revenge is, in fact, the desire to knock off a competing DNA carrier and propel your own DNA forward. The desire to find one's parent or child is the desire to shore up and defend existing DNA and survive.

You may think your story is about something more "sophisticated" than this; it's not. At its core it must be about something that resonates at a caveman level.

All together now: When in doubt ask, "Is It Primal?"

SUMMARY

So now you've seen how you can double-check your work using simple rules of the road. If your script feels flat or if you get back comments from readers who can't quite put their finger on it, but know something's wrong, here are seven easy thought-starters to help you find the weak spot.

And fix it.

Ask yourself these questions, the "Is It Broken?" Test:

1. Does my hero lead the action? Is he proactive at every stage of the game and fired up by a desire or a goal?

2. Do my characters "talk the plot"? Am I saying things a novelist would say through my characters instead of letting it be seen in the action of my screenplay?

3. Is the bad guy bad enough? Does he offer my hero the right kind of challenge? Do they both belong in this movie?

4. Does my plot move faster and grow more intense after the midpoint? Is more revealed about the hero and the bad guy as we come in to the Act Three finale?

5. Is my script one-note emotionally? Is it all drama? All comedy? All sadness? All frustration? Does it feel like it needs, but does not offer, emotion breaks?

6. Is my dialogue flat? After doing the Bad Dialogue Test does it seem like everyone talks the same? Can I tell one character from another just by how he or she speaks?

7. Do my minor characters stand out from each other, and are they easy to differentiate by how they look in the mind's eye? Is each unique in speech, look, and manner?

8. Does the hero's journey start as far back as it can go? Am I seeing the entire length of the emotional growth of the hero in this story?

9. Is it primal? Are my characters, at their core, reaching out for a primal desire — to be loved, to survive, to protect family, to exact revenge?

If you are having any nagging doubts about any of the above, you now know what to do. You have the tools to go back in and fix it. But will you? That's the rub. Here's a tip: When in doubt, do it. Odds are that if you, or your initial batch of readers, have found problems with your screenplay, everyone else will too. Don't be lazy! Don't say "Oh well, no one will notice" because... they will. It is better to be brilliant now and have the guts to fix your mistakes before your script's sitting on Steven Spielberg's desk.

You only get the one shot at a first impression. Try to get over the love affair you have with yourself and your work (God knows I've been in love with my own a thousand times!!) and do what needs to be done. This is what separates the pros from the wannabes — that nagging voice that says: "It sucks!" And the mature, adult, professional voice that quickly chimes in: "And I know how to fix it!"

EXERCISES

1. Go back over your list of movies in your favorite genre, pick one that feels weak, and use the Is It Broken? Test to see if it can be improved.

2. Take another of your favorite movies from your genre and examine the hero/bad guy relationship. Imagine torquing this relationship out of whack by making the bad guy less powerful or ordinary. Does this simple change make the hero less interesting too?

3. Try "talking the plot" in real life. Seriously. Go to a party or meet with a group of friends and say: "I sure am glad I'm a screenwriter who was born in Chicago! " or "Gosh, you've been my friend for 20 years ever since we met in High School!" See what reaction you get to this kind of dialogue.

And so we come to the end of our screenwriting confab.

We've discussed many relevant topics and while I've been writing this book, and working on screenplays of my own thank you very much, a lot has happened out here in Hollywoodland:

> Sequels have met with mixed success.

> Many pre-sold franchises did well but some died miserable deaths.

> The open-huge-in—the-first-week strategy (3,000 + theaters) even-if-you-drop-70%-80%-in-the-second-week of a film's release still recouped a majority of most films' budgets, assuring this tactic will continue.

> And family films outperformed every other type of movie, a truism that was met with the resounding sound of... crickets... by the Zegna-suited slicksters. (It's hard to be cool at the cocktail party when you make — ugh! -PG flicks.)

In short, it's more than interesting; it's a boom time, a gold rush. And the most important thing for you to know is that it's still a highly profitable business with lots of reason to invest in new talent. So here is the good news and bad news as it relates to your spec screenplay.

The good news is: The studios have money to buy your script. And the lack of stellar success in the pre-sold franchise arena should indicate they need you. More than ever they must have original ideas. So buying your spec makes sense.

The bad news is: They attribute all their success to themselves. Shrewder marketing, better accounting, more control over how ideas get turned into movies — that's how they did it, ladies and gentlemen! God love 'em! Studio executives keep praying for the sun to rise and each dawn assume it was their prayers that made it happen.

But this should not deter you. If you have gotten anything out of this book, it's that selling a script has a lot more to do with thinking of your screenplay as a "business plan" than ever before. If you have a creative approach, you too can sell to Hollywood. And if you do, you have a bright future. A catchy logline and a killer title will get you noticed. A well-structured screenplay will keep you in the game, and knowing how to fix your script — and any other script you may be presented with — will get you a career. If you have mastered the demands of the job as outlined in this book, you will win at this game.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves?

How, you may ask, do you even get in the door?!

AMBITION VS. FATE

Before the first class is over, invariably I will be asked the one burning question on every screenwriter's mind:

"How do I get an agent?"

Would you believe me if I told you that it's all luck? Would you call me crazy if I advised you not to worry about it, that it will happen when it happens? Probably not. But that may be because I am very comfortable with the subject of how to sell myself. I personally love the business of marketing my scripts and me. I am not afraid to pick up the phone, meet someone at a party, and actually call them the next day (if they give me their card) or finagle friends to get me introductions to people I think would like to meet me.

I think I have something to offer. I like the business and I like meeting the people in it. And the worst thing that can happen, I figure, is that someone will say "no."

So here are two stories about how I got my first agents. One is a demonstration of ambition, one an example of fate.

I got my first agent by sheer pluck. My friends and I had written and produced a TV pilot called
The Blank Show.
A funny parody of what was then the brand-new phenomenon of cable TV, we had made it on a shoestring and once we were done with it, we didn't know what to do. I volunteered to market it myself. I came to Los Angeles, submitted it to Public Access TV, and got a commitment for a day and time it would air. Then for weeks I plastered the westside (where I assumed producers lived) with fliers telling the day and time our show would be on. It finally ran one Sunday night and, sure enough, the next day, Monday morning, I got a call from the producing partner of Budd Friedman, owner of the

Improv. He loved our show! Would my friends and I be interested in being represented? I arranged to have my gang of cohorts come to Los Angeles for a meeting with Budd, who offered to manage us there and then. A little luck and ambition had gotten us noticed. And while our comedy troupe eventually broke up, I have maintained my friendship with Budd Friedman to this day.

That's what "working it" can do, so you should always be working it. But here's where fate is better.

My next agent, and the best one I ever had, I met through circumstances that were much more serendipitous. On a break from my duties as a Production Assistant for a sitcom called
Teachers Only
at NBC, I decided to go home to Santa Barbara for the weekend. And even though I was tired from the drive, I was restless. I decided to go to a local club to get a drink and hopefully meet girls. And I did. I met a girl I was smitten with on sight, and who eventually became my girlfriend. No, she wasn't an agent. But her best friend wanted to be one. I hit it off with her, too. And when she was promoted to agent at Writers &. Artists, I was one of the first people she asked to be her client. I immediately said yes.

And that's how I came to be represented by Hilary Wayne. All because 1 stopped in to have a drink at a bar.

Hilary and I went on to have a fabulous relationship. She was the best agent I ever had. She made great deals for me, understood my writing and my ability to conceptualize, and she formed the foundation of my entire career. Though she herself was new to the game, she had a real knack not just for selling but also for positioning both script and writer in the marketplace. Hilary knew how to build careers and she built mine from scratch. Our relationship coincided with that point in Hollywood history when the "spec sale" was king. This was a time when studio heads would knock themselves out to take a virgin script away from another studio; they'd bid the price up into the millions to do so. And Hilary was a master at setting up these grudge matches, pitting executive against executive, and engineering sales that became the headline on next day's front page of
Variety.

What I had found in Hilary was not just an agent, but a partner. What made it work was that we were on the same wavelength; we were both hungry to succeed, and went out of our way to respect the marketplace and deliver to it what we thought it needed. We read the tea leaves, I went back and made product, and she sold the product. And we made millions of dollars doing it. Hilary passed away in 1998 or I would still be working with her. And I often wonder what she would make of the business today. The landscape has changed and the spec sale fever is no longer what it was, but Hollywood still needs good ideas and good writers. No matter how you find your way in this maze, you must be bold. And you must find your own Hilary Wayne because you can't do it alone.

It's one thing for me to tell you my tales, it's another to ask what I would do if I were starting out again or if I wanted to find new representation and sell myself from scratch today. I am lucky — I don't mind getting out from behind my computer and meeting people. Not every one of you is like that. As writers we tend to be insular, introverted, and introspective. But if you want to sell your script, you have to sell yourself — and I say this in the most healthy and positive sense. There is no crass salesmanship involved if you are genuinely interested in your subject. And if you seek out people to be partners in this game, whom you can help as much as they can help you, then it's mutually beneficial.