Advanced Hollywood Screenwriting for Professionals

1. Intro: This course is about the advanced screenwriting process. These lessons are intended for writers who already understand the basics of screenwriting and storytelling. Want to enhance their skillset. Beyond the fundamentals. We will assume you already understand proper screenplay formats and terms such as plot, beat, dialogue, and protagonist. This course does not require any specific software or product. These lessons can be applied to any type of writing for visual media, such as episodic television or streaming limited series. What we will discuss are the philosophies and concepts that make a story work. The tools you will need to tell the story well. We will cover the concept of story and how it differs from plot. We will talk about your story's theme and how you can make it universal such that your story can be told in any genre or format you need. We will cover characters and discuss what gives them dimension and how you can give them rich inner lives. We will discuss points of view, tragic flaws, and how you can make your characters into roles that actors want to play. Later, we will discuss how you can build your story around a plot framework and how to build stakes into your plot to raise tension and excite your audiences. And how you can introduce and use the concept of failure to make your audience's invest in your story with every scene. Finally, we will talk about exhibition and how we can get your story in front of people. The industry and technology move and change quickly. But there are certain principles that remain the same. We will discuss how you can use them to get your screenplay in front of the right people to put it on screen in front of audiences. In the end, this course will better equip you to create a good story until it well. 2. Story: In this lesson, we're going to discuss the concept and philosophy of story and theme. We all naturally understand the story. We tell stories every day when we talk or type two other people. Story is the fundamental way the human brain processes events and actions and organizes them. To be understood. Humans seek patterns to make sense of what is around them. The way we naturally tend to organize them is what we know as story. A good story is one that we care about. Good story makes the audience give their attention to it and personally invest in the outcome. A good story gives your audience a reason to care. How do we make the audience care about your story? To do that, it needs to have a universal theme. Theme is a lesson, a take-away, a point to be made. By universal. We mean the lesson you are demonstrating is relevant. Anyone listening, no matter what the characters, language, genre, or form, it was story takes. One way to formulate a theme is by using the if then format to organize your lesson. For example, you can formulate a theme like this. If you are always too afraid to try, then you will never succeed. That is a theme that could be told in a science fiction movie or in a nursery rhyme, or on the back of a cereal box. It can take any form you need it to. And it's strong enough that you can build any kind of story around it that you need to. Another example. If you don't prepare for the worst of times, then you can't enjoy the best of times. That is a theme that could be told as an animated movie about a squirrel preparing for winter. Or it could be a live action commercial for insurance. The theme is universal enough that any person from any culture would understand it. Even if they didn't agree, they could grasp why somebody would think that way. A strong theme is the most important piece of building a strong story. It is the theme that gives your story a point in being told. Audiences need for a story to have a purpose. No matter how simple that purpose is. Have you ever listened to a young child tell a story? Usually just a bunch of unrelated facts and observations that don't connect and don't resolve a question. How long can you listen to somebody ramble on without getting to the point? How irritated do you get when somebody wastes your time by saying something pointless? In order to not waste your audience's time, your story needs a strong point. You need to know what that is before telling the story. Why here and now. Another question you need to answer for your audience is the critical y here. Y, now, it is important for you to establish for your audience right away why your story starts where it does, and eventually ends how it does. You can't count on the audience giving you the benefit of the doubt for too long. The longer the audience goes without knowing why they are seeing what they are seeing, the more likely it is that they will turn away to something else that provides them with faster answers. It is perfectly okay to raise questions for your audience, like in a mystery or detective story. But you need to continue giving them a reason to stay around for the answer. And you do that by telling the audience why it is important to stay. For example, in the very first Star Wars movie, begins. Just as Princess Leia is being captured, within seconds of the movies starting, there is a battle, a flashy, violent conflict with special effects and an exciting chase. The audience doesn't know where they are yet. Which characters are witch, who they want to succeed. But the movie begins right in the middle of terrific action. And the audience naturally wants to watch it unfold. Star Wars never stops giving the audience a reason to keep watching. Even though there are so many unanswered questions throughout the movie. Only seen here. Another very important aspect your story needs is the concept of only seen here. Your story has to be unique as only you could tell it. Of course, it will have aspects that will be similar to other stories. It could share themes or settings, but your story is yours alone. And you have to tell it in a way. Only you can do that. You need to examine what can happen in your story that the audience wouldn't see in any other movie. If the audience is just going to see the same thing in your movie that they already saw somewhere else. Why wouldn't they just watch that other movie? Again? Why would someone want to spend all the time and money to make your screenplay into a film. That film has already been made. You need to give everyone a reason that your story is being told, why your theme needs to be taught. You do that by imagining events and actions that can only seen here. Maybe your story is about a heroic battle and a brave company of soldiers, which has been done in countless movies already. That doesn't mean you shouldn't tell the story. But It's your job now to think of things that can happen in your story that you haven't seen happen before. What can the soldiers do that would surprise the audience. How could the battle end that they audience did not expect? To do that? You need to first outline what the actions and events of your movie are and what the setting is. Then, write out what an audience instance would naturally expect to happen in that setting. And as a result of those actions. Using our war movie example, the audience would expect for there to be a lot of action and tragedy. And for many characters to suffer and die before the end. That is common amongst nearly all movies set during battles. Now that you know that you are free to come up with things that go directly against those expectations. It may be the soldiers escaped the battle altogether in a hot air balloon. Or maybe a straight football distracts both sides of the battle, and it becomes a soccer match. Instead. Once you identify what you don't want to happen in your story, you are completely free to imagine all the things I do want to have them. Write what you know. The final, most important aspect to telling your story is about telling a story that is yours. You have to tell a story. You know, from your experience. We have all heard the phrase, write what you know. And that is extremely important in screenwriting. Understand? We don't mean that you can only write an autobiography or only write out literal experiences you have had. When we say that you need to write about what you know, it means that you have to incorporate themes that you personally believe. You have to teach, lessons that you were taught. Not just what you think an audience wants to hear, or what you think producers want to make. As a screenwriter, you are competing against millions of other people with lives and experiences very different from your own. In a person with years and years of struggles and lessons learned. If you aren't writing about what life has taught you than your story, won't engage audiences nearly as much as another writer who did tell a story. They personally lived. As long as the theme of your story rings true to you and is a lesson you believe, then you can't put that theme into any setting and it will still connect with an audience. Let's say. You want to write a fantasy film set in an imaginary world with fantastic creatures and magic. That's great and would be a terrific setting to tell any number of stories. But what you have to do is create a theme that is as true in your personal world as it is in the fantasy world. For example, if when you were very young, parent taught you a theme that if you treat everyone like they were your family, then you will never truly be alone. And you really believe that. Then your job is to find a way for the fantasy world and all of the different characters in that world to show the audience why that theme is true. Not only does the theme give you, the writer a base to work from, but it also gives you a goal. You need to prove the theme is true by the end of the story with the characters and setting you have. If it is a theme you believe and care about personally, then you, as the writer, have a reason to teach that theme to your audience. So when you write what you know, you show us what you believe and you give us a reason to care. 3. Character: In this lesson, we will be discussing character and how we can craft them into multi-dimensional people that ring true to audiences and keep their attention. Your job as the writer is to create and flesh out characters. To take the actions of your story, demonstrate, and learn the theme you are trying to convey. The purpose of a character is to embody your theme. Characters do this through the actions they take in the decisions they make. The first choice that you, the writer has to make is to decide what character's point of view the story will take place from. You have to decide whose story is it. You can do this by asking yourself, which character learns the most? Which character changes the most? Who is the most different at the end than at the beginning? If you can focus on that one character before adding too many others, you will set your story up to be the most engaging possible. For your audience. There is a temptation in many writers to include many characters to make their stories of large ensemble pieces. Choosing a point-of-view character doesn't make this impossible. Just because a story is mostly about one character. Doesn't mean others do not learn and change. But the story should be driven by revolve around the choices and actions of one character and the effects that happen after. For example, Luke Skywalker is the main character in the original Star Wars movie. He learns the most, and it is his decisions that cause the story to move forward. The actions of everyone else, driven by the choices, Luke makes. He decides to leave his planet, which leads him to becoming a Jedi Knight, which brings him into conflict with Darth Vader, which causes the war to escalate and eventually for the Death Star to be destroyed. At the end of the movie, other characters have changed and learned and grown as well. Han Solo learns that there is more to life than money. Princess Leia learns to trust the untrustworthy. Even Obi-Wan Kenobi learns. There are many ways to teach a student. But all of these changes come about as a result of the actions of Luke. If Luke Skywalker decided to stay home that one day. None of the rest of the story happens. One of the most important things you as the writer have to do is decide who of all of your characters has to learn the most, grow the most, and change the most. Who in your story cannot stay home that day. Tragic faults. All writers know that your characters indeed flaws. The key thing your characters need are tragic faults. By that, we mean that your character's flaw needs is to stop them from learning and growing. And it has to be in direct opposition to what they want to be. For example, if your story is about a baseball player, what they want the most in the world is to win the World Series, then that character needs a flaw that directly prevents that from happening. You, as the writer could decide, that baseball is a team sport. And requires good cooperation to win. Therefore, your characters tragic flaw is that they don't get along with the other players and don't listen to what the other players say. Maybe that's driven by your characters ego. Maybe it's fear or distrust of other people. Whatever the reason your character's flaw needs to be, what stops them from getting what they want the most. Your characters could have everything they ever wanted. If only, they would learn their lesson. That is what your story needs to be about. Your character's flaw needs to be overcome by learning your theme. Tragic flaws can be made even stronger if they have an aspect of irony. If the flaw in your character is not one that the audience expects, then it makes the learning of your theme even more interesting. For example, in the warm movie, Me expect your main character to be afraid of injury and death. And for that fear to prevent them from being heroic and winning the battle. But what if their flaw, in this case, fear or cowardice, took a different form than we expect. What if the hero instead was afraid of the dark? How would that change how they behave? And how would that change the choices that they make? Audiences expect a character to be afraid of gunfire and explosions. But what if that character instead was afraid of being alone? How does that change the story? When they aren't afraid of what they think we should be, but have to avoid things. We don't expect. These ironic flaws allow you as the writer to imagine many more events for your story. When you are forced to avoid what the audience expects. The eye patch. This is another tool writer can use to engage the audience with your characters. When we use the phrase, give them an eye patch, what we mean is that you should give every single one of your characters some aspect or characteristic that sets them apart. You might call it a quirk. Give them each something memorable, which will stand out to the audience. This allows you to add depth to your characters, giving your audience another reason to care about them. By giving your character something else to care about while revealing more about that character. For example, you could have a typically strong masculine action hero character, but you could write them to have a strange pet, like a miniature pig. This lets you, the writer devise a reason that character would have that pet the first place. Perhaps something in their history makes them want to keep a tiny pig. Or maybe they rescued the pig during a previous adventure and continue taking care of it because they grew attached. By simply giving your character a weird pet. You've revealed a whole history of a character and other aspects of their personality. Without having to write a single line of dialogue, integral or exposition. The audience can draw many conclusions about your character from that one. Work. Another example. You can have a character that often flips a coin to make a hard decision. And maybe the coin they flip is rare or exotic. Perhaps it has sentimental value. By showing your character, flipping the coin. Trusting the outcome. You have told the audience a great deal about the type of person your character is. You have shown that they are indecisive. Or maybe that they believe in fate or probability. Or maybe in some mystic power the coin has. Maybe the coin was passed to them by a loved one that has now gone. And by flipping the coin, it is your character's way of asking for that loved ones Advice. You can see how one weird quirk can give your character many little layers for you, the writer to use to tell your story. Characters. For actors, one area of writing characters that is not discussed enough is crafting a character than an actor will want to portray you as a screenwriter, not writing a finished product. You are creating a blueprint for a movie that many people along the process will need to use to make the finished film. It is your responsibility to write something that all of those people involved will want to work on and be a part of. There are millions and millions of unproduced screen plays that all of those professionals could work on. And as the writer, you need to do everything you can to them to choose your screenplay above all of the others. The best way to do that is to craft a story with fascinating characters that actors will want to play. If you are able to get your screenplay in front of people who have the power to get it made. You will absolutely need to have the interest of the actors who can actually get the movie sold. It is your responsibility as the writer too, give those actors a reason to be a part of your project. Besides just a paycheck. You have to understand the point of view of the actors who will read your screenplay and understand what they are looking for in your work. The actors are looking for parts that are fun to play. Parts that play to their strengths as performers. But most of all, they are looking for parts that offer opportunities. Actors want opportunities to perform, to show their range. Essentially, to show off to everyone watching. As the writer, you need to give them those opportunities. When you are creating your characters, giving them tragic flaws and quirky aspects. You need to keep in mind that later on an actor will need to be convinced to portray that character. You need to write it in such a way that the actor will seek out your character for the opportunities you offer. The most obvious example of one of these opportunities is the monologue. Many actors will flip through your script, searching out how many lines there character has. And if there are any long blocks of text for the actor to sink their teeth into. This isn't to say that every character in every script needs to have a lengthy multi-page monologue expounding on the nature of the universe. But the fundamental truth is that actors want to say lines on screen. And the more lines a part has, the more attractive it is to an actor. And the most intriguing thing for an actor at first sight, before they even read your story is a big block of text for that actor to call their own. Even if your screenplay doesn't have a single line of dialogue, you need to invent ways to convince actors to want to be your characters. You need to give them interesting people to be. 4. Plot: Plot. A good story is one that makes the most sense to us. A series of events that naturally flow from one to the other and finish in a satisfying way. When a story does not flow from one event to the other. In a natural progression, humans become irritated. We naturally want to understand what we are seeing. We cannot see the reason that two events are connected. It creates dissonance in our thinking. It raises questions without immediate answers. Humans are naturally curious. So we want to know the why behind everything. Plot is how we organize, relate, and build events on each other in order for them to make the most sense and tell your story in the most effective way. Think of your plot like a blueprint for your story. Plan, for the events of your story. To build the structure of your story. A strong blot gives the audience the best opportunity to understand. Your story. Plot is what allows the audience to learn the lesson of your theme by putting your story in the most understandable form. Stakes. What gives your plot direction is the concept of steaks. What is at stake in your story? What does your character stand to gain, and what could they lose? The most important thing to consider when creating the stakes for your story is what is most important to your character. What can they not live without? What things or conditions define? Your character? States should represent opposites for your character. They should be both the best and worst possible outcomes. As the writer, you need to come up with what the worst a possible thing to happen to your character would be. What that is, is different for every character. For example, the worst-case scenario for Luke Skywalker would be to live his entire life on his uncle's farm. Never learned to fly and never be a part of something bigger than himself. Being unremarkable is the absolute worst thing for Luke in his mind. Alternatively, Ebenezer Scrooge cares most about his wealth and ownership. His worst-case scenario is being destitute, poor, and unable to control his surroundings. And to be vulnerable. Different characters will always define success differently. You, the writer, need to define that for them before you begin writing. When you determine the absolute worst thing that could happen to your character, you need to threaten them with that. Throughout the entire story. The secret to making the stakes mean as much as possible to the character, is making them mean as much as possible to you. And by extension, to your audience. This is where the Universal theme and writing, what, you know, factor. Into your writing, what the character is afraid of should be what you are afraid of. It should be specific and relatable. Everyone would be afraid of the whole world blowing up. But the vast majority of people don't factor that possibility into their daily lives. But most people would be afraid of their relationships falling apart. And many people spend a lot of time and energy to keep their close relationships alive. Many people deeply fear being all alone. And so a character who has that same fear, who constantly faces threats of being abandoned will connect with audiences. The second principle of stakes is that they need to build over the course of your story. In the beginning. Failure must be a possibility for your character. But the results of failure early in the story must be less severe than at the end of the story. For example, early in Harry Potter. Harry is worst case scenario is being unremarkable. And living with his aunt and uncle in an unpleasant home. By the end of the story, harry is threatened not only with his own death, but the death of all of his close friends and the destruction of Hogwarts, the new home he has adopted. Both stakes are related, in this case by the concepts of home, family, and belonging. But by the end of the story, Harry has much, much more to lose. Because of that. He is willing to take greater and greater risks to achieve his goal. Stakes that are relatable to your character, to you, and to your audience. Give the audience a reason to care about your story from the beginning. Stakes that grow as the story continues will keep the audience invested. No matter how severe the worst case scenarios become. Because they will always be tied back to what was initially at stake. For the character. Failure. Failure is an important aspect to every story. And the writer needs to know how to both display and threaten failure throughout the story. Burst. Failure must always be possible. The possibility that your character can fail is what gives the story stakes. If a character will always succeed, then nothing is at stake and the audience has no reason to care. Think about how many action or superhero movie franchises have included many sequels that were never as successful as the first film in the series. The audience learns very quickly that the heroes never lose. The stories, lose the audience's attention. While the plots threaten the end of the world, audience knows nothing is really at stake. And they quickly become bored. You. As the writer must demonstrate failure to your audience. Your characters. In must fail it often multiple times before eventually achieving their goals. No characters. First idea should work out. Plan a should never pan out. Ideally, your characters would fail over and over again until the very end of the story. When they finally get what they want. Along the way, you can write small failure for your characters experience that bring them close to the worst case scenario. That always keep the threat of the worst case scenario present. These small failures can complicate your characters situations, forced them to face new challenges as they keep having to solve problems. These failures should be the result of your character's flaws and how they solve them. The decisions they make should come from those same aspects. For example, in the war story with the hero who is afraid of the dark, he may be forced to go into a tunnel without any light. So he brings his father's lighter with him. When the hero lights the lighter, because he is afraid and cannot see, he inadvertently gives away his position to the enemy. Who sees the flame. His flaw lead to a decision that caused a small failure that the character has to find a way out of. In this scenario, maybe the hero makes a personal sacrifice by throwing his father's of lighter away and hiding in the dark. This is close to his personal worst case scenario, but his willingness to go in the dark and to sacrifice the lighter shows he is growing and that he is learning. And all of this happened without a single line of dialogue or exposition. Fundamentally, your characters have to fail. They have to get themselves into trouble because of their flaws. And they have to learn and grow to get themselves out of trouble. Always remember. Audiences. Do not like your characters for succeeding. Audiences. Like your characters for trying. I repeat. Audiences like characters because they try. The movie. Rocky won the Oscar for best picture, but the character technically loses. He gets beat. Just like every other character in the movie said, he would buy the obvious winner, reigning world champion, Apollo Creed. But every character in the movie, routes for Rocky, the city. And the audience loved him because he tried. He dedicated himself to the challenge. Despite the impossibility of winning. He fails over and over in nearly every, an aspect of his life. But he is considered a classic hero because he tried and audiences connected with his efforts. Make your characters try, make them fail, and then make them try again. The worst. Another concept that you need to incorporate into your story is the idea of the worst person. For the. Job. Just like the worst case scenario and the tragic flaw, you'd need to create a way for your character to be the worst person for the job. They need to be completely unfit for the challenge in your story. At least at the beginning. By the end of the story. After they have learned and grown, they have become capable of facing the challenge. It is at the beginning. If you need to establish that the character, as they are, cannot succeed. Again, we will look at Star Wars. Luke Skywalker is a farmer from nowhere who has no experience or skills. He has absolutely no business fighting in a war or piloting a spaceship. If the Luke Skywalker, who had never met Obi-Wan, Kenobi, never heard of the force. Had tried attack the Death Star, he would have failed immediately. The story would be over in five minutes. Along the same lines. If the Harry Potter from the first scenes, who did not know about magic and did not know wizards. We're real, tried to stand up to Voldemort. He would have failed instantly. In the beginning. These heroes are the worst people for the job. They are not expected to win. They are literally told the opposite. They are completely wrong for the task at hand. Think of how many thousands of boring, unremarkable action movies have come out over the years that you cannot even remember the names of. How many action movies involve a villain with an evil army at their disposal, facing off against a hero with ample experience. A highly decorated super soldier, a rational person, when thinking about who would be the best person to send to defeat the villain and their army would make the obvious choice and send the super soldier. They are the perfect person for that job. And you expect them to win. Everything that happens after also goes along with your expectations. Nothing is surprising. Nobody in rows or changes. The super soldier blows up the bad guys and goes home. Everything goes according to plan. The audience is already asleep. Remember, plan a should never work. Your characters should always fail until the moment they don't. You should know what your audience expects and then do something. Do anything else. Choice moves, plot. When you are putting your story events in order, one after the other, you will have to decide how the characters get from point a to point B. What moves your story? What moves the plot pieces is always character choice. Characters because of who they are, because of their beliefs and their flaws, must decide to go from point a to point B. Because they think that he's the best idea. Things should not just happen to your characters. Your characters make things happen for better or for worse. Usually, for worse. If you are writing your story. And find that it has become like a theme park where your characters show up in one place, say a few lines, take a few actions, and then just move on to another place. You need to stop and invent a reason for your characters to decide to go from one to the other. It needs to make sense to them. For it to make sense to the audience. Your characters need, it would be going with their best idea at the time. You should always be able to answer by your character thinks what they are doing in a given scene is a good idea. If you cannot, you need to back up and come up with a reason. Many writers make the mistake of designing an outline or a structure and just having characters move through it, like pieces in a board game. Those writers think that just because there is a clear structure and series of events, that the events will move the characters through, that the audience will accept it. The truth is that the audience is watching the characters, not what happens to the characters. The audience cares about the people and pays attention to the decision they make. For example, in Harry Potter, the audience is not keeping track of all of the steps between the beginning and Harry's arrival at Hogwarts. They are not carefully marking Harry's progress through the structure of the first act. The audience is waiting and anticipating the moment harry decides to open his letter. For the moment he passes through the train platform. The audience does not care about the steps to get to the wizarding world. The audience cares about seeing Harry become a wizard. As the writer, you know, how your story should go and what events should take place. It is your job to create ways for your characters to choose to take the steps to get there. 5. Exhibition: Exhibition. Now that we have discussed the steps you need to take to write the best version of your story. Let's discuss what you do with it. Once it's complete. We will call this exhibiting your work. If you have a good story. Well told, what can you do with it? The first avenue we can discuss is the traditional route of writing contests and screenplay festivals. Today, there are more writing contests than there have ever been through online platforms, such as without a box and film freeway. The writer has access to thousands of possible places to submit their work in every language and every country on the planet. At first glance, this can be a very tempting way to put your work out into the world and get eyes on the story. You have spent so much time and effort getting down on paper. The issue with thes is a matter of volume and audience. Volume is a factor in that. The more outlets and avenues there are for your work to get out in the world. The smaller the potential audience for each is. There are a limited number of people interested in reading screenplays. That group is being splintered and shared amongst an ever growing slate of contests. The writer must then submit their work and hope it gets chosen and featured. And an ever growing lots of places. More than ever before. There are more and more writers competing for a shrinking audience of readers. You must also take into account the cost of this strategy. Most contests are not free to enter. Most will charge a submission fee to cover the cost of putting on the contest itself. And for having the staff to sift through the thousands and thousands of submissions they receive. If you are dedicated to pursuing the contest route, you have to budget for how much it will cost to submit to the contests. You feel the most confident you can compete in. The best way to approach these is to narrow your intended submission targets to a list of carefully chosen events that specialize in the type of the story you have written. Determine the genre, the length, and format of your story. Then these search, the contests and festivals that cater directly towards what you have already written. If you have a feature-length horror genre screenplay, you should target festivals looking exactly for that. You have a significant advantage by specifically targeting your venues. And even greater advantage if your story fits a specific genre. The more specific a venue that fits your story, the better chance you have of not only being featured, but of exposing to an audience that is all ready looking for the exact type of material you have written. In terms of contests and festivals. The more specific and niche. You are, the more successful you will be. One online platform we should discuss is ink tip.com, Inc. Tip is a resource for people to upload and search for unproduced screen plays. On that site. You are able to break down and categorize your screenplay and make it available to an audience that is specifically seeking out screenplays to produce. Keep in mind, however, just how many screenplays are available there. The type of producer that would be seeking those scripts. On top of a good story. You need to have a highly marketable and economically feasible script. One rule to always keep in mind when trying to get attention to your material is that the easier a place or platform is to access, the more competition volume there will be, and the less likely it is for anyone to take notice of your work. Agents. Getting an agent as a screenwriter can be an important step in your career and can open up opportunities for you as a writer that simply aren't available without representation. But getting an agent is just a step in a longer process and not an end in and of itself. It also doesn't solve any final problem for you, nor does it guarantee that you will be a working writer for the rest of your career? The key way of getting an agent's attention is through the query letter. This is a short letter. Pitching yourself and your writing to an agent, electricity sends unsolicited to their office. The letter should be specific, attention grabbing. And you should explain very clearly the kind of writer that you are and exactly how your writing will benefit the agent. Agents fundamentally looking for clients that will work as much as possible and earn as much as possible. And the agent's time is limited. Just like you need to convince the audience to care about your characters. You need to convince the agent to care about your work. You need them to invest time into you. The same way, you need to convince actors to invest in more characters. Again, keep in mind how easy simply writing a letter to an agent is. And consider how many thousands of letters every agency receives every single week. And the low likelihood that you would stand out. Don't be discouraged by the volume of competition. But be aware that you will need to continue trying, continue writing, and always be improving in order to succeed. Networking. This is a simple concept that defines the process for knowing more people. Rather making more people know. You. Just like how you always have to consider your audience when writing a story. You need to consider the other audience for producing your work. Ask yourself professionally, who do you know? What do they know you? For? Many writers, hang around. Other writers. That is simply natural to know people like yourself who do things like you. But writers do not hire other writers. You need to carefully consider what types of people hire writers and purchase screenplays. Then put yourself into positions to meet those people. The classic way of doing so is by attending a film festival, or even better, attending every film festival, you can. Today, there are tens of thousands of events in every country on earth that you can attend and meet other people who could be looking for material like yours. Every director or producer who attend a festival to show a film is naturally going to be looking to be successful again with their next project. Could be looking for someone who can help them do that. Even if they aren't looking to buy your writing. They may be looking for a good writer that they personally know to write for them. Remember that the audience for your story is just as important as the audience for your work. You have to give both of them a reason to care about what you are saying. Other filmmakers. As we said earlier, what you have in your screenplay is a blueprint for others to use to create a final product, a finished film. Very few people outside of other writers seek out screenplays. Another strategy you as a writer can take to get attention to your work is to seek out other filmmakers who would be willing to take a small risk on producing your work. By this, I mean, finding other people who are looking for the same thing. You are, namely industry attention. In an effort to move up in the business. Then work with them to get your material made into some kind of final product. This likely means a smaller, shorter, scaled back vision of your story. If you have a feature length screenplay, you might try your best at writing a ten minute version of the most important part of your story. Or you might try carving out just the introduction of the larger plot. Any way you can find to keep the essence of what you have written. The heart of the theme you have created, and make it easier, more economical for others to work with would be a significant advantage. If others can see how your work translates to the screen and can be done economically, the better chance you have of convincing people that the full version of your story is worth their time and energy. Good story, well told is rarely held back by its budget or length. Good story forgives almost every other shortcoming. There are millions of filmmakers out there in the world that would do anything to have a really, really good story, to make a movie out of.