Read 'What happened to Dish Dogs?' at http://www.SellingYourScreenplay.com.

You can find a little background on Dish Dogs here:  How I optioned and sold my first screenplay Dish Dogs

Shortly after Nathan Ives and I optioned Dish Dogs we took a couple of passes at the script making changes that the producers requested.  We met with Sean Astin who was interested in directing the script.  He seemed to like the script but had a lot of problems with it, too, and many of his friends and family seemed to be trying to steer him away from the project.  After meeting with him he seemed to want lots and lots of changes which I didn’t think were needed – and in fact the producers were telling us that they didn’t think it needed any further changes either.  I never heard exactly what happened but soon afterwards we got word that Sean was no longer the director on the project, which suited us just fine since he seemed to want too many changes.

In hindsight this was the biggest mistake we made in dealing with the producers.  Nathan and I should have really fought for Sean as a director.  Sean seemed hard working and eager to make a good movie.  Our script had problems and Sean recognized that even though Nathan and I didn’t.  If he had directed the film I think he would have made the effort to work with Nathan and I on the script and together we would have made a good film.

A few months later I called the producers and asked them how things were going.   I could hear the producer I was talking to cover the phone and say, “hey, it’s one of the original writers on Dish Dogs.”  I knew that wasn’t a good sign.  Basically the funding was moving forward very slowly and the producers and director were just waiting around for filming to begin.  With literally nothing to do they just started to re-write the script almost out of boredom.  One of the producers had given the script to his hairdresser and gotten notes from him!  I’m not kidding.  Nathan and I read the new version of the script in sheer horror.  It went from our script that the producers said needed “no changes” to something completely different – and in our opinion worse.

We had a few meetings with them and were willing to work with them to make changes but at that point the script wasn’t ours anymore and they didn’t really want to hear what we had to say.

Nearly six months into the option they got their funding and paid us for the script.

Nathan and I were on the set several times and they were always very gracious to us.  In fact they were some of the coolest dudes you’d ever want to hang out with on a movie set.  Unfortunately we had very different artistic sensibilities.  It’s hard to say whether our original script was really better than what was produced, maybe, maybe not.  Our script did have problems but I don’t think the producers were able to solve the problems and in trying they ripped the heart and soul out of the story (at least in my opinion).

I’ve posted the script online and you can still buy or rent the movie so you can weigh in on which version you think is better by leaving a comment below.

It’s available from Netflix on demand as of this writing or you can buy it from Amazon here: Buy Dish Dogs at Amazon.com.

If you want to read the original screenplay you can do so by going here: download the original screenplay for Dish Dogs.

The screenplay is formatted incorrectly so please do not use it as any sort of style guide for screenwriting.  The original screenplay was written in Word Perfect 5.0 before I had any sort of screenwriting software so I used custom macros to format it.  The macros didn’t work (of course) when I opened it years later in Wordpad so the formatting was lost when I created this online text version.

Read 'Finding an idea for a script' at http://www.SellingYourScreenplay.com.

If you’re like me you’ve got dozens of seemingly “great” screenplay ideas floating around in your head.  But how do you narrow your ideas down and figure out which ones are worth investing the time and energy to turn into a complete screenplay?

My writing partner, Nathan Ives, and I are close to finishing a screenplay so we’re starting to kick around some ideas for another spec.  Here are some of the considerations that we’ve been talking about when one of us has an idea for a script.

Keep in mind a lot of my considerations have to do with our own writing process.  This blog post is more about me trying to crystallize our process of choosing an idea to write than it is about trying to tell anyone else how they should do it.  Use your own instincts and come up with your own list of considerations.  I’d be curious to hear how other writers narrow down their ideas.

The character driven story

Nathan and I seem to do our best work when we have a strong interesting character driving the story forward.  If you’re good at coming up with interesting stories I don’t think this needs to be a major focus for you at this stage.  Most Hollywood films are story driven not character driven so while this is probably the main focus for us at this point, it definitely does not have to be for others.  But for us to be at our best the story must revolve around a strong willed, often eccentric character (and an equally strong antagonist).  It seems like we usually come up with a loose idea for a story and then figure out our main character and then start to build our story around our main character.  The scripts that have turned out the best are the ones where we we’re able to create a really strong main character (or antagonist) who drives the story forward with a single minded focus.  While the scripts that we’ve written that have felt flat usually rely more heavily on story.

A strong ending

While this may seem obvious, I can’t tell you the number of “great” ideas I’ve had over the years that simply didn’t lead to a highly compelling dramatic ending.  Without a rush at the end your movie will be forgotten and unremarkable.  I recently saw Hamlet 2.  Overall I didn’t think the movie was very good.  Neither the story nor the characters were novel or interesting.  We’ve seen the good hearted teacher teaching kids who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks before and it was pretty obvious where this movie was going to end up.  Much of the comedy felt forced and stilted.  However, the ending was great.  It was funny.  It paid everything off and it made the predictable ending worth watching.  The ending wasn’t surprising but it was very entertaining.  After the movie was done I felt like I enjoyed it because the ending was so strong.  I’m not saying you can save 80 minutes of drek if the last 20 minutes are fantastic but a strong ending can save an otherwise average movie.  And more importantly a really strong ending can make a good movie great.

Don’t start writing your script until you’ve got a great ending worked out.  If the story idea doesn’t naturally end in a big dramatic climactic moment the idea may not be worth pursuing.

A marketing plan

Unless someone is paying you to write a script you should seriously consider taking a step back from your idea and think a little bit about the marketing of your script/film.  The more scripts I’ve written the more I’ve realized how important this step is – because I’ve overlooked it myself on so many projects.

There is really two parts to this when you’re in the early stages of developing a story idea.  First, figuring out how you’re going to pitch your script.  Second, coming up with an actionable list of ways you’re going to get your script made.

Your logline and pitch are what’s going to get this script read.  If people won’t read your script it doesn’t matter how good it is.  I highly recommend that you write your logline before you start writing your script.  If you can’t come up with a great logline it might mean that your story idea isn’t worth pursuing.  Don’t overlook this step and think “once the script is written I’ll be able to come up with a great logline.”  If you can’t do it now you probably won’t be able to do it when the script is finished either.

I highly encourage you to read and follow the advice that I give in my How to Sell Your Screenplay (in a nutshell) post.  While this is certainly an actionable marketing plan it shouldn’t be your only marketing plan.  In fact, sending out cold query letters to production companies, while it can work, should probably be a last resort.  If you’re new to screenwriting it might be your only option but as you develop as a screenwriter I highly encourage you to try and find other avenues for your material.

As an example, the script that Nathan and I are about to finish will go through three marketing phases.

First, our manager will send it to contacts that he personally has and Nathan and I will send it to contacts that we personally have.  A personal contact is a much stronger submission because they’re already at least some-what familiar with your work and are much more likely to give it a real read.

Second, if we don’t get any traction from any of our (or our manger’s) contacts Nathan and I will do a little bit of producing and see if we can raise some (or all) of the money to shoot the movie ourselves.  While this isn’t an easy proposition it’s a great way to learn more about the business side of writing.

Finally, depending on how much of the money we raise (if any) we will then consider sending out cold query letters as I describe in my How to Sell Your Screenplay (in a nutshell) post.  If we’ve raised a significant portion of the money our cold query letters will probably get a much better response rate.  What can you do to increase the response rate you get from cold query letters?

While this may not be a brilliant marketing plan it does give us at least a few clear actionable items to work on.  Of course while we’re pursuing these options we’ll also be starting on our next screenplay.

In the comments section feel free to offer up your own advice for how you narrow down your story ideas and find one to turn into a full screenplay.

Read 'Getting through the dip and getting your screenplay written' at http://www.SellingYourScreenplay.com.

Nathan Ives and I are working on a new script. I’ll spare you the boring details about the plot, structure, and character – yeah, we got all those things. Right now we’re almost done a very rough draft. And I mean really rough draft. We’ve been working on it for several months. In its current state it’s terrible. It’s so in-coherent in places that it wouldn’t even be possible to make a movie out of it. It just makes no sense. It feels like it’s never going to be any good.

I read a book recently called The Dip. It’s written by Seth Godin, a marketing guru and author. It’s a great book and you should read it.

Just about everything in life has a “dip.” When you start a new project there’s that initial burst of energy and enthusiasm that carries the project along for a little while. But then the initial burst starts to fade and you go in to what’s called “the dip” – that long hard journey to the finish line. I’m sure everyone has experienced this at one time or another.

Nathan and I are so far in the dip on this screenplay it’s hard to imagine that there is a finish line. We both have lost interest in the script and want to abandon it. But we’re going to finish it no matter how much we hate it and want to be done with it. We’re going to keep slogging away on it even though we feel like it’ll never be any good. Luckily I’ve written enough scripts to realize that eventually we will be done and it will probably be a pretty decent script. It just doesn’t feel like that now.

Several years ago I went to a screenwriting seminar. The teacher asked the people in the audience why they were there. There were about 20 people in the room and 18 of them all gave essentially the same answer, which was something like this: “I have all these great ideas but I can’t seem to get them into a compete screenplay.” They were all experiencing the dip. They had an idea for a script that excited them but then the dip set in and they just petered out.

The great thing about the dip is that once you’re through it, it works to your advantage because most people won’t make it across. So instead of hating the dip look at it as your friend. Lean into it and realize that you’ll eventually be through it. With each script you write you’ll acquire more and more skill and be in increasingly rarer company. Everyone has a great idea for a script but most people never bother turning it into a completed screenplay. A lot of people have written one script but a lot less people have written two. A few people have written two scripts but there’s not too many who have written ten.

Writing a script isn’t easy and selling it is even harder. I believe that if you keep writing and keep improving and keep sending your material out you will eventually have a career.
If you find yourself in the dip, keep writing. Finish your script. You’ll be glad you did and you’ll be one step closer to being a screenwriter. The worst script ever written is a whole lot better than the greatest script never written.

I highly recommend you read The Dip. It’s very short and easy to read. I think it will help you in just about any project you decide to work on.

Have you experienced The Dip?

Read 'How I optioned and sold my first screenplay Dish Dogs' at http://www.SellingYourScreenplay.com.

I’m sure many people reading this blog have looked at my IMDB link, but if you haven’t have a look at it. You’ll notice my first writing credit is a film called Dish Dogs starring Shannon Elizabeth, Sean Astin, Mathew Lillard, and Brian Dennehy.

Dish Dogs started out as an idea I had in college – a sort of modern day Easy Rider about two guys who would drive around the country washing dishes at local restaurants, never staying at one place for more than a few days. I washed dishes at a Chart House Restaurant in high school and I saw firsthand how easy it was to get a job as a dishwasher and thought this was a romantic and somewhat plausible premise for a script.

I had told my college buddy, Nathan Ives, about the idea and he liked it. After sitting on the idea for several years he asked if he could take a stab at writing it. After we talked about it for a while we decided to try and write it together – it became the first script we wrote together and has been an enduring writing partnership.

So Nathan and I wrote a draft of the script and we started to pass it around to our contacts. Nathan worked at Digital Domain (a special effects company) so he gave it to a few people down there. While no one wanted to buy the script, people seemed generally pretty positive about it.

At the time I was working on a master’s degree at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) in communications with a screenwriting emphasis. One of the other students, Stan Williamson, had recently optioned his script Just Write. I asked him how he had optioned it and he told me he submitted it to an ad in The Hollywood Reporter. I had occasionally seen these ads placed by producers looking for scripts and even submitted a few times, but I had never gotten a reply so I had never done it with any consistency. He told me that he had been submitting to them for 10 years and had optioned quite a few scripts that way. So I too began to submit with extreme consistency.

After 9 month of consistently submitting (probably hundreds of submissions or more) to every post in The Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety where someone was looking for a script I started to get a few replies from people. One guy was thinking about hiring me to re-write a project he was working on. One company was looking to hire writers to write their ideas. And finally a production company liked Dish Dogs and wanted to option it. They paid us $500 for a 6 month option and told us they were going to make the movie for around $2 million. Nathan and I were ecstatic.

It turned out to be quite lucky that I was able to sell the first script that I optioned and it ended up getting produced. Usually options don’t turn in to actual sales. Since then I’ve probably had 25 options that never went anywhere.

I’ll leave the actual process and the re-writes of the script for another post – it didn’t exactly go as planned. Hopefully there are some lessons in my experience for you. I still occasionally look in the trades for posts but it doesn’t seem like producers post there any more, most of the equivalent postings have gone online to places like Craig’s List. Check out my post about submitting to Craig’s List.