Defecting Club Capricious

Let me be perfectly clear on this point. I know nothing. None of my screenplays has been opted, sold, or produced under a pseudonym, although if you want to think I'm Frank Darabont in disguise, that's perfectly all right with me. Frank, however, may object since there is a substantial difference in our bra sizes. My blog musings are the thoughts of an English major, a diehard Terry Rossio disciple, and an undergraduate of the screenwriting school of "if you write it, they will come", which I don't really believe, by the way.

This is a great interview with Frank Darabont where Frank discusses a "certain anxiety" that filmmakers experience when a film is about to open. It's a dated interview (two years after he wrote Green Mile) but fascinating none the less. The one portion of the interview that jumped out at me was his response to a comment about his love for comedy and why he doesn't write it.

Hey, I love music too, but I have no aptitude for it either. But I live for music. It’s like blood in my veins. I wouldn’t know how to make music if you held a gun to my head. It’s something for which I have no talent.

How many times have you seen or heard comments by wannabe screenwriters who say they KNOW they are meant to write because they love it so? Live for it? Can't imagine taking a breath without a pen in hand?

Having a passion for something is just not enough. Ask any of those poor schmucks on American Idol who only get out of bed in the morning to sing but couldn't carry a tune if it was a hump on their backs! No, don't ask them. They're deluded. They'll tell you that they have rare, unique, and inexhaustible talent but the judges don't know anything.

That's what we writers want to believe every time we dink in a contest, get a rejection letter or receive a pass on our screenplay. Those readers don't know anything. Sure, that's it. And William Hung can sing.

Putting through a lot of singers on American Idol that judges know will crash and burn would not be an act of kindness. There are many of those auditions that judges would genuinely like to see go in the singer's favor because the candidate is personable or quirky. But they can't send those people to the next level just because a few singers are sweet and have a soft shell. It would be commercial suicide. The audience would (1) stop watching the show or (2) vote those people off and then stop watching the show. Ratings drop, advertisers bail, fingers start pointing and this runaway train we call American Idol derails and explodes into a firey ball of regret.

Same thing with our screenplays. Yeah, writers need a tough shell and we'd better be able to take criticism, but it's not only unkind to lead writers on, it makes bad business sense and jeapordizes a lot more than the writer's feelings. But, how do we know if we are a joke at screenwriting? If our screenplays are laughingly passed around the water cooler like the latest William Hung CD? How do we know when to quit?

In one of his most notorious columns, Terry Rossio says it's time to quit this capricious industry when (1) you've given yourself a legitimate shot and (2) trying is no longer fun.

"At some point, though, you should take seriously the charge of living a good life. Once you've satisfied yourself that you've given every effort, and failed, and it's no longer fun to you, then it is, truly, time to find a new challenge and move on. Something else that will bring more satisfaction.

And if, even then, you're the type to choose to not give up, you love movies that much, well, all I have to say is...

Welcome to the club."

Sound advice... unless this capricious club is for sea turtles and you happen to be a hermit crab. Don't sneak in. You may get away with it at first but your shell will probably get crushed under the weight of a sea turtle and there you'll stand, exposing yourself to the whole ocean as a fraud and a hermit crab. But, like I said, I don't know anything.