Why the competition?
Maybe it should be:
"Quality and Quantity, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G."
Or whatever the non-9-year-old-girl equivalent would be.
Pilar Alessandra interviewed Benderspink manager, Jake Wagner, on episode 345 of her high quality/quantity On the Page podcast. Like so much in this industry, Mr. Wagner's insights were both encouraging and discouraging.
Here's a quote from Mr. Wagner, taken from a recent interview with Jeanne Veillette Bowerman of Script Magazine, that sums up one of his sentiments from the On the Page podcast:
"All you need is one great script. The rookie mistake is when you have four or five scripts, I’m always wondering why aren’t you repped yet? I don’t buy it. Don’t tell me you have 10 amazing scripts that are award-winning quality. If the feedback is so remarkable, then why hasn’t someone slipped it to their contacts in the industry for you?"
The encouraging opinion is that you only need one great script.
The part that concerns me is that he doesn't believe there are unrepped writers out there with four or five great scripts.
Statistically, he's probably very close on his assessment. But his assumption must be that the screenwriter who claims to have four or five great scripts has shopped each of those scripts around, being shut out each time.
In my last entry, I mentioned I have written nine feature-length screenplays and two half-hour sitcom pilots. In the interest of keeping things simple, I'll treat the teleplays as screenplays and add all the projects together... where's my calculator... oh, there it is... okay, 9+2=11. Just as I thought.
I'm not repped. I must suck.
Do I think all 11 of my screenplays are great? Nope. In fact, I only consider two of them great. But I'm still tinkering away at them -- the great ones and the not so great ones -- always rewriting.
But here's the thing. When I see what's being produced, whether on television or on big screens, I consider at least 3 or 4 of my screenplays worthy of production and my overall writer's "voice" to be worthy of representation.
Does that mean I'm "settling" when I get a project to what I perceive as the "good-enough" stage? Of course not. I finish a screenplay, maybe do one or two rewrites shortly after, then let it simmer for a while, and then dig in again for a new round of rewrites. Besides, were I to sell a screenplay outright, I would be rewritten by a team of established veterans anyway, so sweating every line of dialogue and description is a little obsessive, don't you think?
Except that I'm a perfectionist.
So where am I then? Am I a delusional scripter with a folder full of bad Final Draft documents since I'm not repped?
I don't think so.
Then what am I doing wrong? Why hasn't a Jake Wagner scooped me up yet? Why am I not staffed on New Girl or Nashville? Why haven't I sold a pilot? A screenplay?
Because nobody wants to hear from a small-town stay-at-home dad in flyover land.
To answer Mr. Wagner's question, "...why hasn’t someone slipped [your screenplay] to their contacts in the industry for you?" Because my contacts don't have contacts in the industry. It's another Catch-22 where industry people won't read material unless it's sent to them by industry people. It's like trying to join a members-only club where the sign-up booth is only accessible by members.
So I just keep writing. I believe I'm serving lobster tails at dollar menu prices. I believe my voice is both delicious and affordably bountiful. Or something like that. Quality and quantity. Dig?
I certainly believe I talk about myself too much here. Man, I hope this is useful to somebody out there!
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