Spike Scarberry

When Spike Scarberry threw down the gauntlet, insisting structure was more important than voice, Karin Partin Wells raised her hand to battle in a public debate.

If anyone wants to give me shit and bring up the "West Wing" example, let me ask you this—is your name Aaron Sorkin? No? That’s what I thought. Pipe down.

You’ve just signed your entire career over to a complete stranger. Whether you succeed or not in your chosen field is completely up to someone who you’ve known for about sixty minutes. What have you just done?

Other people told me my script was good, so you should like it, too.” This is honestly one of the most naïve notions I’ve ever heard.

You stand at the front of the room and begin talking. You lay out a brief overview, a bunch of plot points, dozens of characters, etc. You’re right in the thick of your spiel when you notice something alarming.

If you’re super entranced with a story, if you can’t wait to get home from your day job and work on it every single day, that’s going to come through in your writing, right?

Many facets of the Hollywood game are draped in shadow and secret. And as I see it, they really shouldn’t be.

This is a copycat industry—if something works, you can all but guarantee someone else is going to be right on your heels with the follow-up.

Too many writers try to reinvent the narrative formula. They think we, as readers, are bored with well-executed, simple stories. Well, let me tell you this, y’all: we ain’t.

These games taught me a valuable lesson about the importance of perspective and POV in storytelling. The lessons go much further than that. This game may have actually changed my outlook on life.

Once you’ve had five meetings with managers, who do you get the best vibe from? Which of them showed the most passion for your career? Who do you feel is going to work the hardest for you?

“We’ve been through, like, nine rounds of notes on this thing. I’m starting to feel like this idea simply isn’t gonna work, no matter how hard I try.”

You will have to make changes to your story, at some point or another, that you might not want to ... This is just how the world works, for better or worse.

Just like last time, I’ve tried to stay away from the blatantly obvious here and instead give you some under-the-radar tips.

There’s no magic secret to success in Hollywood as a scribe. It all comes down to the same boring, monotonous tasks that everyone knows they should do but nobody wants to.