What It Takes to Break In

To me, "breaking in" means your main source of income is payment for your writing services. That’s when I felt like I could say I was a screenwriter and really mean it.

There will be plenty of time before you officially break in during which you might consider yourself a screenwriter but still have a day job that is the source of your income. Breaking in means you get to give your boss two weeks’ notice, and when they ask why, you get to tell them you did the thing that they knew you were trying to do but were skeptical you would be able to do, which is to sell your script or land a staff job or win that open writing assignment.

You may have a different definition of breaking in. To you, this could mean getting an agent, or having a meeting with a director or producer whose work you admire, or placing highly in a screenplay contest.

No matter what your definition of breaking in is, we should be able to at least agree on one thing: breaking in is hard!

The most pleasurable narrative to imagine is that some big-time agent reads your feature spec and loves it, takes you on as a client, then sends it out to the town, where every producer bids on it, it gets bought by the biggest producer with the biggest producing deal at the biggest studio for a bunch of money, it gets made into a movie starring two of the biggest stars in the world, and spawns a franchise that provides so much financially that you never have to worry about money again.

Hey, we can dream, right?

But the more likely positive result of finishing your screenplay, and something you should consider as your most achievable goal, is that it becomes a calling-card script that helps you break into the business.

But how do you break in?

Well, first you need a solid sample script, which is your goal at this point in your career. You need that script that is the culmination of all your hard work and development as a screenwriter. It’s the script you write and then say to yourself, “This is the script.” It’s the script that is both a great sample of what a screenplay should look and read like, but also unique in its presentation of your voice as a screenwriter.

So, first, write that script. But it takes more than the script.

You also need four personal qualities: Talent, Hard Work, Luck, and Chutzpah. You don’t have to have these four qualities in equal proportion to break in, but I think you need some of each in some kind of mix to go along with your scripts as the tools you will need to get the job (done).

Talent is something you are born with and can develop and nurture. The ability to think in terms of story, to draw on some part of yourself to create compelling characters, to be able to write dialogue that stands out, to imagine new worlds that teem with interesting parallels to our own, to be funny in a way that comes across on the page through the voices of your characters. You are motivated to write by some internal inspiration that can’t be instilled. Your mom still has the short story you wrote in fourth grade about the war between the cat planet and the dog planet.

Talent is what you can’t teach or learn through study. You’ve either got it or you don’t. And you have it!

Hard Work is an innate quality, but it’s also something you can develop if you work hard at it. Hard Work means you actually finish the screenplays you begin. It means you’re resilient, and you don’t let setbacks, both real and imagined, stop you from working towards your goals.

Hard Work is the ability to set aside the anxiety and fear and hopelessness that are inevitably part of the creative process and power through them to get the work done. It is the quality of being able to sit your ass in the chair and wrestle with the blank page to put words down that, whether they are good or not, are proof that you are doing the work. Hard Work sets you apart from other people who say they want to be screenwriters but just can’t seem to finish that screenplay, or just can’t seem to find the time to write, or always have excuses for their lack of productivity.

You, however, finish what you start. You have the ability to Work Hard!

Luck is something we often think is out of our control. It’s the chance meeting, the unexpected break, the fateful encounter. However, I think luck is more within our power than we think.

Luck is the end result of a path that we follow by putting one foot in front of the other until we’re in a position to get lucky. We might be lucky that a friend got us a job on a TV show that turned out to be a huge hit, but that luck is the result of the hard work of writing enough screenplays to have the perfect sample ready for the opportunity, or the hard work of getting out there and networking and making the friend who eventually provided us with that opportunity.

You might think you’re lucky if you go fishing and happen to cast your line to a spot in the lake at the time of day when a hungry fish just happens to be there, but your chances of catching a fish are greatly increased if you cast a hundred lines in the water all day long.

Luck can be created through effort and determination. You can make your own Luck!

Chutzpah is Yiddish for self-confidence or audacity. It’s about taking advantage of opportunities other people either don’t see or are too intimidated to try for. It is the quality that allows us to do or say things that set ourselves apart from other people trying to achieve the same thing.

Chutzpah is David Geffen teaching himself to read upside down so when he was at a senior agent’s desk he could see what clients were getting what deals in the memos they were reading. Chutzpah is Steven Spielberg sneaking onto the Universal lot and finding an empty office he could set up shop in. Chutzpah is Mila Kunis crushing her "That ‘70s Show" audition, and when asked by the producers when she would turn 18, saying September, but omitting that it would be in September four years from then. Chutzpah is hunger, ambition, and drive to achieve.

Chutzpah is what sets you apart. You can develop Chutzpah!

Here’s how these qualities one needs to break in to the entertainment industry aligned for me. Growing up, I was always interested in movies and storytelling. I enjoyed creative writing assignments, loved fooling around making silly movies with the first handheld video cameras, and was more interested in daydreaming about stories than subjects like math or history. I was lucky enough to have some kind of innate talent that I realized in screenwriting.

Once I realized that this talent was something I wanted to develop, I worked hard at it. I wrote many bad scripts before I wrote something good. Of course, I thought each script was good when I wrote it, and only realized they weren’t when I got better at it and started writing better scripts. But I didn’t let that faze me. I was driven to keep getting better as a screenwriter. I moved to L.A., got a job working in a cafe at night, and wrote during the day. I read every book I could about screenwriting. I read screenplays. I watched movies and then broke them into acts to see how they worked. I connected with other aspiring screenwriters and developed relationships. I worked hard.

I also got lucky. I happened to have a friend from college who got a job as an assistant to the producer who commissioned the original Spirit of Christmas video from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, and when this friend became their assistant on the "South Park" pilot, she got me a job as a PA on the show. But I earned that luck by casting many lines into the water of the entertainment industry. I told everyone I met I was a screenwriter even though I hadn’t had any real success yet. I kept printed copies of every spec I wrote in my trunk so if I happened to run into someone who was willing to read one, I’d be able to hand it to them then and there.

I got lucky by being in the right place at the right time, but I made that luck happen by being in many other places at many different times and being available for that luck to happen.

And then the Chutzpah. When I was a production assistant on South Park and the show got its first order of episodes after the pilot, I heard that Comedy Central had encouraged Trey and Matt to put together a writing staff. I asked them if they had a writers’ assistant, and when they said they didn’t, I volunteered for the job. If I had waited and silently hoped that they would come up with the idea of hiring a writers' assistant and then think of me, I doubt it would have happened.

It was an opportunity I wouldn’t have gotten if I hadn’t gone out and gotten it myself.

This led to another Chutzpah moment, where, in my role as a production assistant, I had to drive Trey somewhere, and I chatted him up about the scripts we had broken at the first writers retreat. He said they were all out to the writers, but he was having a hard time with the one he was writing because he was so busy with all the other aspects of the show. I told him that I had taken the notes from the writers retreat, knew what had to be done, and that I could finish the script for him. He said yes, and was happy enough with the draft I turned in to let me continue with the next draft, and eventually I got the writing credit for the episode.

I’m pretty sure if I had heard what he said and silently hoped he would think of me, or if I had made some vague comment about maybe someone else finishing the script, I wouldn’t have gotten that break. Instead, I jumped at the opportunity and made myself a solution to his problem.

Later on, after the show became a hit and Comedy Central ordered more episodes, I knew the guys would have to come up with a bunch more episode ideas, so I asked if I could pitch them some. They said sure, but instead of going off and working on some ideas and coming back later with them, I already had the piece of paper in my hand with all my pitches ready to go. They took a look, liked one, and gave me a second script to write.

I didn’t let the moment pass by. Chutzpah FTW!

Talent. Hard Work. Luck. Chutzpah. In my experience, these are qualities all successful screenwriters have. They might be in different proportions, but a combination of each is what led them to success in breaking in.

So, develop your Talent, learn the value of Hard Work, strive to make your own Luck, and be ready to seize the moment with Chutzpah when your opportunity comes.

*Excerpt from Phil Stark's new book, How to Be a Screenwriter: Screenwriting Advice for Newbies, Veterans, and Everyone In Between, available now.

*Feature image by nuvolanevicata (Adobe)