Saving Cats Together
Screenwriter Alvaro Rodriguez
Thanks to Master Cat! Alvaro Rodriguez , who will be leading a Beat Sheet Workshop in San Antonio on July 30-31, for this advice on creating your own Dream Team:
Writers are lonely.
We’re shy, needy, driven to distraction, full of grandiose ideas and hopelessly creative, extroverted, reclusive, irritable, joyful, marginalized, and common. Like Walt Whitman, we are cameras and we are the cosmos. But mostly, we’re lonely.
Would you sit down next to us and listen to a story? It’s right here in our heads, or on this ream of paper, or shining up from our iPads. Would you like to read it? We promise it’ll be good.
That’s what we’re looking for, whether we come right out and say it or not. We’re looking for an audience. We’re looking for validation, yes… but we’re also looking for insight.
Or, when we’re stuck, we’re looking to spend time with others who have walked the same path. We’re looking for inspiration and spark, hunting for an infusion of magic and synchronicity. Maybe we can even give some in return.
So we begin to build our Rolodex. We build it all the time. Collecting names and faces for our files.
This guy’s got a good sense of story.
She knows dialogue that feels so real it has a smell.
He understands theme with an uncanny, cut-through-the-bull clarity.
She’s got the brain that can see the Big Picture even when it struggles to coalesce on the pages.
This is my team, the go-to café society I can swim with and return to work feeling refreshed and inspired.
If you’re new to the game, it might seem difficult to put together a winning roster. Writers can spend years feeling isolated and separate from the creative dynamic of interaction with other writers.
Even if you can’t share the same physical space, and you’re not in Los Angeles, you can still draw from the well of smart, talented writers who are looking for the same things you are: an audience, validation, insight, experience.
Seek them out. Put yourself in a position to find them more readily. Join a writers’ group and suss out the good screenwriters, the ones you can trust.
Take a writing workshop. The friends and allies I met in Blake Snyder’s beat sheet workshop three years ago continue to wow me with their insights and skills.
If you can swing it, come to Austin in October for the Austin Film Festival, an invaluable opportunity to learn and to network. Here you can meet writers, managers, agents, producers, and directors at all levels of experience and success in a come-as-you-are, casual setting and get a seat at the table with some of the best and brightest in the business.
Find your dream team. They’re out there, waiting and looking for someone like you. Build rapport and trust, and bring something to the table each time. Be open. Share what you know, and listen when you don’t. The rewards are ongoing.
Next week’s blog: The Caddyshack Beat Sheet
on June 17th, 2011 at 6:59 am
Thanks, Al, for yet another delicious blog. It’s like brisket .
on June 17th, 2011 at 6:59 am
Woohoo, Alvaro! I love what you say here about writers and the importance of putting together a dream team! THANKS STC WRITERS for being a part of my dream team! Hugs
on June 17th, 2011 at 7:49 am
I’m spoiled to be a member of two great Austin-based writers group and to have access to Austin Film Festivals and their sponsored events like “Conversation in Film”. I hope other members of Cat! nation are equally blessed and able to take advantage of such opportunities to feel less alone…and more supported…because to make a story great…it takes a humble writer- willing to share their story and allow others to toss in additional ingredients to make it truly tasty! much love to you Al, much love to blakesnyder.com…and Annie…I still want your brisket!!!
on June 17th, 2011 at 9:52 am
Thank you for this.
on June 20th, 2011 at 4:36 am
On THE morning I’ve been contemplating whether to start a writer’s group, I come to your blog thanks to Annie’s facebook post about it. I have my answer. Thank you both.
on June 20th, 2011 at 5:56 am
Just awesome! Thanks for speaking my heart and offering great advice and encouragement.
on June 21st, 2011 at 11:00 pm
So often, that Trusted Group can see things in your work that you can’t … or worse, that you sense and have been avoiding. It’s not always easy hearing notes that basically tell you that you have to go back to square two with your story.
But be sure these are people you can trust. Everyone has to be in it with the purpose of helping each other deliver their best story. Those who only show up when their own work is under consideration are not really helping. You learn so very much by reading other people’s work, and giving notes. That practice helps you learn how to see your own work.
on June 27th, 2011 at 8:40 pm
I love this. It actually gives me hope. Agents need hope, too. Babz Bitela, Host of the monthly show Babzbuzz.