You're in the same spot that I was in when I was starting out. You're no worse off, believe me. If you've got the determination to follow the advice in this book, and do the work that you need to do, then you have a real shot at making it the same way that I did!
This may sound crazy, but getting your Lucky Break is where I can help you the most. A book can't inject you with talent. Oh, that it could…. Imagine the money I'd make with this little tome if it could magically turn you into Larry David! A book can't fill you with determination either. The right guidance and encouragement might goose you along a little, but real day-to-day determination is an asset that you have to bring to the table yourself. But the advice in this book, along with your talent and your determination, can lead you to your Lucky Break!
There are specific steps that you can take to make your Lucky Break happen. You can be ready with the skill and the goods when Opportunity comes knocking. You can move yourself toward Opportunity by following my advice and doing the work that I tell you to do!
WHAT YOU NEED RIGHT NOW!
You don't need a history of situation comedy. You know all about I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners and The Cosby Show.
You don't need pages and pages of comedy theory, either. Yikes! Nothing ruins a joke like trying to analyze it.
What you need is a Step-By-Step Guide on how to get your career started and then keep it going!
That's just what you are holding in your hands right now!
Shall we get you started writing some solid spec sitcom scripts?
Shall we figure out how to get those scripts to people in Hollywood who can hire you? Shall we work together to launch you on a long and lucrative writing career?
Elephant Bucks, anyone?
PART ONE
MY STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE
TO WRITING A SOLID SPEC SCRIPT
CHAPTER 1
THOSE AMAZINGSPEC SCRIPTS
My first Lucky Break happened because Larry Thor died. Larry was my favorite screenwriting professor at UCLA. I loved the man, but he passed away in the middle of my first year at grad school. I didn't even know who graded the screenplay that I turned in for Larry's class. When Spring Quarter started, I signed up for a writing course taught by a visiting Big-Shot Screenwriter: I figured, okay, maybe Larry's death is a blessing in disguise. Maybe I can finally make a Hollywood connection through the Big- Shot Screenwriter: On the first day of class, the Big-Shot Screenwriter informed his prospective students that he didn't teach comedy “Didn't teach comedy??!!” He told us that he didn't respect comedy, knew nothing about it, and wouldn't accept any comedy scripts. This guy wrote heavy drama. I don't think he had ever actually smiled. He said he was going to make us tear open our guts and write something really dramatic, personal, and painful. I was twenty-three years old, trying to make it in show business, not succeeding, thinking I was tossing my entire future away on a foolish fantasy and strongly considering law school. I was in enough pain already! So I left. Now I was way up the creek with nothing resembling a paddle. A graduate screenwriting course was eight units! That was two-thirds of my load! And I didn't have a writing class to go to! I took four hundred Tums and stopped by Bill Froug's class. Bill Froug was the most feared screenwriting teacher at UCLA, and I'd been judiciously avoiding him all year. He was imposing, smart, and blunt — even scarier than the comedy-hating Big- Shot Screenwriter. At first, Bill wasn't going to accept me into his class. He already had his students selected. But Bill turned out to be the teacher who had graded all of the screenplays for Larry Thor's class. Bill loved my script, “Mr. Perfect.” I was suddenly very glad that I'd finished that screenplay and turned it in! Bill took me back to his office to discuss my future. I confessed that what I really wanted to write was sitcom, which in those days was heresy at the prestigious UCLA Film School, la dee dah. I hadn't realized it when I was hiding from Bill, but he was a working TV writer himself! He asked if I had any spec sitcom scripts to show him. Here was my first Lucky Break! I'd written about six spec sitcom scripts by then. I had a portfolio of spec scripts at the ready when Opportunity came knocking! Bill read and returned my scripts with brutal notes. Brutal. But I swallowed hard and rewrote. More notes. Just as brutal. More spec scripts. Finally, Bill liked a few of my spec scripts enough to show them around Hollywood. Six months went by. Nothing. I felt panic, despair; and the looming specter of law school. And then, one day in late October the phone rang. It was Bill Idelson, a veteran TV writer. He was working on a new sitcom. Bill Froug had given him my spec scripts. Could I come over to his office at NBC right now? My second Lucky Break! All because of those amazing spec scripts!
WHAT'S A SPEC SCRIPT, ANYWAY?
Just for the record, a “spec script” means a script written on speculation. In other words, you're writing an episode of Two and a Half Men, but no one asked you to write it, and certainly no one is paying you. You're writing this script on your own, “on spec,” to learn how to do it right, to avoid going to law school, and to hopefully use that spec script as a calling card, a sample of your ability that someone who is already working in television will read, and like, and because they like it, will decide to give you a job.
A spec script is like a spec house. A developer puts his time and money into building a new home, speculating that when the structure is completed someone will want to buy it, and he'll get back his investment plus turn a modest profit in the bargain. A spec script is the same idea. The only cost to you is your time and the paper the script is printed on. And if you write a wonderful spec sitcom script, your very modest investment could turn into an entire career as a sitcom writer. Pachyderm dollars!
THE SHORTEST ROUTE TO GETTING YOUR LUCKY BREAK!
Compiling a portfolio of solid spec scripts that you can show to people in Hollywood is the method that almost every aspiring writer uses to break into television or the movies.
Writing spec scripts is the shortest route to getting your Lucky Break!
When I was producing TV sitcoms, we hired new writers only after we had read their spec scripts. Most of the scripts were submitted by agencies like CAA, ICM and William Morris. (I'll talk about agents later. Let's concern ourselves with writing now.) A few scripts were “thrown over the transom.” They were mailed in unsolicited by writers who didn't have representation. This is not a good idea because these scripts rarely get read. Other spec scripts were handed to us by someone we knew who believed in a promising new kid. (What Bill Froug did for me!)
There are all kinds of ways to get someone who can hire you to read your script. I'll give you advice on that later in the book.
But first you have to WRITE THE SCRIPT!
As I said, I started writing spec sitcom scripts in college, on my own time because UCLA wouldn't teach TV writing. I also joined a writers' group that met on Thursday nights. I think I was the only one in the group who was writing sitcoms. But I'd write my spec scripts and read them out loud to the group and get some laughs and some criticism. Getting positive and negative feedback from my peers and from my professors helped me correct my mistakes and build my confidence. I started to believe that I could really make it as a sitcom writer.
I think I wrote a dozen spec scripts for various shows. That's right, twelve of them at least. Those are the ones I finished. Who knows how many I threw away? Maybe I wasn't the world's fastest learner, but I kept at it because I very much wanted a career as a sitcom writer, and how else was I going to get my Lucky Break?
Today it's pretty easy