Fiction Scribe

Rachel Miller from ShowMetheScreenplay.com is joining us again today with top tips for all writers - not matter what sort of things you’re writing.

No matter what your writing specialty (screenplays, novels, poetry, playwriting, etc.) below are tips that can help every kind of writer.

1. Finding your voice

One of the most important and, at the same time, most difficult things for writers to learn is how to capture their voice and how to write in their unique point of view.

Capturing you voice means that you should develop your voice to such an extent that a reader should be able to pick up anything you have written and, without any writer identification, immediately know you are the author. (Think of it this way — you can read anything by Diablo Cody or David E. Kelley and know which one wrote what.)

2. Write, write, and write some more

Many experts agree that it takes 10,000 hours (or roughly 10 years) to be a an expert at anything (and this covers every field from science to math to arts to even accounting). So no matter what, you must have the discipline to write all the time and keep working on your craft if you really want to be good at it.

3. Great characters

Writing great characters is key to having a great piece of material because it will keep a reader engaged. For example, you can be a teeny movie like Slumdog Millionaire or a huge movie like Bourne Identity. The reason
both movies did so well is that audiences fell in love with the characters.

To write great characters you must know your characters inside and out. Even if you don’t write about every event that happens in their lives, you should know them so intimately that – if someone asked you what your character got from her parents for her sixth birthday – you would know the answer.

Second, the more specific you are the more universal you will actually be. Great characters are born from the millions of details that make them three-dimensional. For example, think of the iconic James Bond character. Millions of people can quote the line “shaken not stirred.” That classic response comes from the author Ian Fleming knowing exactly what James Bond drinks and making sure to include that telling detail.

4. Revise — get people to look at your material

Often I find that many writers send off their material after they have been the only ones to ever look at it. The problem with this is that it often results in a very one-sided piece of material. For example, when I ask
writers a question about something that I didn’t understand, often they will say it’s because of so and so reason. And then I say yes, but how could I know that if it is not in the script? And they will often reply — “Oh, I didn’t realize it because everything is so clear in my head.”

If you had a network of friends you would know that something in your script is not as clear as it could be. And if you don’t have a network already, start one! With Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the multitude of other social media sites, there is no excuse why you can’t network with other writers.

Also, even after you have your friends look at it, spend the time to get professional notes done on your script. Getting professional notes done will elevate your script to a new level because the professional notes will give you insider tips on how you can improve your script. The notes also will tell you if your script has “market potential.”

5. Make it marketable

These days competition in the marketplace is fierce, plus buyers want material that has the biggest audience potential — something that they can market to every age group. Simply, the wider the potential audience the more people the company can market the product to and the more people who buy tickets translates into more revenue for the company.

Besides making your material the best possible, try to write something that has the widest possible audience. (For example, the Harry Potter series is read by just as many adults as children.) That way you give the buyer one less reason to say no.

In conclusion, by following these important tips, you can help your material to stand out in the marketplace and thus help position it to sell.

For more tips on writing, check out www.ShowMeTheScreenplay.com for honest answers for writers and directors about everything Entertainment.

I’m Rachel Miller, president of Tom Sawyer Entertainment, and I am thrilled to be a guest blogger on Fiction Writer.

To give you some background on myself, I started in the entertainment industry at the age of 16 when I optioned the film rights to a Young Adult novel. I then attended college at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, during which I interned with Debra Hill (HALLOWEEN, FISHER KING), Joan Scott Management (founder of WRITERS & ARTISTS), and Artisan (THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT 2 and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM).

After graduating, I returned to my hometown of Los Angeles to pay my dues by working at: Endeavor Talent Agency (covering film festivals, international sales, and motion picture literary talent), Handprint Entertainment (where I worked with talent including Mariah Carey, Brandy, and Tyra Banks) and Red Wagon Entertainment (JARHEAD, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, BEWITCHED).

The last three I’ve spent running my own management/production company in Beverly Hills that focuses on finding young, innovative writers and directors and grooming them as the next generation of Hollywood storytellers. Since launching, we have expanded our feature and television roster to include animation, digital media, publishing and comic book talent. Our clients include writers and directors on THE DAILY SHOW, THE SIMPSONS, and FRANK TV, along with comic book company Bloodfire Studios.

After three years, we have established a unique reputation for finding and breaking writers and directors. This has been incredibly thrilling.
Unfortunately, the more successful we become the less hours there are in the day to read every query and submission that comes in (and we get over 15 a day). This is especially a concern as one of the priorities of Tom Sawyer Entertainment is for me or my business partner to personally read the scripts of everyone we consider (instead of having outside readers do this).

It is this time constraint that motivated me to start www.ShowMeTheScreenplay.com I wanted to reach more writers and directors than I could single-handedly and give them insider knowledge that would help launch their careers.

At ShowMeTheScreenplay you can find honest answers about everything Entertainment, and we have created a Special Report section that covers specific areas to help creative talent launch their careers.

I hope you will find my Hollywood insider knowledge helpful and stay tuned for my next guest blog post, which will be all about how to turn a good script into a dynamite script!