In this excerpt from Chapter 7 of Turn & Burn, CJ Walley discusses three elements of career development.
CHAPTER 7: CAREER BUILDING
As if mastering the black art of screenwriting wasn’t enough, trying to get a script produced is an even more mysterious world fraught with danger.
There’s basically one rule that rings true; nobody knows anything.
That applies to each one of us all the way up to the top players in Hollywood. Seriously, just read up on how some of the best movies ever made only did so after streams of rejections from decision-makers. The popular writers out there haven’t succeeded because of the way the industry works; they’ve succeeded despite the way the industry works. Keep this in mind whenever you get a pass or negative feedback.
I couldn’t get past the readers at studios. The minute people actually in the studios who read boring scripts all the time actually read my shit, they were like, ‘This shit is awesome! Send it right to us!’ but the readers would never let it get there.
Quentin Tarantino, while interviewed on the Howard Stern show
The reality of a screenwriting career is so elusive the term is bordering on an oxymoron. Most amateur writers give up before ever breaking in. Over 50% of WGA writers do not go on to earn a dime after their first success. Everyone struggling up the greasy pole reports the same experience – the further you advance, the harder it gets.
It doesn’t help that the world’s focus is set firmly on Hollywood, where the film industry is run with the kind of politics found in a high school cheerleader squad blended with the kind of business ethics of a Victorian workhouse. The result is something daunting on the whole, with faint glimmers of opportunity in the cracks. Sure, there seem to be screenwriters out there living the dream, but they are minuscule blades of hay in a mountain of needles.
What matters above all is our personal integrity; are we presenting the scripts we want to write? I’ve seen too many writers get sucked into the ‘get feedback and try to please everyone void’ in a bid to sell scripts, and I’ve skated around the outside of it myself. It’s a sure way to become a writer who desperately churns out redrafted material like it’s high school coursework, all the while trying to hit some mystical marking criteria. We are not school kids, we are not worker bees, we are artists; we must act as such and have the guts to respect our gut, as convoluted and twisted it may be.
So how are we, as aspiring creatives, to move forward?
It Isn’t About Fitting In; It’s About Finding Your Fit
With most recent generations before us working single-track careers, we’ve become predisposed to the concept of a job for life. The result of this is an attitude of keeping our nose to the grindstone from nine to five and asking “how high” when we’re told to jump by our superiors.
There’s something uncomfortably servile about the way many try to lean into a screenwriting career, especially when considering how corporate values are so poorly aligned with the common mindset of a creative. In fact, it might be fair to say creativity and industrialisation are fundamentally opposed; each will only ever frustrate the other.
But times are changing fast as millions of workers walk out of the full-time lifestyle and choose a more fulfilling path. In my case, my own career is oddball and I’m thankful for that. I was working freelance for a household name while still at high school. I skipped university and went straight into a well-paid job after leaving school. I had my own office by 19, and I was a company director before I turned 25, plus I’ve dipped in and out of self-employment like there’s nothing to fear during all those years.
I’ve had it tough, too.
In contrast to that affluence, I’ve also spent nearly a decade earning less than minimum wage and struggling to get by (to the point where I’ve had to consider living in my car). I’ve had a lot, and I’ve lost a lot. It’s only because of those experiences that I have maintained the self-confidence to pursue what I want rather than live with what I’m given. We are only now becoming empowered to live by our own rules. However, as a majority, it’s taking us a long time to adjust.
Something I’ve come to learn – and I think it’s sadly something many of us are oblivious to – is that a fulfilling working life is all about orientating our environments to suit our needs, rather than trying to manipulate ourselves to suit our environments. We are, ultimately, irrational emotional beings and we benefit more from reflecting on that, than we do trying to ignore or rationalise it.
It’s really up to us to better understand ourselves and approach the industry with this understanding. Many of us grumble we’re in the wrong job, but whose fault is that? We have to accept it might be ours. It’s not always the case that our work sucks, or our boss sucks. It’s often the case that we’re simply in a dysfunctional working relationship.
Maybe you’re the type of person who wants a single-track career. There’s nothing wrong with that. Maybe you’re the kind of person who wants a portfolio career. There’s nothing wrong with that either. What is wrong is complaining the hole is round without realising we’re a square peg. And, no, aversion to risk is never a good excuse not to follow the right path to fulfilment. Surely it makes sense to compromise the material things in life in the short-term rather than our own wellbeing over the long-term, right?
For many of us, writing doesn’t have to be a full-time job for life. It may not even need to be a career switch. Writing can be part-time. It can be unpaid. It can be a hobby. It can be whatever we choose it to be. The writers to envy are the ones who’ve found the right balance for them. We need to be wary we don’t get caught up in the aspirations of others for fear we resent a situation that’s actually good for us.
Learn From Success, Not Failure
Screenwriting communities are obsessed with the concept that learning from failure is the route to self-improvement. While I do like the notion that we should never fear failure, this whole concept runs into some serious issues within the context of subjectivity. You see, if we are tasked with the job of designing a bridge and – after being built to our design – that bridge falls down, we have without doubt failed. However, someone passing on our scripts, someone not liking our work, someone hating our material – all this is not necessarily failure on our part. We cannot be held accountable for the tastes and expectations of others any more than we can be held accountable for picking the wrong PowerBall numbers for the draw next weekend.
Worse still, this is a highly demotivating attitude to adopt as a writer. It’s only likely that our work will be seen as imperfect by some, maybe even hated, and thinking that issue can be addressed time after time is a route to madness, not improvement. There is going to be a point where many of us burn out because we end up going in circles trying to please everyone.
Focussing on our successes proves to ourselves the reality of subjectivity and motivates us to progress further. Simply starting that first script is a huge success and proof our ambitions can become actions. Finishing that script is another huge success and proof we can put the work in. Studying craft is a success. Redrafting is a success. Sharing our scripts is, too, and – here’s the thing – having anyone appreciate what we are doing, be it only in a tiny way, is a massive success. Does this mean ignoring our weaknesses? Certainly not. Objective craft development and a high standard of professionalism are essential but also a lot easier to tackle with a good dose of self-confidence.
We can either build on what we know has worked for us, or we can obsess over what hasn’t; two very different ways of looking at the same problem. The former reinforces the belief we have in ourselves, motivates us to write in the way we love to write, and assures us the future is all a matter of serendipity. The latter slowly strips away our self-confidence, homogenises our voice into something mediocre, and causes us to falsely believe we’ll fail until we fit in. Let’s give ourselves permission to see ourselves as ongoing success stories now, rather than hope we’ll be seen as such in the future.
The Danger of the Cinderella Narrative
If you’ve never heard of the Cinderella Narrative, then good; it’s a term I invented myself, and I’m totally going to copyright it one day. I find many who want to succeed in the entertainment industry suffer from this deluded pattern of thinking. People seem to think that, if they just keep their heads down and work, whilst fantasising about their wildest dreams coming true, and making sure everyone knows they don’t really expect those dreams to happen, a fairy godmother is going to eventually materialise out of nowhere, applaud them for their remarkable humility, and whisk them into the limelight where their true talents will finally be admired by all, opening the floodgates to fame, glamour, and fortune. They’ll sweep the floors obediently and sing to the mice quietly until they’re catapulted into the royal ball and proposed to by Prince Charming.
Life isn’t a Disney movie, and sadly, as I expressed in the first chapter, stories teach us about life and not always in a healthy way. The world is full of ageing princesses who can’t understand why – after years of being meek and persevering – their pumpkin carriage has yet to roll up outside and take them to the castle to be universally adored.
The narrative of Cinderella, at least in its more modernised form, is a paradoxical one, the paradox being that, if you believe you will be rewarded for showing humility, how can that humility ever be taken as genuine in the first place? What Cinderella subconsciously teaches many is how to hack karma for selfish gain. We’ve all met those people who can’t wait to tell us how much they despise the idea of being famous, and have no use for money, yet always linger in the spotlight until they outstay their welcome and already have their perfect Aston Martin configured and costed. Sadly, modesty is all too often driven by ego.
With aspiring writers, this adoption of the Cinderella Narrative tends to manifest itself in keeping scripts pretty much locked away while writing diligently and being resistant to any kind of self-promotion while growing increasingly frustrated at having not been “discovered” by Hollywood and not had a red carpet rolled out that leads straight up to the podium on the Oscars stage.
It doesn’t help that success often looks like this from the outside in, even though we’re constantly reminded it often takes decades to become an overnight sensation, and it certainly doesn’t help that there are those one-in-million cases where someone quietly working in a corner suddenly becomes a huge success.
Example: Starting in July 2003 and inspired by a dream she had one night, Stephanie Meyer wrote a vampire romance novel in secret and with no intention to publish it until her sister persuaded her to send it out to agencies. One showed interest in this manuscript named Twilight and held an auction for the rights between eight publishers, resulting in Meyer signing a $750K three-book deal only six months after typing the first words. Five years later, in 2008, she was earning in excess of $50m per year.
Also in 2003, Brook Busey adopted the pen-name Diablo Cody and started writing a blog named The Pussy Ranch, which detailed her adventures working as a stripper. The blog went viral and drew the attention of a manager who secured her a book deal and encouraged her to try writing a screenplay. In 2008, following the release of Juno, Cody received the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. None of this is in the slightest bit normal.
The reality for most, when it comes to building a career, is that it’s a long, arduous journey in which you have to be proactive and comfortable with promoting yourself as often and in as many ways as possible. If you aren’t giving it at least ten years to break in, while working hard at it, you aren’t giving your dream enough time to manifest.
“Breaking in” is the term used by people within the film industry to describe going from an amateur to a working professional. The fact it’s described akin to having to smash through a seemingly impenetrable wall says a lot about how tough it’s considered to be, and how rare breaking through actually is.
The good news is there’s a general phenomenon that suggests the longer it takes to build something up, the longer it takes to break something down. Genuine overnight success has a habit of flaming out very quickly and defining an artist by a tiny sample of material that pigeon-holes them and holds them to continuing the same level of success – with the same type of content – for fear of appearing to fail. Try to see your ongoing advancement upward as smoothing out the fall downward, after you inevitably peak.
The harsh truth is that anyone who believes screenwriting is a route to seeing their name in lights, walking the red carpet, being on the front page of magazines, mingling with stars, receiving awards, or a way to make big money fast is writing for all the wrong reasons, and most likely going to find the results frustrating and disappointing. Those of us who get to sit in a warm room on our own time, expressing ourselves via the written word, are incredibly privileged. Those of us who get to share a journey with like-minded creatives, and maybe do something that makes the world a slightly better place by bringing a new film into it, have hit the jackpot in life.
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For more sage wisdom about career development in one of the toughest industries going, check out Turn & Burn here:
