What Reality TV Can Teach Us

So American Idol, the pop culture phenomenon, has been on television for how long now? I have no idea because I'd never seen even one episode. Shocking, right? I've been a real Luddite. Until this season. (No offense, Luds).

I don't know what made me do it. Curiosity? Luddite shame? Whatever the reason, I got hooked. And my embarrassment over that is matched only by my frustration because apparently everyone else is over it so I have nobody to commiserate with.

So - setting aside the uncomfortable feeling of getting hooked on a reality tv show judged by a singer/choreographer from the 80s who appears to be on painkillers, a constipated Brit with serious emotional issues, some new girl I do not recognize in any context and a black guy who used to be in Journey (is that right?) and who uses the word dog - or is it "dawg" so much that if I were King Herod I would have cut off his tongue by now - so setting that all aside, I have found some interesting parallels between American Idol and aspiring screenwriters.

The very early, cattle call rounds of American Idol, the ones that take place in cities all over the US, are the most obvious, painful comparison to aspiring screenwriters. Literally thousands of singers line up to audition. Thousands. I was amazed at how many people are just SURE they can sing - when they cannot. They get up there at that audition and they just sing their hearts out because they love it and they feel it and they want it but oh lord. Just oh lord. Not so much. Why, I thought to myself, does everybody think they can sing well enough to be a paid performer just because they love doing it? Why are Americans so deluded and entitled? I love singing. I sing fairly well. But not anywhere close by a country mile to the way I'd have to in order to make that a career. I also love sailboats. But I am not a sailor. People get into tragic accidents when they think they can do something that they really cannot. My uncle Malcolm enjoyed wine, thought he was a vintner and a tragic occurrence at the Owl Creek wine press came to pass.

How often have you heard people say - I love to write. I'd love to be a writer. I'm gonna write a novel one day. People love my writing. Whoops, there it goes again - entitlement and a disrespect for the craft of writing. I think that's what gets me. As if writing is just easy. You just write down words. As if singing is easy, you just sing stuff. As if making wine is easy, you just smash stuff.

Rest in peace, uncle Malcolm. But I digress.

A few episodes of American Idol later, after the absolute jokers have been weeded out, we get to the singers who can actually sing but they begin to be tested by stress and demands. Yes they can sing but can they sing country music? Or a Michael Jackson cover? What kind of range do they have? Can they perform on stage? Do they have an identifiable persona (in writing world: voice). And now we begin to weed out even more contestants. And then things just begin to get completely subjective. Is the hippy-baby-mama contestant with the long blonde hair and the full sleeve tattoo cute and inspiring - or annoying? Is the emo kid with the eyeliner fresh and relevant or a good singer leaning on a tired shtick?

So we return to writers. And you know, Wavers, I have a unique bird's eye view of this, being that my business is patronized by a very wide range of writers - everyone from the complete beginners to the repped and solds. Over the past few years, I have noticed definite types and trends when it comes to completely new, beginner writers. I see realism, humility and maturity - but more often, I see a complete disconnect between the reality and the dream. Bad, derivative ideas wrapped up in hubris and laziness. Get rich quick types, in other words, who figure because they liked HELLBOY or LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, they will just play a little Hollywood Powerball and get rich quick.

But just like American Idol, the writers who can't really write get sorted out rather quickly and rather brutally. I would say the average aspiring screenwriter goes about two years before he or she runs out of enthusiasm for screenwriting. After hundreds of dollars spent on software and books, after countless late night hours spent arguing on bitter, blind-leading-the-blind screenwriting message boards about whether an agent or manager is better or why this or that spec sold when THEIR spec is so much more brilliant, after three half-finished scripts, a pilot and 28 unanswered queries, they realize they just don't have the patience - or the talent - for it.

Because they got caught up in the entitled, Powerball thinking. Buy the software, buy all the books, eat, think, dream and love movies, and you will make tons of money in a couple or three years. No such, Wavers. Just no such. You need talent. And there's no way to candy-coat that fact.

It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. And absolutely not everybody trying to write and sell a script is going to actually make it. In fact, over 90% of you will never be repped or sold. Does that fact make you want to quit? Then you should quit. But what if you do have the patience? What if you are that person in line for an American Idol try-out in Baton Rouge or some far-flung place but what if you actually can chug along through every single challenge and what if you DO have a voice and a story to tell that America will love? That's the allure, isn't it? What if?

If you really do think so - slow it down a little. You don't have to buy every single book on the topic. Just a few select books will do. What you really must be doing is writing every day. And - and nobody wants to hear this one for some reason - you need to read. A lot. And no, I don't mean other scripts. That's a given - I mean, you need to be reading books (fiction and non-, new and old), the newspaper and periodicals. You need to be reading not only news but editorial content. You need to be reading good writing. What on earth does that have to do with screenwriting?

Look, for once and for all, screenwriting does not exist in a bubble. Screenwriting is only ONE kind of writing. If you don't spend time reading and appreciating - much less writing - other forms, you will be a 90-pound weakling out here in Hollywood. I cannot tell you how different the reality has been for me in the way Hollywood "types" are perceived and how they really are. To a one, every agent, manager and development exec I have ever met or talked to (and I will also include every writer I know who has either made it or is on the cusp of making it) is intelligent, articulate, omniverously curious and very, very well read. Are you?

My daughter enjoys watching America's Next Top Model and of course, when you have any excuse to spend time with your teenager, you do it because god knows when that door will be open again - so I watch it with her. And we have noticed a trend - in the early rounds, the girls who are very pretty in an obvious, easy way are always over-confident and they never make it far. Because they're pretty, they don't have to work all that hard. And they are consistently found bingeing on a big slice of humble pie.

Why do we Americans increasingly think that things should come to us easily? Why do we think that we can obtain talent in the same way we obtained our Pottery Barn leather furniture and credit card debt? Not everyone can do everything well. Writing might be your passion - but it might not be your true talent. I love to sing; it makes me happy. But I don't put myself on the same planet as those who do it for money.

So where do you fall in the scheme of things, Wavers? So you think you can write, huh? But can you? Can you really? Do you have what it takes to be on top? Can you handle the long journey? Can you adapt? Can you handle brutal rejection? Can you write more than one type of thing? Can you read, synthesize and discuss current thought, literature, history and opinion? In other words, do you see yourself as part of a tradition of writing or as a standout exception - the one thoroughbred on the track who is going to break all the rules, run one lap and win the roses with very little effort? Nobody would ever admit to harboring that delusion and yet many do.

Now get back to work.

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