The Writing Week (Vol. 6) part 281 - The Query Campaign

I'd be lying if I said that my primary focus the past month has been on writing. Frankly, I've really not done any writing at all to speak of in a while. It's not that I'm done with writing or out of ideas - I just haven't really been able to get motivated for a while. That happens. It's an accepted (though perhaps not entirely acceptable) facet of being a writer. Sometimes, you hit a bit of a slump. When that happens, you just have to do what it takes to pull yourself out of it, and for me, that's been the process of querying my children's book.

Over the summer, I wrote a 1,670(ish) word children's picture story book. Think Dr. Seuss, only I can't draw well enough to do the illustrations in addition to the text. I since cut it down to about 1,270 words. I had two people tell me that's still probably too long back in September, and as they were both much deeper in the world of children's literature than I am, I should probably take what they say as truth - at the very least, as a very solid suggestion.

I put out a couple feelers and landed a few leads. Two colleagues at the theatre companies I work with had connections to children's book agents that they said they could introduce me to. One said I could use her name in my query; that agent gave me the fastest rejection I have ever received. HOWEVER, that's actually far more positive than it sounds. (I'm serious.) For anyone who has ever queried an agent or manager or producer, you know that it can take months to hear back - and that's if you hear at all. To know within a couple hours that the agent you have reached out to is definitively not your person is actually a relief. With the waiting game over, you can immediately move on. And, what was especially positive in this case, is that the agent let me know why she was not representing me. In addition to being overloaded, she also just doesn't handle the particular type of children's material that I had submitted (not that I knew that based on the information about her online). Agents can be very particular about what they rep, and your project, no matter how incredible, will not find a home with every agent. If it's not their cup of tea, thank them and move onto the next. You won't change their mind (and probably don't want to). I have yet to hear back from the second colleague.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, I have a friend who worked in publishing. She has been very generous with her time, reading a few drafts of the story, weighing in with very lengthy notes, and has agreed to help me get it to agents that she knows personally. She's the one who advised that I write a query letter, and she has provided feedback on that, too. I just have to finish tweaking it, and the hope is that we'll go out to agents before the end of the month.

My writing partner on the sci-fi collaboration has connections in the animated film industry. Those connections have contacts in the children's book world, and he has offered to forward it along. Any potential in can help. (Speaking of agents, we got feedback from my agent for that one; it looks like we will be embarking on a potentially not-insignificant rewrite in the coming weeks.) I also reached out to another friend in publishing on Facebook, but I've not yet heard back. 

Finally - and most unexpectedly - I wound up meeting an Assistant Editor at a major children's book publisher at an event this week. She has taken a look at the material and was quite supportive. Like the two people earlier this year, she also recommended that I shorten the book by up to half if possible. That's an almost daunting amount of editing, but she knows her stuff and is a great contact and potential in to have. If she says cut, then cut I will. 

If all leads take me to a dead end, then at least I'll have a solid query letter and a product I believe in. I'll then start the blind query submission.  

2008 - The Writing Year; To You in 2009

Happy New Year!

As a welcoming for 2009, I thought I would go back and evaluate all that I had done over the past year. I distinctly remember walking with a friend back home in Arlington, Virginia last New Year's Eve on our way back from picking up some cheap beer (or cheap champagne). We got on the subject of New Years Resolutions, as I think most people do at that time of year. Hers was to stop dating douche bag guys. Mine was to do everything in my power to sell a script, though that did not mean that I specifically had to sell anything in 2008. I wanted to stop being so timid and actually submit to a competition or, dare I say it, two. I wanted to complete a few scripts, and then send out query letters for those. I wanted to call in whatever favors from whatever contacts I had and try to push my work into the industry. Did I meet my writing goals? Could I have done more? How much time did I actually spend working on material?

By January 7th, 2008, I'd written 3 pages of my post-Apocalyptic spec and my first Writing Week. That draft would be completed in the first few months of 2008. After that, I put it aside to work on a new idea I had, to gain some distance from the script that I was told needed some major fixes, but which I was in love with. The second project flew by, yet remains untouched since the FADE OUT at the end of that first draft.

By June, I was in a bit of a rut, along with the majority of the League at that time. We kept tossing ideas back and forth to one another, but not many of us were doing any substantial writing to speak of. Ultimately, I got around to working on the post-Apocalyptic spec again over the summer - the big impetus for that being that I had finally taken the plunge (probably because Onyx twisted my arm so much) and submitted an action spec to two different screenplay competitions. I wanted to be sure that I had another action script to follow it up, should I be so lucky as to attract attention that way.

The summer ended, and with it, my hopes (and those of everyone in the League) for screenplay competition success. Not a one of us advanced in the Scriptapalooza competition, though each and every one of us who submitted made it to the quarter-finals in the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards. Disappointed and a little dejected, the writing slowed once more as the last of the summer days turned into Autumn evenings. I received my third round of feedback from the League on my post-Apocalyptic spec and submitted it to an outside working writer, who also gave me feedback.

With the competitions behind me, I turned my attention elsewhere, to another approach new to me. October was Query Month. Zombie was the only one of us to have tried querying agents and producers before that. As roommates, we often time things to correspond with one another, and we did that for query letters. We each compiled a list of people - I stuck solely to managers, while he incorporated a few agents, as well - work shopped our loglines and query letters with the Leaguers, and sent off about a dozen e-queries, choosing only those companies at first who permitted and made e-querying easy through their websites. A dozen emails went out, and the waiting game began.

By late October, I'd heard back from the assistant at one company who really liked my writing. I went on vacation and came back to a rejection letter that he'd had to send on behalf of the managers he worked for. He did, however, send encouraging notes, which gave me hope. As the line between 2008 and 2009 narrowed, I began to push the notion of getting signed that year out of my head. After all, I'd written two new screenplays and finished one of them, done the competitions (and would probably do so again), and sent out my queries. I'd done all I had planned.

Then, in mid December, that call came. The call we all hope for and, no matter how many times we dream about, can never plan for. A NYC based manager called me up and offered me representation. A week later, not even, I'd signed with him and my script was on the desk of a pretty big actor. And just three days ago, at the very last twilight of 2008, I received a bite from another manager, which I had to reject.

If you're reading this blog, I'm going to assume that you're a writer. And, if like us, you're young and still trying to get your foot in the door of this industry, I'll assume you probably have goals for 2009 like I laid out for myself a year ago, like Onyx lays out for himself every summer when his birthday rolls around. If you're wondering how to go about it or if it works, just read through the Writing Week segments I've put up each week, or that anyone in the League has written over the past year. My manager says that the first step is just "writing a great script" and adding to that, to paraphrase Jeffrey Nachmanoff, "great scripts do not lie hidden. Someone will find them." Don't listen to all those people who tell you that queries and competitions don't work, that you must know someone or else you can't break in. Just keep writing and, when your material is ready, get it out there however you can. Copyright it to protect yourself and go on the offensive. If it's ready, people will notice.

To 2009 - may it be all of our Writing Year!

The Writing Week Part 51 – Got a Manager

At this time last year, my post-Apocalyptic spec was, at best, an emerging idea, a dim light in my head beginning to grow bright. By April, I had a draft of it that the League had seen and was pleased with, especially for a first draft. I took a few months away from it to gain the necessary space between writing a first draft and attacking the hell out of it with rewrites. By Summer, I was back at it, reworking scenes, cutting some while other Leaguers held a gun to my head and verbally abused me about the uselessness of said scenes. I went out of the League for the first time and received feedback from a former board member of the company I work at, a former board member who writes for television. After receiving his notes – the equivalent of a polite nod, pat on the back, and then suggestions on how to fix the damn thing – I was back at the drawing board. By mid October, I had a draft that I was pleased with, pleased enough to begin the query letter process for the first time.

If you search for query letters or query letter help on Google, you’re likely to get a lot of conflicting and often demoralizing information – I know I did. One of the most upsetting things, if you want to call it that, was frequent mention of the current ineffectiveness of query letters. According to most help guides for writing query letters, most blogs written by agents and agents’ assistants, and most tutorials and informative sites managed by producers, query letters do not work. The statistics I read led me to believe that if I sent out 100 letters, I would be lucky to hear back from 10 companies, 3 of which would request to read my material.

I sent out an even dozen letters, and I did them all via email. If querying is so useless these days – the main argument for that being that people don’t take the time to read them anymore (though what they do read was never mentioned – then I didn’t want to spend any money on them. OK, I did pay the $25 for a subscription toe DoneDealPro.com, but that’s a hell of a lot cheaper than a Hollywood Representation Directory and it comes with updated script sales. Can’t beat that. So, I went about choosing my companies from DoneDeal based on those that met two “very strict” criteria: they had websites and, either on that website or on their info page on DD, had an e-query address. Twelve emails sent. I heard back from four of them, all requesting my script. That was back in October.

Two weeks ago this Thursday, I was at a brunch meeting for work. I got a call from an unknown number. Long story short, I had a 20 minute conversation with manager [redacted] of [redacted] Entertainment. [Manager] had emailed me the night before when he was only half way through my script asking if he could represent me. Since I hadn’t checked my email and answered by 11:30 the next morning, he gave me a ring. He loved the script and had some very big ideas for it. We agreed that he would send me a representation agreement and that I’d allow him to send out a feeler to someone very big in the industry (I’ll leave that person unnamed now, but he’s a big-wig). Last Wednesday, I met with [Manager] and signed on the spot with him. He outlined the timeline for pushing my script and we collectively decided on my next project, something I’d been thinking about a lot but had not yet committed to writing now.

Literally overnight I went from being unrepresented to being signed and having a big name reading my material. This script and what I’ve don with it has come a long way in under a year. The moral of the story – remember, this blog is to share our experiences for the benefit of other aspiring writers – is that two things work: persistence (which most – and hopefully all – writers know they need) and query letters (which people might tell you are useless now). As Jeffrey Nachmanoff once told me, great scripts do not just sit around in peoples’ drawers. They get discovered. Sometimes, we have to help our scripts come into the spotlight, but the bottom line is that they can. Get your material out there. Work on those query letters; have people review them for you – hey Leaguers, how long did we spend agonizing over every single word? It can work. Believe me.

The Writing Week part 47 - Bittersweet Rejection

Just before I left for South Africa, I received an email from one of the three companies that had requested my post-Apocalyptic spec based on my query letter – in total, I had sent queries to just 12 companies. (I took the frugal route and decided to test the strength of my query letter by sending it out to a handful of companies, which not only produced or managed the kind of material I had written, but readily accepted queries by email. I recommend this strategy to writers, as it saves money on postage and, in a time when many people are doubting the success of querying, can be just as effective if not more so than paper mailings.) The email I got, which was from the script reader/receptionist at this particular company, informed me that he really liked the script, as did the readers, and would be recommending it to the managers. I left the country on a high note with something to look forward to.

Unfortunately, when I returned Stateside, I had the anti-email from what I was hoping for. The generic rejection email I received let me know that though my writing was strong, the company is small and cannot take me on as a client. I was thanked for my submission and encouraged to re-submit a query for any new projects down the road. The disappointing nature of the email threw me into an instant funk. I felt as if my plans had been derailed, and the opportunity posed to me by my friend in Africa – being a nature videographer for his game reserve – began to look all the more appealing. I thanked the assistant for his time and getting back to me, asked what he would like to read in the future in case I had anything like that, and began to think about making more serious plans to return to Africa and write from there, to give myself a longer break from the East Coast/West Coast dilemma.

Onyx would say that what happened next was “the screenwriting gods telling me to stick with it.” I came into work last Friday after having really begun thinking about moving abroad for a while to two emails. The first email was a fourth request for my script based on my query, bringing my batting average to .333. The second email was a very generous and uncommon email from the assistant who had the displeasure of rejecting my script. He sent me over a full page of notes – most of which were quite positive – on my script and explained more about why I had not been picked up as a client (a focus the company is making on established writers). He was very supportive of my work and encouraged me to re-send the script if I did a re-write. I know that notes and such encouragement are not common in this industry, and was incredibly grateful to him for his time. And when he offered to read a logline for any other completed scripts I have – an opportunity I took him up on, which led to another script request – I knew that this guy was looking out for me. For obvious reasons, I don’t want to give his name or company here, but let’s just say that his honest and incredibly helpful dealings with me renewed that fire in me to write.

I thought I would take the rest of the year slowly, work on a new script but not really try to push anything else out into the industry just yet. I see now that I was wrong to think that way. Mind you, I never meant to give up on writing – far from it. But the high of Africa mixed with the then just bitter rejection I got stopped me in my tracks. Now, though, that rejection has become bittersweet, with an emphasis on sweet, and my first real industry notes have compelled me onward. If you have what it takes, you will make it. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but stick with it. The screenwriting gods command it.

Thoughts from a literary agent: Query Letter Don'ts

There are a few things Janet Reid doesn't want to see in your query letter:

1. Theme

I don't care what the theme of your work is. I care what the story is.

2. I love to write

I don't care. I only care about whether you can write well enough to tell a good compelling story.

3. I think my book will make a great movie.

I don't care. I only care whether it will make a good book.

4. It took me x+1 years to write.

I don't care. I only care if it's a good story.

Pretty basic stuff, I think.

Reid's blog is worth bookmarking. Also worth checking out: posts about things that annoy Reid, and her collection of query letter pitfalls.

The Writing Week part 38 - Great (Negative) Feedback

Years ago, when I was still a fresh-faced writing student, getting negative feedback on a script I was proud of would ruin my day. I could have sworn that everyone should and would have liked my dialogue and my scene structure as much as I did. It was a killing blow when my classmates or professor said otherwise. The more people agreed I'd missed the mark, the worse I felt, too. It was like I was a character in Mortal Combat, rooted to the floor, and someone was shouting "FINISH HIM." Down I went.

How far I've come. A few weeks ago, I sent my post-Apocalyptic spec - the very one I'm writing my query letters for - to one of my company's former board members, an agented writer. I got his notes mid-last week. He highlighted what he felt to be BIG problems. The funny thing was, though, that pretty much everything he pointed out were things that Leaguers brought up in past meetings. (I guess that begins to answer the debate I've been having with myself and the group as to the level of feedback we provide. I've often wondered if our critiquing abilities have increased, or if we're still fairly amateurish in what we find needs work in a script. The fact that a seasoned writer said almost the exact same things that my peers did is beyond encouraging; it's one more indicator that we're heading in the right direction.)

I thanked him for his comments quickly, after reading them once, and told him that I'd need time to digest them before being able to fully communicate about them. I was surprised when he called my grateful response "classy" and said that he was impressed by my ability to receive feedback. Having gone to school for screenwriting and being in the League, receiving feedback has become second nature to me. It's like breathing. I do it to live. I guess some people don't, though. So, for any new/emerging writers out there, the lesson (so you don't even have to read between the lines or interpret on your own) is learn how to take criticism. If you can't take it from friends or peers, you won't be able to take it from a producer or manager, who will likely be much more brutal in their delivery of it.

The feedback also came at a great time. With a number of query letters already sent out, I figure I have a solid two weeks, at the very least, to make the necessary improvements to my script. (I say two weeks because a couple of the companies vowed to reply within three weeks, and this was a week ago. For the most part, I figure I have months before I'll hear anything, if I hear anything.) In fact, this is the best I've ever felt about receiving negative feedback (and perhaps positive, too). I feel like something good is going to come out of this, and my script, which I wanted to be done but wasn't sure was, will be much stronger for it.

A great week, for sure.

The Writing Week part 37

Some weeks can be really great weeks, even if the writing wasn't one hundred percent consistent. This was one of those weeks.

On the down side, there were a few days when I didn't write. On the plus side, though, I: began a new project (finally), polished and sent out query letters, and had a writers group meeting. Not a bad accomplishment for one week's time.

Everything the group and I did this past week goes back to something I've been mentioning a lot recently: the need to be driven. It's too easy for me to decide that "tomorrow, I'm going to start a morning exercise routine" or "next month, I'll begin teaching myself to play the harmonica" or "I'll slack off tonight, but tomorrow is the beginning of a new writing regimen." (All of those are things I've said to myself. A lot.) This week I decided to put it into action.

The query letters were a big thing. I wrote last time about working on them, and sent out a single, lonely message. I sent out a handful this week and, while I don't want to beat a dead horse, there is one more thing I'd like to say about them now. I can't recall the site where I read this, but some of the best, yet hardest to follow advice on queries was this (essentially):

Send them and forget about them. You're likely not to hear back, but if you do, send your script and forget about that, too. Otherwise, you'll drive yourself nuts.

Too true. I've resisted the urge to check my email when I'm usually not online, but when at my computer all day, it's so easy to just roll the cursor over the email window to see if there's anything new and exciting hiding in my inbox. There isn't at the moment.

Changing topics, I find I'm embarking upon another writing experiment. Zombie's mentioned that he's done some recently, Onyx did too, I believe. We all seem to be working on things that are new for us. For me, this will be my third this year. I tried 1) not using an outline, 2) writing a cross-country journey pic, and now 3) using VOICE OVER.

Voice over is one of those things that every student I know (and many books agree) is taught not to do. At NYU, most of the faculty treated voice over like the ugly cousin who'd try to molest you if you got too close. You were told from day one to just stay away. Avoid it like the plague. Yet, I happen to really like voice over in some instances. It just really draws me into a movie and the characters when done well, I guess perhaps because it makes the writer's job a bit easier - don't know how to tell it in the action? Voice over.

I know that my next project will use it. Right now, I'm still working on writing an elaborate back story for my protagonist (another first for me). I've written a paragraph here or there before, but never the nine solid pages I've done so far. What I'm hoping to accomplish from writing the back story, besides having a much more solid protagonist and first draft when I begin writing the actual pages, is that I'll figure out who the voice over comes from. Will it be my protagonist or is it going to be some omniscient third-person narrator?

Has anyone out there used voice over before? How'd it turn out?

The Writing Week part 36

This week’s subject: Query Letters.

They’ve been on my mind a lot recently. With a draft of my post-Apocalyptic spec that I’m very pleased with to the point of being ready to show it to industry people, I’ve been thinking about what the next step is. In truth, there seem to be few answers; there aren’t a ton of contests right now, and even if there were, I don’t really feel like spending $50 on something that is as great a bet as query letters are; I don’t have many contacts that would allow me to bypass the query letter phase; and as unsure a bet as they are, query letters are quite common and – theoretically – painless.

I know that there are many different schools of thought on how much a writer should read about the business and craft. Personally, I haven’t read many screenwriting books. I read bits and pieces of a few while in school, but after a while they stopped being useful. It was the same experience for me this past week when I perused the internet for query letter advice.

Some sources had very strict rules. Others were general. Some advised to try and incorporate a bit of humor or interesting personal information. Others suggested getting right down to business. By the time I was done reading, I’d put together a sense of a general query letter – something I’d already known – with more “don’t dos” than “dos.” The inconsistent advice (one site’s “don’t” referenced another’s “do” example) just reinforced an opinion I have on reading screenwriting books – read everything, and you’ll be more confused than when you started.

I’ve known people who read every book that comes out on how to write a screenplay, and, with few exceptions, they’ve been the ones whose work has most often needed improvements. I’m not saying that reading how-to information, be it on writing scripts or query letters, is useless – it can be of great help. But an oversaturation of information, all of which comes from different people with different opinions, can lead to confusion or frustration.

After reading site after site on how to craft the best query letter – all of which said that chances of getting a response are hardly even 10 out of 100 – I decided to just go ahead. This week’s goal is to send out a query letter to at least a dozen companies. I wrote the letter last week. I’m happy with it. It’s no different than most of the “correct” examples I found. Since queries and e-queries are such a gamble anyway, what real reason do I have not to?

The Writing Week part 32

It’s amazing how much a group can push an individual to be the best possible. As Onyx mentioned in his latest, good cause for a drink post, we had another meeting last week. He went in thinking things in his script were in order. As did I. As, maybe, did DOA. We all got more than we had expected in the notes department. Due to that, I left the meeting very impressed by the League. While our scripts are all far and above what they would have been after two drafts just a few years ago, we’re still forcing one another onward, not allowing each other to settle for “OK” when our material has the potential to be great.

There we were, expecting probably a much higher ratio of pats on the back and golden stars to wagging fingers of shame (I actually did wag my finger in shame at DOA for something). However, we all were told that: this doesn’t work, why would you do this, this character’s actions don’t make sense, and this needs to be answered. Perhaps I’m being a bit stubborn, but I actually don’t plan on changing too much at this point. Backer and Blades on the Brain raised some important issues – Blades had a few critical things that need clarity. For the most part, though, the points brought up about my script require little more than a tweak here or there. Onyx had a good idea for replacement of a scene, which I’ll do, and there are a few lines that will clarify other important beats greatly. As a whole, though, the script is much farther along than it had been, and I think it’s ready to be shown the light of day.

I’m actually pretty excited. Zombie and I are gearing up to do a big round of query letter (and email) sending. He’s done one burst in the past, but I am new to it. The plan, I believe, is to test the waters with about a dozen (or more) emails to companies that accept queries that way, see what drops, and then do the snail mail round. Frankly, I’m arguing for this because it’s cheaper (i.e. free), and probably no less effective – though it is easier to bury an email, I would think. Though we’re going to query as many people as possible (within reason), I’ll be focusing primarily on people who have done a lot within the action genre, since that’s what I have at the moment. We’ve set a deadline of sending out by September 1st, more so because we’re just so busy and this will help ensure that we do it soon than for any other reason. We’ll let you know how it goes, for sure.