© Copyright 1991, 1999 Blake Harris. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Chapter Nine
The Writers' Workshop
One way to improve screenwriting skills is to
participate in a screenwriting workshop.
Where do you find a such a workshop?
Quite simply, you can create one.
A screenwriting workshop can either be live,
meaning that it is a small group which meets regularly
in some physical location, or it can be an "electronic
workshop," where members participate through their
computer and telephone lines (using a modem).
However, first things first. Why should you
participate in a workshop?
There are several good reasons. For one
thing, you will have an opportunity to have your work
reviewed in a supportive but semi-professional
atmosphere and obvious weaknesses in your scripts can
be pointed out to you.
It is odd (and then again not really so odd),
but we often can see problems in another writer's
scripts that we don't see in our own--even when these
are the very same problems.
By reviewing and commenting on other
screenwriters' work and getting the same feedback on
your own scripts, your screenwriting skill can be more
rapidly improved.
In addition, a workshop provides you
membership in a "community" of screenwriters--people
who will look at films a little more exactingly (and
after a while very differently) than the average movie
goer.
It is interesting that most great writers
associated with other writers in their learning stages
and even later, often forming almost literary
dynasties.
Hemingway may have advised that "the best way
to become a writer is to go off and write." But when
he was starting out, he went off to the left bank of
Paris where he hung out with other writers, including
Gertrude Stein. Joseph Conrad worked in close
community with H.G. Wells, Henry James, Stephen Crane
and others. Melville associated with Hawthorne and his
circle.
Learning to write effective scripts will take
time and practice. Having a support group to share
your trials and tribulations (or is it your agonies and
ecstasies?) can help you through this.
There are also liabilities in participating
in a workshop. But if you are aware of the pitfalls
and know when to drop out of a workshop, the advantages
far outweigh the disadvantages.
How
To Create Your Own Workshop
Most established writers' workshops are run
by writing teachers. However, novelist John Gardner
(also a respected teacher of writing) noted: "Even in
the best writers' workshops one is likely to learn more
from one's fellow students than from one's teachers."
So creating a "teacherless" workshop is not
as odd an idea as it might at first seem. I have been
involved in several of these teacherless workshops over
the years and from these have observed what tends to
work and what doesn't.
Probably the most important single factor
which determines the success or failure of any workshop
is the people involved. Even the quality of well-known
writing workshops such as Iowa, Binghamton, Columbia,
Stanford and Clarion (for novel and short story
writers) will vary a little from year to year,
depending upon the people who attend.
A great many men and women set out at one
point in their lives to become writers and
screenwriters. Only a small percentage of these ever
become professional writers. It is not, to my mind,
that most of these people lack talent. (Many
professional writers also lack real talent.)
Besides, talent is something that one
develops to a large degree.
What most of these want-to-be writers lack is
persistence. When push comes to shove, they are not
willing to invest what it takes to become proficient
writers. Either that, or they imagine that they are
already great writers. (Apparently the producers,
directors, readers and editors in the world are just
simply too stupid to appreciate their genius.)
The hardest task, then, in starting a
workshop is not finding people who want to take part.
It is finding the right people who are going to stick
with their writing, those who are doing what they need
to do to become professional writers.
A workshop composed of 6 people all intensely
working to become screenwriters will probably do you
more good than a workshop of 30 or 40 people, many of
whom come and go and don't participate regularly.
Having some kind of basic minimum
requirements for a workshop, both as to past experience
and regular participation, will help to quickly weed
out those people who aren't going to do the workshop
much good.
You might, for instance, set the minimum
requirement for participation in your workshop as
"having completed two or three scripts." This is an
indication that they have some persistence and are
serious about becoming writers, at least to some
degree. To those who want to join the workshop, but
who haven't written the required two or three scripts,
you might simply say, "Come back when you have written
some more."
This will help to weed out those who have
dabbled with the idea of writing scripts and who will
probably continue to dabble in their workshop
participation.
The second thing you can do is make
membership in your workshop provisional for the first
few months. During this period of time, it is made
clear to new members that they can be asked to leave by
other members if they "don't fit in." This can be done
as pleasantly and non-accusatively as possible. Such a
measure helps to ensure that the members are happy and
comfortable with the other members.
The third thing you can do is set minimum
participation requirements that members have to make.
How To Find Potential Members
This is really the easy part.
One successful small workshop in Hollywood
was started by one budding screenwriter meeting other
would-be screenwriters in cafes and bars.
However, a far simpler way to find potential
members is to advertise. A classified ad in a local
newspaper is a good start. Or there may be other
publications which are even more suited to promoting
the workshop.
You also might simply put up fliers on notice
boards, especially where writers are likely to go--
libraries, artsy cafes, etc.
Once you have a few members, they can do
their part to get other people for the workshop.
There is always a certain attrition in
membership. Even with a good selection process, people
do drop out. So once the workshop is running, you may
have to advertise again later to find new blood.
Right from the start, it is a good idea to
lay out for members exactly how the workshop will
operate. Potential members can take it or leave it.
Making the rules very clear up front can help to
curtail a lot of problems later on.
Finally, if you are the one starting the
workshop, you have a certain right to have final say on
how it will run. You don't have to be authoritarian
about it. Rules can be changed based on what the group
wants--and they might well be. But in a diplomatic
fashion, you can maintain the right to final say on
procedure and membership.
After all, if others members are unhappy with
the workshop, they can always go off at any time and
form their own.
You're not in the business of running
workshops. You are in the business of learning
screenwriting. A workshop is only worth putting time
into if it is helping you as well as the other members.
A workshop is not a popularity contest for
you or anyone else. You are not in it (or shouldn't
be) to win friends and influence people.
Some Suggested
Rules For A Workshop
These are by no means definitive. However,
in the workshops I've participated in and observed,
these have generally greatly contributed to their
success. (I helped to run the Professional
Screenwriters Workshop on the national computer system
GEnie, for instance, whose membership was restricted to
people who had sold a script.)
1) To become a member of the workshop, a writer must be
seriously pursuing a career in screenwriting. The
workshop is not a place for dabblers. Therefore, there
are minimum requirements to join. These are:
a) Must have completed at least two screenplays.
b) These must be such that they represent a
reasonable effort to write a good, sellable
screenplay. In other words, the quality of the
writing is also judged.
c) Any new member is on provisional status for 3
months, at which time his or her participation and
helpfulness is reviewed by other members. He or
she can be asked to leave during this time if you
or several other members are uncomfortable or
unhappy about the new member. (This doesn't have
to be a majority if the member is on provisional
status.)
2) Failure to follow the agreed upon rules will result
in members being asked to leave at any time and to be
denied access to the workshop.
3) In reviewing another's work, other members may
criticize the work. They may never criticize the
member.
4) Reviews must be slanted in the direction of how a
writer can make his screenplay better.
5) Reviews are also from the perspective of
saleability of the work. While someone can write a
film script for art's sake, the purpose of the workshop
is to help members write scripts that have a greater
chance of being bought by producers and film companies.
Therefore, criticism from the viewpoint of saleability
is legitimate.
6) A member must be courteous and helpful to other
members at all times. The atmosphere of the workshop
should be friendly and professional.
7) Every member must submit a minimum of ten pages for
review every other month. It is expected that members
will submit more than this, but 10 pages is the
absolute minimum. Failure to meet this requirement
will result in a member being asked to leave.
8) Every member must review a script or portion of a
script in writing each month. (In a live workshop,
these reviews might also be discussed and elaborated
upon verbally). Failure to meet this requirement will
also result in a member being asked to leave.
Of course, you can have any rules you want in
your workshop. But the above will serve as a starting
point.
The Electronic Workshop
This is the age of the computer. Electronic
communication through a computer makes an excellent
medium for conducting a workshop.
This involves setting up a computer with some
software to create a Bulletin Board System (BBS).
There are a great many programs around today for
operating a BBS. Most of these are distributed through
other BBS systems. The price for using the software
(registering) varies from free to several hundred
dollars.
The basic functions of most of this software
are roughly the same. Some systems are easier to set
up, maintain and run than others. And many programs
have their own frills. The basic functions you need in
a BBS program are:
1. The ability to create message bases where members
can read all the messages and comment on them. This
allows a running commentary on various topics between
members.
2. The ability to upload (send) files and to download
(receive) files. A member can upload a script or a
portion of a script as a computer file and other
members can download it.
3. The ability to send private messages between members
(which the system operator--Sysop as he is generally
called--can also read).
If you only have one phone line, then only
one member can log onto the system at any one time.
But this is not a tremendous disadvantage if no one
hogs the "prime time" when other members might also be
trying to log on.
Some BBS systems support message readers
which allow you to download all new messages, answer
them while you are "off-line" and then send any replies
back all at one time. This greatly cuts down on the
time members have to be on the system, freeing it up
for others.
The best way to become familiar with how a
BBS operates is to call a few general BBSes in your
area. This familiarity will help you to set up your
own system.
The people who run these systems are also
usually quite willing to give a little technical
assistance to help you start your own system.
If you are running an electronic workshop,
you will probably find that, unless the distance is
prohibitive, members will also want to get together
once in a while. These get-togethers can be social
events where members simply get to know each other
better. Most business of the workshop is more
efficiently conducted on-line.
Liabilities
There are liabilities to a workshop.
The first is that you can spend so much time
running or contributing to it to keep it going that
your own writing starts to drop off and suffer.
The second is that you can receive bad
criticism. Constructive criticism always indicates
ways of doing something better. If it is just fault-
finding, then it is not constructive and you should
ignore it. If you are just getting the fault-finding
kind of criticism on your work, it is not going to help
you. Walk away from the whole workshop if need be.
The third is that the level of criticism you
are receiving may cease to be at your level of
proficiency. You can out-grow a workshop. Not
everyone learns and develops as a writer at the same
rate.
And finally, unfortunately, there are legal
liabilities. Creative work is sometimes stolen. Ideas
are stolen. This doesn't happen as often as some
people think, but it does happen. To offset this
liability, scripts should be registered with the
Writers Guild either in New York or Los Angeles, before
they are made available to other members of the
workshop.
As well, all members can sign an agreement
that any ideas and suggestions they offer on other
members' scripts become the sole property of these
scripts' original author. If a member has an idea,
dialogue, a scene, etc. which he doesn't want to give
away to another member, then he should simply refrain
from disclosing it to other members.