Advice

Want to double your chance for success in this business? If so, we strongly suggest you write with a partner. Yes, you have to find the right person, and when you start selling your scripts, you'll split the money, but we, and the successful script partners we've talked to, agree that the advantages of sharing the writing far outweigh the disadvantages of sharing the bottom line. It would take a book (and we wrote it!) to explore all the reasons to write with a partner, so we've assembled the consensus Top Ten, as follows: 10. It's a dog-eat-dog business -...

Our reader Seth from Colorado asks: What's the difference between an agent and a manager? Marc Hernandez responds: That's a good question, Seth. After all, writers need to understand the business of representation in order to maximize their potential and advance their career. The differences between an agent and a manager can be broken down into two primary areas: 1) legislative, and 2) scope of work. Legislative: Agents are governed by labor law in the state that they do business. Literary agencies are permitted, by law, to procure employment (i.e., writing assignments) for their clients for a fee. Managers, conversely,...

Our reader Tim Kessler asks: I have developed an idea into what needs to become a film treatment. Can you suggest how I can take what I've got into a piece of work that can be properly used to apply for funding for the expedition/ documentary? Do I need an agent? I have friends who are themselves doc makers and producers who have told me that I have the bones of a film treatment but I don't have a clear vision of how to create the product. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated more than I can express. Steven...

2004: On the TV show The Apprentice 16 young entrepreneurial types compete to be the apprentice to Donald Trump. It's a truly coveted position because it means learning from a master. For those who don't succeed, their fate is summed up in two words at the end of the show. "You're fired!" 1940: Fantasia opens. Mickey Mouse stars in The Sorcerers Apprentice. Logline: A Sorcerer's young apprentice attempts to practice magic in his master's absence, with disastrous results. Theme: Never underestimate the value of age and experience 1545: The Middle Ages - a brief history. The majority of the people...

Henry James, the great American novelist, in an essay entitled The Art of Fiction, asks a rhetorical question about the nature of character: "What is character," he writes, "but the determination of incident. And what is incident but the illumination of character." The key word of course, is "incident;" what the dictionary defines as "A specific occurrence or event that occurs in connection or relationship to something else." How does this affect the creation of character? Take a look at Mystic River - the entire film is based on an event that occurs when a young boy named Dave is...