The Business of Screenwriting is a weekly series of Go Into The Story articles based upon my experiences as a complete Hollywood outsider who sold a spec script for a lot of money, parlayed that into a screenwriting career during which time I’ve made some good choices, some okay decisions, and some really stupid ones. Hopefully you’ll be the wiser for what you learn here.

24/7/365

Act Two blues

Always be nice to the assistants

Bidding War

Anatomy of a Deal [Part 1]

Anatomy of a Deal [Part 2]

Anatomy of a Deal [Part 3]

Anatomy of a Deal [Part 4]

Celebrate your victories

Chilled white whine

Commencement of principal photography

Cynicism

Do you know your stuff?

Don’t stand in water where you should be fishing

Do’s and Don’ts

Everybody gets rewritten in Hollywood

Everyone is here because of us

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 1: 1900–1942]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 2: 1942–1990]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 3: 1990–2019]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 4: The Buyers]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 5: The Reps]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 6: Handling A New Writer’s Spec]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 7: Attaching Producers]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 8: Attaching Talent]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 9: “Own All The Tickets”]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 10: Creating Buzz]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 11: Slipping A Script To Someone]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 12: Serendipity]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 13: Targeting Specific Buyers]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 14: Going Wide]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 15: Bidding War]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 16: Preemptive Purchase]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 17: Write What They’re Buying]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 18: Sell Them Your Dream]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 19: The Value of a Spec Script… Even If It Doesn’t Sell]

Everything you wanted to know about specs [Part 20: The Value of a Spec Script… If It Does Sell]

Facing the odds

Flavor-Of-The-Week

Get a damn good lawyer

God gave you two ears and one mouth for a reason

Going from suck to non-suck

Going to the movies

Hip pocket representation

Hurry up and wait

I can do that!

I don’t have to smell it to sell it

If it ain’t got no soul, it ain’t gonna sell

If you write a great script…

Imagine the movie

It’s not just about the script

Learn the craft

Let’s do lunch!

Living and writing in Los Angeles

Low-budget filmmaking [Part 1]

Low-budget filmmaking [Part 2]

Low-budget filmmaking [Part 3]

Movie stars

Movies are a director’s medium

Movies don’t owe anybody a living

Net profits = zilch

Never forget who the star is

Never send out a script before it’s ready

OWA: Open Writing Assignments

Page count

Premieres!

Qualify the customer

Research trips

Screenwriter as problem-solver

Script Readers: Hollywood’s threshold guardians

Selling Scripts and Shooting Scripts

Someday someone WILL beat you to the punch

Sometimes you just have to say ‘yes’… even on a crap project

Sometimes you’re just going to get it wrong

Spec scripts aren’t just for aspiring screenwriters

Surviving a script notes meeting

Swag

Sweepstakes Pitching, Prewrites and One-Step Deals

The art of stacking projects

The Birth, Life and Death of a Movie (Part 1)

The Birth, Life and Death of a Movie (Part 2)

The Birth, Life and Death of a Movie (Part 3)

The crazed life of a movie studio executive

The importance of a writers group

The Path of Least Resistance

The phone call

The power of “No”

The Travails of Pitching, Part 1 — The Distracted Exec

The Travails of Pitching, Part 2 — The Surprise Visitor

There are three groups of people in Hollywood…

There is always another way

There’s a green light…

They don’t think like you [Part 1]

They don’t think like you [Part 2]

They will pigeonhole you (and why this can be a good thing)

Three scripts

Trailer Moments, Set Pieces and Bits Of Business (BOBs)

What to do if your movie sucks

What to do on the day your movie premieres

What to do when the phone stops ringing…

Weather vanes

When getting fired can be good news

When you don’t get the gig

Who do I have to **** to get off this project?

Who does what in a writer-representative relationship

Withdrawing screen credit and pseudonyms

Work stoppages and picket line etiquette

Writing credits

You always need more than one in your gun

Your first big check

You will fuck up

Max Millimeter: Hollywood Movie Producer Extraordinaire

Bitching about pitching

It’s either gonna happen, or it ain’t gonna happen

Three ways to not be f*cking stupid

Why we hate writers