I’d never seen Speakeasy Bar so crowded. People whooped and hollered as a man approached the stage. All of a sudden, they were quiet, and for the next ninety seconds they remained that way as he proceeded to…pitch his screenplay. It was a great pitch — an awesome premise built around an interesting relationship with a compelling and relevant story that served up some bonus social commentary on the future of technology and society. When he gave away the ending (Spoiler alert: The clones do not exist!) the crowd went wild. People outside the bar probably thought a really pivotal game was on. But, nope! It was just a bunch of drunk writers listening to a great story. I was at the Pitch Finale Party for the Austin Film Festival, a screenwriting conference and film festival that happens every October in the increasingly relevant town of Austin, TX.

Austin Film Festival should not be called that. When you call something a “film festival” you bring to mind events like Sundance or Cannes, which are all about the finished product: films. Austin Film Festival is first and foremost a writer’s conference and a film festival second. Hence the nickname, “The Writer’s Festival.” It’s also the most fun time ever for screenwriters. 2015 was my third year at AFF (I know, this recap is five months late…) and my favorite year, by far.

Every year at AFF seems to be organized around a few major themes. I’m sure these themes reflect my own self-selection, but I do think they’re indicative of what’s trending in Hollywood. The panels I attended last year fell into three main categories.1) The Craft of Storytelling, 2) The Future of Television, and 3) The Internet and Your Career. Besides the emphasis on story, AFF 2015 was very much focused on how the industry is changing as its writers, stories, and the platforms on which stories are told become more diverse. As writers, AFF panelists encouraged us to be adaptive, explore emerging platforms, generate an online presence, create and distribute our own content, and use the Internet and social media to connect directly with our fans, collaborators, and decision-makers.

Major Takeaways

Yes, you need to move to LA. Panel attendees always ask the same questions. How do you break in? Do I need to know someone in the Industry? Do I need to move to LA? The answer to the last question was still a resounding YES at AFF. Although some panelists agreed that you can be a working feature writer outside of LA, they encouraged aspiring TV writers to get to LA. This makes sense. After all, even though TV is being distributed on an ever-increasing number of platforms, most of the writer’s rooms are still in LA. I do plan on moving to LA, and I go there often, but I also think the answer to this question is a conservative consensus that will likely change in a few years. Most advice is at least five years old anyway, right?

Get on Twitter. Get online, in general. Agents, managers, and network executives at AFF could not have emphasized this more. The founder of Stage32 and Happy Writers were also at AFF, and they talked a lot about using Twitter in conjunction with Stage32 to maintain an online presence and connect. I also went to a panel on crowdsourcing for indie filmmakers with Emily Best and a web series panel with Issa Rae. Both panelists emphasized the importance of social media and online distribution in building their careers.

My Twitter account was in pretty bad shape prior to AFF, but I took this advice to heart and spent a few hours in January cleaning it up. First, I unfollowed everyone who had nothing to do with film and television (unless they were a personal friend and pretty active on Twitter). Then, I organized everyone into lists I could view as separate feeds in Hootsuite. These two steps turned my firehose of a Twitter feed into something much more digestible, organized, and relevant. I still wouldn’t say Twitter is my medium- I don’t spend a ton of time on it, I don’t tweet regularly, and I only follow about 300 people- but it definitely helps me stay plugged in to what’s happening in television. Incredibly, and despite my having less than 200 followers, it has even led to a few connections in the past two months.

Read Wordplay. I did not know about Terry Rossio’s website until AFF, although I had come across his essays in other contexts. Now, I’m about halfway through all the essays on his website.

Favorite Panels

Emily Best’s Seed & Spark Panel. I knew nothing about Emily Best before this panel, but a friend went to an earlier panel with her and raved about it so I went to this one. I expected one long plug for Seed & Spark, but instead I got an amazing lecture on using the Internet to crowdfund by connecting with fans rather than just broadcasting. This was useful to me because I want to create a web series this year, and although I’m probably not going to crowdfund it, her advice about creating a mutualistic relationship with your audience (kind of an extension of the 1000 true fans idea) applies to more than just crowdfunding.

Emily also pointed out that sending someone a t-shirt 10 months after your Kickstarter doesn’t really help your campaign. Instead, she promoted the idea of creating an “instant and shareable” reward system. She told a story about a filmmaker who photoshopped her into an image of the The Last Supper as a reward for supporting his campaign. Not only did she love the gift (and the fact that she received it immediately), but she shared it on her own Facebook page, thereby amplifying his Kickstarter. If I ever do crowdfund, I’m definitely going to create an instant and shareable reward system, and head to Seed & Spark for a refresher on crowdfunding.

It was clear from the panel that Emily is really passionate about helping indie filmmakers make a living doing what they love without being beholden to the studio system. She’s also a great public speaker and did the funniest and most spot on one-woman impression of the “average Kickstarter video” I have ever seen. I may not have known who she was before, but now that I do, I feel like I hear about her everywhere.

Issa Rae’s Web Series Panel. Issa Rae is so fuckin’ funny in person and it was cool to hear her web series journey. I asked her how much energy she spends producing original content versus online marketing, social media, etc. She told me 20/80. That’s 20% producing content and 80% hustle. Crazy. But now she has a show on HBO, so I guess it worked!

I know a lot of writers who feel bogged down by the responsibility of marketing themselves. “But I just want to write!” they cry! Sometimes, I also feel this way, but I’m getting more accustomed to the idea of putting myself out there, and it was nice to hear Issa Rae confirm that marketing is worth the effort.

Favorite Screening

I didn’t like any of movies I saw at AFF, but all the short form content I saw was incredible. I went to a web series screening that blew me away and watched a bunch of short films I adored at a romance-themed shorts screening.All of it made me so excited for the future of “indie television.”

Favorite Event

Definitely the pitch finale party. It’s just a really great atmosphere. The writers pitching are often very nervous but the crowd is super kind and encouraging, despite also being really drunk. It’s very endearing. I also love hearing all the pitches.

Favorite Moment

Is it sappy to say “the last moments of every evening?” The AFF parties shut down at 1 am, but bars in Austin close at 2 am, so most nights I would go with a few other writers to a new bar at 1 am and talk till bar close.

Cool New Discovery

The Script Library! I had no idea this existed until last year. You can read all the finalist and semi-finalist scripts! It’s amazing! I spent all my downtime during the day reading scripts here.

Things to do better next year

1. Get a script in the festival.
2. Print more business cards!
3. Get into a TV writer’s roundtable. Get there early!

TAG: I finished my Silicon Valley spec! Yay! Now for the real work: rewriting it. I’m still watching Friends and totally obsessed with Hulu’s 11.22.63 with James Franco. I’m probably going to go back and read the Stephen King novel once the show is over.

Originally published at offdutywriter.wordpress.com on March 15, 2016.

Austin Film Festival is a film festival and conference that happens every October. It is known as “The Writer’s Festival” and it’s pretty much the best time ever for screenwriters. I can say that with conviction because I’ve been three times now, and each year I’ve gone has been better than the last.

A lot of people attending AFF have a script or film in the festival. If your script is a second rounder or higher, you get a tidy little discount on your attendance fee and your script is listed on your badge. This is nice because it makes you feel more legit and serves as a talking point when you’re interacting with other conference-goers. It also allows you to get into a few extra events and probably helps if you’re looking for representation or a producer. Last year, I debated attending at all because the spec I submitted didn’t get in, but then I thought about it and decided to go anyway because a) I already live here and don’t have to fly or get a hotel room b) It is a huge learning and networking opportunity regardless of whether I have a script in the festival or not and c) I realized my not wanting to go without a script in the festival was sort of a product of my imposter syndrome, which is a terrible reason not to do something, especially something as low stakes as attending a conference.

So I went whole hog and bought a Producer badge, which is the highest tier of badge that AFF offers. I will admit I was curious about the badge, which gets you into everything (including four parties that you can’t attend with any other badge), but I mostly splurged because I had some friends attending AFF with Producer Badges and didn’t want to be madly FOMO-ing the whole time. I figured I would get the badge, realize it wasn’t worth it or that I didn’t have the energy to fully utilize it, and then downgrade to a lower tier badge next time around.

I couldn’t have been more wrong about the Producer badge. IT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME AND WORTH ALL THE MONEYZ.

I ended up fully attending every single day of the conference, seeing tons of really useful panels and roundtables, meeting several of my writing heroes, making new friends and contacts, and hitting up all the Producer-only parties. The parties were great because they allowed me to re-connect with people I had only met briefly during the day while attending panels. And, despite being out till 3 AM every night, I still managed to drag myself out of bed every morning at 8 am to be back at the Driskill, St. David’s, or the SFB by 9 am. One time, I even walked to St. David’s, in what was basically a hurricane, so I could see a 9 am panel with Jason Reitman and the Casual writers. Usually, there was a lull in programming between 4 and 6 pm every day, so if I was feeling extra hungover I would go home and take an afternoon nap before heading out again for the evening’s festivities. Mostly, however, I just ran around on the boundless energy I imbued from all the screenwriting, storytelling, and filmmaking goodness. Well, either it was that or they were putting something in the brisket…

In retrospect, I’m so glad I didn’t let my stupid hang up about not having a script in the festival prevent me from going to AFF, and I’m going to try and remember that in the future when my anxieties about not being “good enough” might be preventing me from getting better. I’ve mentioned before that most of my TV writing contacts can be attributed to AFF and the Internet. I’ve also met several online contacts IRL for the first time at AFF. In an industry that is very much about who you know, opportunities to make friends with people who are as excited about television and screenwriting as you are invaluable. While I don’t want to undermine the very real anxieties and fears that prevent people from chasing their dreams, I recognize that most of my cognitive hurdles are rooted in a fear of putting myself out there, and they’re often easily overcome with just a little bit of courage (and, sometimes, a whiskey!)

I know it’s a bit late to dorecap of the 2015 Austin Film Festival, but I’ve been meaning to write about it since I went. The thing is, I didn’t have a blog then, but I do now! Muahahaha. So you’re gonna get recap that is four months late, if only so I can consolidate all the scattered notes on my phone. This post was supposed to be that recap, but if you’ve made it this far you probably realize it ended up being about something else. Since I’m trying to keep these things succinct, I’ll save the recap for next week!

TAG: Haven’t been watching much TV because I’m gunning to finish this spec, but I did see the Broad City Season 3 premiere (!) and the pilot for 11.22.63, the J.J Abrams anthology series based on the Stephen King book about JFK’s assassination. So far, I’m intrigued and think I will keep watching. Also, apparently I really need to see Deadpool?

Originally published at offdutywriter.wordpress.com on February 23, 2016.

I used to think about shifts in the action of a story as “heightening,” but ever since a recent conversation with a friend, I’ve been thinking in terms of “reversals” instead. I define a reversal as a subversion of audience expectations as you lead into the next beat of your story, and think this is a more useful heuristic than thinking of ways to “heighten” the action because you’re actively considering what the audience believes will happen and doing something else instead.

Thinking about comedy as a series of reversals is super useful for creating unpredictable and entertaining storylines. The trick is figuring out how to do something the audience wasn’t expecting, while still having it make sense for the story. You want them to think, “Of course!,” not “WTF?” or “I knew that was gonna happen…” I’ve been training my mind to think in terms of reversals by examining my own internal expectations when I watch television. When the action turns, I ask myself what I thought was going to happen and how/if I was surprised.

Good Reversals = Good Endings

The biggest reversal in an episode of television is usually the one that happens right before its resolution. The simplest endings generally use a piece of information “dropped” earlier in the episode. This information is then “picked up” later in the episode to resolve the episode’s primary conflict (via a reversal) and conclude the story.

A great example of this is the ending reversal in Season 2, Episode 5 of Silicon Valley. In the episode, a neighbor threatens to report Erlich for running a business (his start-up incubator) in a residential neighborhood. It looks like the guys are going to get kicked out of their house, but then Richard discovers the neighbor is keeping pet ferrets in his backyard. Erlich and Richard march over to the neighbor’s house and threaten to report his ferrets if he reports Erlich’s incubator. This reversal works because, earlier in the episode, Erlich mentions that ferrets are illegal in the state of California. And it’s satisfying to the viewer because, while the ending makes sense in light of Erlich’s comment, it’s doubtful they would have seen the ferret thing coming.

Magical Reversals = Great Endings

However, it is my opinion that great endings require a bit more than the ol’ drop-and-pick-up gimmick. And, the best endings use a reversal to tie storylines together. These endings are more satisfying because they’re trickier to write and thus appear a bit more magical to the audience.

One such “magical” reversal happens at the end of the season 2, episode 10 season finale of Silicon Valley (Spoiler alert, btw). After believing he has just lost his company, Pied Piper, in an arbitration, Richard tells his team to wipe everything before a rival company seizes it. Then, when Richard realizes he hasn’t lost his company, he scrambles to tell his team not to delete all their hard work. Unfortunately, his phone battery dies, so he has to run home in order to tell them. He arrives at the house moments after one of his programmers, Dinesh, runs the wipe script, and for a second we believe Pied Piper has been deleted. However…reversal! The script crashes the computer it’s running on and fails to execute. Pied Piper is saved, for now.

Out of context, this ending might seem almost too easy. Like, really? The script freezes the computer? How convenient. But it works really well for two reasons: In the season finale B story, Richard’s team is struggling to keep a viral livestream of a condor nest online using Dinesh’s software and a server farm that another programmer, Gilfoyle, built in Erlich’s garage way back in episode 5. And, since episode five, Gilfoyle and Dinesh have been arguing about whether it is Gilfoyle’s hardware or Dinesh’s software that is superior. This ongoing argument resurfaces in the season finale B story as Gilfoyle and Dinesh work to keep the livestream going, and when Dinesh’s wipe code crashes the computer and saves Pied Piper in the A story, Gilfoyle and Dinesh immediately resume arguing about whether it was Dinesh’s “garbage code” or Gilfoyle’s “shit hardware” that was responsible. This neatly ties the B story in with the A story, as well as utilizing a conflict between Gilfoyle and Dinesh that has been escalating for five episodes.

The long set-up makes the Silicon Valley writers appear extremely far-seeing and is super satisfying to the viewer because, while it was an unexpected reversal, in retrospect it makes perfect sense. As screenwriter Terry Rossio writes in his essay on endings, “A good ending must be decisive, set-up, and inevitable — but nonetheless unexpected.” The writers of Silicon Valley are great at creating these inevitable yet unexpected endings, and I think it’s a huge part of what makes the show so freaking brilliant.

I’m always looking for examples of really clever reversals and great endings in TV and movies. Please share your favorites!

TAG: Been watching a lot of Silicon Valley for a spec I’m writing. Can you tell? LOL.

Originally published at offdutywriter.wordpress.com on February 16, 2016.

If you’re anything like me, you often put off the hard work of doing the thing by reading about doing the thing until you can no longer hide behind the guise of “doing your research” and are forced to just do the thing already. While screenwriting, like most things, is probably best learned by doing, there is definitely some utility to reading a book or two about it, if only to understand the language of the industry. Oh, and also because formatting (Although, one would hope, that if you’ve just spent $250 on screenplay word processing software, formatting would take care of itself. One would hope….)

That being said, most screenwriting advice is just a repackaging of the same old ideas, along with a new trick or technique regarding how to skin the cat you just saved or whatever. Several books and many blog posts later, only a few ideas have really endured for me. The following “sticky” ideas remain top of mind whenever I’m writing:

Ellen Sandler’s Six Beat Story Structure

I understand three-act structure and the hero’s journey. I have no trouble identifying inciting incidents, midpoints, and plot points when I’m reading a script or watching a movie or TV show. However, I have a lot of difficulty applying those ideas to a new story that I’m writing.

Ellen Sandler’s six-beat story structure, as outlined in The TV Writer’s Workbook, is my solution to the problem of creating a structured story from scratch. This book has probably been the single most useful manual on TV writing that I have ever read, and I don’t think I would have finished a single script without it. The amazing thing about the six beats (Oh, Uh Oh, Ouch, Big Uh Oh, Twist, and Ah) is that they’re so simple, yet when I use them the more complex elements of three-act structure appearing naturally in my script. Seriously, if you haven’t read this book already, do it. It’s brilliant.

Stephen King on Writing the Story and then Figuring Out What it’s About

In most episodes of television, stuff happens, but the episode is also about something. Since there is a deeper meaning or greater lesson in most episodes of television, I used to feel bad for not knowing what the deeper meaning or lesson was at the outset of my own writing. Then, I read Stephen King’s On Writing.

In On Writing, King makes a big distinction between the first draft and the second draft. He says the first draft is about story, while the second draft is about drawing out the deeper thematic elements in the first draft.The thing is, King says you don’t necessarily know what those elements are until you’ve finished the first draft, let it sit for a while, and then gone back and read it with fresh eyes. This doesn’t mean that the first version of your story doesn’t have theme, just that it hasn’t been emphasized. I’m so glad that King addresses this because there is a lot of writing advice out there that encourages leading with theme, or considering what themes you want to explore before you begin writing. However, every time I’ve tried to do this, it’s been an epic failure. My mind just does not work in that direction. But apparently, neither does Stephen King’s!

Allowing myself to focus on putting a really funny and entertaining story on the page during the first draft, then returning it to imbue it with meaning during the rewrite, was a huge breakthrough for me, and the main reason I’m so grateful I read this book. But no matter what your opinion on Stephen King is, you gotta admit, the guy is prolific and has had tons of popular success. In addition to the theme vs. story thing, this book is full of tons of general writing and process advice that can be applied directly to screenwriting. It’s definitely worth a read. Also, it’s short.

The South Park Guys on “Therefore: and “But Then”

A few years ago, South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone crashed an NYU storytelling class for an episode of MTVU’s “Stand In.” In the episode, they proceed to dish some storytelling pro tips. One thing they say is, if the beats of your story can be joined by “and, then,” all you’ve got is a boring sequence of events, but if each element in your story can be joined by the words “therefore” or “but then,” which indicate connectedness and conflict, then you’ve got yourself a story. I’ve found this to be a really effective heuristic to keep in mind when outlining. It’s also fun to watch the video and see how titillated the NYU freshman are when Trey and Matt use the f-word.

So that’s the top three things I think about when I’m writing. What about you? What screenwriting advice have you taken to heart?

TAG: I’ve been watching a lot of Friend re-runs (I’ve never watched Friends chronologically!) this week. I also read this excellent piece by TV writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach called “The Eleven Laws of Showrunning.” It’s long, but you can also listen to him talk about it on The Children of Tendu podcast.

Originally published at offdutywriter.wordpress.com on February 9, 2016.

I can’t sleep these days. No, it’s not because I have “so many ideas” like that lady you keep seeing at all those writer’s events. It’s because I just got back from India and I’m really freaking jet-lagged. You know, #firstworldthirdworldproblems.

I decided to use all that extra time in the middle of the night to start this blog. It’s been percolating for a while, but as anyone who used to work in digital marketing (that’s me) can tell you, while digital presence is key, there’s also so. much. noise. I’ve refrained from jumping into the blogosphere for several reasons, but the biggest reason was I don’t want to be just more noise.

But a few cool things have happened in the last few years, and while I’m still very much in the early stages of this whole endeavor, I’m ready to start officially self-identifying as person who wants to write for TV. Also, the primordial soup of TV writing information in my brain has started to evolve into something a little more concrete. I’d like to document that evolution here. There’s also the whole writing community aspect. Building my bones outside of LA has meant that all my TV writing contacts can be attributed to essentially two things: 1) The Austin Film Festival and 2) The Internet. Besides being a huge source of motivation, these contacts have given me the social capital to embark on bigger and more collaborative projects. I’m not naturally inclined to be a joiner of things, but I’d like to start contributing to that community rather than just benefiting immensely from it.

Since I think “forever projects” are a recipe for failure, I’m going to set my intentions for this blog for just one year. I’ve got a lot on my personal development slate: I am currently writing a web series with plans to shoot it in March. I’m also writing a spec for the upcoming Fellowship season. I’ve got two pilot concepts I’d like to write once the spec is done and I have written a treatment for a romantic comedy feature idea that I can’t seem to shake. The feature might be a distraction from the goal of getting representation for TV so I’ve scheduled it for the end of 2016. Hopefully, by then I will have come to my senses. I want to blog once a week about what I’m learning and thinking about as I complete these projects and then reflect and reassess at the beginning of 2017, one year from now.

Also, this will almost certainly not all get done, so consider it my season 1 arc, with permission to deviate.

Happy New Year!

TAG: Every body was like yougottawatchrickandmortyyougottawatchrickandmorty so I finally did and now I would like to meet Dan Harmon, thank him for doing hay thang again after Community, and tell him that now I also poop.

Originally published at offdutywriter.wordpress.com on February 2, 2016.