Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Letter To A Screenwriter on The Ledge

Wait, don't jump.

Think for a second.

Your job is to write stories that make utterly ridiculous and implausible fantasies appear real. You've gotten really good at it. So good that right now your using the same tools of your imaginative craft to tell yourself a story about yourself. In fact, you've told so it so well that your ridiculous and implausible story about victimization, inauthenticity, and failure actually seems real.

It's not.

It's all cheap special effects, formulaic plot twists, and cliches cribbed from Save The Cat.

Step back, be your own best studio executive and demand a rewrite.

It's a movie in your head. It's not your life.

With love,

- Sean

2 comments:

Sanjay Sahgal said...

This is as poignantly insightful as it is useful to a screenwriter on the ledge...or really anyone on the ledge. It reads like a Buddhist sutra for contemporary social suffering. Thank you for sharing it.

Sanjay Sahgal said...

This is as poignantly insightful as it is useful to a screenwriter on the ledge...or really anyone on the ledge. It reads like a Buddhist sutra for contemporary social suffering. Thank you for sharing it.