Advice — christina hamlett

You've dotted all your "i's," you've crossed all your "t's," you've read every book on how to pitch your script in person, by mail, and online. Yet there it continues to sit. Unsold. Unwanted. Unloved. Maybe the problem isn't that it's an unsalable story. Maybe it's that you're trying to force it into a venue that's just not the right fit. In my capacity as a script consultant, a staggering majority of the plots I've read are encumbered by the writers' lack of awareness between what makes a commercial film and what would make a much better Something Else. Suggesting...

EXT. - DUSK - CHICAGO STREET In a traveling shot, we see JOSEPH TAMBERLIN, a homeless man of 47, asleep between two garbage cans in a trash-littered and stinky alley. He has long, dirty blond hair streaked with grey and pulled back in a ponytail secured with a child's discarded scrunchy. His eyes are bluish-green and he has a large mole on the left side of his bulbous, sunburned nose. Joseph, who goes by "Joe"came from London 15 years ago when his marriage to Stephanie broke up and has yet to lose his accent or the embarrassing lisp he has...

Based on a true story is one of those unfortunate catch-phrases that usually has the opposite effect in courting a producer's enthusiasm than most writers assume. Of the several hundred projects a year I review as a script consultant, nearly 20% are prefaced with some variation on the theme "Everything in this plot really, truly happened." Translated: "That's why I know/hope/expect you will really, truly like it."Whether such events happened personally to the author or someone else, however, these claims of authenticity garner pretty much the same reaction as whenever I see a car sporting one of those perky yellow...