Day 23: Roadmap into the industry (Story ideas: Monsters to Shakespeare to Oscar)

Before looking for representation, managers and agents say it's vital to have one project, polished and as perfect as the writer can make it.

"If you've written in your letter to a prospective agent that you have four, or five screenplays, backspace," advises Mark Ross of Paradigm. Just one amazing screenplay is needed.

Agents, writers, producers--they all love stories. As guest panelists spoke to us each week in Frank Wuliger's course we learned that there are many pathways into the industry. Very few are predictable. Many of the panelists had taken risks and had worked hard and for low pay. But each found their way into the industry led by their passion for stories.

A number of our guest speakers had started their careers hoping to write screenplays. While they didn't end up creating original material themselves, they found fulfilling careers working with writers as agents, producers, and agents.

While in the Master of Professional Writing program, I took a class titled the Academy series. Guests included Academy Award winning directors and actors.

One week during the Academy lectures series, we watched "Shakespeare in Love," with Marc Norman as the guest speaker.

"My son," he told us, "even while he was very young, knew that dad didn't have a constant paycheck. He tried to help me think up ideas for stories."

These sessions often happened over the family's dinnertime. "Dad, what if there's this monster and it comes into the city..." was one idea Marc's son pitched to him.

Then his son grew up and went away to college. He was studying literature when one day he called home. "Dad," he said, "What if you write a screenplay about the young Wil Shakespeare."

After Shakespeare in Love went on to win seven Oscars, Marc told us that had a replica of a giant check made, and presented it to his son.

Marc's parting words to our class were revealing. He said that it had proven challenging for him to come up with original story ideas, that that's why he spent much of his career working for others.

NOTE: These entries are inspired by the final assignment for The Business of Writing for Screen and Television, a School of Cinematic Arts' course taught by Frank Wuliger. Hoping to help his students become working screenwriters, he asked us to create a personal, five-year road map into the industry.