Dispatch From The Quest: Miranda Sajdak
Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.
Today: Miranda shares a story that gives us all hope:
This week was kind of a big week for my friend Sue. Her series ALLEGIANCE got picked up with a put pilot over at ABC. Some of us had been following along her journey for a while, so it was especially thrilling to see the official announcement in Deadline.
Sue’s journey is one of the things that gives me real hope as a writer. Though she’s been writing for a while, she’s only been in LA for a little under 1.5 years. And, in that time, she’s been signed — and now sold — off of original specs. What that brings me is hope — hope that perhaps we might have some small movement away from remakes, sequels, and adaptations, and towards new writers with original concepts. In the last couple of years, we’ve had some excellent, unique films come out, which also gives me that same sense that maybe there’s a chance for original specs to actually go somewhere. While I certainly enjoy a good adaptation (I count WINTER’S BONE among my favorite films of the past decade), I also am eager to see more unique projects — especially by female writers — get produced.
This week in prep, we outlined 10 major plot points. As we move closer to beginning to write pages, Sandy and I narrow our focus in on what we know about our plot. What events will happen in what order? Which characters will have which function? How will we most productively get from our opening to our resolution? Seeing others’ specs succeed is exciting, even if it’s in the realm of TV, because it gives us a sense that ours, too, may have a shot in the current marketplace. So, this week, I’m celebrating my friend’s success — and gearing up for next week: outlines.
The Sue in question is Sue Chung and here is the Deadline article on her deal.
We all know the odds against a first-time writer breaking into Hollywood. Writing for movies and TV is an incredibly competitive business. And yet every year, outsiders become insiders.
Another inspiring development happened over the weekend whereby first-time scribe Aaron Berg sold his movie spec script “Section 6” in a bidding war to Universal for a reported $1.2M against $2M.
The single biggest key to these deals: The writers crafted a great script. A quote from the THR article about Berg’s deal:
Section 6 became a hot commodity the old-fashioned way: It’s just a really good script, according to those who have read it.
Takeaway: Focus on the writing. If you write a great script, everything else will take care of itself. That’s what we can aspire to. That’s what we can hope for.
The odds are long. But success can happen.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch From The Quest.
About Miranda: New Englander turned Angeleno by way of New York. Enjoys: high-powered action films, dark dramas, and ’90s legal thrillers. Does not enjoy: the dentist. Mushrooms. @ScriptChix.
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