Go Into The Story / The Black List: What it means (Announcement)
On Tuesday, September 6, Go Into The Story will officially become the screenwriting blog of The Black List. What does that mean?
What will not change
I will still have 100% editorial control of all content that passes onto the GITS daily feed.
GITS will continue to have on average 6 posts each day.
In terms of subject matter, the content will remain the same: craft of screenwriting, screenwriters, TV, writing in general, creativity, movies, the business of movies, and so on.
The schedule will remain the same:
Monday-Sunday: Daily Dialogue
Monday: On Writing
Tuesday: Screenwriting 101
Wednesday: Script To Screen
Thursday: The Business Of Screenwriting
Friday: Great Characters
Saturday: Written Interview, Saturday Hot Links
Sunday: Video Interview
I will continue to do occasional weekly series such as Screenwriting Lessons, The Spirit Of The Spec, Writers On Writing, and the like.
I will still use my personal ‘filter’ in terms of the content that gets posted here, ensuring a continuation of the range of news items and features you have come to expect, serious and whimsical, thoughtful and fun, challenging and inspirational.
Length of posts: The same.
The primary focus of the blog will continue to be the craft of screenwriting, everything from macro concepts and theories to micro issues of script format and style.
GITS Reader Questions: I will continue soliciting your inquiries every other month or so.
I will continue to manage and respond to comments in order to make them lively learning opportunities.
Bottom line I fully expect the spirit of our site — the realistic yet positive tone, the smart, motivated, and analytical community of GITS followers and commenters — to migrate intact from old to new GITS.
What will change
As of Tuesday, September 6, the site will have a new URL, but you shouldn’t notice that as you will automatically be redirected there when you click to here.
The new site will have three columns instead of two:
Center Column: Daily Feed
Right Column: Lists and Resources
Left Column: Personal Information, Screenwriting Master Class, etc
The color scheme will change to match The Black List which is far and away a much more attractive visual environment than my current funky low-rent appearance.
I am switching from Blogger to WordPress.
Let me talk about that a bit. Blogger has been a decent friend for these last 40 months, but whoever the ‘they’ is behind it keep making arbitrary technical changes which have necessitated me routinely having to adjust how I operate.
Additionally Blogger has proved less and less reliable over time. You wouldn’t know that because I don’t let the GITS community see behind the curtain, but I have spent a lot of time doing way more HTML than I ever imagined I would have to do. This has proved frustrating on all levels, mostly because all that futzing around has cut into time I could be writing more interesting blog posts.
I can’t say I’m expert at WordPress at this point having only been messing with it for a few weeks now, but I feel confident the flow of posts in the daily feed should continue without interruption. Hopefully I will have much fewer computer gremlins with which to contend freeing up some valuable time resulting in better content.
Good news: For the first time, I will have actual ongoing, live IT support. I would like to thank Dino publicly and personally for overseeing the transition of over 7,000 GITS posts to the WordPress site and literally having to write special codes to override whatever general weirdness I managed to create on Blogger.
That said, this transition will be an iterative process. No doubt there will be glitches and issues, so bear with us. If you encounter any problems at the new site, please email me so we can fix them.
In the larger scheme of things, The Black List sites (including mine) are going through an overall redesign process with that launch possibly toward the end of September.
All of which is to say we will be in a bit of flux for the next month or so. But the content and the community — which is really why we’re all here — should continue as it has for the last 40 months, and I think you’ll enjoy the new digs.
Some Goodies
This partnership with The Black List gives Go Into The Story more credibility in Hollywood.
On a pragmatic level, that promises to translate into more interviews with screenwriters to provide deeper insights about the craft. I already have several Q&A’s lined up with writers who have sold spec scripts in 2011 and others in the works with longtime professionals, so we should see a pretty significant uptick on that front. Hopefully I can land interviews with others in the business, too, including TV writers, agents, managers, and producers.
The relationship with The Black List immerses Go Into The Story more deeply into the world spec scripts, script acquisition, and script development.
What this means is better and more real-time information about what is happening now in Hollywood in effect shrinking the distance between you and what the buyers are doing.
The association with The Black List provides Go Into The Story with greater visibility in Hollywood.
Agents, managers, producers and studio executives are always looking for new ‘blood,’ fresh writers with talent and stories to tell. If GITS is known as a vibrant screenwriting community, then I figure some of those folks might come here looking for interesting new voices. Therefore I am thinking hard about ways to provide opportunities for GITS readers to express themselves in this public forum.
Obviously Comments are open on any given post so there is a clear, direct way for you to show off your writing skills, smarts, style and voice.
We also recently started the Dispatches from the Front Line series, first person accounts from members of the GITS community describing how they are trying to break into the industry which represents another way you can put your storytelling skills into circulation.
I have a few other ideas kicking around, but I welcome your thoughts, too.
Some exciting new GITS series: As part of the transition, next week we will be starting the GITS Weekly Script Reading and Analysis, a terrific way for you to deepen your understanding of the craft by reading scripts, breaking them down and discussing them with others in the GITS community.
I ran another possibility up the flagpole recently which got a strong response: Live blogging. And so with this transition, every 2 weeks or so I will make myself available for an hour to live blog any questions or thoughts you may have about screenwriting.
Speaking of availability, how about this: Franklin Leonard, who started The Black List (you can read about him in this post yesterday), has offered to respond to questions exclusively from the GITS community on a quarterly basis (obviously depending upon his schedule). So if you have ever wanted to interface with a Hollywood producer or studio executive, here is your chance.
There are other developments on the horizon (Franklin will have a big announcement about The Black List in the near future) and possibilities Franklin and I have kicked around, but the main things about this transition have to do with what GITS has been about — only making it better.
Finally let me say this: When I started Go Into The Story in May, 2008, I had some idea of what I wanted to do and an inkling of what it might become. Suffice to say the site has evolved into something bigger and more influential.
My gut tells me the same thing could very well happen here. Near term with the combination of Go Into The Story as the screenwriting blog of The Black List and the presence of Xander Bennett from Screenwriting Tips, You Hack, I think it’s fair to suggest this becomes the #1 go-to daily site for anyone interested in the craft of screenwriting.
What does the future hold? As noted above, we know what won’t change, we know what will change, we know some of the goodies, but there are unknown unknowns out there even if we can’t yet see them. I welcome the mystery of that and invite each GITS follower to become an active participant in our journey of discovery.
What can we do to rethink the way screenwriting is done? What can we imagine to improve how Hollywood discovers new writers? What can we devise to enhance our collective creative process?
Let’s embrace this opportunity and take our conversation about screenwriting, filmmaking and the movie business to the next level.
FADE IN:
The Black List. Go Into The Story.
Note: Tomorrow I will post something where you can ask any questions you have about the transition. I will do my best to answer them.