Reader Question: Are there professional screenwriters who just focus on writing spec scripts?
From American Jetsetters:
Are there any writers who are purely represented for their spec scripts/just want to write specs and maybe the occasional too-good-to-turn-down hire? As in, they’re also writing novels (or something else) or don’t necessarily need the money?
First off, it’s a great situation to be in, not needing revenue from screenwriting. Most professional screenwriters don’t find themselves in that enviable circumstance. Even A-list writers feel the pressure to generate income from their screenwriting. I know of one who would do an annual meeting with his agents, rattle off all the properties he owned and what his annual nut was, then ask the agents [paraphrase], “So, what are you guys gonna do to help me hit that mark?”
And while we’re here, let’s acknowledge there can be a certain positive value in knowing the mortgage, car payments, private school tuition, insurance, utility bills, groceries, and so forth is all dependent on you as that can push you to be hugely productive as a writer, sometimes resulting in inspired stories.
Of course the opposite is true, too, where the weight of that financial responsibility can bear down on you like an anvil, resulting in anxiety and even writer’s block.
So if you are positioned in such a way that your livelihood is not entirely dependent on your earnings as a screenwriter, jolly good for you!
And there are writers who do this. You mention novelists. There are plenty of them who also write screenplays including Michael Chabon and Neil Gaiman, but most, I think, don’t traffic in spec scripts so much as (1) adapting their own novels or (2) plum screenwriting assignments.
[By the way, some years ago I read an article in which William Goldman, arguably the dean of contemporary screenwriters, did not call himself a screenwriter, but rather a novelist. Yes, he’s written novels such as “Marathon Man” and “The Princess Bride,” but a vast majority of his work has been movies. So why refer to himself as a novelist? As I recall from the piece, it was because that gave him a sense of independence, not wanting to have to rely on Hollywood for his living. This, of course, a man who famously stood up at a notes meeting on his script for Memoir of an Invisible Man, and said — fed up with the feedback — “I’m too old and too rich for this shit,” then walked out of the meeting.]
Circling back to your question, there are some writers who tend to focus on spec scripts. In the 2011 GITS Screenwriters Roundtable, we heard from one of them. Here is John Swetnam’s take on the subject:
And there’s something really exciting about spec scripts. You’re rolling the dice and you’re working for free, fifteen hours a day, and the coffee and the cigarettes, and you have no idea what’s going to happen. And you could spend three or four or six months on this spec and nothing happens. But the reward of selling a spec is just so amazing. It’s worth it. Every day, it excites me. There’s so much potential and possibility. Whereas with the assignment game, once you’ve got the assignment, for me it just starts to feel like work. I got in this business so I didn’t have to work. That’s why I like the specs for myself, they’re just more exciting.
Greg Russo proposed an alternate take on OWA’s:
I love working on assignments. I love working with producers. I’m just a collaborative person, so I’d rather work on a project with a very smart producer or executive, or even a director, who I can work closely with to bring it home, rather than just break it by myself. The other thing I’ll say is… producers, execs… they’ve got the best ideas. They’ve got all the cool shit, they’ve got all the cool IPs. So it’s hard when I’ve got my list of ideas and I’m going, “Man, that would be interesting to work on.” And then all of a sudden some producer’s like, “Hey, you want to work on this?” And I’m like, “What the fuck, of course. Are you crazy?”
The thing is as a screenwriter, you can choose what path you want to take, focus on specs, focus on writing assignments. Just know your reps — generally speaking — are going to steer you toward money-making opportunities which is to say OWA’s.
However even established screenwriters who focus on writing assignments may hit circumstances where they decide to write a spec, a subject I wrote about here in a Business of Screenwriting post.
So are there screenwriters who focus on writing spec scripts? Yes, but I would say they are in the decided minority. It’s really hard to sell a spec script. And you are, after all, writing on spec and therefore not generating money from that effort. I suspect most writers would much prefer getting paid for what they write, rather than wait for a big potential payoff down the road.
But you can do whatever you want to do. And as Swetnam said, there is a purity about writing a spec: The story is entirely yours which is never the case with any writing assignment.
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