Screenwriting 101: Marc Norman

“I’ll tell you one thing I’ve noticed, and it’s absolutely true for me. My best writing has been on the the scripts I wrote as suicide notes to the industry–sort of, ‘Fuck you, guys, I’m outta here. This is the last script you’ll ever get from me. I’m tired of this. I’m going to put everything I know into this one and if you don’t buy it, ‘See ya!’” I’ve reached that point, I’d say, five or six times, maybe seven times; I’ve been so frustrated and pissed off, so self-blaming, so disgusted with what I’ve gotten myself into and the shame of what I had to do for a buck, that I said, ‘I’m getting out of the business after this one last piece of writing, something that expresses me, what I want.’ One of those scripts, by the way, was ‘Shakespeare In Love.’”

— Marc Norman