about this author

Screenwriters Get to Schmooze, Novelists Get to Write

I recently wrote a piece for West, the new incarnation of the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, about my long-ago travails as a screenwriter wannabe. Over a period of roughly fifteen years, I worked hard at the craft and wrote a dozen original screenplays. Of those, I sold two on options and one outright, making just enough money from all that work to pay for a modest remodel on my drafty little house in West Hollywood. Nothing produced, no big payday, no red carpet ride. I didn’t even get my name in the Hollywood trade papers.

When I fashioned the article for West what I really wanted to write about was the difference between writing screenplays and writing novels. But my submission, which ran about 2,000 words, ended up in a section called The Rules of Hollywood, which has space for less than half that. So my manuscript required some serious re-thinking and trimming (to be honest, it was rather rambling and verbose). In the process, it became something quite different. Kind of like what happens to most screenplays, which was a key point of my original submission. (If I’m not mistaken, there’s some irony there.)

My published piece poked fun at agents and producers who are pathological liars, the humiliating process of “pitching” one’s “concept” to studio executives who could just as well be manufacturing and marketing toothpaste, and self-appointed gurus who make a nice living teaching people how to write screenplays, even though they failed at it themselves. In other words, in Hollywood, integrity and honesty are for suckers. (As if anyone needed reminding of that.)

In my original manuscript, I’d also mentioned how important networking is in Hollywood, but how I’d found most other aspiring screenwriters about as supportive as the Bette Davis character in All About Eve. I ended that trimmed section with this: There’s an old saying about the movie business: In Hollywood, a friend is someone who stabs you in the front. If I’m not mistaken, that’s where the heart is.

You get the idea. Making it as a screenwriter is as much about taking meetings, pitching, conniving, back-stabbing, surviving, and who you know ­ even if you’d rather not ­ as it is about writing.

That, to me, is the biggest drawback to the screenplay trade — all that effort expended and dedication to craft but so little real writing or creative satisfaction. The fact is most original screenplays never get sold. Most that get sold never get made. Those that get made are invariably rewritten first by any number of other writers (who would rather be working on a screenplay of their own). After that, one’s script is “interpreted” by countless others in the creative chain, from the director on down. Along the way to final cut, marketing executives also leave their mark on the film. And let’s not forget the product placement people. As they say, it’s a collaborative process.

So if you’re someone who writes to reach an audience with your vision and words intact — and don’t enjoy grinding your teeth in your sleep — then screenwriting might not be for you. That’s what I finally learned about myself, and why I started writing novels.

I’ve met a lot of screenwriters over the years, many of whom were surely more skilled at it than me and some who were wildly successful. But I never met one who seemed truly happy with his or her chosen trade. Screenwriters invariably moan and groan about their lack of artistic autonomy, the way their scripts have been butchered, the demands and constraints of movie budgets and ratings boards, the disrespect they suffer, the projects that almost got made, the grief they felt when their completed movies were shelved for tax write-offs, how they’ve been cheated out of net profits, and on and on.

Talk to a novelist who has just had his or her first book published, even for little or no money, and you’re likely to experience someone in a state of near bliss. Many go on writing novels to the end of their lives without making a living from it, and never think of quitting. The book trade isn’t without its pitfalls and problems, its frustration and heartbreak, and lately more than ever. Yet there’s a satisfaction in writing a novel, seeing it bound and printed, feeling the solid heft of it in your hands, and knowing that every word is yours, that no screenwriter will ever experience, no matter how many six-figure deals they rack up.

My ninth novel, Rhapsody in Blood, has just been published. It’s a murder mystery, revolving around the violent deaths of three women on the same date in the same hotel room over a fifty-year span, and a film that’s being made about the mysterious death of the first victim. Writing it allowed me to explore themes as diverse as racism, the damage wreaked over time by dark family secrets, and the agony of the Hollywood closet. Rhapsody in Blood is unlikely to make me rich or famous. It won’t get me invited to any Hollywood parties. There won’t be that fifteen seconds of fame on Entertainment Tonight. I’ll be lucky if I get a second printing, earn back my modest advance, and see some royalties.

On the other hand, I’ll get the chance to express myself, choose every word, and tell my story my way. I’ll be able to meet some of my readers at literary events, and to interact with booksellers and librarians, people who are in it more for their love of writing than for the money. And I’ll enjoy the support of other authors, basking in that special camaraderie that exists among us, one of the great and unexpected rewards of being a published novelist.

Not very sexy, I realize. But priceless just the same.