Hello All.

[Trey]

My name is Trey, I'm a screenwriter in NYC, well I guess a better term would be out work student at NYU trying to make it as a screenwriter. When looking up literary agencies I reseached a place called Stylus Literary and found out that it's a scam through this website, so basically I wanted join to figure out how here people know what places are scams, find some tips for writing, aspects both artistic and business, and talk it up with other writers and find out about opportunities or resources that I may be overlooking. I wish you all the best and look forward to hearing from you.

[IWrite]

Trey - the writer guild has a list of agents that are guild signatories on their website. As signatories, they agree to go by a certain code of ethics. If they don't they can lose their signatory status. wga.org

Many agencies - especailly the biggies do not accept unsolicted queries. The guild list signifies which agents accept queries and which agents don't. There are also some legit agencies that are not guild signatories.

ANY agent that asks for fees should be avoided at all costs whether they are on the guild list or not.

Before you even start looking for an agent though, you need to be sure that you have a script that is good enough to get you represented. It usually takes a couple of scripts (and numerous drafts of each script) to get to a point where your work is strong enough to compete against professionals.

[Maryn]

Welcome, Trey. I'm not a screenwriter, just a lurker, but I wanted to be sure somebody made sure you knew we're glad to have fresh meat--er, faces.

Maryn, trying to be funny and not doing too well

[JustinoXXV]

Trey, have you taken screenwriting courses at NYU? (I know you said you're a NYU student, doesn't mean you've taken screenwriting courses there). If not, you might want to take some classes and build up relationships with professors there. You'll have gotten your work critiqued by established, professional, produced writers and that will count for a lot.



Otherwise, while querying agents you may chose to query producers as well. If some producer puts a solid offer on the table, agents will jump to close the deal for you.

There are a number of lists that you can find legit producers from. HCD, Scrimp Pimp, Done Deal Pro,etc.