Where Writers come from

screenwriters come from all backgrounds....all shapes, sizes, and colors. anyone who has a passion to tell a story for the screen can write. write what you know. if you know about finance and computers (and variations of) then make them a large component in your stories. you already know about them and since you need to learn how to write atleast these subjects are one less thing you need to learn about. work smarter, not harder!

jeez, i hope i don't have to give up everything to move to l.a. and work in the mail room. not that there's anything wrong with that.

graduated high school? can you string words into coherent sentences forming paragraphs and ideas? all the formal training in the world can't make a person talented. you've had roughly twelve years of education, how much more do you think you need? lol. everything else being even, do you think a studio guy will look at your romantic comedy then some guy with a phd whose script isn't as good and say, 'well, learningtowrite wrote a pretty good script, but this phd guy, well, he's got a phd! we gotsta use *him* over the guy who wrote the better story.' doubt it.

who wants to spend four years in college learning to write a script anyway? how hard, really, is the format? and you can't read critical analysis on books at home without paying $25k a year to be taught by a guy who knows everything there is to know about writing yet can't write? (like i always said in the factory, give me the guy who can tear a carburator apart and put it back together again and you can keep that team of engineers who'll only use their education to screw things up worse than they already are, lol.)

yeah, every screenwriter you've heard of has probably been in the industry for years in one way or another. even if your first script sells and they make a major h'wood movie out of it, it won't hit the screen for a year, at least. but some scripts, like 'forrest gump', wasn't that floating around for about four years? correct me if i'm wrong on that and i can find another example of a script collecting dust until someone made a great movie out of it years later. so, technically, these guys have been in the industry that long. (these guys are actual screenwriters around here and will give up names to back up their reply.)

not every screenwriter descends from majoring in writing and filmmaking. not every filmmaker has been through film school. i'm sure backgrounds vary wildly. if you're in doubt, here's the thing: if it's not been done before, all you have to be is the person who breaks the pattern. simple. just write great, sellable scripts. it's not like being CEO of GM where no matter how bad you screw up you get paid millions, if you're not good at conveying a great story, no one's going to buy it. (don't get me wrong, education can be a wonderful thing in the minds of the right people. others are under the self-delusion that college will solve their talent issues.) chances are you're not the first to try and succeed. be the guy who gets the job done and you'll be the one they turn to (hopefully).

finance, huh? are your stories titled 'tales of the tape,' 'the bottom line', and 'the creature with an 850 credit score'?

No one has ever spent 4 years in college learning how to write a screenplay. Film major also study directing, producing, acting, technical stuff. A degree in film covers all aspects of the industry. For the final project, film students have to make their own movie, including raise the funds for it themselves.

I'm not saying everyone should go to school, mind you. Justp ointing out what the film major covers.

And yes, anyone with a high school education can write a screenplay.

As for writing what you know, that's B.S. Definitely don't limit yourself to writing about Finance and Computing because you majored in that. If writing about something requires research, you can do that research. And it might not require research.

I'm a gay guy, but most of my screenplays aren't about gays. My work typically has heterosexual romances (except for one gay themed screenplay). While as far as my personal experiences go, all I know is gay, that doesn't mean I can't observe straight people, watch movies, etc to figure out the things people would expect to see in a heterosexual romance.

if by that, J, you mean a writer's best tool is the power of observation, i wouldn't argue it too much.

LTW, i wasn't implying you only write what you know about. i don't think that's the case necessarily considering your other post. i think that 'write what you know' advise is best suited for people starting off to give them a comfort level and inspiration for when the story hits a rough patch. but, if there happens to be a lot of great stories about finance and computing, best you handle that because when i turn my computer on my credit rating goes down....

Every screenwriter that I have heard of has been in the writing industry for years.

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Yes and no. New people break in every year. It does usually take years of work before you write anything worth buying. There are exceptions, people who sold their first work. Usually the exceptions have a background in a field that teaches them the verbal skills, logical reasoning ability, and theatrical appeal that's required to write a good screenplay. Actors, lawyers, journalists, lit profs, film critics.

Paul Attanasio graduated from Harvard Law, then left the law to work as the Wash Post's arts critic. He saw all kinds of films, plays, and musical acts. He had to generate a lot of copy on deadline, and he had to do a lot of serious thinking about the arts. It still took him a few years to really break in as a screenwriter.

John Rogers majored in physics, started as a stand up comic and went from there into screenwriting. (Check out his blog, Kung Fu Monkey)

Then there's Ben Stein, as in Win Ben Stein's money, as in the droning history teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He started out in finance - was he an economist/econ prof? Moved into writing, acting, game show hosting, you name it. So number crunchers have a shot, too.

But if you're really good with numbers, why would you want to be a laptop monkey anyway? The finance people in H'wood are like bookies, they take their cut off the top, whether the gamblers win or lose.