Be yourself.

In November I was in Hollywood, I visited 3 studios in 3 days listening to advice and meeting people on the inside. So thing they all said was to get your BRANDING right, and I didn't have a clue what that meant! Did they mean I needed to create a logo a catchy slogan? NO, what it means is that you should focus on one genre, that's all it means... why don't they just say that? 

It was during these meetings that I had a lot of breakthroughs, both story and and as a writer myself. I realized that I was kidding myself by thinking that I was able to write a script in every genre, I realized what it meant to be a specialist and that by becoming the best I could in one genre then I would have a better shot that if I was pretty good at all genres. Let me put it this way: if I was a producer who had a comedy script that I wanted rewritten by a new writer and I had two choices, one a writer who has written good examples of a comedy, a thriller and an action flick or a writer who has written three very funny comedy scripts... which do you think I'm going to choose? That's right I'm going to pick the comedy specialist because that's what I want in that situation.

Now I know that it's possible to write many genres, but the point here is that if you specialize then you are stronger, for example if you write five action scripts in a row I bet you that the fifth will be 100% better than the first. So when it comes to being hired to write on assignment or rewrite you'd be in a stronger position if you can say "I'm a comedy writer" than if you say "I can write anything". To prove the point even further lets think about this, if your car broke down would you bring it to a mechanic or a guy who says that they can fix anything?

So that's branding and I encourage you to brand yourself... wait, that sounds wrong.

Once upon a time I started writing screenplays and my goal was to write for Martin Scorcese, how I didn't realize that Mr. Scorcese doesn't make Rom Coms I will never know! The point is I was doing something with the goal of something that didn't match what I was doing. It took me a long time to figure out that I was a comedy writer and not just a writer, I mean all the signs were there, I just couldn't see them.

So be true to yourself, I had to realize that I was more "Analyze This" than "Goodfellas" but once I did it  freed up my writing and I became a much better story teller. So my advice is this, take a look at your scripts and then take a good look at yourself... are they a good reflection of you? Are they your specialist genre? I have to keep working on my scripts and hope that someday Marty Scorcese will return to comedy... until then I'll keep my gangster scripts under wraps! 

Write on!

Dave The Screenwriter