Guest Blog by Mark Fergus
So, you’ve heard of this thing called a “writers’ group.” But what is it, why is it and who is it?
A screenwriters’ group is a collection of creative people whose passion is to create stories that can some day be shared with millions. Members of said groups cram around a kitchen table with pots of coffee and tea, providing each other with feedback, inspiration and ideas – all to make their scripts as great as they can possibly be. A writers’ group can help you create a screenplay that not only your mother will love, but that will make the powers-that-be in Hollywood sit up and take notice.
Why be Part of a Writers’ Group?
The first reason is simple. Writers write. Period. And a writers’ group can help foster the sometimes excruciating discipline of putting pen to paper – of getting those ideas out of your imagination and into the world. Ask a working writer how often they suffer writer’s block. They don’t. And why? Because they have a deadline, they have structure. They have people counting on them. They have a waiting audience. A writers’ group can be that audience – the impetus to stop researching an idea to death, dreaming it to death, thinking it to death – and finally committing those words to paper.
The second feature of a writers’ group is no less important. Now that you’ve written something, it’s time to let your words out into the big, bad, scary world. This can be daunting – it’s like sending your baby off to college, hoping he or she will be popular, successful, happy – and loved. But you can’t protect and defend your words forever; you must let them fly on their own wings. Yes, there’s comfort in hiding your masterpiece in your hard drive, under your bed, or in the recesses of your cerebral cortex. But to become a real writer, a communication must happen – and this requires an audience.
Writing is a Lonely Affair
Brilliant ideas can grow stale in your head. Repetition can convince you that good stories are broken, or that flawed stories are structurally sound. A writer needs to hear other voices. Voices to challenge your material – to love it, hate it, to be confused, to be thrilled. In short, you need feedback. And lots of it. Amazing things happen during open communication. Sparks fly between people. Magic erupts. Meaning is illuminated.
A writers’ group will help you to develop vital muscles – the muscles to listen.
The biggest complaint about writers deemed “not ready for primetime” is this: they don’t know how to listen. Good writers learn to ease up on their defense mechanisms; they listen, not only with their ears and their intellect, but with their heart, their whole body. This has nothing to do with lowering one’s standards, learning to agree with your peers, or subscribing to groupthink. This is about taking the opportunity to experience yourself and your writing through the eyes and perceptions of others. A writer is so close to their material, they often lose sight of the big picture. Sometimes they’re writing instinctively, and aren’t even sure what the big picture is. Feedback from trusted colleagues is an incredible chance to see things anew, to enlarge your perspective, and to illuminate fresh creative possibilities.
Not all feedback is right – or even useful. And dealing with conflicting notes can be overwhelming. That’s part of the learning curve – sorting through the feedback that speaks to you, and that which does not. As a writer, you will get notes throughout your career from many different sources. All the process requires is this: consider every note or comment an opportunity to make your script better. To turn over a stone that may have been missed. You’ll see patterns in your writing, good ones or bad ones, through the reactions of others. You’ll learn what people respond to, and what they don’t. You’ll learn to decode the “note behind the note” – what the reader meant, even if it wasn’t articulated gracefully. “Add flying monkeys in Act 3” might be an encrypted version of “I lose interest in your hero’s journey right at your story’s climax…”
How often will “listening” help your writing? Exactly 100% of the time.
Those are a few reasons “why.” Now for a few nuts and bolts!
Getting Started
Let’s say you don’t live in Los Angeles and are trying to form a group. One good way to unearth potential members is dig into social media and put your feelers out. Check for local groups, or set up one of your own.
Electing a Moderator
You’ll need someone to structure things for the group. Someone organized, someone responsible. Your moderator will schedule the meetings, choose locations, and make sure the sessions run smoothly. He or she will spearhead the screening of potential members, as well as set the rules and expectations for each. Elect a moderator (maybe it’s you!), and have a backup “deputy” should you be unable to perform your duties for any given session.
Screening Potential Members
Just as every good story has its tone, so does a good writers’ group. Who do you want in your group? Harmony is certainly beneficial, but let’s not get carried away. You don’t want to be in a group of writers who are just like you, love the same stories you do, and who nod in polite agreement at everything you write. Just as good drama thrives on conflict, magic in a writers’ group can be found in creative disharmony. Diversity. The sparks that fly between different sexes, races, ages, and viewpoints about art and life.
You want people with vibrant imaginations, who are always pushing into new territory and new stories.
Some groups work better by having members with similar levels of professional expertise – other groups do well by mixing it up (I’ve learned just as much from a kid who didn’t even know proper formatting as I have from a published playwright). Some groups even go so far as to include prose writers, poets, and painters into their screenwriting forums. Whatever works, whatever is exciting and productive. The point is, find your group’s “tone.” Don’t court chaos. But don’t play it too safe either.
Seek out the “voices” you respond to. Get potential members to provide one or two writing samples (full length screenplays, preferably), as well as a short bio describing their writing experience, genres of interest, life experience/interests/obsessions – and what they hope to contribute to the group, and get from the group. What are their strengths and weaknesses? How flexible and open do they seem? A lot of this is intuitive, so listen to your gut as much as your head.
Meet the prospective member, in person, on the phone, or via Zoom. Get a vibe check; see if their personality fits the chemistry of your group. Have them sit in on a session. Often it works well to have the prospective member attend several meetings and give feedback on other scripts, before they’re invited to submit their first screenplay.
When to Steer Clear
There are some prospective members you might want to be wary of: writers with one “golden idea,” whose life and passion is to turn that one single idea into a movie and write nothing else until they have succeeded; these people will be writing and rewriting the same script for the next ten years, and will be unlikely to be open and flexible about their masterpiece, or any other kinds of writing.
As for anyone who’s panicked about people stealing their ideas, this is the Scarlet Letter of the screenwriting amateur. This person needs to overcome this neurosis before they’re ready to be part of a group.
People who are hyper-defensive, and simply can’t take feedback, comments and criticism – who can only defend, defend, defend why their choices were correct, and that the reader must have misunderstood. Writers’ groups can help a dedicated writer get over this natural defense mechanism – but some will simply never let go of their spear and shield.
People with big chips on their shoulder, who want to harp endlessly about the unfairness of the movie business or how it’s run by dimwits with no taste. Waste of time. The business is tough as hell, true. It’s unfair, very true. But it can be navigated by focus, patience, and above all – great writing. Use a writers’ group to write – not to complain about the industry.
Structure
What will be the structure of your group? Establish a meeting location and time that is convenient and consistent. Consistency is important. The writing life requires structure and rhythm; don’t be random and erratic about your meetings. How often will you meet? Weekly? Bi-weekly? Monthly? All this will depend on the consensus and lifestyles of your membership. If you choose a place like a coffee shop, make sure that the day and time provide you with enough quiet to hear yourselves think, and enough space to accommodate the group. Some groups prefer to congregate at a member’s house. Others do well in a saloon. Whatever works.
How long should your meetings last?
Two hours usually works for a group no larger than 10 members, but you might want to consider going longer if your membership exceeds 10 writers. Be wary of diminishing returns – mental fatigue and information overload can set in if you try to bite off too much at any one meeting.
Meeting Structure and Feedback
Submitted scripts can be distributed to the group via the internet, or copies can be passed out during each meeting. Comments and feedback should be typed up by each member – 1-2 pages is typical – so they can be easily transmitted to the writer during the next meeting.
Comments can include free associative reactions and ideas, but should include specific thoughts about plot, character, structure, dialogue, pacing, tone and genre. What you liked and didn’t like, what worked for you and what didn’t. Be as specific as you can. A script’s “marketability” can certainly be discussed, but let’s not confuse that with the merits of the writing itself; besides, always remember William Goldman’s famous dictum: “nobody knows anything” about what audiences will want to see next. It’s about the only thing in Hollywood you can absolutely count on.
During the meetings, feedback can be presented in a round robin, leaving at least a half hour for free-form Q&A at the end. Let’s say you have seven members in the group, and your meeting lasts for two hours; that gives each member thirteen minutes to deliver their feedback, followed by a half hour for the writer to participate. Some groups find it best to not allow the writer to speak or defend themselves until all the feedback has been given. This ensures that every member gets their turn. It allows the writer to see patterns or consistent notes, which will affect how they use their Q&A period. This also highlights the need for feedback notes to be typed-up and prepared before the meeting; you don’t want the writer scrambling frantically to write everything down as you say it; you want them to listen and to soak it all in.
There are many options for setting up your group online. Google Groups, Google Docs, and Dropbox are easy ways for the moderator to distribute information, up-load files for everyone to read, and a way for the members to contact each other. You could also post a compendium, which consists of all the feedback put together in one file; that way members who missed a meeting can check out what their fellow members had to say about a specific writer’s script.
Live Reads
Once your group is up and running smoothly, try to schedule the occasional live reading for one of your members’ scripts. Assemble a group of professional-grade actors to have the screenplay read out loud for an audience. Nothing illuminates the strengths and problems of material than hearing it spoken aloud by good actors.
Another way to shake things up and keep it interesting is to allow presentations of partial screenplays, individual scenes, treatments, synopses, or pitches. All of these are crucial stages in the screenwriting process, and all are worthy of presentation and critique from the group.
Etiquette
You want consistent members who show up, who are actively writing or re-writing their scripts, and who give thoughtful and incisive feedback to their fellow writers. You want members who know how to be respectful and constructive, while not soft-pedaling. There’s a fantastic method Francis Ford Coppola used when directing his actors – and it’s a good lesson here: instead of saying, “No, not that way, I don’t like that,” he’d focus like a laser-beam on what he liked and would say, “Yes, I like that, more of that…”
Hostile or disruptive members tend to fall out of orbit on their own, but can certainly be asked to leave if there’s a group consensus.
The Bottom Line
Be supportive. Inspire your fellow writers to dream big, and then to work to their limits to make that dream real. Remember, everyone’s got their heart and soul on a plate here.
Love your fellow writers. Because writing is a hell of a difficult job.
CineStory Foundation Alumni Contributors:
Kevin Caruso: CineStory Finalist in 2002 and attended the retreat. CineStory Winner in 2007 and attended the retreat. Attended Screenwriters’ Summer Camp in 2006. Script developed at retreat and Summer Camp was optioned. Credits include: The Rut, The Yard, I Tried.
Eric Diekhans: CineStory Finalist in 2003 and 2005 and attended the retreats. Won the Illinois/Chicago Screenplay Contest in 2004 and was a Semifinalist for the Nicholl Fellowship in 2002.
Mark Fergus: 1999 CSA Winner with writing partner, Hawk Otsby, co-writers and Academy Award nominees for Children of Men, co-writers Iron Man, co-writers Cowboys & Aliens, co-writers The Expanse. CineStory Award winning script, First Snow, was directed by Fergus, stared Guy Pearce and was released 2007.
Clea Frost: Semifinalist in the 2001 CineStory competition and a Finalist in the 2007 CineStory Competition. Quarterfinalist in the 2004 Nicholl Fellowship. Credits include: Surviving Summer, The Apocalypse Diaries, A Family
Lisa Gold: CineStory Competition Winner 2005. CineStory Finalist 2007 and attended the Retreat. Attended CineStory Screenwriters’ Summer Camp in 2006 and 2007 and was a Nicholl Fellowship Finalist in 2007. Credits include: The Death of Toys, Thoughts and Prayers and The Secrets of Shangri-La.
Steve Rosen: CineStory Finalist in 2007 and Retreat attendee. Developing his first project with a producer he met at CineStory.