Richard Walter, UCLA Screenwriting professor, maintains that the stories we write are our stories. Like it or not, we always bring to them our own personal viewpoints, our own biases, our own interests, our own concerns. And he suggests that rather than striving to keep such things out, that we find ways to keep them in and make them relevant to the material, to make them serve our stories and so, the audience. The result can only become a unique work.

I found this with my latest screenplay. It started out as an objective caper story and gradually, over several years, became a story with much of my own experiences, my own obsessions, and my own viewpoint. It went from a neutral, contemporary setting, to a period, Hollywood setting. From an objective crime tale to a satirical tale of a dark side of Hollywood. And none of it happened by conscious choice. Rather, it emerged out of truths from my own experiences. And now the script is far more entertaining, far more potent than it was ever envisioned to be. On the other hand, it also is so unsuited to today's script marketplace and its obsession with BIG, and MORE, and STILL MORE; with AMAZE ME, and BLOW ME AWAY!!!, that I question whether it should have been written at all.

If anyone's interested, I've posted about it at my blog: http://thelastreveal.blogspot.com/2010/07/if-screenplay-is-written-in-forest.html