[…] Two things about interviews I conduct for this blog. First, one of the earliest goals I had with Go Into The Story was to use it to put a spotlight on screenwriters. This pertains to the weekly Screenwriting 101 series featuring writing quotes, the How They Write A Script series, aggregating audio, video and written interviews with literally hundreds of screenwriters and TV writers. It even extends to little things like Daily Dialogue: The only credit I note in each of those posts is “written by” or “screenplay by”. No disrespect to actors or directors, it’s just they always get …read more […]

Cool. Scott, would you consider asking writers the story behind the story type questions. For instance that British writer that you mentioned was an "overnight success" and sold his pitch to Spielberg. I'm sure writers were wondering: How many scripts he wrote before he got to where he is. What were his personal struggles and sacrifices he made to get to where he is--i.e. Joe Carnahan moved funiture. Sylvester Stallone worked in a zoo, wrote 14 hours a day for 7 years. What was the story behind him finally landing his first set of managers/agents. What was it that factored into him choosing his reps over the other great choices. What was the water bottle tour/assignment chasing tour like? Any advice he/she has for reaching that level of attaining the rep team and navigating the working writer channels. And, this is actually a question for you...what do you think of writers writing for free.... A lot of writers do not reach that magical million dollar spec sale that changes their life...but they do get asked by big time managers, producers, etc. to essentially write for free either via a very cheap option or developing an idea/script together for a future payoff if the script gets picked up. I've heard two differing points of view on this. One being never do this...and the other pointing to the "All you need is kill."