Film Courage: Jen, can you provide some advice for writers coming out of college?
Maybe these individuals have been told “You’re amazing!
You’re going to set the world on fire…You’re going to leave our little school.
Good luck!” and off they go…Jen Grisanti: I would say the biggest advice to writers
coming out of college is live your life.
Like when writers go straight from college to the writer’s room and not experience
life, then I find that they are stunted.
I mean for me personally, I like the writer who explores another career path and comes
into the writing and succeeds or fails miserably and has something to say.
Like that to me is more interesting than the writer who got straight A’s all the way
through school and then goes into the writer’s room.
So I think the biggest thing is understand the journey as well.
Understand that it’s not about selling that first script.
It’s about creating longevity and it’s about really taking the time to grow into
your own skin, understand who you are, what you have to say, and the impact you want to
make on the world with your writing.
Film Courage: So then let’s suppose they are [this hypothetical writer] several years
out of college and they finally say “I am going to block out this much time to write
this amazing script.
What should I start writing about?
Should I write a horror film, because I know those [movies] are popular with the 18-34
demographic and I know I can add a soundtrack to it…”
Jen Grisanti: I would say write what you are the most passionate about.
You have to recognize that the number one thing that sells is passion.
And as much as you can say that this genre sells as much as this genre, the timing for
this genre might be better, but if the passion isn’t there, it will show up on the page.
And I think if there were an exact science as to what will hit then writers would be
making it all over the place.
I think really…like I’m going to tell you from being a studio executive from the
number of years that I was and still being a writing instructor at NBC and studying pilots
and knowing that Hollywood doesn’t exactly know what’s going to hit.
Like they’re throwing it out there and praying that Middle America is going to show up.
And you can have…I think if you were going to survey a bunch of studio executives at
the beginning of each season and say what shows do you think are going to be the breakout
hits versus what shows are not, because you know it’s hit or miss.
Film Courage: So going back to this writer coming out of college and they proclaim “I
love [the show] LOST and I am going to write another version of it…but that is not anything
like what their personal story is about.
And you get to know this person and you find they had a totally different life from like…I
mean being on an island is not something most people have experienced but something that
is very dissimilar to what they want to write about.
What do you say?
Jen Grisanti: I always say the best thing to write right now is something that connects
to your emotional truth.
So if you are dying to write something that has no link to your emotional truth then think
about why you’re passionate about the concept.
And maybe move for…like I’ve helped writers think of personal stories that they didn’t
realize actually did connect to the concept.
I definitely think that there are writers who function better writing about things that
are removed from them.
But what you have to think about…like say when you take Harry Potter, you ground it
in thematic emotion and the idea of what does ground the concept.
Those are themes of childhood and coming into your own and things that we all connect with
on a massive level.
Like when I covered The 4400 I remember thinking “Okay, not many of us are going to relate
to The 4400 that were abducted from earth and then returned back to a life that moved
on.
But what we identify with is abandonment, redefining your life, the idea with failure
to reconnect with family that has moved on.
There are all those things we connect with.
So I think when you’re writing stories that are outside your emotional truth, figuring
out how to ground them so that even though the concept may be way outside anything you
know, the emotion and the themes are connected.
Question for the Viewers: What’s the best writing advice you have received in the last
12 months