Jay Fingers, Screenwriter/Author/Youtuber: Me having just idea upon idea because I'm
always thinking of a story to tell. What story should I tell next? Okay,
I'm working on this script but what should come next?
Film Courage: Why is your writing mentor relationship important to you?
Jay: Because you need someone to believe in you
and that's one of the major things that he provides is he lets me know that he sees me
working, he believes that the work is good, he believes that I have a gift, a talent for this
and I think that's important. You need to have someone in your corner it's great that he
is who he is and he's in the position that he's in but can it can really be anyone I think
as long as as long as they have that belief and and and they let that what you're doing
is worth it like you're you're not wasting your time you're not wasting your talent keep pushing
that's that's that's why it's it's really important because he provides that for me
and also I mean with him being in the business and being being successful he just
has a lot of knowledge that he's able to impart whether it's it can be anything from
how scripts are formatted and how you people will will receive the script to
stuff on the business end this is what you need to think about you need to think about taxes you
need to think about contracts blah blah so he's got that kind of inside track and that's also
beneficial I mean aside from him believing in you and you sort of showing up for him whether it's
online or in person what was one or two things that he gave you feedback on that
really changed things for you. I would say my approach to certain genres of storytelling
you know he read one of my scripts and just just the advice he just I think this is what you should
do in this situation this is this is how things are usually structured in this genre and he knows
what he's talking about and just following his advice I think really helped improved that script
and I mean I i saw it in things like contest placement and
sending it to coverage services and just noticing the change in score it's just like oh
this this was helpful this was a beneficial tip just things like that
I think what it is is that he's gearing me to write things that will be I
accepted by the industry right the industry looks for certain things
and he wants to ensure that I'm giving the industry what it wants so that they can say
hey yeah we'll we'll take a look at the script we we like this guy we like your writing so is
that a mistake a lot of screenwriters make is that they're not writing the right stuff for the
right genre for them I just think that there are there's certainly there's certainly things that
are looked for I think that a lot of I think that a lot of emerging screenwriters are hesitant
to do so because they don't want to maybe fall into a formula
they don't they don't want to save the cat but maybe something like that is necessary because
that's what's looked for you that element that makes your protagonist
likeable or interesting you've got to do something like that and I just think that I do think that a
lot of emerging screenwriters want to do what they want to do like I'm going to be different I don't
and it's like let's let's give them what they want and then once you've kind of established yourself
go wild do do whatever you want to do so that's that's my belief sure so if it's like a musician
if you're playing say heart and soul on the piano don't get too jazzy with it or whatever until
you've really mastered the song right exactly what compels you to write I just have stories to tell
I have worlds and characters in my head and and these characters are begging for their stories
to get out and that's that's what I want to do I want to help them get their stories out
and this has been happening since you were seven oh yeah yeah when I
when I was a kid I used to create like the Cablevision guides the schedule guides right
if you have HBO they send you the monthly guy to let what movies are playing that month and what
time on what day I would create entire guides filled with original ideas original stories
it was it was a bit disruptive like it was to the point where teachers would come to my desk and say
jay you can't work on your you can't work on your tv guide like during math like what are you doing
but as I said I would fill these guys with all these stories that I would create and they they're
coming from a young kid's mind so it'd be little things like johnny got grounded for not doing his
homework and that'd be the title movie grounded and it's showing Saturday at 7 pm or whatever
but that's I think that's where this all stems from me having just idea upon id upon idea
because I'm always thinking of a story to tell what story should I tell next okay I'm working
on this script but what should come next some days ideas just come to me boom boom boom I don't
understand how or why but it happens I'm not one of these writers that oh I have to
write an idea down because I'll forget it no I have too many ideas like I'll never forget
I do though have a document that has nothing but ideas it's like titles and ideas and I do refer
to it every once in a while just to see what what should be the next project what should I tackle
next and the funny thing is I will usually come up with an idea that's not on that document that
I end up working on so all these all these ideas are just kind of sitting there do you find these
ideas compete with you like you are working on one but then there's this new one and it's competing
for your attention always always and I can only work on one project at a time I can't work on
projects simultaneously like my mind doesn't work like that but the good ideas they stay in my mind
they don't go away so like when I moved to to Los Angeles I came out here with three specs
those were ideas that had been rattling around in my head for far far longer than before I moved out
here and I had ideas when I came out here and two of those ideas I've written since since I've been
out here and again ideas that I had long before the move the good ideas just don't go away they're
always in my head how long did it take you to write those three specs huh I'm not sure but not
very long once once I set out to write a script I've got the idea I outline it and when I have the
outline it it's nothing I mean I can I can usually hammer out five to six pages in a writing session
and if we're talking a 9500 page script it doesn't it doesn't take very long at all so
my most recent script I started at the beginning of the pandemic
and when everything started happening I stopped writing I was kind of frazzled or whatever but
then I picked it up several months later toward toward the end of the year and so if I had to
like how fast does it take like that script probably probably took about a month and a half
so when you came out here armed with these three spec scripts you came with the knowledge of you
heard so many people that meet with someone and they say okay great what else do you have
exactly okay and you didn't want to be that guy that just like well no this is it okay exactly
and I mean that's that's what's been happening I have been sending a script out and the people that
have responded that's always been their question it's like oh this is great what else do you have
so yeah I you've got to be prepared you've got it got to have something to send them
and you also write you have fiction you have like a books that you have on amazon as well so
right yeah I do yeah I've got four books this those books were written in in that
period where I’d kind of fallen out of love with with with screenwriting with movies but I wasn't
going to stop writing like writing was still going to be I still wanted to get these stories out and
so that's what happened and the funny thing is working on these books that's what reinvigorated
my my love for screenwriting it's just like hmm let me get back into this as a matter of fact
two of my books started out as screenplays and I felt that the stories were better served
as novels just that I just felt that I could get a little deeper with the characters
you can do things in a novel that you can't do in a screenplay or in a film and I just wanted
to explore that so that's what happened with that but yeah I reversed engineered a couple of
screenplays into into books and you wrote these while you were in New York, City in New York
interesting and and some of these protagonists are they're they're all women-centered stories
not all of them no not all of them but I do tend to write women characters like I don't shy away
from that if I feel that this is the protagonist this is who the story needs to be about then
I'll do that but my first book guest list is about a young woman it's it's funny because
guest list is is about me leaving Miami and going to New York but the book itself
is about a young woman who makes that move who leaves Miami and and comes to New York
and she gets caught up in the whole party scene that's what I was escaping from when I left Miami
the whole nightlife party scene right pretty people empty promises exactly yeah
some backstabbing oh yeah exactly wouldn't know anything about it.
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