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The Art of Screenwriting, with Brooks Elms

Intro:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome to The Resilient Writers Radio Show. I'm your host, Rhonda Douglas. And this is the podcast for writers who want to create and sustain a writing life they love. 

Because let's face it, the writing life has its ups and downs, and we want to not just write, but also to be able to enjoy the process so that we'll spend more time with our butt-in-chair getting those words on the page. 

This podcast is for writers who love books and everything that goes into the making of them. For writers who want to learn and grow in their craft and improve their writing skills. Writers who want to finish their books and get them out into the world so their ideal readers can enjoy them. Writers who want to spend more time in that flow state. 

Writers who want to connect with other writers to celebrate and be in community, in this crazy roller coaster ride, we call the writing life. We are resilient writers. We're writing for the rest of our lives and we're having a good time doing it. So welcome, Writer. I'm so glad you're here. Let's jump right into today's show. 

Rhonda:

Well, hey there, Writer. Welcome back to another episode of The Resilient Writers Radio Show. So glad you're here. This is a little different for me and I'm really excited to have this conversation today. 

So, I’m joined by Brooks Elms and Brooks is a professional Hollywood screenwriter, and he also coaches talented folks who also want to get into screenwriting. So we're going to talk about all things screenwriting today. Welcome, Brooks. Thanks for being here. 

Brooks:

Thank you for having me. I'm excited. 

Rhonda:

Yeah. So I said to you before we hit record that my questions were probably going to seem a little ignorant because like a lot of people, you know, I love watching all things that come at me, whether it's via HBO or Netflix or on a big screen. I just went to see Deadpool and Wolverine, like I'm all over great stories, however they're presented. 

And from time to time I thought, oh, I could write, why couldn't I write a Netflix series or whatever, but only to discover that I think it's a little more complicated than I think. 

So for someone who's wondering about the screenwriting business, can you kind of give us a summary of how it works? If you're a newbie, how does the screenwriting business work? Because it's very much a business, isn't it? 

Brooks:

It's show business, right? Show business. It's a show, and it's a business. For somebody who's starting out, even if, let's say, you're a professional writer and you're thinking about adapting one of your own books to a screenplay or just trying that, my suggestion is to start out just to do it and have fun. 

Like maybe even start with a short, you know, one page, three pages. Look at some screenplays. You can get them online. Type a title of any movie and then PDF and you can probably find a screenplay. The important thing is sometimes they'll be weirdly formatted. You want to try to get the actual formatting. And then just play with it. See if it feels fun to you. 

And then if you do a page or three pages and go, ooh, this is really awesome. Like, oh, because what happens in the screenplay format, it's pretty much just what you see and what you hear. It's like, it starts with this thing called the slug line, which is all caps into your exterior. 

So inside, outside, the place, and the time of day. That sets you up. It goes, okay, you're here. And then it's like, Johnny comes in and sits down. You know, boom, that's the action line. And then Johnny says, hey, Sally. And then you go, that's it. And you can't.

What's beautiful about it is it's just the tip of the iceberg. All your story, all your characterization comes underneath it and is implied by what you see in here. So if that excites you as a constraint, if you are a fiction writer or a poet or whatever, cool, just try it and play with it. 

And then if you enjoy the show, I mean, I wouldn't even seriously consider the business part until you've at least written a feature and like shared it with some people and they're like, Oh, this is fun. I like it. I'm supposed to think that.

Because I'm sure this is the same thing that you get sometimes with your own work and when you help other people, it's when we get out of the process and start thinking about the outcome. 

Rhonda:

Yes. 

Brooks:

And then it gets locked up or just becomes less enjoyable. And so I'm very much about enjoying it, enjoying it, enjoying it, and then enjoying it some more. 

Rhonda:

Right, right, right. 

Brooks:

And then you can do it in a way that's calibrated for professional success. But first things first, just do it and like get in the sandbox, mess around, dig some stuff. Build a sand castle and like if you were like oh my god this is the best thing ever then move forward. 

Rhonda:

So if I'm, you know coming out of writing stories and novels one of the things that you know you get told uh and like literally just got this piece of feedback from my book coach Brooks, right? “We need more interiority with this character.” 

Like we need to understand what's going on in their body and what they're thinking if we can't put that on the page how does that come across through a screenplay. Like I want the character to be understood as a certain kind of character, but I don't necessarily have access to a lot of interiority. So what do I do with that in a screenplay? 

Brooks:

I love that so much. That question. So let's talk about the thing that came out of my mouth. So Johnny comes into the room, right? That was just generally what he was speaking. 

But like, if we want to get into what Johnny's interior life like? What would it look like if he had just broken up with his spouse? How would that impact the way that he came into the room? Was he sulking into the room? Was he like, whoo, I'm free, liberated? 

Rhonda:

Right, right. 

Brooks:

So what did that breakup mean to Johnny? And then once you define who he is in that moment of his life. And like, what does he want? Like, maybe that was the beginning of this whole journey because he actually needed to go and find himself because he's been codependent with him. So once you know who this person is and where they're going, then you just slow it down and you just watch it. 

How does he come in? How would you know? And then you start getting really subtle because he doesn't come in and go, hey, I just broke up. But there's something in his posture, in his gait, in his behaviour. Something he does or doesn't do that starts to give you clues. And then what he says and what he doesn't say. 

So you end up just getting much more sophisticated and you see this, you sense it. Like you could come in somebody like you're, let's say you're at a cafe and you're a friend and he comes in and he actually is going to tell you that he just broke up with his spouse or something. And you feel, you can almost feel the energy. 

Like something's going on with Johnny where we met in Starbucks or wherever. And you can just, there's something about maybe he's shifting foot to foot. He can't even hold his gaze because he's so overwhelmed with emotion. Let's make this more interesting. Not only did he break up, but you've had a crush on him. You know him, right? 

So now it's like, what do you say when he says, so you just get into it and then you just ask yourself, what do you see or what do you hear? And it's, what'll happen is, when you're first getting used to the format, you tend to do what they call on the nose dialogue. Hey, I broke up with my spouse and I've always really wanted to be with you, you know, right? 

Rhonda:

Yeah, okay. Right. 

Brooks:

So that's not gonna happen. But again, stupid idea on top of my head is he comes in, he's you know, I broke up with my spouse and I really like your shoes. 

Rhonda:

Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Brooks:

So like, so now you're now he's he's that line, I really like your shoes. He's gonna mean the energy is different. It's like, So you get to play with subtext. It's all about the subtext. 

Rhonda:

I love that. So I've often wondered, like when I look at writers who, you know, they're putting out novels and the novels are really working, like they are a great read. Sometimes, I've had this happen a couple of times where it says that they got a start in screenwriting or they've studied screenwriting. 

What do you think we screenwriters can bring to the novel that isn't there if you just, you know, kind of learn how to write a novel, you know, in the traditional literary sense? I think there is something. What do you think? 

Brooks:

I would say it's a great question. And for context, I've been at the game for a long time. I know a lot of novelists, but I never read novels. I don't write them. I write a lot of other stuff. I write copy. I write stuff like. So there's a bit of a caveat there. 

That being said, specifically the screenwriting craft, if you were to study it and then cross over to the people that you're talking about, there tends to be a structure, an awareness of structure, awareness of concept, structure, and then what we were talking about before in terms of subtext. 

But really, which it's, and there's some people that just write novels, but they write it really visually. And that's because they're kind of thinking of the movie, right? So I would say concept, structure, visual storytelling. Like what you see and then you write to that. 

And I can go into detail on those things but those are the first three elements that come to mind because, so we talked about beginning, hey, I wanna write a screenplay, awesome, do it, have fun, like don't look back, just enjoy yourself. That's like phase one. And then if you're like, oh my God, no, like, oh my God, this is amazing and you can't stop. Then, and you're like, no, no, I really wanna take this seriously. 

I have a nine step process and then Step One is really getting your sensibility top of mind. Step Two is concept. 

Rhonda:

Okay. 

Brooks:

Because if you focus on a concept, what will happen is when people get past that honeymoon phase of I love this, I want to do it now, I want to get serious. Awesome. Then they go, they try to write maybe like second, third, and they're just, they're just doing it in a way that's astoundingly inefficient.

And then once you're like, no, no, I don't want to, I love writing it. And now I want to write it more efficiently. Now we get to our friend, the concept. Cause if you can't tell your story in one sentence… 

Rhonda:

Okay. Almost certain like a pitch sentence, right? Or is it like, if you were going to pitch it to a producer, you'd have to say such and such meets such and such, or, you know, what is it? What is the concept? 

Brooks:

So, a concept is the core idea of the story. It's expressed in Hollywood in a log line, but there's really two different functions of log lines that are distinctly different. You spoke to the sales log line, which often is accompanied by a cross. 

It's like Jaws, but in space. It's like Die Hard on a bus, it's Speed. Or mostly what Hollywood does these days. It's like the first movie, but a sequel. 

Rhonda:

Right? Yeah, yeah. 

Brooks:

And that's why they do it. They do it for psychological efficiency. Because if we already know what's familiar and there's just a little bit different, it's more digestible. And it's such a noisy world. So look, studios love great movies. And they're expensive. 

Rhonda:

And they want to know it's going to work before they put the effort in. Yeah.

Brooks:

So they’re looking for marketing efficiency, and when you have franchises there’s so much more efficiency to market because we already know. Even if it’s simply gain there’s no real, you know reference like you know the Lego movie. And that was actually created. The pretty awesome movie for what it was. Let’s do Lego. 

So, or Barbie, right Barbie last year. But it’s the same thing. Once you start with something or they’re familiar with the real state and you just put a twist on it. Then the marketing efficiency is significant. 

So back to the screenwriter's job, if you have a concept and you can then express it, you know, Johnny broke up with this woman and then starts his new adventure and his life after the break up. So he, I automatically went to try to elevate the concept. So let me go, so you can tell the story about just random Johnny anywhere in suburbia, or if Johnny was the son of a president. Now we've now we've elevated and the person that he's talking to in that cafe is let's say the political rival's daughter or something right now. 

Anyway, so I can't help myself but that's how you elevate a concept. What we're talking about is the simple concept is just the main core elements. When you express it in a log line, it gives you the absolute beautiful gift of being brief and precise.

When you get it done and you want to get attention in Hollywood, so people read the darn thing, if you can succinctly pitch it, and at that point you don't even really need the mechanics of a log line, we'll get into that in the other function of the log line, you just need any sort of song and dance that makes them go, ooh, I wanna read that script. 

Because there's 100,000 screenplays written every year. And so a development executive at Random Production Company is probably reading five, 10 scripts this weekend. And the one that has the best concept that they're most excited about goes to the top of that pile. The other ones you might not even get to. 

So for efficiency in even getting it to the point where people are going to read it, if you're really good at concepting and you come up with a beautiful idea and then you even have a cross, oh, it's such a such movie, but with the spin, I totally get it.

They read your script. It's amazing. Now they're going to turn around and sell it to their supervisor. I just read an incredible script. What's it about? It's like such and such Netflix series, but it has this twist. Holy smokes. That's amazing. I'm going to read it today and then they will buy your script. Is that what I'm saying? 

Rhonda:

Yeah.

Brooks:

Now let's back it up before you get to that point where you're, you know, you're rolling in the big bucks and Hollywood's all over you. There's our other use of the log line, which is the development log line. And that is your northstar. Those are the tracks through the walls. 

That is your GPS. That is how you stay focused on this thing that you're developing month after month after month. It takes a lot of time. So when I can tell my story in one sentence, hero, goal, conflict, some sort of setting, and I tell it in a way that's effing amazing, like blows you away. Ooh, I get it. Like the whole movie gets it.

I know a friend in Hollywood. He sold a Shrek franchise movie. So like the whole Shrek Empire is like I got an idea: one sentence and they said sold. 

Rhonda:

Oh, wow. 

Brooks:

That's how powerful it is. If you're good at concepting – now I didn't roll off the couch in like Kentucky and be like, hey, I've got a sentence come. He obviously was very very very very very very good at it.

Rhonda:

Build up a solid time. 

Brooks:

And he was in a position where they actually would even take the pitch from him and whatever. But like, very simple. And when you understand concepting, that 100 times speeds up your career. 

And so most people like me, when I first started, I made movies with my friends in high school, made like 50 short films. I went to NYU film school. I was like, I'm gonna make a feature. So I wrote a feature, but I really didn't get to that professional level feature writing until maybe 15 years after that, because I did it for the love of it and I loved it, but I didn't have the efficiency yet because I was like, well, Hollywood and all the figures in the class. 

Rhonda:

Right, right, right. Yeah. 

Brooks:

And so, so now again, that's why I say, and that's not a bad way to go, except that if I was to coach me when I was 22, I would say, dude, you've got all this talent. Do this first. Like if you're gonna, I personally, I wouldn't even say do a feature. I would say do shorts.

There was a short, there was that feature that I made when I was 22. Almost nobody saw the entire feature as an independent film. Yeah, I mean, it's screened around, but nobody really saw it. There was one scene from that movie that got viewed 1.1 million times on YouTube. 

Rhonda:

Oh, wow. Okay. 

Brooks:

I had the talent to hold attention for two or three minutes. I didn't have the talent yet, the skill yet to hold people's attention for 90 minutes in terms of trading their time for. And so, when I would coach myself if I was gonna go back in 22, I'd be like, dude, I wouldn't even say bother with the feature yet. I would say just do crush it, do some music videos, do some whatever, like get hired as like a director and then that would have been a more expedient and more wealth-buildy way to build my career, but I was too organized for my own good. I just did it. 

But let's say you do wanna say, okay, I wanna write a feature film, concept is your best friend. Because if you can't tell the story in one sentence in that development log line, like I've never really seen it come out. I know with novels, you could be a panther to an extent. And what's happening there is you're just intuitively seeping into the grooves of story structure. 

But, you know, I mean, look, there are people that do it, right? But for the most part, if you're gonna write a screenplay in a professional way, concept first, then structure. And then you get to the story, like my nine step process, you don't even get to the screenplay till step seven. 

Rhonda:

Oh, wow. Okay, I love that. It sounds like you're doing a lot of prep work. So talk to me about this idea of elevating the concept. That sounds really interesting. What is that and how do you go about it? 

Brooks:

Yeah, so what I did, and it was funny because I didn't mean to, it just came out. I've been doing it for a while. So we talked about Johnny coming into a cafe and now it was like, oh, Johnny came into a cafe and he's meeting a woman. Now we're just adding elements and twisting them. 

And then you add stakes – if you also say they're not just average person, but they're actually in a position where there's impact on the community. So let's talk about the movie Hoosiers, the old basketball movie. So one of the things that's really because I saw really insight because there was another movie that came out, one of my favourite screenwriters, director that I really like, with Ben Affleck, who I like as an actor playing a really good dramatic role where we're struggling with alcohol and he was a coach, right. And he was a basketball coach. So a lot of the same elements as Hoosiers. And I like the movie for what it was. 

But to me, Hoosiers is far more elevated in this particular way, because the town was so goddamn invested in that basketball team. Whereas the Ben Affleck movie was a beautiful personal drama about him struggling with addiction and he was a basketball coach. But when you elevated it, when you basically, you can kind of take some of the same elements and then. So here's what they do. 

Here's another example. Joker, right? So Joker is, I think I can talk to, so Joker is the Marvel movie about a villain in the DC universe. But what they really did was they took really a mental health story about a character that was so beat up and abused. And they basically told a story about this guy kind of trying to stand up for himself, but he was so abused that it was a perversion of how he actually find some sort of dignity for who he is. It's an anti-hero story. 

But the circle of good, the people around him were even worse than what he was. So you're like, oh, he's out of line, but I kind of like what kind of relationship. So that in a way is an elevation of a typical, like every year at Sundance, there's five stories that are kind of like Joker. 

Rhonda:

Okay. So it's the idea of taking what otherwise would have been the story of an individual and looking at it like the level of family community society, right? And the implications. Is that it? 

Brooks:

Exactly. You're raising the stakes. 

Rhonda:

OK.

Brooks:

So if it's just two people meeting each other in Starbucks, it can be beautiful. Like it can be really beautiful. Maybe that's all you want to do. And if one is Donald Trump's son. If one is related to one party, one party president, you know, a candidate, and one is related to the other candidate. It's the Romeo and Juliet story. 

Rhonda:

It's Romeo and Juliet. Right. I got you. 

Brooks:

And now the stakes are huge. And why that concept, why those elements are so enduring after hundreds of years is because those families were trying to kill each other. So like it's not just look, love is a big deal for all of every single one of us, right? Whether we have it, we don't whatever. But like now you amplify that love by it's not just that person, but they represent a whole group of people that's at odds with the other group of people. 

Elevating the concept. And it's it's, you just it's just a bigger metaphor. It's not right or wrong, but like it will impact a bigger amount of people. So here's, here's one of the ways I discovered this for myself. When I went to movies with my friends in high school, they were generally goofy parody movies. We made a karate movie. It's like a detective movie and like a western. They were all very silly. And then I went to NYU and I got very serious about making movies. 

Rhonda:

Very earnest movies. 

Brooks:

Oh, yeah. Pretentious. But there was a genuineness that came out in my work that I really liked. And I won an award there, and it was fine for one of us. So I made a couple independent feature films from that personal drama place. And I loved them, and they were fine for what they were. 

But I had this meeting with this producer, and I was, I had it. For me, it was a little more elevated. It was a coming of age story set in my hometown of the Hamptons. And so the Hamptons is a known place. And I was leaning into the class conflict love story of her family and his family. And so for me, that was a lot more elevated than what I was doing before, which is really just kind of random personal adrenaline. And he was like, look, it's great, but like write me like a genre movie dude. Like, you know, and I was like, ugh do genre movies. 

But what he was saying was, he was like, look, you're a great storyteller, and the audience that you're planning to tell stories for are, you know, an audience that doesn't excite him and aren't the types of audience he wants to be a part of as a producer. And so I originally had a limiting belief that was like, well, I'm not going to betray my sensibility as an artist, which was great. Right.

I wanted to expand my career as a storyteller, and not just tell stories to tiny groups of people, but bigger groups of people. And so I walked away from that lunch thinking like, okay, it didn't work out, because I was trying to get him attached to the other project. He said, no, but write me this other one. 

And there was another producer there who was attached to the coming of age love story. And he was like, so, dude, are you going to write that genre movie for him? I was like, what? No, I don't do that. I was like, what? He said, what are you doing? He's like, dude, get over yourself, man. He's basically offering you a job, writing what goddamn genre movie?

Rhonda:

Right, right, right.

Brooks:

And I was like, oh, well, thank you for challenging me on that. Because you're right. And then here's what was so beautiful about that discovery of that limiting belief that I placed on myself. I don't like most genre movies, but there are some I absolutely love.

Rhonda:

So what would you say is a genre movie? Like, give me a genre movie like so. So I just went to see Deadpool and Wolverine. That's a genre movie. And then it's a superhero thing. 

Brooks:

That would be in the superhero genre. So I mean, so. Here's in a very broad sense genres come up as basically a promise of a set of emotions. 

Rhonda:

Yep. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. So it's the same thing in novels.

Brooks:

Genre novels, music, any set of art, because the consumer wants to get a sense of like, what am I getting myself into here? Right. I want to feel those sorts of feelings. I will go to that horror movie. So the agreement is, hey, we're going to promise you a set of feelings and ideas around this sort of. So it's a way to clarify the agreement. 

Rhonda:

So the flavor of something, really, isn't it? 

Brooks:

Yeah, that's right. It's a promise of the emotions and the ideas is kind of the way I think about it. So in Hollywood movies, basically the primary genres are horror, because that makes it clear that you can feel fear, thriller, which is tension, comedy, which is like laughter, humor. Drama tends to be either inspiration or maybe sorrow. And then action adventure is exciting. 

So superheroes are a subgenre of adventure or excitement. And that actually was a bit of a blend because Wolverine and Deadpool is R-rated comedy. So that's actually an action comedy thing. But generally speaking, it's better to go with one core genre because it's hard enough to write at the professional level in one genre, let alone the L and C. 

Rhonda:

Yeah, yeah. So what genre did you write that genre movie and if so, what genre was it? 

Brooks:

Yeah, it broke me into Hollywood. So what happened was I was like, well, I don't write genre movies. And I was like, oh, but wait a minute. There's some that I really like. What I really love that I've ever since NYU was deep personal characters.

And I could also like a deep connection to very personal, nuanced, authentic characters. Because that's just where my mind goes, like my friends and my family, and I'm just fascinated by that stuff. And that's what I wanted to write about. But I also could write tension really well. 

There were scenes that I wrote in mostly genres that had some real serious tension. The scene that was viewed over a million times, there was a lot of tension. It was a crazy sex scene. It would be this kind of callous thing. And the guy was telling the story about it. And it was kind of whatever. So like, but there was real tension in there and playfulness. And that was part of my superpower. 

So I was like, well, what if I write a genre movie that has really good characters that I love with really thick tension? And then I was like, oh, and so I ended up pitching him a few different ideas. And one of them is a movie idea in which a group of commuters get stuck on the L train in Chicago during a blizzard. But the blizzard turns out to be the cover for an alien invasion. It's a very grounded, contained, alien invasion film. So there's aliens and there's whatever, but it plays out like a terrorist attacker or shooter. And the characters are legit, it's like, you know, you know, almost like drama level characters. 

So that was my access into it. And then he was like, this is amazing. So we were originally going to meet my - I brought in a co-writer for that one. We were gonna direct it ourselves. And he was like, this came out so great. Like, let's see if we can get this set up in Hollywood. 

So he got me signed at UTA, set it up in Hollywood. It was almost gonna be made. There were like scouting locations in Vancouver, ultimately didn't fall through, which happens actually 90% of the time. So even when you get paid to get money and get people attached, at any level, most of those movies don't get made. Yeah, so the good news is the rights come back to you.

And you can sell it again, which I have. And that one actually, yeah, I resold it just recently. And there's a producer in England that I think is going to make it who's great. Well, I think actually this version of it I think is going to be even better than the original version. 

Rhonda:

OK, cool. So what does the career look like? So I'm loving it. I've learned how to do a concept. I've written a couple of screenplays. I've gone to Brooks. I've gotten some coaching. I know what I'm doing now. 

How do I then sell this thing? What does that look like as a career? Because I think, you know, we have traditional publishing, we have indie publishing, for folks listening, they know what that looks like. But if they want to get into the career of writing screenplays, what does that look like? 

Brooks:

It's a great question. It's almost certainly different than what you think it is. Oh, okay. Because of this, I got signed by UTA by the number one screenplay salesman and huge –  like this guy sells more screenplays every year. And thenI don't need, I don't need mansions and limos, but like consistent, like this is gonna be great. No, I'm in. 

And that's, that's not how it works. You get an assignment. Um, and you might, you know, you might believe something or not. And then there's, there's quieter periods and then there's hotter periods. And this is at every level, even if people, if, if that movie had gotten made then that I pitched, um, it would have led to more opportunities than it just getting sold and set up. Like there's, there's different levels of it. 

Okay. And so, so there's, there's, there's people that, and so in terms of thinking about it as a career, anticipating the ups and downs and the flows of it is important. And the paradox is the more you really like to plan for that and you're not like, the thing in Hollywood is you can't be boring and you can't be desperate.

Those are the two cardinal sins in Hollywood. So boring is you're boring if you haven't gone deep enough. You need to be able to have a high emotional IQ and openness to your pain. To your shame, all the juicy stuff, the dirty laundry, and you need to be able to go. It's this. And when you do that, you're fascinating. It's, you know, if you can't go there, that's where boredom comes in, because then you're borrowing from other people. It's not true. 

The desperation thing is what I'm talking about here. You have to be in it for the long game. You have to be in it to be like, I'm going to spend six months a year. What as long as it takes. I'm all in for the infinite joy of creating this thing, whether it's the most popular movie of all time or zero people are into it. I'm in. 

And then once you can really lean into the infinite game of I'm doing this to because of the absolute delightful joy of creating this thing, the paradox is you have the it factor flowing and they go, oh, I want to work with it.. If you are thirsty about selling your script, yeah, it doesn't want you. And that's a difficult game, even for working writers. 

I have a colleague who, I mean, he's successful as they come. And you know, he's got some thirst. You can overcome the thirst if other things are there. But like, it's much better when you can really be mindful of that. And it's more enjoyable, too.. So I would say the business side is you just don't need Hollywood. You want Hollywood. And if you can, if you can wade into the game that way, you also out of the 100,000 people that are running screenplays, you're now in the top like 10 percent in terms of chill and cool.

You need the talent, right? You need to be able to develop talent. But selling and by the way, when you can bring the it factor in Hollywood, you don't need an agent, you can eat anything, literally, you literally the gates open up for you. It's like, it's like a magic trick. 

And why? Because Hollywood isn't filled with aliens, it’s human beings that love movies and shows just like you. And if you meet them in a circuit, people are like, oh, it's nepotism, blah, blah. It's not really true, but like, let's go with it. OK, then be nepotistic, become friends with them so they pick you. Right. Nepotism is exclusive. 

Rhonda:

You can feel like you're saying anything that's any different from the publishing industry here, you know, both in terms of not being boring. And I love what you did there equating that with really being authentic to the human experience. And that's where your originality and where, you know, you become an interesting artist.

And also, like, if you're if you're desperate, if you're feeling that we, you know, you you describe it as thirst, you're not going to make the best decisions for your career. And people, you know, you get it, you get that air of desperation, you get on a call with a potential agent. They're not going to be interested. You know, so it's it's same, same, really it doesn't change. 

Brooks:

Yeah, I mean, it's anything right. It's sports, it's life, it's business. If we slip into outcome as opposed to process. Yeah, we're getting ahead of ourselves. And there's something that it's just a little bit, it's a little forced. 

And Hollywood, in particular, is so social, everybody in Hollywood, you know, there's a lot of charisma. There's a lot of people that are, you know, when I first got to LA, I had really good friends, an actor friend, who's an actor in my movies, and he goes, Brooks, everybody in Hollywood in the business who are in two groups.

There's the people that are working at the top of the world, and there's people that aren't, and they're bitter as F. I was just saying a little more about him than I was about... Right. But there's some real truth to it. And it can manage that side of the game, because to some extent, it's a longevity game and a numbers game. 

So if you can sustain your mindset and play the long game, as long as you really love it and are dedicated, you will develop the skills. It's not a secret. Like, you can… You can find ways to become less boring. You can find ways to do all the things you need to do. It does. It does take time. 

And then but the number one thing that stops people is it's always it's always mindset. It's some sort of inside. They just get tired. They get tired of it. Or they don't believe it. They don't believe they deserve it. That sort of thing. So that's why I love as a coach is to really just remind people like, you know, the dream is real. Yeah, you can have it. And you just have to show up and keep showing up. And find a way to enjoy yourself along the way. And then the paradox is things can go really fast. 

And one more thing, if you, like I said, the one, you know, you know, successful colleague that like super A-list successful colleague, there's enjoying the game and then there's being effective in the game. And when I coach people, I really coach for both. Like I don't want them winning seven Oscars and being miserable. Okay. Yeah. Oh, I won seven, but I didn't win eight. Like to me, that's a rough life, right? 

Rhonda:

Yeah, that's a hard life, absolutely. 

Brooks:

So I would much rather than be like, hey, I'm a scrappy amateur, but I love it. And I come in here and I'm genuinely amazingly happy. But the paradox is if you're really doing it that way, you're gonna be professional because it's really not that difficult if you've got the mindset to stay with it. What happens is people that have the talent, they're like, I can't get rid of you. 

Rhonda:

I want it now. 

Brooks:

That's right, that's right, the thirst gets in the way and they can't tolerate that. And they're like, well, F it, I'm going to go be miserable all the time in a bank or something. 

Rhonda:

Yeah. Now I'm going to be a copywriter. Yeah. 

So Brooks, tell me about the coaching that you do with folks. Tell me a little bit about how people can work with you. 

Brooks:

Yeah, so the best thing to do if they're like, oh, I like this guy, sounds helpful, is just reach out. We'll look at some of my content, search for my name. Tons of interviews and things. But if it feels like I might be helpful, just reach out, you know, contact me and then they get on the waitlist for a conversation. 

And then I just help people and I help them by finding out where they are and where they want to go. And if there's one of my programs that I think I might be helpful; everything I do is very personalized. So whatever your style is, whatever your thing is, I don't coach people myself. I really like to love them creatively.

And if I really think they're talented, but not quite the best fit for me, I introduce them to one of my other coaches. Or I might just be like, you know, Oh, you're at a place on the journey where you get to have this resource and I'll give them the resource or some of this pays some of this free. It's all about serving my favorite people. Cause here's another way I figured this out. I was teaching at UCLA extension and it was great, the extension program was great. Cause it's like for adults. So it's not people that are 18, they're like, I'm supposed to go to college. It's like, these are people that are…

Rhonda:

Chosen. Yeah.

Brooks:  

And even though there was, you know, for a class of 20 students, I liked everybody were talking shop, it's fine. But there were two or three where it was like a house on fire. I love me, they love, we loved each other. It was incredible. 

And I was like, those like those are my people like I want to when I coach people because I write myself like I've got stuff to do. So I'm going to coach somebody. It's got to be a love fest, or I'm not interested.

And so when people come to me, if it happens to be like, Oh, this might be a love fest, then we talk about options for that. And if it's not, I go, well, here's how I can help you in a different way. One of my favorite business people, the legends were like, when he would fire, like somebody was going to get fired from the company. They love talking to him, because it didn't feel like they were getting fired. There was no shame. He was like, no, no, your dream is someplace else. Like you got to go. 

Rhonda:

Right, right. I feel that way too. Like it’s a bit of a wide internet world, right? We can access resources in a way we couldn't even like a decade ago and so if I’m not your person, somebody is your person. And maybe I can refer you to, you know, suggest other resources so I love that you do that. 

I think that’s really important because as you say you could also, you know, we can all be writing so time spent coaching is time that you are not writing. So that fit is important on all sides. Isn’t it? Yeah

Brooks:

That's right. And look, and we can learn from different people at different stages in our life. So even if it's not a right fit now, maybe later. I'm in it for the long game. And so I love meeting writers and I love just helping them. 

And it feels good for me because I've written 40 scripts. So, you know, yeah, I've navigated a few obstacles and lots of dark nights of the soul. And I've done that with more drama and less drama. And I'm really good at helping people just normalize, which seems like it's like a big crazy, that's normal. You show up and you're creative and you do the stuff and you do it in a way that's really beautiful with people that you really genuinely care about. 

That's another big thing on the business side is because thirst comes in and then people make deals with people they don't really like. Or they approach it in a very transactional way. I'm going to do a contest, I'm gonna do query letters, blah, blah, blah. And that's like speed dating. It's like, it can work.

Right? I mean, you have, you know, like, but the way I, the way I suggested is like, no, get into like what your superpower is and what you love and then hang out with people who love that same thing for those reasons. And then next thing you know, you guys are making movies. 

Rhonda:

Right. Right. Yeah. This has been awesome. Thank you so much for being with me today. Screenwriting is not something I've talked about, but I do increasingly like I think there are lots of parallels, lots we can learn. 

As folks who write prose from screenwriting, I think studying screenwriting, just picking up a book on screenwriting is so helpful for the novelist. But then I do think there are folks who are like, you know what, I'd love to make the kind of thing that I love to watch on a weekend on Netflix, HBO, wherever, you know. So thanks so much for being with me here today, Brooks. And I'll put links in the show notes to help people find you.

Brooks:

Great. Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, I have a book too.

Rhonda:

Fabulous.

Brooks:

So you study it and think about it from that perspective, they can get that. And or…

Rhonda:

What's the name of the book? 

Brooks:

The book is called: Answering The Call. It's a nine step process that I figured out myself after doing it the hard way for so long. This can make it easier. 

Rhonda:

So great.  Thanks so much, Brooks. 

Brooks:

Yeah, thank you. Had a lot of fun.

Outro:

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today and for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Resilient Writers Radio Show. While you're here, I would really appreciate it if you'd consider leaving a rating and review of the show. You can do that in whatever app you're using to listen to the show right now, and it just takes a few minutes. 

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