That’s right, it’s a guest post! Because I don’t actually know everything, I’m excited to share from-the-trenches pieces by authors and publishing professionals. This so-practical one is from Amy Chozick, whose electric thriller, With Friends Like You, is out now. Enjoy!
When I sold the rights to my 2018 memoir, Chasing Hillary, to Warner Bros, I had no idea what I was getting into bringing the book to screen. But eventually, I learned to decipher Hollywood-speak. Some helpful phrases:
“Let’s put a pin in it.” = That meeting is never happening.
“Everyone LOVED your script.” = An intern read your script and hated it.
“We should find something to work on together.” = We are never going to speak again.
I adapted Chasing Hillary into the HBO Max series “The Girls on the Bus.” Now I work as a full-time TV writer. I’m in a Hollywood writers’ room for an upcoming HBO family drama. I am adapting The Nanny Diaries into a Netflix series, and I sold the rights to my debut novel, With Friends Like You, before I’d even sold it to a publisher. (Enter to win a signed copy of the book below!)
I’m currently adapting the novel into a feature film with Fifth Season and Brad Weston, the producer behind the Oscar winners Birdman and 12 Years a Slave.
Here are some tips I wish I’d known when I first had Hollywood dreams.
Think about what you love about writing. Do you love the solitude? The blank page and creative freedom to follow your imagination wherever it takes you? Do you enjoy working on your own schedule and having your singular vision drive your book? Congratulations, you are a novelist.
If you enjoy collaboration and don’t mind constantly adjusting and negotiating your vision based on other people’s input, cutting scenes because of budgets or other production restraints, tossing entire scripts because the studio or network or producers want to “go in another direction,” please continue reading. You have a bright future in Hollywood.
Your first step is to read as many screenplays as you can get your hands on. Don’t just read the types of scripts you want to write, read rom-coms, horror, drama, really study the structure of each script. When is the theme stated? When does the character debate whether or not to answer the Call to Adventure? You will be surprised that almost every movie shares the same underlying structure, going back to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey.
For the basics, I recommend reading “Save the Cat” by Blake Snyder and “Story” by Robert McKee. These are go-to books for any aspiring screenwriter.
What about agents? If you wrote a great book, then your literary agent can help to get you what’s called a book-to-film agent. This is an agent who will shop and sell your book around Hollywood. This is not the person who will help you get an actual job in Hollywood. That is a TV and/or film agent, and if you want one of those, you’ll likely need a great script to show that you can work in this different medium.
How do you option your novel into a feature film or TV series? Every deal is different, but Hollywood is crazy for “IP” (hate that expression, almost as much as I hate the word “content”) right now, and studios and producers will often hear about books (from “book scouts”) before a manuscript is even sold to a publisher. Typically, the author gets a payment to give the producer or studio the “option” of developing the book into a TV series or movie. Then, they will go out and find a seasoned screenwriter to adapt it.
What’s that you say? You want to adapt your own book? Well, buckle up because this can be a struggle. You have to prove you can write a script, which gets me back to Tip #2, learn the craft. Often, a producer or studio will pair you with an experienced screenwriter to help you through the process. I highly recommend this. I partnered with Julie Plec on “The Girls on the Bus,” and I learned so much from Julie. Not only will the right partner give your project a much higher chance of success, you will get a free M.F.A. crash course in screenwriting (and in the case of TV, showrunning). It makes sense a studio would not trust a $60 million production to a writer who has never done this before. I suggest being open. Request to meet several screenwriters and choose who you vibe the most with, but going at it alone your first time out is a recipe for disaster, imho.
Do you need to be in Los Angeles? Even though so much actual production has sadly moved out of L.A., the agents, producers and executives you need to know are still largely here (more specifically, enjoying a chopped salad at the San Vicente Bungalows). You don’t need to put a downpayment on a place in Los Feliz (not yet), but I do think it’s important to make a couple of trips and take as many “general meetings” as possible. This is something your agent can set up and it’s basically like speed dating for writers. You get to know producers, they get to know you, and hopefully something sparks that leads to a creative partnership.
WHERE IS THE MONEY? Please do not buy that G Wagon just yet. An option for a book can be six or seven figures, but it can also be as little as a few thousand dollars. The important thing is that the option inks a relationship and makes a producer or studio invested in adapting your work. The money will eventually come if the project actually gets made, and especially if you can negotiate adapting your book yourself. But it takes a while for that to happen. Extreme patience (and other income streams) are often required.
I feel like I’ve been negative, and I want to end on some words of encouragement. There is no feeling like writing a scene and then walking around a set and seeing your imagination come to life. I was walking around in a fictional Democratic National Convention, an entire convention center, 50,000 balloons ready to drop, based on my script. I felt like Harold with his purple crayon (plus a very long development process). It’s a peak life experience! And if you love storytelling, I can’t encourage you more to go all in. You’ve got this! You’re also at the perfect moment when Hollywood is desperate for fresh ideas and voices. Learn the craft of script writing, get a great agent who believes in you — and do not take no or “Let’s put a pin in it,” for an answer.
Amy’s publisher will send a signed copy of With Friends Like You to one lucky subscriber. (US only; enter by 11:59pm ET on Monday, July 27).
A feverish search for a long-lost friend threatens to upend a young woman’s life in this darkly funny, gripping thrill ride of a novel that defies all expectations, from New York Times bestselling author Amy Chozick.
Emily is unmoored as a new mother in Manhattan—exhausted, broke, and slipping away from her well-meaning husband. She becomes fixated on finding the one person who ever truly understood her: her college roommate, Daisy. Cool, poetry-reading Daisy, who vanished years ago, after she took a job dancing at a strip club off campus.In her desperate search, Emily tumbles from new-mom message boards into a world of sex work, secrets, and a high-end escort service for global billionaires, hitting one dead end after another. Until the unthinkable happens: Daisy suddenly reappears.
Daisy infuses Emily’s life with newfound purpose and community as the two launch a new mothers’ group in a vacant luxury skyscraper (matcha on tap, vibrators on offer). But the joy of their reunion soon fades, revealing deep, unsettling cracks in their relationship. Is Daisy the key to Emily’s happiness, or is she unraveling her world? And where has Daisy really been all these years?
With Friends Like You is a story of feverish obsession, new motherhood, and a fractious friendship pushed to the edge.
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