Oh, You're A Writer?
That’s so cool – I’m a writer too! Well, I mean, I’m mainly an actor – I played a guy at a party on my friend’s webseries and I did an audition for a vacuum cleaner commercial two years ago, although these days I’m pretty busy managing a Pep Boys franchise out in Northridge, just to make ends meet until I get discovered, y’know? But I’ve got loads of ideas for scripts and stories and stuff just rolling around in my head, y’know? I mean, I haven’t outlined them or workshopped them or even really tried to write them down, but I definitely think about them a lot.
Anyway, it’s just so cool to meet somebody who’s also a writer, like I am! What did you say your name was?
Oh, like The Truman Show? That’s a really cool movie. Y’know, I’ve got this amazing idea for a screenplay that’s actually a lot like The Truman Show. Here, let me explain it to you in great detail, since despite the signals you’re sending with your body language and general demeanor I can tell you’re actually dying to know what it’s about:
So it’s a story about this normal, everyday guy. And the movie starts and you see him, like, waking up and eating breakfast and being normal, and everything seems normal but then as he’s going to work all these little things seem weird, and you’re like, “Woah, why are all these little things so weird?”, y’know, and then he gets to work and he sees all the containers of windshield wiper fluid are like flickering and stuff – he works at a Pep Boys, y’know – and then what you realize is that actually this guy’s life is in a virtual reality simulation – or is it? So for the rest of the movie, it’s like, he’s going, “Is this real? Am I real? Is my reality the simulation, or is the simulation reality?” Like a total head trip, y’know? It’s like Inception meets Donnie Darko meets Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, because the guy also knows kung fu.
So what do you think?
Hey, awesome, I think it sounds promising too! This is a total passion project for me. I mean, I’ve been working on it for three years now. I’ve written, like, four pages and I have a whole bunch of notes and ideas that I wrote on the back of a shipping receipt from Pep Boys – so you can tell that I’m quite serious about this project, as well as the craft of writing, since I’m a writer, just like you.
Hey! We should collaborate on something! I know we just met two minutes ago, and I know I haven’t made any effort to find out where your interests lie as a writer, and I know that writing a screenplay with another person is a major time commitment requiring a degree of familiarity, trust and shared understanding that the two of us will never have, but c’mon – this feels like fate. I mean, how often do two writers meet each other? And in Los Angeles, of all places?
And like I was saying, I’ve got tons of script ideas. I’m sure you do too. So you can just put your ideas on hold and help me out with mine, because we’re both writers and you’ve known me for nearly as long as it would take to listen to the song “All About That Bass” in its entirety, so I really can’t think of any reason why you wouldn’t want to spend your time and energy helping to make my dreams come true at the expense of your own goals.
Do you like sitcoms? I have this great idea for a sitcom pilot based on my family. Because my family is so crazy. I know, I know – everybody says their family could be a sitcom, and they’re always wrong because people are generally bad at identifying things that are objectively interesting and entertaining. But my family is nuts – I go home sometimes and it’s like, Am I at my parents’ place, or a nuthouse, y’know? Like, get this: We’re a bunch of Jewish people from Long Island, my grandma is racist, and my dad has been divorced twice. TWICE! How crazy is that!? Best part is, I could play myself!
What do you think? It’s basically like Seinfeld meets Home Improvement, except way funnier. I’ve been kicking it around for a few years and that’s about as far as I’ve got – so I figure you could just develop the characters, outline it, and then write multiple drafts until I feel like it’s good, and then if it ever sells you can get half credit!
Wouldn’t that be great? It’d definitely be great for me, so I’m just going to assume you’re on board with this.
Oh, and you have to hear my webseries idea! It’s all based on me and my best friend and the wacky stuff we get up to. Like, this one night, we were out at this bar and we started yelling “DICKS OUT FOR HARAMBE!”, y’know, like just on a goof – well also we were pretty drunk, and what’s weird is it was only like 7:30 – but then we just kept yelling it, and then these two other extremely drunk guys we didn’t even know started yelling it, and then the bartender asked us to leave! It was hilarious. So, y’know, the webseries would be lots of stuff like that.
What do you think? It’s kind of like season 3 of Workaholics meets season 5 of Workaholics. With that one I could basically just tell you all the stories about stuff my buddy and I did, and then you could just make scripts out of that and I could play myself and be, like, the head writer!
Hey, where are you going? The bus isn’t here yet! You’re just going to walk?
Well, hey, man, before you go let me get your information. That way I can send you all my ideas and then repeatedly email you to ask if you’ve looked at them yet. I’d love to hear your opinions, and then have you do all the work of turning my ideas into tangible creative products.
Because while I am totally a writer, just like you, I’m not super great at those little details – stuff like pacing and structure, dialog, character development, themes, subtext, originality, making time to write, motivating myself to write during that time, maintaining focus on an idea long enough to see it through to completion… Y’know, the hard parts, basically. I think my real strength as a writer is coming up with ideas that are heavily derivative of popular movies and TV shows – so I’m pretty much just looking for a collaborator to handle every aspect of the creative process that I don’t find enjoyable.
Well, hey, great talking to you, man! Keep in touch! We writers have to look out for each other! Because that’s what we are, you and I – writers. Both of us. We do the exact same thing.