Joey Tuccio is the founder and CEO of Roadmap Writers, an organisation dedicated to helping screenwriters hone their skills and sell their work in this hugely competitive industry.
In this session from 2018’s LSF he shared his knowledge and insight in the friendliest and most charming way, ensuring he left us hanging on his every word.
And boy was there a lot of knowledge and insight to take in! He strayed from the central core of the topic, the ways and means to grab your reader in your first ten pages, but these tangents were just as informative and essential.
There was so much to take in that summing it up is a mammoth task, but here are what I’d say are the most important points he made.
Be Bold – Embrace Your Voice
Joey hit us with a truth bomb – there are “kajillions of writers” out there, far outnumbering the executives. That’s a lot of competition. So you need to consider what makes you stand out. The best way to do that in your work is to develop your voice.
It’s a mysterious and nebulous thing, but you’ll know it when you see it. It’s your perspective and your opinion, and how you express yourself.
Be bold about it. It comes out in your characters, but it’s best showcased in your description/action and your character introductions. Work on your voice and you’ll stand out from the crowd as an individual.
In a script he once read, a character was described as a “raw vegan goddess” and he praised it for being both economical and creative. Doesn’t that sound better than boring old “blonde, tall, vegan”?
He also emphasised that being bold doesn’t mean trying to shock the reader with sexism, racism or homophobia to be ‘edgy.’ It’s unpleasant, and if you don’t know who’s going to be reading your script, you don’t know how they’ll take it.
White Space is Key
Ready for another uncomfortable truth? Joey said that most executives don’t read your screenplay. Their assistants read the screenplays, the executives skim. So it’s essential to make sure your script catches and holds their attention. If they see a wall of text or a long conversation on page one, they’ll decide to read the script later… which means never.
Remember, this isn’t a novel. You need to tell your story economically and concisely, without neglecting that essential voice. Shoutout to the previous character description, “raw vegan goddess”. That’s an evocative image in just three words.
The more white space on the page, the better. Try to ensure there’s a new passage every two or three lines. Introduce an important character or story beat? New line. Break those paragraphs up. Ditch the parentheticals too, they’re just more words for an executive to see and decide not to read.
Hook them with a nice crisp balance of text and white space, have a great cinematic moment in the first few pages and give them a quiet moment with your protagonist too. Written well, it’ll guarantee they want to know more.
Be Human
Joey also talked about how best to pitch and introduce yourself to executives. He boiled it down to a useful catchphrase: “You’re a human first, a writer second and a producer tenth”. It’s ok to be nervous, but remember to be friendly. Do a little research, ask them about their day and talk a bit about the films they like, or even books they like.
Don’t expect to sell your script there in the room, instead hope to make a new contact. They may buy your script further down the line, they may ask what else you have, but the most important thing is that it’s another person you know in the industry that you can hopefully be friends with.
Friends do each other favours and make introductions, but not until that connection has been made and a relationship developed.
The best way to get them (or their assistant) to read your script, though, is to have a killer pitch. Start by telling them the tone and genre so they have the right context for the story. Hit the big set-pieces, just like you would in your synopsis.
Make sure the films you compare it to are successful and modern – it’s no use saying it’s like a critical indie darling from 1967 if they likely haven’t seen it.
Don’t come off as desperate – it’s ok if they don’t read the script, as long as you’re able to build and maintain a good relationship. It’s all part of playing the game.
Play the Game Now, Break the Rules Later
Speaking of playing the game, that’s Joey’s advice to newer writers. We all want to be a Tarantino or a Lynch or a Jodorowsky, playing by our own rules and answering to no one. If we’re lucky, we may even get to be one. But for now, to enter the industry, you have to play the game.
That means entering the competitions and pitch-fests, writing commercially-viable low-budget scripts, keeping on top of who’s up-and-coming and what they’re looking for.
It means branding yourself and not being afraid to get pigeon-holed as you can always branch out when you’ve made a name for yourself.
It also means being open to adaptations of existing intellectual property. If you work on adaptation, you (can and should) work on original stories and you’ll have a bigger chance of getting them made once you’ve established a reputation.
Joey’s advice: “Get the work, break the rules later”. You can only break the rules when you can prove you know them inside out.
These are just a few of the pearls of wisdom that Joey had for us. It was such a funny, relatable talk that I found myself as hooked as I hope to make my readers be when they read my next script.
The session is so so jammed with useful tips that you may want to watch it two or three times to absorb them all! It’s a crucial, vital watch. I’m going to watch it again right now!
Sam Kurd is a screenwriter based in Nottingham. He can be found on Facebook and found on Twitter but he can mostly be found in bed.
