Scriptchat is everything that’s right about Twitter, the internet, and showbiz today.
What’s Scriptchat?
Brainchild of Mina Zaher, Jeanne Veillette Bowerman, Jamie Livingston, Zac Sanford, and Kim Garland (five delightfully rambunctious people you must immediately follow on Twitter ) Scriptchat is a way for working and aspiring screenwriters to get together and chat on the web.
It’s a friendly, helpful community, overflowing with advice for anyone who wants to write.
The Scripchat gang have a great explanation of how to get involved in Scriptchat here. It’s not hard to do, and you owe it to yourself to check it out.
For Months…
We’ve seen the Twitter hashtag #scriptchat pop up, and from some people we really respect. But between running our production company, and producing season 2 of our Vh1 show, Scream Queens, we haven’t been able to really check it out…until tonight.
Special Guest Jane Espenson
So go figure, the first night we pop our cyber-heads in, we’re blown away. Jane Espenson, (whose TV credits include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Gilmore Girls, Ellen, The O.C., Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Battlestar Galactica, just to name a few) shows up and starts handing out career-changing tips and techniques.
Just a few tidbits:
When inventing characters, start with what they want. Then think about what frustrates them.
Biggest mistake by new writers: not polishing scripts enough or the opposite: never finishing them.
You can INSTANTLY make a character endearing by giving them unrequited love or other foiled desire.
Don’t worry about “likeability” -issue won’t even be brought up if a character is strong, memorable, chewy.
BTW, for more great advice like this, go live at Jane’s blog, and soak up every bit of advice you can. Also read the transcript from Jane Espenson’s Scriptchat.
A Valuable Community for Any Creative
If you’ve been around this blog, you know we preach the idea of Hands-On Producing.
Yes, we’ve directed, edited, even sound-mixed and on-lined many of our projects ourselves. While all those skills are helpful to any aspiring producer, nothing trumps great story sense.
We’ll continue honing ours until the day we kick it, and #scriptchat is the newest tool in our arsenal. Check it out!
And be sure to follow us on Twitter, swing by our Facebook Page, or Subscribe via RSS to keep up with our latest shenanigans.