Writing for Hollywood

Friday, February 17, 2023 – The Bay Room at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco is packed for the all-day Writing for Hollywood Summit at the annual San Francisco Writers Conference.

I’m here on a scholarship thanks to the Napa Valley branch of the California Writers Club. I want to learn how to adapt my nonfiction book, The Divorce Seekers – The Intimate Story of a Nevada Divorce Ranch Wrangler, to a streaming series.

The audience is a mix of creatives. Some haven’t written a screenplay yet. Some have and are trying to sell it. We’re all a bit jealous of the gentleman who just sold his screenplay – a medical mystery – to ITV (International Television) in Britain.

The panel of industry professionals addressed:

• What Hollywood Wants (Answer: at the moment it’s horror and murder mysteries.)
• Intellectual Property
• How Books Make It (Adapt) to the Big Screen
• Fade In: Screenplay Formatting
• Bam! Pow! What Makes a Dynamic Script

Takeaways

• Be persistent
• Get used to hearing no, change, and cut – and respond enthusiastically if you want to work
• Be persistent
• Treat yourself to something nice should you make it through any of the 700 hoops it takes to get your brilliant “baby” noticed and produced
• Be persistent
• Do what you’re doing because you’re passionate about it even if no one else cares
• Be persistent

Did you know?

The San Francisco Writers Conference was founded in 2004 by fellow BAIPA members Michael Larsen and his late wife, Elizabeth Pomada.

Coming soon: The Elevator Pitch for The Divorce Seekers

Sandra V. McGee

Sandra V. McGee launched her writing career as a publicist for the performing arts. In 2000, she began the first of nine non-fiction collaborations with her late husband William L. McGee. Sandra is a member of Western Writers of America, California Writers Club, and Bay Area Independent Publishers Association. Her stories about the brief-but-glamorous Nevada divorce ranch era have appeared in various magazines. Sandra's passions are the ballet, movies from the 1940s, and Reno when it was "Divorce Capital of the World." Visit WilliamMcGeeBooks.com.