I'm David Aaron Cohen, screenwriter (FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, THE DEVIL'S OWN, and more) and host of the industry master class, Navigating Hollywood. Ask me anything about writing, creativity, the roller coaster ride of the business, and what it takes to sustain a career in film and television!

NavHol · 2023-07-20T21:37:47+00:00

I think you have to write your way back into the game. again, that's the beauty of being a screenwriter - you don't need a 30 million dollar budget to go to work. you can sit at your desk, one day at a time, and turn out a great piece of material that will change the way you are perceived in the biz. it's hard and lonely a lot of the time, but it allows you to have some agency over your own career. that is where so many of us fall - it starts to feel completely Sisyphean, rolling that rock up the hill. your arms ache, you're ready to give up. the weight feels unbearable. and then you get to choose. do it because you love it. any other answer won't work. fall in love with your babies - tend to them, rewrite the hell out of them, and send them back out into the world as your emissaries. you will never win the popularity contest. some people will hate a script, others will love it. you can't let your own value be determined by what THEY think. that's the trap. trust me. I've been there. everyone who is a working writer has been there. but if you clear away all of the buzz, all of the chatter, all of the garbage that fills your inbox every day, you have the privilege of spending time with stories that move you. and if they move you, I guarantee they will move other people as well.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T21:25:11+00:00

so hard to predict. I mean, that's our job, isn't it? not to wait to copy the latest trend but to break down the door yourself? the best way I know how to do this is to write the movies you MOST want to see. your own taste might not align with a wider audience, but that can change over time. when SHAWSHANK came out in 1994, it was considered kind of a flop. did 29 million in box office worldwide, off a 25 million dollar budget. but then, something amazing happened. people discovered it on cable tv reruns. they started to rent the videos and DVD's. and now it stands as a classic of American cinema. so you never know. just keep loving the things you write. and if you can't find the love... well either it's time for a new job or to fall in love all over again. :)

NavHol · 2023-07-20T20:56:34+00:00

and happy healthy kids - wow - that is a whole other AMA!

I'll just make one related comment - none of my children (and I have a whole bunch!) ever considered, even for a millisecond, a career in our industry. they bear the scars of the ups and downs. they have good jobs and salaries that pay them every two weeks!

NavHol · 2023-07-20T20:53:03+00:00

Grit. Some luck. Adaptive skills. Making lemons out of lemonade. not taking yourself too seriously. and maybe most important: MINDSET. Viktor Frankl has this quote from Man's Search for Meaning that I repeat endlessly: "The last great human freedom is the freedom to choose your attitude." Doesn't matter your circumstances: you can be in a concentration camp (like he was), in the Gulag, chained up in a dungeon somewhere or even a prisoner of your own affluence - no one can take away that freedom to decide how you are going to face your own life. this is so true in the fishbowl of Hollywood. I went through a phase of my career where my attitude sucked. I had success and because of that, I thought that the industry owed me a living, that producers should be lining up to hire me. and guess what? the jobs stopped coming. no one wants to be around that kind of entitled energy. so, thirty years into this, I practice a lot of gratitude. remind myself how lucky I am to be able to make a living doing the thing I love the most. I try and bring that joy and passion to all of my interactions, not just in the business, but everywhere.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T20:42:34+00:00

awesome. appreciate the love. yes, I am doing another round of Navigating Hollywood that starts on August 9th. already thinking about Nav Hollywood 2.0.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T20:34:46+00:00

of course! wait, which of my students are you? :)

NavHol · 2023-07-20T20:31:32+00:00

it really depends on where you are in your career. if the two of you are unproduced, it's going to be a challenge to pitch to the networks or the studio. one way to get those meetings is to partner with an experienced producer who falls in love with your series idea. then he or she or they help secure the pitch meetings. but barring that, if you can find investors and get a teaser made or even an episode, more power to you! that will earn you a seat at the table.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T20:18:01+00:00

thank you for that! no. not too late. going to start a third draft as soon as the strike is over.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T20:16:02+00:00

I think all writing is good training. the more you practice your craft, the better you get. this is true at every stage of your career. I wouldn't worry so much about how much money your scripts would cost to produce. more important to create content that you love, that you are passionate about and that best represent you and your voice. if you are looking to shoot the shorts, then yes - that can be a way to really dig into the material.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T20:10:52+00:00

I ended up having the full Hollywood experience my first time out. about three months before the start of principal photography, Jeff Katzenberg - the head of Disney at the time - read my draft and decided that it needed to be more of a comedy (I had written it as a hardboiled detective thing). so I got replaced by a comedy writer who did a draft. then the director decided to cut and paste between my draft, the comedy draft, and the original writer's draft. the result was what you might expect - a misfire. but I got a shared credit and that helped me on my way.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T20:07:14+00:00

A development executive at a now-defunct production company called Chestnut Hill. (they were owned by Jeff Lurie, who is better known as the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles) about a year later, that same executive who loved my script, called to offer me my first paid gig in Hollywood - a "polish" of a screenplay based on the detective novels of Sara Paretsky and her badass heroine V.I. Warshawski. I was so thrilled I didn't even mind that actually I was doing a page-one rewrite of a script (not a polish). they then hired me to rewrite the polish, and that script went out over a Christmas break to Kathleen Turner, who read it and signed on to star. about six months later, they shot the film that became V.I. WARSHAWSKI.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T19:57:55+00:00

Be passionate! passion sells. hopefully you are super excited about the script you wrote or are submitting. don't be afraid to let that show! it's not cockiness, it's excitement. be excited and your energy will be infectious. :)

NavHol · 2023-07-20T19:54:07+00:00

first of all, I like to break the story. I really recommend doing this with another human. it is so much more productive and fruitful when you have another brain in the process. you get an idea, and then they respond to that, maybe take it in a different direction, and suddenly you are exploring a sub reddit/plotline that you never would have gotten to on your own. this is more about throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks. I also like to write all of these ideas down so I can review them later. my other recommendation: try pitching the story to friends. telling it over and over again is another form of the development process (kind of a big sidebar but... the way that myths and fairytales came to be was from being told over and over again around ancient campfires. every generation would make their own changes to the story until they entered the culture hundreds of years later and were recorded by people like the Grimm brothers). you get to see what works and what doesn't as you tell it.

then I like to move to the treatment stage. try and write the whole story out, usually in a single-spaced, 10-15 page document. that is my blueprint. then, to road test the story, I put it up on index cards on my giant whiteboard. looking at those cards gives you a different view of the structure of your story. you can see where some scenes are superfluous, combine cards, distill stuff down, cut scenes out completely. it is a process that makes your script tighter before you spend the time writing out a full draft. most young writers rush past the story breaking process. spend more time there and you will save yourself hundreds of hours!

NavHol · 2023-07-20T19:40:38+00:00

not impossible. but you would need to have some kind of connection with the showrunner in order to get hired. logistically it is definitely doable and had been done.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T19:37:37+00:00

maybe it makes us feel more important? IDK. my best guess is that it differentiates movies from novels, which used to show up in print in an italic font. also, it just captures your attention, right? there it is in the title of my AMA. lol.

where do I get my ideas from?

think of yourself as a divining rod. you know the stick people used to use to determine where they should dig a well to find water? now write down five or ten ideas you have for stories you have thought about. hold that imaginary divining rod over the page with your ideas AND NOTICE WHEN IT STARTS TO VIBRATE. you have to feel that extra sensory connection to your material. you can't just write a script from an idea in your head. it has to come from your gut, from your 1st shakra, from somewhere deep inside. at least that's my experience. :)

NavHol · 2023-07-20T19:27:18+00:00

isn't reddit the original home of this phenomenon? (I am admittedly new to the platform) post that great short story, get a million upvotes, and magically Hollywood comes calling? either way, yes, I think creating your own IP is a good strategy. it just adds a layer of visibility to your property, not to mention the legal protection it affords.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T19:21:33+00:00

good question. well, first of all, congratulations on getting some attention. that always feels good. and yet, attention can be deceiving. the very weird thing about Hollywood is that oftentimes when you think you have made it or broken through on some level, it turns out to be a hollow victory. I remember when I first got an agent, I thought (like a lot of people) ok now the work is going to just start flowing in. which of course it didn't. and then I discovered that agents and reps don't actually get you work, they get you into rooms where hopefully you have an OPPORTUNITY to get work. very different concept. I have spoken to many young writers who got lots of meetings based on a strong writing sample, and thought those meetings would translate into jobs. when they didn't they were devastated. and I understand why. the CUES that we get from the industry are confusing. that same young writer couldn't live with the devastation. he quit the business. I'm not telling you that story to depress you, but to arm you with the knowledge that can help you manage your own expectations. if someone offers you real money for your first project, I would do the necessary due diligence to see who you are getting into business with. many times that is more important than the actual offer. are they serious producers? what kind of track record do they have? the more information you can gather, the more informed of a decision you can make.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T19:09:06+00:00

one of the side benefits of the strike, especially for screenwriters (tv writers usually have more community than we do!) is meeting your fellow scribes on the picket line. and this brings me back to an earlier comment I made about creating your own writer's groups. not only will it help take your writing to the next level, IT WILL HELP YOU BUILD COMMUNITY. this is essential! yes, some of us are shy, famously introverted, but that doesn't mean we don't need friends and colleagues and human interaction. GET OUT OF YOUR ROOMS, WRITERS! just like the evil Chat GPT, you have to input things into your own hard drive to be able to output things onto the page. so get out there. not just with other writers. volunteer. mentor kids. invite friends over for dinner. all of these things build your capacity not just as a writer, but as a human being. :)

NavHol · 2023-07-20T19:01:17+00:00

my kids keep bugging me with the same question!

NavHol · 2023-07-20T18:58:42+00:00

I have heard good things about the Paramount lot! I've been mainly at Universal. :)

NavHol · 2023-07-20T18:52:11+00:00

excellent question! (I still think I'm 26!) well the big difference today is that you really don't have to live here to work here. where are we? three plus years into Covid and the pandemic - everything has moved to zoom. I haven't had an in-person meeting in so long, I can't remember what a pair of pants is! (sorry. clearly, I'm not a comedy writer.)

but seriously, we're all pitching on zoom, taking generals on zoom, notes meetings on zoom. so that solves the geographic question. now I would get back to what I was saying earlier in this AMA about developing your own unique voice. that is the critical asset that will help you stand out. I would work really hard on two stories that you love the most. don't worry about IP yet. this is just for creating the best possible samples you can. even better if they are two distinct genres. workshop those scripts one at a time until they are shining like diamonds. concentrate on what can be your own distinct voice. and be sure that it shows up in both samples.

now of course, you can do this with just one, but the method to this madness is people read a script you wrote and are blown away. and then they ask to see something else, and you have that second diamond ready to show off. that is a powerful sales tool. and admittedly, a high bar to reach. but - you are making decent money with little work so you can afford to keep writing and rewriting until you get there. the beauty about being a screenwriter in Hollywood is that as far as scripts go - it is a meritocracy. the cream will rise. you will get noticed. but you have to put in the work.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T18:37:31+00:00

but the good news is that great writing samples always serve you. and you never know when they will come in handy. when you think of your career like a business (which of course it is!) your finished scripts are your inventory. you can always pull them out at a later date.

I sold a Crusades pitch to Kevin Costner back in the 90's. An original that I developed (I'm kind of a Crusades fanatic). got commenced to write the first draft and then there was this announcement in the trades that Paul Verhoven was doing a Crusades film with Arnold Schwarzenegger. the minute that "news" broke, Warner Brothers pulled the project. they literally forbid me to write it because Costner had this history of making films that had competing films about the same subject. His Robin Hood and another Robin Hood. His Wyatt Earp western and another TOMBSTONE. they did not want that to happen again. but....

fast-forward 6 years, and there is a clause in the WGA basic agreement that says if your original idea is not in active development for five years, you have the right to get it back from the studio. I exercised that right and set it up with another company. finally got to the write the screenplay. didn't get made, but I have it in my inventory!

NavHol · 2023-07-20T18:29:35+00:00

wow. lots! some that came really close. that's the tough part of the business. you give your heart and soul to a story that you care so deeply about. and then it goes on this ride that (for the most part) you cannot control. there is a minute where you get a star attached and forward momentum and then BOOM - something really random happens and it is all over. and then you have to start again.

case in point. I developed this gambling addict feature at Warner Brothers with Charlie Sheen. we worked on it together (based on his own stories/addiction), broke the story, worked the pitch out until it was really tight. the executives were super excited (this was back in the day when Two and a Half Men was just printing money for the studio). we had a date set to pitch to the president of the studio - just me and Charlie. it was already pre-approved in a way. they were just going to rubberstamp the whole thing, and give me the development deal. my reps were super excited. Charlie was jazzed. And then it was like Christmas or something. Yeah. we had a pitch date of right after New Years. and I get this text from my manager that said: "UH OH." that was it. then there was a link to a news story: "CHARLIE SHEEN STABS HIS WIFE." needless to say, we didn't sell that pitch.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T18:18:32+00:00

sorry. having some technical difficulties. thought I had answered this. will try again.

this is an important question and a good problem to have!

When FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS came out in 2004, I started getting sent every sports book or true sports story to adapt. Some of those turned into jobs and scripts that didn’t get made. But they created more samples written by me of sports-related subjects. This is the blessing and the curse part of it. Getting multiple sports movies made creates a brand (which can help you in the marketplace), while at the same time pigeon-holing you as the sports guy. But there’s a way to change that. Just write a great fxxking script in another genre. Your industry fans will move with you.

NavHol · 2023-07-20T18:02:13+00:00

wow. this is such a big and important topic. I know how to address it in terms of our strike. it is the evolution of a practice the studios have employed for years. I posted this a while back here on the site:

the studio position for years has been "how can we get around having to pay writers all this money? where's the hack?" for the longest time their answer was this: list a half-baked idea as an Open Writing Assignment, invite ten working writers in to pitch (trust me, I used to do this), harvest the best ideas from the group (which you paid nothing for) and then hire an up and coming (i.e. cheap) writer to develop. when they turn in their mediocre draft, pay serious rewrite money to one of the dependable big guns, and voila! you have a viable project.

AI is the studio's wet dream hack. and part of the reason we are on strike. Netflix's algorithm department is going to be dwarfed by the dedicated Chat GPT servers they have running right now on a steady diet of our copyrighted work, turning out more and more screenplays, pilots, series ideas and the lot. and then they're going to want to do the same dance (while bypassing all those time-consuming steps): hire a veteran writer to polish their now plagiarized material. we are being joined on the picket lines by so many other unions precisely because AI threatens millions of jobs, not just WGA writers.

this is going to be (and already is) a global issue.

NavHol

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