Luck and Circumstance

As a casual observer to what films that have been made and books that have been published over the past six years, it’s remarkable how trends suddenly gain traction and just as remarkable how they fade away. For those writers that had something in their arsenal resembling sexy teenage angst-ridden werewolves or twenty-something toilet humour, they had an immediate leg up on the competition to get something sold or published – no matter how banal and terrible it was.

As these latest trends start to fade away, I can only hope that something I have written or will write will catch the eye of someone looking for a certain style or genre – something like my off-the-wall comedies; my sci-fi thriller with a social conscious; my coming-of-age drama; my upcoming horror script. The reality of matching my scripts with someone looking for product is not lost on me. Talent I have. Luck is going to be the ultimate deciding factor.

Spotting trends is easy. Taking advantage of them is easier. Having written something that is in your portfolio and waiting for lightning to strike is almost unbearable. It is impossible for anyone to say what the next trend is going to be – that is why writing speculative screenplays and fiction is such a grasp at nothing in the dark. You just hope that one day, both luck and someone who is willing to give you a chance conspire to make your dreams come true.

That is what it’s going to take for one of my screenplays to make it out of purgatory and into the light – luck and a break. If I was someone, from somewhere, who had done something and knew someone the path would be much more clear. As it is, I am a nobody from nowheresville who has done nothing and knows no one – which is why success in screenwriting for me is going to be so sweet because I started at the absolute bottom.