Breaking In (and Staying In) #1 - Why You Need Proof Before You Pitch

(Or: why yelling on twitter won't get you a Marvel movie)

Illustration by Josh Seth Blake

Imagine yourself as an Executive at a major fitness brand (we’ll call it Squatz, because it’s clearly an aspirational and downright motivating name). Your job at Squatz Fitness is to oversee the fitness programs that the company develops and distributes.

One day I come in and say “I have an idea for a fitness program that would help people lose 10lb a week while still eating the food they love with barely any time consuming workouts.”

Wow. Very ambitious. But you’d probably have some questions, like:

• Who the hell are you and why should I trust you?

• How does the program work?

• Can I see some case studies and talk to people who have done the program?

• What other fitness programs have you launched in the past, and how many sales did they recieve?

• Have you done the program? And if so, why do you look so flabby, Chris?

“Oh I haven’t figure all that stuff out yet, but I will! I just need the money to get it all set up.”

To which you respond, “Then how can I be sure you can actually pull it off and I won’t lose all of our money and time?”

And that’s when I drop the mic with my confident response that I know will echo through the halls and unlock the gates to my new life as a fitness god… “Because I’m really passionate about it.”

And then I just wait for the check to clear and my new life to begin.

But you’re a high powered executive with a lot of people pitching you ideas, and it’s your job to pick only the ones that will make the company money so you can keep your job and continue to send your kids to school. Lose the company millions on a bad investment and you’re out on the curb, and your kids will have to go to state school…

You see where this is going. It’s easy to see how this works in fitness or retail or tech or just about anything, but for some reason when it comes to the entertainment industry, we become blinded by our own creative drive and somehow think that a great idea and the passion behind it is all we need to bust down the gates and become rich and powerful.

That’s the way we’ve mythologized the entertainment industry, but the reality is that the Squatz Fitness Exec operates the exact same way as the executives at studios and networks and streamers. Their job is to bring in and develop projects that have the best chance of making as much money as possible, or else their asses will be out on the streets (and the great ones put in the *extra* work to make those projects meaningful and interesting and creatively fulfilling).

That means we need to do MUCH more than just have a great idea and a dream.

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Welcome to the first post in the Breaking In (and Staying In) series, which I’m hoping will be an ongoing conversation that lays out the process screenwriters can use to build momentum in their career, whether it’s just starting out or maybe stalled after that initial break. Breaking in and breaking out of a box you’re stuck in all takes the same kind of work, and that’s what this series is going to explore.

But how is breaking in the same as staying in? How is it the same as breaking out of a box?

Because anyone whose “broken in” can tell you that term doesn’t seem to apply to most of us.

What do you consider “breaking in?”

Is it when you get your first opportunity to write something that gets produced? Many of us know that step usually starts out unpaid, and sometimes goes unfinished. That doesn’t exactly jumpstart a career.

What about when you actually get paid to write something? Many more know that a one-time paycheck doesn’t last very long, and they’ll soon be in the exact same spot looking for the next paycheck.

How about when you get an agent or manager to rep you? Just because someone is looking out for you doesn’t mean doors magically start flying open. Usually, it takes months or even years before you get work.

What about when you get a steady job writing on a tv series? Surely that’s considered breaking in. I’d say so. But there are lots of people who then feel like the genre/audience/tone/style of the show isn’t what they set out to make and now they feel stuck serving up those same kinds of projects while putting their own personal projects aside.

For our purposes, let’s consider “Breaking In” as when you are paid a sustainable rate to write the kinds of stories you want to write.

Getting there takes work and time. You have to take the job you’re offered for a while, and continue to put in the work outside of your regular job hours (even when that job is writing) to get to the job you want.

That’s why most of us always feel like we’re still on the path to breaking in to some degree. Or at least breaking out of the box we’ve been put in so we feel comfortable about staying in the industry.

I’ve written 9 seasons of tv, sold pitches and pilots, and feature specs that have opened the door to pitching and writing more movies… and I still feel like I’m fighting the uphill battle every day to be seen and get a shot.

Maybe that doesn’t go away? Maybe we always have to fight to prove our next idea is worth the risk.

And in the spirit of that, we arrive at the foundation of this series. The building blocks I’ve seen work over and over for me and others. The tangible process you can work your way through to start making real moves in your career, whether you’re breaking in or breaking out…

We’ll call them THE THREE P’s

(and yes, I too cringe at how “self-help book” that sounds, but you can’t like that alliteration helps. I know my wife is cringing as she reads this.)

The Four P’s of Breaking In (and Staying In)

(yes, I formerly said 3… but I added a little bonus P because I love you)

And they work in this order of importance and execution:

1. PLATEAU

2. PROOF

3. PERSONAL RECOMMENDATIONS

4. PITCH

I added the starting point for all of this: the sense of stagnation and a loss for how to jumpstart things. It starts with a PLATEAU (alts: Procrastination, Prone on the ground crying)

Feeling incapable of change and wishing someone would reach out and give you a chance. But friends, you can’t control what other people do, you can only control what YOU do. That’s what we’ll be working through.

To help visualize the process, here is what we can refer to as the Breaking in (and Staying In) Wheel of Pain.

“Pain” because no matter how many times you do it, you are doomed to hit that plateau again. You will feel the frustration and stagnation, begrudge everyone for not trusting you, wish someone would just hand you the keys to your dream project, and then resign to the fact that, if you want anything to happen at all, you’re going to have to get the wheel moving yourself again.

Should we add a fifth P and go double bonus? We could call that one “PAID”. The moment when the work pays off and you officially take that step to the next level. You’ve done it professionally when you’ve been paid for it, and now you can point to that work as another piece of Proof in your body of work.

That said, Plateau and Paid are the inactive steps, so that’s why we’ll be focusing on the core 3 that you can do something about: Proof, Personal Recommendations, and Pitching

With all that established, let’s focus today on…

Why is Proof the Most Important Factor in Kickstarting Your Writing Career?