This past week CoverMyScript was a premiere guest sponsor of Screenwriter Karaoke at the Screenwriting Expo 2010.  We were there to support our brother event and get the word out about how to make you and your script the best for you. It was under this backdrop of some real fun networking that I’m reminded of the ways NOT to interact at such events.

Make no mistake, your singular purpose and goal of these pitchfest / expos / conferences, where you pay a premium to interface, one-on-one with execs and managers, should be to cultivate relationships. You want to make the good impression that you are a person worth knowing; someone worth doing business with at some point in the future. Ideally, everyone wants to make a sale in the room, but the chances of you selling your pitch, for cash money, on-the-spot, are basically nil. Even Shane Black will tell you that, and he sold a million-dollar movie idea on a napkin over lunch. Where these conferences are concerned, it’s never about the short term. It’s really about beginning your long-term career and fostering these relationships.

But not all writers got the memo. There is the right way to approach and the “not-so-right” way to impress yourself upon someone.

If you find out somebody is an agent or produced writer do not pitch to them willy nilly.

Whether it was the gal who followed us into four (!) elevators to tell us she’s “thinking about writing comedy” or the wait staff that “gave” me his “idea” for “Cheers” that wasn’t “Cheers” even though it took place in a bar and was about the people in it. As thankful as I was to have that already produced gold nugget, my asking you for directions isn’t an open invitation to tell me your life story. Know when it’s appropriate to bombard someone.

Merrel, my partner in crime, was speaking with an agent when an excited expo goer got wind and didn’t even wait for them to finish a sentence. “So you’re an agent?” he said and began to pitch. No! Buy me a drink first before you try and take me home. Warm me up a little bit. Let me like you before you go pitching wild. Cornering someone mid-conversation and giving them an unsolicited pitch wins no points, with anyone. Desperation doesn’t look good in any shade.

Don’t stalk people.

If there’s someone you’re interested in talking with, talk with them. When the conversation is done, it’s done. Pay attention. If they’re not into you, just wrap it up and move on. If it goes well, use your time wisely, impress upon them your message, get their card and keep the train moving. My friend, Zac Sanford, a development exec, remarked after an exhausting impromptu post-panel networking assault:

“My time is valuable. Pick one thing I said that resonated with you, hand me your card, let me give you mine if I want to, and move on. The real work comes after the convention.” And this goes for exhibitors too!

There was an odd fellow who insisted he could and would help with our exhibitor’s booth. He was looking for a job and thought hanging around me might get him one. He then proceeded to loiter and interact with my potential clients as if he were an official representative of my company and that just didn’t fly. Perhaps if he played it cool, and not been so clingy, things might’ve gone differently. But alas, this is a lesson he’ll have to learn the hard way.

Don’t be creepy or gush!

Approach people like human beings, not majestic ponies. If you know of someone from a previous seminar,  online or just from their body of work, don’t exalt them. Just say, “Hey.” And on the other hand, if you know who someone is and don’t like them, do like your mother said and keep your mouth shut. At a networking event, if you can’t say anything nice about someone, wait until you get in the car to bash them.

One gal made an odd and specific point of introducing herself whilst demanding to remain anonymous, “I know who you guys all are, but I don’t want to tell you who I am” she said.   We all respected her choice, however strange it seemed, seeing as she was wearing a name badge. She took it a step further and let me know that she had unfollowed me on Twitter for “talking too much even though I was writerly.” I know I’m not for everyone, but I couldn’t understand why someone wearing a name badge and wishing to remain anonymous, would seek me out just to be hurtful? In what way was she hoping to ingratiate herself to me by being unkind? If you aren’t interested in people knowing who you are or if you aren’t interested in knowing them, keep it to yourself; then they won’t.

Don’t offer unsolicited advice.

If you don’t like my product, you’re not interested in my service, you feel like I’ve got it all wrong, again, keep it to yourself. You are at an event selling yourself. Tearing someone else down or their work may make you feel more important in the short term, especially if it’s someone you’re meeting for the first time and think they’re a schmuck, but you never know who someone REALLY is. This is the techno-age people. Use your phone with the Googles, and find out who that schmuck is before mouthing off to them. They could just be a studio head and you would’ve blown it.

I encountered a man who’s familiar banter went from charming to uncomfortably presumptuous in a bizarre instant. He decided he knew what was wrong with my business and wanted to tell me all about how wrong I had gotten it. Listen folks, don’t spend your time attempting to assert your knowledge onto others. You don’t gain friends, just annoyed glances and a place in my long-memory, next to my unmitigated ire. I shut him down on the spot, because I just don’t care what you think when you come at me so aggressively. If you have constructive ideas, bring them up constructively. Win me over. Make me like you. Sell me on you. You have to earn the right to have my time, and this guy just didn’t have enough cache to keep my interest.

Why So Serious?

Don’t treat your every interaction as though it were life or death. Yes you need to be professional and this is a business event, but be a person not a robot. Come to foster relationships, meet new people, learn new things, grow your craft but get out of your own way too!  Quit taking it all so seriously. We’re making movies; we’re not curing cancer (unless you’re also an oncologist, in which case, keep up the good work). Be light, be open, be yourself. It is the commodity of you that is ultimately the most worthwhile prospect.

I’ve been watching The Young and the Restless since before I was born. How is that possible, you ask? My mother watched it while pregnant with me. I know that’s a cheap one, but it counts. I’ve been actively watching it since my birth. How many shows, other than the news, can you say that about?

I watched it my entire childhood. I tuned in throughout my teen years, on those rare occasions when I could convince my parents I was indeed bleeding from my eyes, so I could stay home from school.

When I went to college, I started watching every day. I hadn’t missed a single episode until this past November 2009. On November 30^th, Y&R went dark in my house for the first time in my life. It’s been hard on me. Y&R has moved on, but I have not.

I should’ve seen it coming, and even though it was my idea to end our relationship, that doesn’t mean that I’m not grieving. In fact, being apart is almost harder than it was when we were together. I find myself wondering, in the middle of the day, around 11:30am, what Y&R is doing. I wonder if my Genoa City friends are okay, left in the hands of a revolving door writing staff who don’t know the characters past a couple of seasons.

It reminds me of something that happened to me at a WGA function last week. I met a writer staffed on a reboot animation franchise (I can’t say which one, but it was a big one with a flop live action movie.) The offending thing was, while lovely and presumably talented, he didn’t know the history of the show he was working on. He wasn’t a fan. He had never seen or connected to the original incarnation. But like a competent journeyman writer, he cranked out satisfactory scripts regardless of his project knowledge; they had to be good to impress their difficult and demanding Executive Producer.

The thing is this happens. I’m no civilian. I should know better. I know that the turnover a writing staff is. To expect every new staffer to know everything about every character ever in a 35 year history, is fairly ridiculous of me. But in the same way I was so appalled by the TV writer who had never seen the show he was remaking, I was furious with the Y&R staff.

I know who Sharon Newman is, and she is not how the writers have been crafting her. She’s done a total 180 degree turn as a character, and not in a positive, growing sort of way. The writers have lost the real essence of Sharon, what really makes her a character you love, and instead, they’re presenting us a Sharon imposter… which might not have been a bad plotline, but turns out to be the death knell for me as a viewer.

Then about 5 years ago, the show took a strange turn. Concerned that the audience was getting bored with the tried and true Y&R, they decided to make it glamorous, more daring, more like a nighttime soap. That’s the beginning of the end for me.

Y&R has been suffering a snowball effect of bad writing since then. The nighttime soap idea was a disaster. Y&R had their lowest ratings ever. Then there was the writer’s strike. More viewers lost. Then there was the interim staff who just kept things humming, but Y&R was clearly out of tune.

Then, two years ago, like a shining beacon of hope, a Bell was back in charge of Y&R. Maria Arena Bell, the series creators’ granddaughter, was now helming and she was going to reestablish the show and restore it to her grandparents’ legacy. At least that was the hope. CBS was behind her and seeing the Bell name at the top of the show, post credit sequence, was oddly comforting. While we had a bad, mean babysitter looking after us for a while, it almost felt like Mommy had come home from dinner.

And then, things went weird in the writers’ room. The 35 year history of Genoa City was rewritten, character backstory was thrown to the wind. It was like they were bizzaro world clones of their former selves. They did the old plot standards: a murder, a court case, mistaken identity, baby switching, but all the plotlines were ruthlessly dark, bizarre, and seemingly angry without any payoff. There was no pleasure in watching these characters.

My eyes and brain were tired of being assaulted. I have loved these people, the citizens of Genoa City, my entire life. I remember a lot of what’s happened to them over the years. But at some point, when the writing is so bad, when the characters no longer make sense, when everything they do is so improbable that you’re embarrassed for the people who make the thing you love, you have to tap out. And that’s what I did.

On November 30^th, I finally had enough. Wednesdays are usually boring on a soap. Something minor happens, to move towards the exciting Friday cliff hanger, but nothing too noteworthy occurs. On this Wednesday, an art theft case was wrapping up; another murder no one cared about was solved. Amber, a blonde bimbo with a sweet side and a penchant for trouble, was finally united with Daniel, her true love (for that hour anyway), but then she was forced to marry this other guy to save him. Would she, wouldn’t she? It had taken maybe 6 months for me to finally say, no more. Daniel, Amber, I just don’t care anymore.

But like a partner, with whom you shared a deep and profound long-lasting love, you miss the nearness of them, the comfort they provide, even if the relationship is abusive.

I will forever miss The Young and the Restless. But, I’ve moved on to new lovers. I’m seeing some really nice celebrity chefs right now, and I’m hanging out a lot over at with “Horrible People.” I’m pretty sure I’m going to be okay.

I just have one thing left to say.

Young and the Restless: You were my first, and as that, you’ll always have a place in my heart, even if we can’t be together. But just know, Y&R, and all the good people of Genoa City, I miss you now and I’ll miss you forever.

Recently, I was interviewed on getting started screenwriting in Hollywood at All Freelance Writing.com. Here is a link to the article where I candidly share how I got my start and helpful tips on how to get started yourself. I sincerely hope you enjoy and find this interview resourceful and a fun read.

It’s 1975 and I’m standing in a room filled with high-level creative executives, pitching what I think is an excellent television series. It’s got something for everybody: music, adventure, comedy, action and it’s high concept! Here’s my pitch: It’s an animated comedy / action / adventure series (with an emphasis on comedy) for kids 8-11, about a group of amateur, teenaged detectives who solve crimes, while traveling in a band, on tour, in the future, under water, and their sidekick is a talking shark that sounds like Curly from The Three Stooges. I pause for a moment and let it all sink in. My genius never more apparent to these awestruck executives.

Guess what? It’s a sale! A total greenlight. And since it’s got a little bit of everything, my 22-minute underwater hijinks, mystery and music romp appeals to even the finickiest 8-11 year old demographic. Indeed, fun will be had as they eat their Saturday morning bowl of Lucky Charms.

Would you believe that such an idea would speak to modern audiences and generations to come with its busy, eclectic and broad comedic plots? It did. In fact it was not me pitching this little golden nugget, but rather it was Ruby and Spears for Hannah-Barbera’s Jabberjaw; my favorite “Kitchen Sink Show,” nuk nuk nuk.

Everyone knows the phrase “everything, but the kitchen sink.” Well, in television there are programs that are everything and the kitchen sink. A “Kitchen Sink Show” is a series concept that is so broad that it encompasses every plot and any idea the creators can think of to fill the allotted time.

Take your most basic of plots, (teenagers solving crime), tack on a suspiciously large laundry list of unnecessary, yet bizarrely colorful elements (in space, in a hot air balloon, in a band, speaks like Don Knotts, on unicycles that talk) and add one more for good measure, (the teenagers are all coconuts) and you’ve got yourself a “Kitchen Sink Show.”

As the sole story analyst for Warner Bros. Animation, I read hundreds of scripts. In the true spirit of the original Hannah-Barbera cartoons, almost every submission I read was a “Kitchen Sink Show.” Somehow, it seemed, each writer was merely lazily throwing in every element, character, and quirky ingredient they could think of in a haphazard manner. I soon came to realize, it wasn’t really laziness, but a loving yet misguided homage to the “Kitchen Sink Show” of yesteryear.

The “Kitchen Sink Show” emerged to satisfy two basic market needs: 1) Staying current with modern children’s interests. And; and, 2) Consistently churning out properties, on the cheap, with the least amount of effort.

Regardless of generation, children’s interests generally remain the same and it is this consistency that helps broadcasters choose their programming. They want it to appeal to the greatest number of eyeballs, so, they take an amalgam of “everything kid” and turn it into a show. Kids are into silly comedy. They enjoy action and potential romance, so we have those three elements. Kids also want to see teenagers fighting crime, because it’s aspirational. So, now the characters are detectives. They’re into music, so the show’s heroes are in a band. And then, you add in a funny fourth thing, something quirky to wrap it all up in a seemingly shiny new, if not oddly familiar bow. Et, voilà, you have a “Kitchen Sink Show.”

During the 60′s and 70′s Hannah-Barbera was responsible for an awesome percentage of the on-air children’s Saturday morning programming. They had to think outside of the box and frugally, to get programs to air. Like environmentalists before their time, they knew they must reuse and recycle… character design, concept and premise if they were going to be able to churn out property after property, and the most cost-effective way, is to cannibalize your own properties. They knew, if you paint the kitchen sink, you wind up with a brand new “Kitchen Sink Show!” You go Hannah and Barbera, for being just that clever! It’s a little bit of genius really. They reinvented their properties over and over again, twisting minor details, changing locations, shrewdly disguising that it really was just the same “Kitchen Sink Show,” swaddled in new clothing. And they made a fortune doing it.

Speed Buggy was a show about a group of teenaged detectives, who look alarmingly and suspiciously, exactly like a certain gang from Scooby Doo. They drive around in a busted car, fighting evil forces, solving crime, and the Jalopy transforms into a magical talking race car that can help the kids accomplish their crime solving goals. It’s basically Scooby Doo only sub a talking car for a talking dog, and Hannah-Barbera didn’t even bother to really adjust the character design. They just added a few extra elements to freshen it up.

Today, if you gather a room full of old time animators, they’ll tell you about the grand old days of animation. It was a golden era, where the cartoons were classic. Understand me, I am not advocating that you, as a writer, go and write a “Kitchen Sink Show” and try to pitch it. “Kitchen Sink Shows” are mostly terrible. But they are also a significant piece of television history and are revered for their nostalgic charm. While today, a series like Captain Caveman probably would be incarnated as a poorly dubbed Japanese import, its charm, its personality and the peaceful simplistic story telling would be lost to flashing lights, obnoxious dialogue and bad design.

Where it used to simply take moxie to break into animation, now it requires a team of assassin-like agents, a library to rival Shakespeare’s, a high-concept premise, and Carl Lewis’ track record just to get a meeting. And the saddest part is, that for sentimentality, the “Kitchen Sink Show” is no more.

But it’s funny, after listing what it takes to break into animation writing, I realized I just created my own “Kitchen Sink Show.” It’s called Xandy and the Screenwriting Squad. It’s a futuristic romp, where a modern screenwriter goes back in time to the animation heyday. Armed with my library rivaling Shakespeare’s, my team of assassin-like agents, my moxie, my all-girl rock band (made up of said agents), plus my ability to run track like a god. We write cartoons and solve minor yet eccentrically complex crimes, while running super fast, and then celebrate with a song and a shared chuckle as the episode ends. What do you think? Greenlight? Nuk, nuk, nuk.

With contributions by Merrel Davis (www.merreldavis.com)