Screenwriters looking for inspiration for their pilot script or feature film are often told to “write what they know.” But if you’re not careful, that might mean your screenplay is similar to everyone else’s.
“Write what you know.” Seems simple enough, right?
As you seek inspiration for your next pilot script or feature screenplay, this advice could certainly help — but you need to use it wisely.
The film and television industry has always been competitive for writers, but the current post-strike landscape is especially challenging to navigate. Not only is it a difficult time to pitch a TV series, since fewer shows are getting developed and produced, but it’s also harder to get into a writers’ room. After all, rooms have gotten smaller over the years, and the streamers put out shorter seasons than networks do, so there are fewer spots available for staff writers and fewer episodes to write. Agents and managers may be less inclined to take on a new client who’s just starting out if they’re already struggling to get work for their current clients. It’s a gig industry, so steady income is nearly impossible to come by.
In this landscape, it is essential that writers have exceptional writing samples. Your work must be absolutely undeniable to stand out as so many people clamor for so few opportunities.
With that in mind, it’s a shame when a newer writer spends months or years working on a project that ultimately will not stand out among the rest. If your plot feels overdone, even the most fantastic writing can’t save your script.
Here are the types of stories to avoid:
Groups of friends in Los Angeles or New York City
A struggling actor or writer trying to make it
Someone in her 20s or 30s moving from the city to the country or moving back home
Over the last several years of running our Moonshot Pilot Accelerator, we’ve read almost 2,000 TV pilot scripts, and we can tell you with certainty that these stories have already been told — many, many times. You’ll find the same phenomenon in the film world, where many writers’ first scripts are semi-autobiographical and thus cover similar topics.
So what can you do when you’ve been told to write what you know, but what you know is the same as what everyone else knows … ya know?
It’s time to dig a little deeper. “Write what you know” doesn’t mean that you need to put your exact experiences on the page. It can also refer to these categories:
What you know emotionally. You’ve probably experienced grief, heartbreak, and love. You’ve experienced fitting in and being left out. You’ve been in your element, and you’ve been a fish out of water. You’ve navigated family drama and built friendships. You can draw from these emotional experiences while also imagining something outside of your own life.
Experiences that translate outside of the industry. Perhaps you’re an actor, and you’ve felt the sting of constant rejection. But instead of showing us an actor who’s going to audition and audition without booking the job, could your protagonist be a realtor, who always has to market herself, make the sale, and watch income opportunities fall through? Maybe your instinct is to write about a writer hunting for inspiration, but could your protagonist be an architect, a graphic designer, or a fashion designer in a rut? You may have to do research on these careers to get the details right, but you already know the emotional core of what the character is experiencing.
Specific places from your life. Maybe you live in NYC or LA now, but you grew up in a small town or a suburb with its own unique people, politics, and culture. (Think “Somebody Somewhere” in Kansas or “Little Fires Everywhere” in Shaker Heights, Ohio.) Perhaps you were a counselor at a summer camp in the mountains or spent a summer at your grandparents’ house by a lake. You might have even traveled somewhere that really stuck with you. Certain shows feel more unique in part because of their setting, such as “Shrill,” in which a struggling journalist navigates life in Portland, or “Hacks,” which centers around comedians in Vegas. If you must set your screenplay in New York or Los Angeles, can you get really specific about the neighborhood, like “Girls 5Eva” does in Astoria, Queens, NYC?
Your family history. Can you find inspiration in your mom’s childhood or your grandfather’s teenage years? You may find that “what you know” includes things you didn’t actually experience yourself, but that impacted your family as a whole. Their stories may be incredibly unique and specific, so ask more questions about that anecdote you always liked to hear as a child. (And of course, tread carefully when mining others’ lives for stories.)
Your day jobs. Your short stint as a receptionist or a nanny could inspire endless ideas. If you’re lucky, you had an entirely different career before becoming a writer, and you have an experience to draw from that most writers can’t.
The stuff you never wanted to share. Please, do not re-traumatize yourself for the sake of writing a “unique” script. But some writers find putting words on the page to be incredibly healing. If that’s you, you might want to journal about the experiences that make you feel guilty, ashamed, angry, or confused (think “I May Destroy You” or “Baby Reindeer”). You might be surprised how many people will relate to your story. But again, with personal experiences, you need to do what feels right to you. Your well-being is more important than your writing career, so if something is too painful to write about, trust your instincts.
The what-ifs. You’re a creative person, so it should be easy for you to imagine paths you could have taken. What if you’d married your high-school sweetheart instead of breaking up with him? What if your mom had taken the job offer in the south of France, and you moved there as you were entering middle school? What if you’d gone to that party where you didn’t know anyone? What if you’d missed your flight? What if you’d doubled back to grab your forgotten purse and you’d overheard your friends gossiping about you? With these what-ifs, you’re practicing putting yourself just slightly outside of your own experiences, because you already lived the entire lead-up to the scenario.
Your non-industry interests. Maybe you flip to the food section of every newspaper and magazine. Perhaps you’ve read dozens of novels set in Medieval Europe. You might be a regular at a rock-climbing gym, and you’ve watched every documentary about climbers you can get your hands on. Just because you’re not a professional chef, historian, or free climber doesn’t mean that you don’t know more than the average person does about these topics — and you already know you’d be excited to learn more.
So before you start drafting a script about your life, spend some time brainstorming about all the other ways you could write what you know. You might be surprised to discover the one-of-a-kind story inside of you!
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