Three in one day - can you tell I'm trying to avoid deadline writing?

Again, this is a post from the screenwriters group. If you're here from there, you might want to move along.

Otherwise, this was written in response to a little back and forth between group memebers about one who's saying she doesn't feel the need to follow established screenwriting rules, that they only get in the way of her passion for storytelling, and that she's determined to do it her own way.

Of course this pushes all sorts of buttons among people who have strong opinions about screenwriting, and many have been trying to convince her of the error of her ways.

By this afternoon, she'd had enough, and her latest response was, among other things, "so eat me."

Group pundits just couldn't sit on their hands after that one, and a few flames flew after that. Here is my contribution to the fray:

To James, Maggie, and anyone else who has tried to persuade Maria that she might want to rethink her postion, remember this:

People self-select out of the loop for a variety of reasons. Some want to write, but never start, some start, but never finish, some finish, but then fail to see the value in playing by at least some of the rules needed in order to get their work read, bought, packaged and produced.

There will always be iconoclasts among us, those who believe their way is the right way, and that the rest of the world just hasn't seen the light yet. Some are right, and have success - Tarantino, for one. Many, many more are not. The road to Hollywood is littered with their dreams.

However, lest the rest of us get too staid in our thinking, we should also keep in mind that it is some of those very iconoclasts who do shake up the world, and who do keep moving the collective wisdom into brave new territory.

That said, the one thing I always tell myself when I run into someone who holds these kind of views: less competition! ;-)

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© 2003 m. lucas