How (and why) to network
There is so much conflicting advice out there for writers.
“Write from the heart”, although…
“Have a specific audience in mind for your script”
“Just focus on getting your writing as good as it can be”, but…
“It’s not what you know, but who you know”*
In my experience, bad advice is worse than no advice. So how do you navigate your choices, of who to listen to, what advice to take, when to push back and when to change? Here’s my first hot take, based on years of hard lessons:
1) If someone is saying you SHOULD do something, that their way is the only way, then they are to be ignored.
Because for every rule, there is an exception. And now for my second (and I am a writer, so please indulge me in this image, but):
2) Good advice should feel like finding your keys.
When someone says something that is really going to have a positive impact on you and your writing, it should give you THAT feeling in your stomach, of learning something for the first time that you have actually already known for a while, somewhere deep down, in your pit.
All this person did was make you consciously aware of it, or at the very least, acknowledge the thing you have been avoiding (because it requires some serious thinking and/or rewriting)
Paying for advice will often (but not always) give you better advice- it benefits this person to have themselves be wise, useful. Experience does count, but professional credits alone won’t mean they are necessarily a good mentor or teacher. Again, let your gut decide. If they come across douchey, they probably are a douche.
They key though, is, if you want to get better at writing, invest in your writing, whatever that means to you. This can include paying a mentor or taking a course. But it also almost certainly giving yourself time, and it also definitely means finding your people -your community- which is where “it’s not what you know, but who you know” becomes pertinent.
Writers are largely solitary people- that is perhaps why we write. However, whilst we need to believe in our personal vision, our uniqueness, we also have to put ourselves out there, especially in such a collaborative and performance-led medium as scriptwriting. That means being open to advice and input from others, but also connecting with likeminded people.
But they must be likeminded. Maybe it was an aspiring actor you met after a play, or a director who followed you back on Instagram. It is seductive, the feeling that something might be happening for us, but if you don’t click, don’t force it.
You will meet others. That is, if you put yourself out there- only if you put yourself out there. There are plenty of nepo babies in the arts, but if you don’t have an oil magnate family, what can you do? Be genuine, be engaged. If you want to write for theatre, go to plays, find who is making stuff near you, who wants to make stuff near you.
In other words, horizontal networking. The best connections I haven’t come from cold-emailing that major agent, or chewing the ear off a theatre’s artistic director when I spot them walking their dog.
The most fruitful relationships I have forged in my career have come from making genuine friendships with people around a similar career stage to me; an aspiring director, an emerging producer, an actor waiting for that first major role.
Work together, or try to. If it doesn’t happen, no stress, we press on. When they, or you, get a break- you pull each other up. It doesn’t even need thinking about. That’s what friends do.
This mindset requires patience, and I get it; we’re all hungry to be seen, paid. But if you chase it, people can smell it. It’s off-putting, and I have been guilty of that too. That, is one thing I bring as a mentor- empathy for your growing pains as a writer; I’ve been there, done it, got the regrets, pressed on.
So yes, you do need to MOSTLY focus on writing your script, but you do also need to put yourself out there. If you don’t, it isn’t impossible something will happen. But it is more likely nothing will.