In this week’s guest post, Angry Robot author Colin Harvey talks about the necessity of making yourself attractive to an editor.

Generating Heat
By Colin Harvey

A few weeks before the end of last term, our script lecturer gave a talk on The Business of Scriptwriting. Much of his lecture could be applied just as easily to SF as to the film business, so with some slight amendments I’ve adapted it for this blog.

There might still be an element of lecture notes in what follows, although I’ve tidied the text as much as possible.

Every scriptwriter has a different story about ‘the business’ as its people call it. The reality for both film and publishing is that there is no monolithic business — but rather a collection of people. And people are people, regardless of their business or where they live. As an industry Hollywood still shares most of its practices with Bollywood, the UK and Hong Kong, among other places. In all these locations, production companies make television shows for television companies; all of these companies have employees. So someone who sells to Twentieth Century Fox is selling to –say- Steve Asbell.

If Steve moves to Sony, then his writers will sell to Sony. The aspiring writer needs to cultivate contacts as if his or her life depends upon it (and in career terms, it does). Given that the average turnover of staff is 1.5 years in a job, film company employees are usually scared, but it’s an emotion that manifests itself as acting very cool. The writer who puts themself in the director or other staffer’s shoes, and tries to understand how they can help them, immediately gains an advantage. When you do a deal with a film director, an editor or a publisher, you are actually doing the deal with a person, whom you are probably helping out of a hole.

One of the major difficulties in Hollywood is that no-one knows what makes a success; so instead they talk about what or who is hot. William Goldman’s main rule about how the entertainment business works is ‘nobody knows anything.’ This means that despite all the hype, the vast advertising budgets and the big stars and special effects, nothing is guaranteed. For the average Hollywood employee, the way to guarantee success is to pick a winner. And winners are identified by how much heat they have; Heat is how sought after you are, the perceived level of interest in you. (But note the emphasis on ‘perceived!’) Stephen King –for example– has enormous heat.

The film business is much more hierarchical than the world of publishing –at each stage of the process the scriptwriter needs a champion– but both industries have their similarities. A scriptwriter needs to find a champion in some little niche, someone who will put their head on the block for them. But all new writers need a champion. Creating heat means having the right contacts, with someone who has more heat than you do. It’s a case of ‘heat passes from a warm body to a cooler body’ — but not vice versa. A scriptwriter can find hotter bodies in Writers & Artists Yearbook, Twelvepointdot.com, or networking organizations such as Scriptwriter South West. The SF writer can find them through organizations such as the BSFA or BFS, or writer’s groups such as Codex or SFWA.

Similarly, when the aspiring short-story writer makes a sale to a magazine editor, they gain a champion for that particular piece of work, be it fiction or non-fiction. Each sale makes the writer a little better known — or hotter. Ideally, the writer will sell to increasingly prestigious magazines, adding to his reputation. For each story, the editor is that writer’s champion, but for each review of the story, the writer may gain another champion, and with each favourable review, the writer gets hotter. Generating heat is all about having people champion you; the more champions you have, the hotter you are. For the short story writer, the next stage is to get an agent. An agent gives the writer instant heat, even before a publisher has seen that first novel.

And as in Hollywood, breaking in is partially Who You Know. Contacts will get you in, but only talent will keep you in. And for those who claim the part luck plays in making that breakthrough, getting lucky is all about being in the right place at the right time. You can’t control whether or not you’re there at the right time, but you can control whether you’re in the right place – it’s a case of always being prepared. Remember, generating heat is in your hands….

Colin Harvey is the author of the novels Winter Song and Damage Time, and editor of the anthologies Killers and Future Bristol. He can be found online at www.colin-harvey.com

Tags: Angry Robot • Colin Harvey • editor • guest • Writing