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Imagine, if you will, that you have no concept of the game of basketball but someone hands you the ball, sets you on a court and says: "GO PLAY!" Now, more than likely, you'll figure out by name alone that the ball goes through the "basket" but you'll have no concept of dribbling, passing, fouls, out-of-bounds, screens, blocks, etc. etc. etc. So it also is with screenwriting.
A student came to me about eight months ago all excited about his screenplay. He had a great idea, he said. Funny, funny, funny, he said. Couldn't wait to get it made, he said and, of course, I said: "Lets see it!" And he hadn't written a word. He, somehow, felt that the rules didn't apply to him. That all he had to do was talk about his idea and someone would hand him a check for a million dollars. He didn't understand.
You see, the cold hard fact is that you're dealing with a PRODUCT. A product much like your favorite soft drink or your favorite potato chip. What he was doing was sitting me down and telling me how great of a product he had without handing me the product. Much like someone saying: "Oh, I've got this great drink. It's wonderful! It's fizzy and it has sugar and a little touch of lemon and some caramel color and WOW! You'll love it." But if I can't taste it for myself, how good can it be?
How many screenplays get thrown into the recycle bin every year because they don't follow the simple rules of formatting, structure, page length, etc. How many GREAT scripts don't get read after the first ten pages because the Producer or Reader or Agent can't deal with the typos, badly structured sentences or even the type font.
Don't expect, like my student above, to somehow step on the court and magically become Michael Jordan. Don't expect, like my student above, that you can somehow just tell your story and think someone's going to give you a big ol' check. You have to learn the rules if you want to play in the game.
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