Job Search Communications:
24 reasons why they aren't calling you for an interview

Jimbo posted a piece the other day about his frustration with job search communications - he found out, through the "grapevine," he didn't get a job he interviewed for, instead of through the people who interviewed him. This is a frustrating problem in the job search process - who hasn't felt that they're communication with a giant black hole in applying for and/or interviewing for a job? Jimbo's dilemma prompted me to dip into my years of applying for jobs and reviewing candidate resumes, and I've come up with 24 reasons why you never hear back from a company or organization once you've sent them your resume and cover letter:

1. there's no longer a job at the company;
2. nobody has time to review all the resumes;
3. the job's been changed and they need new resumes;
4. none of the resumes matched what their needs are, and they're really really picky;
5. they called you, and you called back and left a message, but they then decided not to call you again;
6. you're overqualified;
7. you're underqualified;
8. nothing on your resume, in their eyes, convinces them that you're even a slight match for the job;
9. they can't make a decision on who to call;
10. someone reviewing the resumes knows who you are and tells the hiring manager you should not be contacted;
11. it's taking them a really REALLY long time to review resumes;
12. you're just plain wrong for the job;
13. they think you'll ask for too much money;
14. your name reminds the chief reviewer of this bully that used to torment him in school;
15. they lost your resume;
16. the post office lost your resume;
17. you thought you sent your resume, but you really didn't;
18. the email you sent with your resume attached got lost;
19. the email attachment - your resume - got lost;
20. the resume attached was in WordPerfect and they have MSWord (or vice versa);
21. something about your resume turned them off;
22. you didn't send them all the information they asked for;
23. you're not the right sex, age, etc. even though this is illegal (it's tough to prove);
24. your background on the first five emperors of Holy Roman Empire is not up to snuff - that is, any reason whatsoever that you could never guess.

How To Get The Job Of Your Dreams
Part 2

Yesterday I posted my thoughts on Fast Company's short slide presentation titled "How To Get The Job Of Your Dreams.". After weighing in on the first three quotes, I promised my opinions on the second three today, and here they are:

"People who think they should just get things for who they are or whatever are the people who don’t make it. If you want to follow what you want to do, you have to have that extra drive and effort that nobody else has." -- Fatal1ty. Professional Video Gamer.

Not sure what he's saying here in the first sentence - I think it's "don't expect an engraved invitation." As for the second sentence - I'm tired of people saying you have to work so bloody hard that you might end up with a quintuple bypass and a stroke on your way to your bliss. Do we honestly believe everyone has to do it this way? I think this idea is just as bad as "magical thinking" - or "if you want it hard enough, you'll get it."

"The very first thing you have to do when you want to find that job you are passionate about is you have to be honest with yourself to a point where it may almost be painful… Because many times when you say this is what I want to do, everyone around you will look at you like you’ve lost your mind… You have to be able to handle the pressure and outside criticism." -- Rebecca Donohue. Stand-up Comedian.

I really agree with the first part of this quote. I've come to a point in my life (with my script writing) where I've been incredibly honest with myself, and it's been a painful decision to quit - although it's felt good too. And it's opened up new vistas for me.

"For people who want to get into music -- if you want to be an artist use the Internet. Make a cool video and put it on YouTube. There are so many amazing things made possible now with the net and with MySpace and so many ways to get your music out there." -- Mark Ronson. Music Producer and Artist.

Rings true for me. I wish I had today's resources twenty years ago when I was studying communications in grad school. Actually, I learned from the ground up, shooting and editing 16mm black and white film by hand, creating video with large, heavy equipment, learning the basics of lighting - key, back and fill. So I feel I have hands-on experience. But only up to a point. Now we're faced with zillions of people creating content online. And we haven't done it long enough to see whether or not it's sustainable by the "masses." I mean, how long can anyone create without seeing some sort of monetary return?

I've thought and looked at lists of people and thought some more and I still can't come up with anyone I know who's working in their dream job. I've come up with people who worked - in the past - in their dream job, but the dream changed.

I don't see a whole lot of writing on that.

How To Get The Job Of Your Dreams
Part 1

This just in from the "How To Do It" file... Fast Company has a short slide show titled "How To Get The Job Of Your Dreams." I was looking for other information on their site, but this drew me in like a black hole. I spent all of 1 minute 30 seconds viewing it, as it's very very short. The advice, quick quotes from notable people, hits the usual notes: give it your all, don't quit, pay attention, analyze, start small. No mention of luck. No mention of "surround yourself with people who work in their dream jobs" (although that might be difficult, as they're usually working.)

Still, it made me think, especially as I'm looking for a job. Here are my thoughts (in bold) on each quote. As there are six quotes in all, I'll run three today and three tomorrow:

"Never give up. People go 99% of the way and then just like when running a race, they get really tired towards the end. But it's those that go the last 1% who are successful. Edison was right: it's 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. Keep going because you never know when you might succeed -- success sneaks up on you." -- Jim Clash. Adventure Columnist, Fortune Magazine.

I give up, because sometimes I have to keep my sanity. Getting tired towards the end - that's one thing, and I'm used to that. Hating the race, or at least no longer finding it interesting (which is where I am now), is another thing entirely.

"An indirect path to where you eventually want to arrive may be better than taking a direct route. As a designer, it's beneficial to make oneself as eclectic and interdisciplinary as possible. Take auxiliary classes. Because while you're studying algae or even sheep diseases, you never know what information you might get and how that might end up influencing your design work someday." -- Pam Greene. Senior Design Innovator, Nike Considered Line.

That's the way my mind works. I like this quote the best, as it's something I advocate for others, as well as myself. Keeping options open, and interests too, have steered me into some pretty interesting jobs. Maybe by using this tactic my next job will be a "dream." The trick for me, though, is being open to new horizons on a daily basis. The older I get, the more I feel I need to revisit past comforts.

"All you have to do is go create your dream job if it doesn't exist. Don’t wait around for someone to hand you the perfect job -- go out and start making it happen." -- Steve Hager. Editor, High Times Magazine.

This is the "just do it" idea, and I've followed this advice before. The problem comes when I've met with some success crafting my own route, but it didn't result in a sustainable income.

And a final thought (for today) - I don't think I know anyone who is working in his or her dream job! I'll have to do a little research, and I hope to have some details for tomorrow's post (which will contain the final three quotes from the slideshow.)

What's Brand Me?
Revisiting "Personal Branding" a Decade Later

Ten years ago this month, Tom Peters' article "The Brand Called You" appeared in Fast Company magazine, and an era was born. The term brand stopped being the exclusively property of cattle ranchers and breakfast cereal manufacturers, and started being our property too.

I remember reading the article, and finding the concept interesting. But I was too busy working full time, writing plays in my off hours, and managing my life (both the social and everyday upkeep aspects) to work at defining my personal brand.

I've got a much better idea of it now. Today, something moved me to read the article again. I not only found out it's ten years old, I could see how, even today, people would still a difficult time explaining who they are according to their brand.

Simply put, my personal brand is what enters the room before I do.

We used to call it "personality." Or "personal style." But simple doesn't mean it's easy. I'm sure you've had people tell you "I hate working on my resume" or "I hate developing my yearly performance appraisal."

That's because we're really bad, and hesitant, at thinking about ourselves in this manner. Here's a thought exercise I've found useful to get around that problem:

Think of a friend, waiting for you in a restaurant. You're meeting for lunch, drinks or dinner.

He or she is thinking about what the experience will be like once you show up.

Is your friend looking forward to:
- laughing because you always say funny things?
- exciting political conversation because you're always up on what's happening across the country?
- telling you some great personal news because you're always happy and congratulatory?
- a long afternoon because it's going to be all about you?

The person waiting for you is attuned to the experience he or she is going to have once you show up.

Now take it wider. Think of how others might view you at work.

Are you:
- always ready to lend a hand, when it's needed?
- someone who people tiptoe around?
- the go-to person when anyone has a problem?

All these thoughts and opinions are elements of your personal brand. They're the things people instinctively feel even before they see you. They're the things people expect from you.

They might expect:
you'll always be positive
you'll always be difficult to deal with (and so maybe they just don't and you're left
alone!)
you'll always be energetic at every moment of the day
you to be calm but kind of out of it until the coffee kicks in
you'll always be there.

It even goes to the work you crank out. They might expect that:
it's always nearly perfect
it's always missing something
it'll be delivered so quickly that they won't be ready for it
it's always delivered timely
it's something they'll have to fix later

It really helps if you have some examples of things you know people have said about you. Snippets of a conversation, or the positive things written about your work in your last performance appraisal.

Simply put, our personal brand is what enters the room before we do.

Once I started thinking about myself and "my brand" in this way, I started laying a foundation which I can build on quickly when I need to. Like, when I apply for a job. Or when I'm about to meet a bunch of people I've never met before. Or if I need to change something I'm doing in order to make the outcome better or surprising, instead of the boring old status quo.

I can't promise you'll end up happy working on your resume, but you might end up much happier with your results.

And read the Tom Peters' article (again, if you've read it before.) Reflect on how timely it still is, especially 10 years later (which is a billion years in cultural time.)

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Picture from The Arizona Ranch Web site.

Screenwriter Secrets of Effective Storytelling!
The Structure: Are We There Yet?

Most of us, when we tell a story, start by loading it up with details. We feel we need to build up to the interesting part by carefully setting the scene. I read plenty of feature articles across the country that do this. Stories that start with an image, as if the writer wants us to concentrate on some microscopic details that will give us a feeling for the environment.

The problem is, when we're listening to that kind of story, we're impatient for it to begin. It's amazing how little background "staging" we need, really, to get involved in a story. We don't realize that, done correctly, our engagement can be immediate. Without all those pesky details.

Take this scene. I guarantee you it's part of a movie, although you'll never see it on screen:

FADE IN:

EXT. DAY - A ONE-ROOM SCHOOLHOUSE

A TEACHER (35, female) stands at the door, waving goodbye to the children. A YOUNG GIRL (14) waves goodbye to the teacher and starts down the sidewalk, followed by a dog.

EXT. DAY - LARGE VICTORIAN MANSION

A wall separates the grand house from the dusty road. A cat sits on one of the wall posts. The girl and dog approach the wall. The cat HISSES, and the dog BARKS. The cat jumps down into the yard, and the dog squeezes through a gap in the wall, chasing the cat.

GIRL
No no! I've told you a thousand times!

The girl runs to the front gate and swings it open. The front door of the mansion opens, and a severe and hawklike woman appears. The girls stops and...

I'll stop there.

I wrote the script portion above. Any idea what movie I'm talking about? Go ahead and read the beginning of the actual script:

FADE IN:
MS -- Dorothy stoops down to Toto -- speaks to him -- then runs down road to b.g. -- Toto following --

DOROTHY
She isn't coming yet, Toto. Did she hurt you? She tried to, didn't she? Come on - we'll go tell Uncle Henry and Auntie Em. Come on, Toto.

While the script is slightly different from the actual movie, the differences don't detract from the actual storytelling. And the names give a whole lot away. But look at the dialogue - it tells us everything we need to know. Sure, we get more information later, info that can help us put the pieces together. But while my version goes on and on, in the actual script, you're into the story in a flash. Plus you get two more characters. And in just a few minutes more, we get even more information about what happened (the technical term is "exposition"), plus we get conflicts, relationships, issues. And all before you've finished reading my version.

Try not to load down your story with excessive, irrelevant detail. See how much you can relate in as few words as possible. Make those words do double, triple, quadruple duty. Our minds are hard-wired to complete things, to close the loops, to look for patterns. Let your readers fill in the cracks themselves. Believe me, we love to do it!

And if you're interested, the next time you're watching a movie, especially a great one, pay attention to the beginning. Most movies nowadays spend very little time "setting the scene." They use a couple of establishing shots - maybe - and then boom, something happens, usually directly related to the plot.

The Best Dime You'll Ever Spend Part 2

10 Generators of Ideas

If a tree falls in the forest and no one's around.. you know the rest. By that same token, if you have an idea, but you never communicate it, does it exist?

Perhaps you've been bashed for your ideas in the past. You may have experience one of the killing methods in Part 1 of this post. How do you then turn around and get up the gumption to let your ideas flow again?

I've found, for me, 10 idea generators. They act all along the idea continuum, from first spark through the long building process to final product. The generators:

writing creates ideas;
dialogue boosts ideas;
facilitators grow ideas;
being unselfish welcomes ideas;
sunny summer days make the world seem safe for ideas;
music (and not just Bach) exchanges ideas;
learning excites ideas;
exercise unleashes ideas;
endorphins hammer confidence into ideas;
silence centers ideas;

And a great idea environment should have at least two generators.

EarPlay - 5 More Alternate Titles for Your Summer Outdoor Concert Listening

Previously in this series I wrote about the National Symphony's summer warhorse concerts at Carter Barron, and offered some titles that could replace some of the more overplayed repertoire. Here are some additional titles, and the sometimes overplayed pieces they can replace without causing a riot in the audience.

From The Planets - Gustav Holst's grand solar system tour for large orchestra gives us the planets "up close and personal," based on the astronomical and popular conceptions of each. Four movements from the eight-movement suite (Pluto hadn't been discovered at the time of composition) work extremely well outdoors on a starry night:

Mars (The Bringer of War). A mean, hammering, violent march, reminiscent of John Williams' music from The Empire Strikes Back.

Mercury (The Winged Messenger). Quick, fast and shimmering, like the scherzo from Mendellsohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Jupiter (The Bringer of Jollity). A enormous, fantastic festival, bright and exotic, with a central theme that runs rings around Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance.

Uranus (The Magician). Conjures grotesque figures, lurking and bouncing, like the brooms in Dukas' Sorcerer's Apprentice. And no Mickey Mouse to be found.

Then back on Earth:

Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes - Benjamin Britten forgoes a day at the beach and gives us the ocean, after hours and off-season. Beginning with winds and sea birds diving in the strings, the suite goes on to feature vast ocean swells through low orchestral rumblings, and finishes with an brief yet devastating storm. The flip side of Debussy's La Mer.

How To Do It

I sometimes feel that what I read online is like a Monty Python sketch titled "How To Do It." In the sketch, some characters sit on a set and tell us how to rid the world of disease and play the flute. Only they describe it to us, and leave out the details. Basically like those EAP flyers they distribute in the office around Christmas which tell us to "just try to be less depressed" if we're having problems with the holidays.

It's made me look at how I've accomplished my big items, and ask myself exactly how I did it. I came up with the following steps that I've found are absolutely crucial in accomplishing anything. And lest you think I'm just repackaging everyone else's material, I'll provide you examples from my life after the short list that follows:

1. Take your FIRST CONCRETE STEP that can lead somewhere.
Do something. Anything (other than thinking). Just be concrete. Create a list, start a wiki, call a contact, join a seminar, find a coach. Just do something you can grow from.

2. Find an ONGOING MENTOR.
Preferably an individual or a group that you meet with more than once. Once a week, no less than once a month. And the "ongoing" is crucial. That person or group is going to prod you, give you a place to air your ideas, evaluate your process, and critique your work. She or They will help you through their own stories, and provide a special kind of mirror reflects your ideas through their sensibilities. You'll get suggestions you've never think of, you'll find what's unworkable, and you'll learn that some of your smallest, almost forgettable thoughts are sometimes your best ones.

3. Find ANOTHER MENTOR IF the cost of your first one is too high for you.
There are plenty of people out there who will take your money and give you a packaged product, which you then get to (or have to) implement. Just watch cable TV any Sunday morning and you'll see them selling you the answers to your problems. The best mentors, while not free, should ask for reasonable compensation for their services, and not demand you buy a complete package of materials or stay with them indefinitely.

4. Put your STUFF ON THE TABLE.
Most of us suffer from staying too "inside our own heads." We churn our ideas around and around, and think we're doing work. We are doing work, actually, but there comes a point at which the thoughts have to get out of our head in order to become real. I find that keeping thoughts and ideas in my head doesn't allow for them to grow and change. Once they're on the table, and other interested people have a chance to be affected by them - that's when the exciting work starts.

5. TAKE THE RISKS they offer you.
Great mentors drop you in the water and make you swim, perhaps even before you think you're ready. They'll see your abilities without your baggage. The best mentors may even provide you with a practice outlet which can give incredible feedback. But you can't get the feedback unless you swim.

How I Did It: Writing Plays

I began writing plays seriously about ten years ago. A day or two after my decision, and after I started writing stuff down, I met someone at a neighborhood cafe who told me about a group that became my chief mentor for the next six years. DC's Playwrights Forum provided experts and fellow writers for a very reasonable fee. My core group met every two weeks for a 8-session periods. The coordinators of my groups gave me not only ideas to improve my writing, but suggestions on what to write next, or while I was working on a larger piece. Fellow members took roles in readings of my scenes, and provided immediate feedback on what worked and what didn't. The Forum also produced public readings of my work in professional theatres and other arts spaces. The group also ran an annual conference, compiled contest information in the newsletter, offered free tickets to area productions, and communicated my successes to the entire organization.

My part? I wrote, and edited, and polished, and brought stuff in. I read books, sat through rehearsals of professional productions, talked to theater experts, and took my mentor's advice. A year after I joined, I had a one-act produced at a DC theater festival. Each year I was with the group, I had something big happen. I won awards, placed high in competitions, had in-house and public readings, and saw more work produced. The pinnacle of my achievement was having a full-length play of mine produced in Los Angeles.

In writing about this, I see that I'm describing the outcomes - how I met the goals. What I don't talk about much, because it almost goes without saying, is the down-and-dirty, crawling along the ground grunt work I did. And that was basically sitting down at my computer at least three nights a week and writing for an hour. Rewriting. Figuring out how to make things better.

First Steps. Ongoing Mentors. Following Their Advice. Grunt Work. Taking Risks.

So, maybe I can take my own advice, and follow my own rules listed above, for my next set of accomplishments.

**************
Here's the Monty Python sketch, from Episode #28, in its entirety:

Cut to a sign saying 'How to do it'. Music. Pull out to reveal a 'Blue Peter' type set. Sitting casually on the edge of a dais are three presenters in sweaters - Noel, Jackie and Alan - plus a large bloodhound.
Alan: Hello.
Noel: Hello.
Alan: Well, last week we showed you how to become a gynaecologist. And this week on 'How to do it' we're going to show you how to play the flute, how to split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, how to irrigate the Sahara Desert and make vast new areas of land cultivatable, but first, here's Jackie to tell you all how to rid the world of all known diseases.
Jackie: Hello, Alan.
Alan: Hello, Jackie.
Jackie: Well, first of all become a doctor and discover a marvellous cure for something, and then, when the medical profession really starts to take notice of you, you can jolly well tell them what to do and make sure they get everything right so there'll never be any diseases ever again.
Alan: Thanks, Jackie. Great idea. How to play the flute. (picking up a flute) Well here we are. You blow there and you move your fingers up and down here.
Noel: Great, great, Alan. Well, next week we'll be showing you how black and white people can live together in peace and harmony, and Alan will be over in Moscow showing us how to reconcile the Russians and the Chinese. So, until next week, cheerio.
Alan: Bye.
Jackie: Bye.

Screenwriter Secrets of Effective Storytelling!
The Structure: Ruin It For Me

There are all kinds of terms for what I'm going to discuss here. Cut To The Chase. Inverted Pyramid Structure. In Media Res.

I like to think of it as Ruin It For Me.

All these terms tell us to begin our stories as late as possible in the plot. Why? Because believe it or not, it's what we prefer in our movie viewing and novel reading (not to mention newspaper reporting and other forms of narrative.)

Warning: Possible Spoilers Ahead!
The storm and brewhaha over the latest Harry Potter book is subsiding, last week's media frenzy over whether or not the outcome of the novel was leaked is over, and the madness has moved on. For awhile there it seemed that the spoilers were going to ruin it for the true and rabid Potter fans. It just shows us how much importance we place in The Ending of stories.

This importance, though, is misplaced. For every "Sixth Sense" twist ending that lights up the zeitgeist, there are a dozens of movies and novels that don't rely on The Big Surprise to make their impact. In fact, when someone says to me "I won't tell you the end and ruin it for you," I say "Go ahead, ruin it for me."

After studying film and writing screenplays, I no longer like being tricked by the narrative. And it's gotten so that I can almost guess the ending of these kinds of plots even during the opening credits. Ten minutes into The Others I thought [SPOILER ALERT!] "Everyone's dead, and the people they think are ghosts are still alive." When I first saw a preview for The Village, I thought [SPOILER ALERT!] "They're living in an enclosed sanctuary in the 21st century."

When we're telling or writing a story ourselves, our tendency is to withhold information up front, because we think that gradually revealing it will hold the audience's interest and build suspense.

Wrong. Especially today, with lightening fast communications and busy work/life schedules. Who has time to listen to a long drawn out story?

Besides, it takes a great deal of skill, knowledge and craft to fashion a narrative that holds your interest as it slowly builds to a devastating finale. Hitchcock did it brilliantly in Vertigo. M. Night knew how to dole out the bits of plot in The Sixth Sense.

Most of us aren't as accomplished. So, the best advice to follow? We've heard it so many times before: tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them.

After all, Citizen Kane starts at the end, with Kane about to die. He whispers "Rosebud" and the movie investigates his life to find the meaning of that word. It doesn't matter that "Rosebud" turns out to be [SPOILER ALERT!] a sled. The movie's far more interesting than that. Sure, the sled is symbolic. But knowing what Rosebud is doesn't do us any damage when we watch the movie for the third, sixth, thirty-seventh, or ninety-ninth time.

The Best Dime You'll Ever Spend Part 1

9 Methods You Can Use To Kill Ideas

Micromanaging kills ideas. It keeps the micromanaged person too busy to think.

Overcriticizing kills ideas. No idea is born perfect. But if it isn't wrapped in a blanket and stuck under a warming light for a few minutes after hatched, its chances of survival are slim.

Collaboration kills ideas (when consensus is insisted upon). How many brainstorming sessions have you sat through that are really attempts at building consensus? Getting everyone to agree on an idea by wordsmithing, voting, and other methods of judgment and selection only dissipates an original idea until it stops resembling its original form.

Brainstorming kills ideas (except when done properly). Closely related to the previous method; the problem with brainstorming is it's seldom done correctly. There's no facilitator to quash side discussions, group members are allowed to voice dozens reasons why any idea can't be done, and the whole endeavor ends up rolling toward a desire for consensus - i.e. agreement - to keep conflict manageable.

Money kills ideas. Having too much money at the outset often lets you buy solutions instead of coming up with creative ones.

Not enough money kills ideas. Being broke is romanticized as the primary generator of ideas, when in reality it probably kills off more than are created. There's really no good thing about being broke - unless it leads to no longer being broke.

Illness kills ideas. I don't know about you, but when I'm sick, I only have two ideas: what TV shows to watch that won't bore me as I lay suffering on my couch, and what high-calorie foods I can eat because, well, I'm sick!

Too many ideas kills ideas. You've seen it happen: the brilliant idea person deluges everyone with too many ideas to process. them. And people don't want to revisit the site of the flood to find out if there's anything left worth salvaging.

Fear kills ideas. It causes people to run away.

Sure, ideas are a dime a dozen. We come up with dozens of them from sunup to sundown. Everything from "I haven't seen R--- in awhile, I think I'll email him and see when we can do lunch..." to "Maybe I could quit my job and open an [insert startup company here.]"

Believe the saying and you believe ideas are about as valuable as uncooked rice grains in the middle of the desert. In reality, we need ideas. We need to spend those dimes because we need the help!

Ideas are Communication. They're how we generate interest in other people. But how often have we brought up an idea, only to immediately hear "Let me play devil's advocate..." - and then you spend more time defending the idea instead of finding ways to make it work.

In order to cultivate ideas, we have to be knowledgeable about how they can be destroyed.

Next up: What cultivates ideas.

Don't Let Your Dreams Ruin Your Life

The New York Times has an interesting article about the film industy's recent "PitchFest" in Los Angeles. For $395.00, you, the hinterland screenwriter, have seven minutes to sell a Hollywood broker on your story. "[F]ewer than one in 10 pitches were worth following up..." cites one industry rep. Another says listening to screenwriter ideas is only "sort of invigorating." And an agent confesses "I feel like I’m on ‘American Idol,’ and I’m crushing people’s dreams..."

The article is a good companion to a letter popping up on Craigslist (I found it through the "BS Observer" blog) labeling unfair the constant practice of "paying" creative people with a "great opportunity" to show their work instead of money:

"Would you offer a neurosurgeon the “opportunity” to add your name to his resume as payment for removing that pesky tumor? (Maybe you could offer him “a few bucks” for “materials”. What a deal!)"

I link the two pieces because most of those 200 PitchFesting screenwriters have other jobs and write on their own time. All of them wrote their scripts for free - it's the industry standard, and they're called "spec scripts." Hollywood even knows your chances are miniscule - the industry constantly bemoans the sorry state of most scripts.

But there are plenty of screenwriting gurus who'll gladly take your money for a chance to sit at their feet. If you add the $395.00 PitchFest entrance fee - really $400 with today's economics - to your writing time, plus the costs of copying, computer programs like Final Draft, and contest entry fees, you start to wonder if it's worth it. Especially since the odds are you'll never see your screenplay produced.

One of my guilty TV pleasures is "America's Got Talent." I watch it for the real talents, not to laugh at the acts that bomb. The contest seems to breed many mediocre acts who claim they're pursuing their passion and doing what they love. They sink significant amounts of time and money into getting themselves just a notch above the next person; could they be using their energy to pursue other things?

Society puts enormous pressure on us to achieve great things no matter what we do - and especially when in pursuit of our dreams. There should be no fault in trying, then moving on if doesn't work out. Seth Godin's got a book which I believe is all about this. Titled The Dip, it's been the first message I've seen that says it's ok to quit when hard work isn't getting you where you want to go.

I also believe there are alternatives to full-out quitting. Pamela Slim's post titled "5 Reasons to consider downsizing your vision of an ideal life" at her blog "Escape from Cubicle Nation" contains some awesome advice that won't put your dreams on the chopping block. And wouldn't you know, Penelope Trunk addresses this same issue today in "Choose a career path that makes you scared of failure" at her blog "Brazen Careerist."


Full disclosure: I'm in the middle of "nixing" my dream to win the Best Screenplay Oscar for a number of reasons, mostly outlined in the post series "It May Not Be Your Passion If..." And I'm really delving deep into finding what other things I might be better at, that I'd really love doing.

But That's Not What We're About!

As a promotional stunt for the upcoming Simpson's movie, some 7-11 stores are now Kwik-E-Marts, Homer's version of Whole Foods.

Jeff Brooks over at Donor Power Blog thinks it's a nifty idea, one that some nonprofit organizations might learn from.

According to Jeff:

"So often, a company's brand image bull-headedly flies in the face of reality, stubbornly insisting in an ideal that's baldly untrue. That's why 7-Eleven's willingness to laugh, even at their own weakness, is so amazing. And appealing. They've actually left behind their phony brand image and joined the real conversation. Maybe they figured out that being authentic, even when it's less than flattering, is better than sticking to an irrelevant playbook... I'm waiting for a nonprofit that can do that."

Every nonprofit I've worked for has complained "people just don't understand who we really are and what we really do." Among the specific "misunderstandings" I've run across in my career:

1. Everyone thinks we're a bunch of hayseeds and hicks, when we're actually quite sophisticated!
2. People believe we want to use these strategies and tactics for punishment, when we're really working to improve interpersonal communication!
3. We're not trying to destroy the concept of parental consent - although a prominent radio personality keeps saying we are - while we're trying to get kids and parents to talk even more!
4. We're characterized as sadistic money-grubbing technicians, worse than auto mechanics, when we're more necessary for good health than anyone thinks, and we've got the research to prove how we're just like everyone else!

In fighting these perceptions, each organization has run to solutions based on external communications, while trying to work through a certain amount of anger at those who won't listen or have their idea set changed. I like the Kwik-E-Mart idea of taking what you fear is your biggest stereotype and, to use a touchy-feely concept, totally owning it.

Think of the fun when, in your marketing meeting, you fill the flipcharts with all the crazy, negative assumptions leveled against your organization. Think of the bumper stickers you could design with slogans based on your most cutting criticisms. Even if you decide not to proceed as 7-11 has done, oh what collective wisdom you'll unleash!

In each of my cases, I'd bring the following ideas to the table:

1. How about we develop a character right out of Green Acres as our spokesperson - and give him or her a sophisticated edge that even he or she doesn't quite believe or understand? Like mixing tractors and caviar?

2. What if we put our practitioners into corrections-inspired outfits. Maybe dayglo orange jumpsuits or old-time prison stripes. Could you imagine them delivering services in that getup? Would the clients get it, and even laugh?

3. Maybe we could develop a PSA that says "Yeah, we think parental consent SUCKS!" And we're shouting it to America over a bullhorn from atop a really high building. Then we end with ways parents, guardians and kids can work together to avoid the need for parental consent.

4. Could we really get outrageous and create a Web site gloryfying our most negative attributes, and then deliver the facts along with the myths - but it would be up to the site users to find the clues that we're pulling their collective legs?

Of course, there would be massive problems in getting a nonprofit to Kwik-E-Mart themselves. Mainly because:

Nonprofits almost always are in a struggle for money, and would fear spending time and energy on something that could blow up in their faces and ruin their fundraising.
Nonprofits deal with subject matter and issues that often aren't funny at all, and could be severely anxious about coming across as "making fun" of the sufferers.
Nonprofits rely on established practitioner methods and traditions to make themselves credible in a highly professional marketplace - and traditions stick with the grip of epoxy cement.

But, as Scott the Nametag Guy writes today, sometimes you have to dream up some really crazy ideas to get anywhere.

And it'll be interesting to see if anyone follows Jeff Brooks' call...
Meanwhile, there's a blog carnival all about authenticity over at Sea Change Strategies.

Nuke the Office:
10 reasons small nonprofit organizations should go virtual

1. You've probably got a good number of part-time employees, and the rest of your staff is probably traveling, so there's a bunch of space going unused right now.

2. Your rent most likely eats up a significant portion of your budget.

3. It's getting tougher and tougher to raise those unrestricted funds that go directly to rent and other on-site operating expenses.

4. Half your staff probably doesn't really get along with, and won't mind not seeing, the other half.

5. You've got no bureaucracy to support.

6. Down deep, you know there's no "exchange of ideas" among staff when they're in the office (see reasons 1 and 2 above)

7. You're already farming out most of your communications and other administrative tasks, and staff spends a large percentage of time managing vendor, member, and committee contracts, tasks, and relationships via phone, email, and off-site meetings.

8. Your bookshelves are filled with reports and monographs and books and brochures and pamphlets that: A) you never look at, and B) are probably available online by now.

9. Your decor is early 90's castoff furniture, and your artwork is either your organization's framed publications (BORING!) or IKEA posters (FLÄRKE HANNES-KRISTER!), which will impress nobody, since they've got them too.

10. You've inherited some previous organization's warren-like maze of offices, cubicles, and dead-ends that would give Mozart composer's block.

In olden days, before we could send information wirelessly ourselves, the office suite was all about communication. Letters, memos, faxes, meetings, phone calls - they all required we be physically present to generate and be answerable to communications. Today, it's even more about communication. And with cell phones, the Internet, email, overnight package delivery, we workers don't become obsolete, but the previous structure of our workplaces do. How many of us fret over the look of our Web site, but never give a second thought to our office design?

Read more about it:
What Gen Y Wants From Work at Web Worker Daily,
and
Twentysomething: Start a company in 3 days with 70 friends at Brazen Careerist.

I'll be weighing in on this issue again, with:

• The real reasons for offices.
• Answering the naysayers questions.
• What to do with the money you'll save.
• Creative ways to deal with the new markets you'll create.
• What we'll still need offices for - and why we might not.

EarPlay - 5 Alternate Titles for Your Summer Outdoor Concert Listening

The Washington Post reviewed a couple of free family concerts by the National Symphony at Carter Barron Amphitheatre. I've been to a number of these around the city, and I think they're a great idea. The Post points up some problems with outdoor concerts in general, and posits that a more tranquil setting would be a huge benefit to developing a classical music audience. I see the problem as one of conservative musical programming. I've heard the Tchaikovsky, Bernstein, Rodgers, Copland, Grofé and Williams pieces a million times. These warhorses of the summer classical repertoire, while fantastic music, are not the only thing out there. Why serve up the same old tunes all the time, when there are other works with just as much spunk, tunefulness, dynamics and fun as the well-known pieces. Here are five:

1. Le Tombeau de Couperin - Maurice Ravel
Four short, dancing movements of orchestral color: a flying, spinning Prélude, a jokey, lurking Forlane, a smooth, elegant and modern Menuet, plus a bouncing, jumping Rigaudon for a finale. A combination stairmaster, treadmill, and nautilus workout for your ears, with a stretch and water break 3/4 the way through.

2. Joyeuse marche - Emmanuel Chabrier
Marches usually don't sound like this. Instead of laying down a steady beat for the troops passing in review, Chabrier's "joyous" version is all sudden starts and stops and the beat's all over the place. Tons of fun and much too short.

3. Concerto in F - George Gershwin
Sure, Rhapsody in Blue is great. But this is better. The first movement is practically an entire concerto itself, as it goes to all kinds of places.

4. Five Tudor Portraits - Ralph Vaughan Williams
A huge work set to poems by John Skelton (1460-1529), with three truly accessible movements for a neophyte audience: The Tunning of Elinor Rumming, My Pretty Bess and Jolly Rutterkin. This one's got variety to spare, with complex rhythms and colors for chorus and orchestra. Why not couple the orchestra with one of the area's choral groups? Sure, it takes more planning, but you get much more sound. And most of these non-professional but infinitely talented groups would do it for for free.

5. Capriol Suite - Peter Warlock
More fun rhythms jammed into a relatively short amount of space and time.

Why am I passionate about this? Because more people need to listen to this stuff! I credit classical music for improve my writing, generating my ideas, blowing the cobwebs out of my brain, or even just improving a part of my day. Now before you go thinking "he's going to tell me to listen to more Mozart" I'll tell you this: I can only take so much Mozart. The music I'm talking about was (almost) all written in the 20th Century. It's got intense color, incredible movement, and spiky syncopations. I'll be posting more examples in the next week or so; some of the pieces will tell stories, and others are totally abstract. Taken together, they comprise what I would counsel anyone to listen to if they want to expand their choice of iPod downloads.

Screenwriter Secrets of Effective Storytelling!
Part II: The People

#2: Introducing the Arch Nemesis

Every story has a villain. Think of the most popular ones from the movies: Darth Vader, Hannibal Lecter, HAL, dinosaurs. They drive the story's main activity, and can set off other conflicts among the heroes. They're also really fun to write, much more so than the boring old protagonist.

That's because the main character is usually a reflection of the writer, while the villains steal all the good lines. "No, Luke. I am your father." "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti." And the granddaddy (or grandmother) of them all: "I'll get you my pretty and your little dog too!"

In telling your story, or an organization's, a customer's or a constituent's, it might be tough to flesh out the villain, however.

You might not want to name names directly. It might not be a person. It could be a disease, a force of nature, an immoral activity, or a frame of mind. Depression, tsunamis, badly-distributed resources, homophobia. If you were writing a screenplay, you'd give each of these its own personality. In telling your story, you might not have the space or time.

But you need to know exactly who and/or what your villain is. Take the time to dig down, flesh out, even describe for yourself what can vanquish its evil ways. Like a movie that tricks you into thinking you know who the villain is, in the story you're writing, you might think you know who your villain is (politicians are always the knee-jerk, fall back villains in everyone's minds), but you don't want to destroy relationships and burn bridges. And you don't want people getting the wrong idea.

You may end up with a story that doesn't specifically mention your villain, specially if your audience already knows and you're in full agreement. But knowing who or what your villain is gives you a better foundation on which to build your story. And who knows, you may even find yourself writing a screenplay based on the problems he, she or it can cause.

Nobody Ever Asked Me To:

#3: Help adolescents scale incredible heights

The young lady, a college sophomore, stood there looking up - way up - at Arnold Schwarzenegger. He shook her hand, while she shook all over. You see, she had only seen celebrities on TV or in the movies. Not live. Not like this. Never actually introduced to one of the biggest.

And I had a major role to play in that moment.

When I was hired a number of years before by a large, national youth development organization, my duties were basically entry-level management of scholarships and grants.

Little did I know that in just a few years I would be introducing a young college student to The Terminator.

See, at the start, the job was not at all exciting. But in those early days, I looked around the place, got to know some people and started understanding what the other jobs there entailed. After a couple of years I found myself part of a team which trained teens to meet with and tell their stories to high-level corporate CEOs, as well as become national role models for the entire youth program.

And it was a whole lot of fun. How? Two reasons. 1) I developed and presented the public speaking and story-telling trainings, and 2) the teens were fantastic, bright, energetic, fascinating and a joy to work with. They made our team proud, because they all consistently rose to meet the challenges we tossed their way. And they were always incredibly grateful to us for the opportunities to do some pretty amazing stuff.

Like consult with some of the biggest CEOs of corporate America. Like speak to audiences of 2000 at a time. Like play tennis against the President on the White House courts.

And meet Arnold when he was Chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness.

The youth organization recognized my efforts and rewarded me for them. Actually, no. That's not true.

The organization basically ignored that part of my job at performance review time. I got raises, but they were based on the other, more managerial parts of my job. My boss even once told me "I let you do the other things because I know you have a good time doing them." Not, I heard him intimate, because I show any aptitude for it or deliver a much-needed service to the organization.

In fact, a couple of us were criticized for what we were trying to do with these teens at the national level, as they thought it brought too much attention to ourselves. I came to realize that, if you show you're having too much fun in your job, people will resent you for it.

However, nothing, not even money, can replace my memory of that college sophomore, shaking (but smiling), looking up at Arnold that one afternoon - and the story she took back to the rest of the office.

Screenwriter Secrets of Effective Storytelling!
Part II: The People

#1: Knock Down, Drag Out

The next time you watch a movie, pay close attention to the main character. Notice how he is always on the go. How she might be sitting at a desk for just a moment, only to spring up out of his chair and leave the room. How many times have you watched a movie or tv show and asked the characters "why did you go into that room - you knew the killer was in there waiting for you!"

Something I learned in one of the screenwriting seminars I attended over the past few years: characters in movies differ from real life people in one main respect: when given the choice between "throwing a punch" or letting something pass, the character will throw the punch.

Now let's take that real life person you find you need to write about. Chances are very good that his or her life matches our own - distinctly lacking in chances to throw a punch.

That's when you have to dig a little deeper. Expand your idea of what "throwing a punch" is. Our lives, and those of our constituents, abound with actions that can be construed as a bit more dramatic, when put up against an opponent. Getting that second opinion from another doctor. Returning that latte because it's "just not right." Running for the subway train as the doors close. Asking that certain person out to lunch.

Dramatic characters are all about "wants." It's something they share with us - and why we find them so compelling. Often a story is all about a person (or character) wanting something - and going after it. That's where the essence of the story lies. In the character's want.

A teacher wanting his students to learn (or behave) - and the punches he throws to affect this change. That's compelling. A teacher working with well-behaved academic achievers? Not so compelling. That's why the end credits come when the teacher's gotten what he wants. We don't want to watch even ten minutes of non-dramatic classroom learning. That's the reason so many movie sequels fail. They really aren't sequels, they're the original movie character having to go after her want all over again.

Screenwriter Secrets of Effective Storytelling!
Part 1: The Language (continued)

#4: Ying or Yang?
Sometimes the most effective way of figuring out what something is, is to figure out what it isn't. That way, you can hone in on your subject.

However, this could hamper your storytelling.

I've often used the "negative" in describing what I see. The simplest example would be describing something at night. I might begin by saying "the room was devoid of light" or "the streetlights were all out." But I'm never satisfied with that description, because it makes the reader do too much work. And I'd rather have the reader bounce along in the story than stopping to figure things out.

So, I'll recast certain descriptions in a "positive" way. Instead of saying "devoid of light" I'll use "Darkness threatens to eat up the small square of light the moon casts on the floor." (Hey, we're talking dramatic effect here!) The "streetlights are out" segment will become "the only light on the street came from his flashlight."

Casting things in the negative stops the reader and makes him or her imagine first the alternate, which must then be removed. For "a room devoid of light" the reader must first imagine the room "with light" and then turn the lights off.

I'd much rather go ahead into the room and turn the lights off for you.

Living in DC: The Macy's Experience
I bought a new suit today, the first in many years. I bought it at the Macy's in downtown DC, after I saw online they were having a huge sale. At the store itself, Alvin (the suit salesperson) not only steered me in two seconds to the rack with my size, he suggested an alternative to the in-store tailoring. He also guided me to another Macy's employee, Lucy, who could "hook me up with the best shirt and tie combination you've ever seen. She's the best." Lucy was indeed the best - she suggested some combinations I would never have thought up, plus she paid attention to my wallet. The first shirt we looked at she dismissed. "Not on sale," she said, and then took me to the bargains. All told, I ended up spending $300.00. But that was before the extra discounts, which got me down to $200.00. Seems that today, the only thing they inflate are their Thanksgiving balloons.

Now all I need is another job interview.

Screenwriter Secrets of Effective Storytelling!
Part 1: The Language (continued)

#3 - To [adverb] or not to [adverb]
Adverbs ("The part of speech that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb") are used in screenplays, but sparingly. Used well, they can provide sparks in the reader's mind. Used badly (aka "too often") they're mud caking up on your boots. Weighing you down. Bringing "what happens next" to a halt.

Many storytellers, especially those of us seldom called upont to exercise our skills, can rely on adverbs to give extra emotional weight to the story. But what we don't realize is very often the facts of the story carry a significant amount of that weight already. Just by telling the simple, unadorned story itself, we can create the most compelling pictures in the reader's mind.

The problem with adverbs is that they dictate one way of looking at an incident, and remove the audience's ability to provide their own vision. Used heavily, adverbs limit the reader's creativity. They weigh you down.

In the "Aliens" example, there are two well-placed adverbs: blindingly and silently. And they aren't used metaphorically. They actually describe the effect on the audience's two senses - seeing and hearing.

Earlier, I said I fall into this trap too. I did in this post. In the sentence beginning "Many storytellers..." I first wrote "can rely heavily on adverbs..." When I proofed the post, I took my own advice, and deleted "heavily." And I think the sentence is all the better for it.

How Green Is My H2O
12 Ways WASA Can Help DC Break Its Bottled Water Habit - and Improve Our Plastic Container Environmental Impact

Fast Company's fascinating analysis of the bottled water phenomenon ("Message in a Bottle," July/August 2007) inspired me to come up with some more ideas for improving WASA's public outreach (see my previous post on the subject - 7 Ways to Improve a Municipal Water Report to DC Residents.)

According to Fast Company, America's water supply is "impressively safe," yet we prefer to spend billions on a substance we can get for free (or at very very very low cost), not to mention the environmental cost of all those plastic bottles.

I think this provides a great opportunity for DC's Water and Sewer Authority to take back their main product and reposition it in our lives. How to do this? Some examples:

1. Publish a "Did You Know..." series focusing on
- how much money we can save by filling our water bottles from the tap
- tips and facts about water's health benefits
- how municipal water purification is not that far removed from bottled water manufacturers' water processing systems
- why using DC's water is better than using bottled water.

2. Create a fact sheet itemizing all of WASA's benefits to DC residents (sometimes these things need to be spelled out, even the ones that can be termed "common sense.")

3. Design a snappy DC water system logo that looks less governmental.

4. Provide DC households with a free plastic gallon refrigerator water jug - prominently featuring the logo. Make the jugs, as well as reusable individual water bottles (adult and child/aquapod sizes) available to DC residents for a small fee.

5. Revamp the consumer sections of WASA's Web site to better represent the DC water "brand" and upgrade the graphics, writing style, and user information.

6. Start a DC water blog, highlighting facts, short tutorials, and breaking news around DC's water supply. Plenty of opportunities for puns here, which I won't burden anyone with at this point.

7. Develop a "Save the Water, Save the World" campaign, which encourages residents to keep track of the money saved through bypassing the purchase of bottled water, which they can then donate to charity (like WASA's S.P.L.A.S.H. Program.)

8. Conduct taste tests at community gatherings (farmer's markets, flea markets, neighborhood festival days) at a newly-upgraded WASA exhibit, which pit DC water against the top bottled water brands (and give away t-shirt sporting the new WASA logo.)

9. Create a school science curriculum showing the extensive water reclamation system and its component technologies.

10. Collaborate with DC's Department of Public Works on a program that encourages residents to lower the amount of plastic we throw away by reusing water bottles for DC tap water, and informs us on how much garbage we currently produce with bottled water.

11. Launch a "develop your taste for water campaign."

12. Combine forces with DC's Health Center on a "Water Fights Obesity" campaign that shows the positive health benefits of DC water (when combined with healthy eating and exercise.) Identify (and facilitate) some neighborhood "Jareds" (a la Subway) as spokespersons for the campaign.

***
Extra Added Attraction! Dumb Little Man offers "9 Reasons to Drink Water, and How to Form the Water Habit."

Screenwriter Secrets of Effective Storytelling!
Part 1: The Language (continued)

Off the Beaten Path
Just one more example supporting the “Level III Diagnostic” storytelling problem I describe in my previous post. In "What do you do with your blog on the weekend,” Problogger states:

“The weekend is here and I’m looking forward to some fun. You see today is my Son’s first birthday party (his actual birthday is next Friday) and we’re getting together with family and friends to celebrate his first year…”

I do this all this time, and I hear others doing it too. Even Problogger, who has an awesome site, falls into the trap. He lets us know that today is his son’s first birthday (a very cool detail), then he backtracks to tell us his son’s actual birthday is next Friday. It of course matters to him, but it doesn’t matter to us. Repeating the information breaks the story. Providing more info on the birthday (even if it's just clarifying) starts us thinking that the story's going down a different path, even though it's not.

I have a friend who does this so often while he speaks, that he often forgets the the point of his story, since he’s wandered so far off the topic. I have to tell him “go back to the original subject of your story” (that is, if I remember what it was.)

Bottom line: leaving out some details, even if they further clarify or even reveal a truth, is sometimes OK to do.

If I'm guilty of it in this post, I apologize.

Screenwriter Secrets of Effective Storytelling!
The Language (continued):
#2. Getting Stuck in a “Level III Diagnostic”

How exact do we need to be in our stories? Everyone these days deals with so much technical and highly sophisticated information. Programs, concepts, research and the like, so vital to the story, begs to be explained for the lay person (or anyone with power and little time.) What do you do when you need to include a technical term that'll take a few paragraphs to explain, but you don't want to give over that much space to it?

Give in and dumb it down a bit. Find a related concept, or an easy-to-explain item, that can stand in for the complex. You're not writing a doctoral dissertation here, right? (And if you are, stop reading and go back to work!)

Let's use Star Trek as an example. Gene Roddenberry's characters are always using “tricorders” when the set their “phasers on stun” to capture some “dilithium crystals” for the "warp drive." He was making terms up to stand for fictional scientific information that was supposedly centuries in the future. Did Captain Kirk ever stop and deliver a dissertation to the crew on proper phaser use? Of course not!

Roddenberry, in The Making of Star Trek, said that although nobody had ever heard of these things before, he wasn’t about to have a character say “We’ll meet in the Transporter room. The Transporter will disassembled our body’s atoms and shoot them down to the planet where the beam will reassemble us.” All the other characters already know that. To state it would sound unnatural. And in westerns, the gunslinger never says "let me aim my Winchester repeating action rifle, which will fire a number of deadly rounds, at the sheriff."

Roddenberry's solution? Create terms that are 1-off from what we know. He kind of “dumbed down” the future for us. That is, the Star Trek future.

Tricorder? Recorders.
Phasers? Lasers.
Dilithium? Lithium.

Lay them out and then back away.

A long description of the term "pathology" will break your story into pieces. Better to just say "disease." If you can find an image that’s 1-off from what we already know, you can cover even more ground. Don’t worry about getting every detail absolutely right. Just worry about the ones that are important - the details that move the story forward. And if someone complains? Offer to fix it the next time (yeah, I know, that's a terrible suggestion. Maybe someone else has an improved reply?)

7 Ways to Improve a Municipal Water Report to DC Residents

I just received my 2006 DC Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) Quality Report, a glossy, full color, six-page newsletter that I assume appeared in every DC household's postal mail box.

I took some time to really read my copy, instead of my usual action. Let's look at some suggestions to make it more useful:

1. Define for us some terms none of us use in our day-to-day communications. Terms like:

potable (I know what it means, but does everyone?)
free chlorine
orthophosphate
chloramines
Total Coliform

2. List some reasons we would contact you at the phone numbers listed.

3. Provide a few "watershed protection activities" that you suggest we join our neighbors in accomplishing.

4. Explain why WASA "purchases drinking water from the US Army Corps of Engineers, Washington Aqueduct" (page 2) if our "Drinking water...comes from the Potomac River" (page 1.)

5. Advise us whether or not the listed "violations" of EPA Drinking Water Standards constitute a real hazard to the DC population, and how they compare to other regions. The report contains some pretty technical details all written in federal governmentspeak.

6. Lead us through the extensive tables (pages 4 and 5.) I tried to make sense of them, but ended up drowning in data (pun intended.) Do we really need all that information right then and there, or could we make do with just a few facts, and some guidance on how to find more.

7. Explain the photo of two fire fighters spraying water at a burning house. Maybe a caption would help.

I do have a few positive comments, though. The report's layout is effective, with plenty of white space and an easy-to-read typeface. Contact information (phone numbers, offices, email addresses) appears throughout the publication, so I don't have to hunt for it. And picture use is spare but effective (although I'm still puzzling over the fire fighters - do they need potable water to fight fires?)

Overall, I think the writers and editors could learn a thing or two from Made to Stick. While they've clearly and concisely delivered half the information, WASA might find some additional methods of humanizing the document. After all, Water is Life (or so WASA states in the 2005 report.)

Screenwriter Secrets of Effective Storytelling!
What's this series about? Scroll to the end of this post for the answer...

Part 1: The Language
Screenwriters (especially unknowns) are always swimming upstream. They have two pages to grab the reader’s attention, and then not only keep it, but make sure that reader blasts from sentence to the next and one page to the next.

Screenplay readers (usually always attached to a production company) will sometimes take home a stack of scripts to read provide what’s called “coverage,” which includes whether or not to advance the screenplay to whatever the next round is. And script readers claim that the piles of scripts next to their beds are basically worthless, unreadable, and worst of all, boring!

It’s all a part of the ongoing problem we all face: attracting interest, and then maintaining it.

In order to do this, screenwriting language is simple, clear, concise, unadorned, all the things you’ve learned through school and in Strunk & White.

What does screenwriting language do? To begin with it:

I. Plants a crystal clear image in the reader’s mind
Remember the first time you saw Aliens? If it was in a packed movie house, you’ll definitely remember the audience’s reaction to this scene. I remember the audience I was in: everyone said “Oh, NO!”


It started with a crystal clear description in the script. Notice how the words, with blazing efficiency, give us the scene:

Newt, standing waist deep in the water, watches sparks shower blindingly as Hicks cuts. She bites her lip, trembling. Cold and terrified. Silently a glistening shape rises in one graceful motion from the water behind her. It stands, dripping, dwarfing her tiny form. Newt turns, sensing the movement...She SCREAMS as the shadow engulfs her.

Terry Rossio, co-writer of all three Pirates of the Caribbean flicks, says “Write what you see.”

To paraphrase for the rest of us: Write what you saw.

***

About this series: Made to Stick devotes an entire chapter to Stories. I've found that many of us a pretty good at telling stories, but not so great at writing them. I've seen organizations design pages on their Web sites, asking for story submissions, but what comes back (if anything comes back) is usually unusable.

That's where I'm stepping in. As a playwright and screenwriter (semi-produced), I've compiled all sorts of facts, methods, tools and ideas from the experts in dramatic writing. I've categorized them under three headings: The Language for Stories, The People in Stories, and The Structure of Stories. And I've taken heed of one of the methods and just started the series, without a lengthy explanation at the beginning. Here's hoping that by writing them down, I'll at least use some of these ideas when I get stuck, as often happens.

(This post's "Headline Emotional Marketing Value" score: 80%)