Am I too old to become a screenwriter?

Advice from a TV writer/Showrunner

I have an answer for this, but first a story.

When I was in college, I had every part-time job you could get. I valet parked cars, I delivered pizza, I sold t-shirts, I was a grill cook.

I did everything but my homework.

But the smart kids didn’t have these kinds of jobs.

They had jobs working at the library and the dining hall checking student IDs. The work they did was so mindless, they could do it while reading a textbook. And that’s what they did.

Essentially, they got paid to be students.

My job was harder, and certainly more fun. And I probably got paid more.

But again, I was getting paid to work my ass off. They were getting paid to learn.

After I got out of college, I moved to LA to become a screenwriter. Knowing next to nothing about screenwriting, I took some classes. But I also knew that in order to get really good, I had to write.

A lot.

Photo by Danie Franco on Unsplash

That meant finding the equivalent of a student ID checking job. One were I would basically get paid to write.

Get Paid to Write

I found a job where I was working for these two showrunners as their assistant. I was hired to answer their phones, but the phones never rang, so I just used that time to bang out spec script after spec script.

I was getting paid $400 a week. Even back then, that was barely enough to live on. I lived in a dingy apartment, slept on a futon, and used milk crates as furniture.

But again, I was getting paid to write.

Because of this shitty job, I could ask my bosses questions about the craft and business of writing. (Questions that I now answer on this Substack.)

I was also making the connections in the industry that I would later need.

At night, on weekends, and on holidays, my writing partner and I met to write scripts. Because I was young and energetic and had no other family obligations, I was able to do this. I was able to devote myself 100% to learning my craft.

If you’re older. You already have a career. You probably have family obligations. And you’re probably not willing to sleep on a shitty futon stuffed with rocks.

Are you willing to make the sacrifices I made? Probably not, and I don’t blame you one bit.

But you have advantages that I didn’t have

First of all, you have something young people don’t have: access to a lifetime of experiences.

Write about them truthfully and authentically.

Get it out of your head that in order to be a writer, you have to make shit up. Forget about world building. Just steal from yourself!

Start by writing true, short stories from your life. Focus your energy not on creating characters, but on unpacking the details of your story.

In other words, “What’s the most engaging way to tell this story?”

You may wind up writing three completely different versions of this story. All of them are true. But one version will be more engaging than the others.

(If you want inspiration or clarification, read my collection of true short stories, A Paper Orchestra. Not only did it become a bestseller, but Vulture named it “Best Comedy Books of 2024.”

Write your own version of this.

When you have 15-20 stories, choose the story that’s the most visual and has the most potential to sustain 90 minutes, and turn that into a movie script. There are a handful of stories in my book that have this potential.

Then start showing it to people. If you follow this process, write truthfully and authentically, your work will be far better received than the stuff you make up.

It’ll probably take years to do this. And it’s supposed to. You’re old enough to know that nothing worthwhile happens overnight.

Again, this is something that young people can NOT do, because they don’t have the life experiences to draw from. This is your strategic advantage.

If you want to beat the kids, stop “world building” and start stealing from yourself.

Once you have a script like this in your hands, then you can start doing all the other things that I recommend people do to break into Hollywood… regardless of age.

If you’re a paid subscriber to my Substack, you have access to all these articles in my archives. Read them. They’re waiting for you!

If you’re not a paid subscriber, then what the hell are you waiting for?