Hi Scott-I remember you mentioning that you’ve worked with writing partners as well as on your own.
My questions is, say you’ve written with a partner for several years, developing a few projects, but have since decided to break out on your own, what becomes of those writing partners projects?
Do you continue to rewrite and develop them with an understanding there will be no future collaborations? Abandon them? Just not sure how the post break up part works, especially if you still really like the projects you worked on.
It depends upon what the nature of your relationship is with your ex-writing partner. If it’s cordial, then see if you can pull together some sort of legal agreement specifying what each of you would get in terms of percentages in the event either of you sell (individually) a script you have worked on in the past.
If your relationship is not so cordial, that could be problematic. The last thing you want is to sell a script to Hollywood, then have the whole thing fouled by your ex-partner’s claim to a portion of the script’s underlying rights.
So if you can’t get your ex to sign on to some sort of legal agreement, you may have to walk away from those projects.
Life is short. You don’t want that drama.
One other thing: If this had happened after you had been working as writers in Hollywood, do you know how much you could use any of the previous scripts you had written with your partner as writing samples for yourself? You couldn’t. No matter if you swore you wrote 99% of a script, the perspective of an agent, producer, or exec would be as long as you and your partner’s name was on the title page, that script would be considered co-written.
That’s what happened to me after Siegel & Myers ended. I had to start from scratch. In fact, the very first movie writing gig I got with my second writing partner was literally for WGA minimum, less than half my previous quote.
All the more reason to write solo. And here’s another reason:
100% divided by 1 = 100%.
That means whatever money you generate as a solo writer is all yours. When you figure in agent, manager, lawyer, business manager, and Guild dues, that is not an insubstantial consideration.
GITS readers, feel free to weigh in with your thoughts. And just generally about the pros and cons of working with a writing partner.
I write with other people strictly on a project by project basis and have no writing partner, but it seems like you could continue rewriting with them as long as it's amicable.
Any sales would have to be negotiated between the two of you and clearly you should write a contract that deals with any projects you currently have.
But there's no need to abandon good projects.
I almost used a partner on my current screenplay. He's a writer with an optioned script and really hilarious. We're friends and I figured he could add the funny to my drama and plot. Then I came across a passage in Lew Hunter's book ( I know I talk about him a lot, but it's the only book on actual screenwriting I've read) and it said something to the effect of "Avoid having a co-author as much as possible."
He found it complicated friendships and trust became a major factor.
I've decided instead to have my good friend help me edit. Seems more safe that way.
Hey Scott, I'm curious what's your take on this…
I've written a few scripts on my own but recently, an assistant friend of mine came to me with a story concept. He had the seed and now I'm doing all the heavy lifting; cracking the story and then writing it. We worked out the terms, which I don't know are even correct, but they would be shared story credit and I would get solo 'screenplay by'.
Theoretically, if this thing ever sold, how would this affect future work for me? Does it matter if it's shared story credit or do producer / agents just care about the "screenplay by"?
My aspiration is to work solo.
@Chris: Shared story by credit isn't an issue as you are right — they only really care about "screenplay by" credit.
BTW you can come up with any sort of agreement you want re who gets what writing credit, but if the project sells and as is usually the case there are multiple writers involved in it, while the producers can suggest who they think deserve story credit, that determination is officially reserved to the WGA (if there is a dispute).
In the case of your friend, that doesn't matter in terms of money as your agreement will extend to the original contract and he would get shared story by money. But neither of you is guaranteed a credit which is something you should understand going in.
Thanks, Scott!
Hey Scott — What about the opposite of your post? Say someone sells a script as a solo writer and later on decides there's a project that for whatever reason would be made better by bringing on a second writer to work with them. Would the quote for the two writers increase, decrease or stay the same relative to if the script had just been written by the one writer?