The Shorter the Better

Jonathan O'Brien

How Writing, Producing, and Marketing Your Short Film Will Better Prepare You To Write Your Feature-Length Screenplay

Thursday, May 13, 7 pm*
*Come early to join in interactive discussion, get to know each other, and network with local talent. The speaker presentation will start around 7:30 pm
Downtown Borders (Upstairs)
900 State Street
(805)899-3668
FREE and open to everyone!

Jonathan OBrien is a UCLA film school graduate, a former network program executive, creator and former co-host of NPR's Beyond Words, a former juvenile hall writing instructor, and currently an ever-popular adjunct screenwriting instructor at SBCC. He has combined 35 years of diverse creative experiences with his passion for teaching to create his groundbreaking program design method resulting in nonprofits winning more than $385 million in competitive grant money. One of his educational program designs is permanently enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution. Two of the charter schools he helped to create are in the top 100 Charter Schools in the nation according to the America's Best High Schools analysis as reported by US News and World Report.

April 8th Meeting Minutes

Paul Levine, entertainment lawyer and literary agent, spoke on the topic of “Legal and Business Aspects on Writing Books and Scripts” to a packed third floor crowd at the April 8, 2010 Screenwriters Association of Santa Barbara that took place at Borders Bookstore on State Street.

Mr. Levine shared with the audience how his trek to Los Angeles, in 1978, came about by way of York University (Toronto, Canada) and family responsibilities. He is an entertainment law attorney who mainly represents book authors and journalists.

Very important in his negotiations on behalf of writers is this guiding principle: Retain all rights that the book publisher doesn’t exploit. If the publisher is going to exploit the right, sell it to the publisher. If they’re not going to exploit it, retain for yourself. This way, for example, later down the line, you retain the rights for technology that may not exist now, but possibly could later down the line.

Another topic addressed for writers was how to go from fingers to keyboard to money, in regards to advances and royalties. Some publishers pay no advances, most pay small-to-medium advances, while top tier authors and celebrities like presidents are paid huge advances. The only time an author wouldn’t get to keep that advance is when the product isn’t delivered. Royalty payments to the author come into play after enough books have been sold to cover the advance against royalties, which the author has already received. In general, the book business operates on a fifty percent margin. If a book sells for $14.00, a retailer will pay a publisher fifty percent of what list price is (in this case, $7.50.) Also, he pointed out that reviewers don’t review soft cover books. So if you want your book reviewed, thus garnering more public interest, publish it in hard cover first. Also, libraries only buy hardcover books. Of the 17,000 or so libraries in this country alone, he said, most of those will buy at least one copy of the hardcover when it comes out, a great boost to book sales.

As a writer, he says that it’s very important to form critique groups to obtain constructive criticism from people who could care less about your ego. Your friends and family are great, but they generally just stroke the ego of a writer. Honest feedback is what a writer needs.

A suggestion for first time writers who have a book being published is to hire your own publicist. Also, a good reference book in searching for an agent is Guide to Literary Agents, which provides agent names, contact information and ways in which the agents preferred to be queried. The purpose of a query is to get the recipient to ask for more. So begin by giving them what they want to receive. Mr. Levine says he personally looks at a submission and considers: “Can I sell it?” not “Do I love it?” and “Do I know enough buyers who are going to want to buy it?” If the answer to either of these are no, he won’t take it on.

Some interesting statistics: According to Mr. Levine, seventy percent of all fiction books sold are romances. Eighty percent of all books are bought by women, generally annually between November 15 and December 26. If men do buy books, the majority of them are sports biographies and car books. The biggest sellers of nonfiction are “How to” and “Self help” type books.

In answer to the question “Should a writer write what is ‘trendy’ at the time?” Mr. Levine does not think so. He pointed out that by the time your book is ready to publish, more than likely that trend will have changed.

Another question was “Is it good for a writer to enter contests?” He suggests the writer consider the quality of the contest and not to enter just for quantity of submissions. If you can say you’ve won a prestigious competition, this could be a great asset to your writing resume.

As the meeting concluded and the Santa Barbara writers in attendance scattered into the night, one woman was heard to remark: “I learned a lot tonight.” Yet another enlightening, entertaining and insightful meeting of the Screenwriters Association of Santa Barbara!

Respectfully submitted by Association secretary, Danielle Greene.

Legal and Business Aspects of Writing Books and Scripts

Screenwriters Association of Santa Barbara Presents

Entertainment Lawyer & Literary Agent

Paul Levine

Thursday, April 8, 7 pm*
*Come a half hour before our usual time (7:30 pm) to join in interactive discussion, get to know each other, and network with local talent.
Downtown Borders (Upstairs)
900 State Street
(805)899-3668
FREE and open to everyone!

With over a quarter of a century of legal experience, Paul S. Levine began handling entertainment transactions and litigation directly out of law school. Now, through his private law practice, he represents a diverse clientele ranging from individual “creatives” to large production houses, in a wide range of media, including: film, television, music, visual arts, and book publishing.

Levine is one of the few lawyers on the West Coast who specializes in book publishing. As such, he offers comprehensive literary legal services and acts as a literary agent. He particularly enjoys assisting screenwriters who wish to adapt books into screenplays, as well as “reversing the process” by working with writers who have “reverse-adapted” their screenplays into books, helping them sell their novels to publishers, and finally selling the “movie rights” to those novels, along with their screenplays, to “Hollywood”.

Meeting minutes for Thursday, March 11, 2010

The meeting began at 7:25 p.m. with Lisa Angle, the association’s ‘PR Czar’, welcoming the attendees. General announcements were made in regards to the groups Twitter and Facebook Groups.

Rashi Bahri, the association’s president, was introduced and she then introduced the other officers of the association.

The evening’s speaker, Mary Rose Betten, a retired character actress, poet and playwright was then introduced. She was here to speak about humanity; how to work with the best of you.

“Look around you. Don’t wait. What are these things you know, that you see about other people? Be faithful to that. Do you really watch people? Do you watch how they react? In writing, you want to really capture a character. Anger isn’t interesting. Come back to humor. Begin to look for the goodness in things. This is where you’re really going to find humor. Open your humanity to really see other people. Living in the goodness of yourself. Humor is a condition most natural to childhood.

The four elements of humor are: surprise, reverse logic, exaggeration and conflict.

How can you bring humor into your life? Get the ‘room tone’. Feel the writing in the air. When you see somebody, see if you can get the room tone of them.”

As an exercise at the meeting, the attendees were invited to ‘go back’ to find comedy. The two options were:

Go back to when you were fourteen years old. Eighth grade going into high school? Go back for that feeling. Or look at the 1949 picture of the young teen girls provided. Go back to the feeling from that time or the picture. Who was your hero when you were fourteen? Write what comes from that feeling of those characters.

Take the short story about a priest and a prostitute provided to set the stage. What happens next? Write what comes from that feeling of those characters.

“Look into all these characters. When you are a writer, you can really keep going. Nowadays we don’t make the time to get to know people. Take the time to get to know these characters. If you begin to care, you’ll get to get insights that were never there before. If we care enough, we will see things other people don’t see and that will fascinate people.”

The attendees wrote for five minutes. At the end, Mary Rose invited attendees to volunteer to read their work. Brief examples were read and enjoyed by the group.

The meeting concluded at 8:30 p.m.

Respectfully submitted by Danielle Greene, Association Secretary

Writing Comedic Dialogue with Mary Rose Betten

Screenwriters Association
of Santa Barbara

Presents Actress & Playwright

Mary Rose Betten

"Writing Comedic Dialogue"

Thursday, March 11, 7 pm*
*Come a half hour before our usual time (7:30 pm) to join in interactive discussion, get to know each other, and network with local talent.
FREE and Open to Everyone
Downtown Borders (Upstairs)
900 State Street
(805)899-3668
Email Us

Please bring a pen, paper and something to write on. Mary Rose will provide us with an optional writing prompt and give a few minutes for writing, then those who wish can share what they’ve written.

Mary Rose Betten is a retired character actress, poet, and playwright. She studied with the Los Angeles Playwrights at The Mark Taper with the late, Oliver Hailey. Her published and produced plays include: Mary M., A Visit with the Magdalene, People Of The Passion, Hildegarde 2000, Is Anybody Home? and she co-wrote The Bar Off Melrose, produced at The Melrose Theatre, published by Samuel French. Recently she was commissioned to write Holocaust theatre and after extensive research wrote and directed, Becoming Alleluia, available for purchase on DVD.

As a character actress she appeared on stage, screen and television and won three Clio awards for her comedic appearances in television commercials. As a stand up comic she was introduced as a new comedienne appearing at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas by the Dean Martin Comedy Hour, and went on to appear on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, The Mike Douglas Show and The Merv Griffin Show and starred as a stand up comic on the Playboy Club Circuit.

At Ghost Ranch in New Mexico she serves on the faculty of “A Room Of Her Own,” for women artists and writers where she was a recipient of a scholarship to their original retreat in 2001. She teaches in Perie Longo’s Santa Barbara Poetry Workshop and with her husband, Dr. Patrick Mitchell, gives workshops on spirituality and the arts.

*Also this month we'll have a special give-away. And, as always, samples from the Borders cafe.

Meeting minutes for Thursday, February 11, 2010

By Chuck Kent

A large crowd of fans gathered at Borders Books for the monthly meeting of the Screenwriters Association to share a delightful evening of poetry readings and commentary by David Starkey, who directs the creative writing program at Santa Barbara City College and is Santa Barbara’s current Poet Laureate. He’s also the author of two textbooks: Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief and Poetry Writing: Theme and Variations.

He also hosts a popular local television show, The Creative Community, in which he interviews a wide variety of writers and artists. Lisa Angle, who works on that television show with him, presided over the meeting and introduced David to the crowd.

David read a selection of new poetry he’s recently written as well as selections from his published books, which include Starkey’s Book of States, Adventures of the Minor Poet, Ways of Being Dead. David Starkey’s Greatest Hits and Fear of Everything.

David answered questions and interacted easily and humorously with his assembled fans, making for a fun evening, at the end of which he signed books and visited individually with fellow writers.

Lisa announced that on March 11^th our guest speaker will be funny actress Mary Rose Betten who will interact with attendees about "Writing Comedic Dialogue."

Borders Books, our monthly host at 900 State Street for about the eighth year, provides the Screenwriters Association with a great meeting space upstairs on the second Thursday of each month at 7 pm, and supplies free coffee and bakery snacks. The public is always invited for no charge.

Evening of Poetry with David Starkey

Screenwriters Association
of Santa Barbara

Presents an evening of poetry with Santa Barbara Poet Laureate

David Starkey

"Poems About Writing & Reading"

Thursday, February 11, 7 pm*
*Come a half hour before our usual time (7:30 pm) to join in interactive discussion, get to know each other, and network with local talent.
FREE and open to the public
Downtown Borders (Upstairs)
900 State Street
(805)899-3668
Email Us

David Starkey directs the creative writing program at Santa Barbara City College. Among his poetry collections are Starkey's Book of States (Boson Books, 2007), Adventures of the Minor Poet (Artamo Press, 2007), Ways of Being Dead: New and Selected Poems (Artamo, 2006), David Starkey's Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2002) and Fear of Everything, winner of Palanquin Press's Spring 2000 chapbook contest. A Few Things You Should Know about the Weasel will be published by the Canadian press Biblioasis this year. Over the past twenty years he has published more than 400 poems in literary journals such as American Scholar, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Cutbank, Faultline, Greensboro Review, The Journal, Massachusetts Review, Mid-American Review, Nebraska Review, Notre Dame Review, Poet Lore, Poetry East, South Dakota Review, Southern Humanities Review, Southern Poetry Review, Sycamore Review, Texas Review, and Wormwood Review. He has also written two textbooks: Creative Writing: Four Genres in Brief (Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008) and Poetry Writing: Theme and Variations (McGraw-Hill, 1999). With Paul Willis, he co-edited In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare (Iowa, 2005), and he is the editor of Living Blue in the Red States (Nebraska, 2007). Keywords in Creative Writing, which he co-authored with the late Wendy Bishop, was published in 2006 by Utah State University Press.


Santa Barbara Poet Laureate David Starkey reads his inaugural poem at his installation at City Hall on April 7, 2009.