The Great Query Blitz

I've been going through my Screenwriter's Marketplace book and I've been finding a ton of producers and agencies to send my query letters out to. They say that only a small fraction of queries get replies, and of those, even fewer with a positive response so I think by sending out a crapload of them, I'm upping my chances.

Of course that's lottery mentality, it's really important to have a strong logline and query letter. In my last post I put up the logline for NO REFUGE and thanks to the help of an anonymous commentator that has a great deal of insight and advice regarding loglines it has since morphed into this:

"After accidentally killing his best friend, a small-town popular teen makes a deal with the cops to set up his troublemaking friends. This leads to him uncovering a dark secret: the cops have been appeasing a group of cannibals with the town's undesirables"

Which tells way more of what the story is actually about. I think my problem was that I was basing my loglines off of blurbs when you press the info button on your cable box as opposed to a detailed, albeit brief, line about what the work is exactly about.

Of course this is still a work in progress logline and I'm always open to new suggestions. It's funny having to sum up 117 pages into two sentences and having them make sense, but I think I've finally got it here. I think.

Regardless, my list is up to over forty places and I'm not even halfway through the alphabet, so that's a good sign. These are all places that are interested in new people and horror features. I have a separate list going for my romantic comedy, but I think I'll just focus on NO REFUGE for now. Hopefully if one place likes it they'll be interested in my other work as well. I may even have a chance to break out my noir thriller PERFECT ENDING, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I've also been receiving e-mails from readers and that's really motivating. It's nice to know people are in the same situation as me. I'm always up for reading people's screenplays and having mine read, so please shoot me an e-mail if you'd like to talk, my address is on the side.

I'll post again once the letters start flying - and I'll also be posting some of my thought process as I work on the outline for my new screenplay: a traditional ghost story, sans gore. Should be fun.

Up and Running (and post #50!)

Hard to believe I've made 50 posts here - guess I wrote a little more than I thought. At any rate I have two versions of a query letter and a whole lot of determination at this point. My first version is the quick "here's the logline, here's my name, kthx" while the other has a small synopsis and a little bit about me. After much debate, changes, alterations, cursing and whatnot I decided to run with the logline as so:

"Strange things are happening in the picturesque town of Pine Falls—the local trouble making teens are going missing and showing up dead."

So - we've got a perfect town in which teenagers are getting killed... little bit of conspiracy? How are the teens troublemakers? Who's behind it all? Strange indeed. Hopefully that will be enough to entice some agents and/or production companies to want to read the entire thing and fall in love with it. Or something.

I ordered the 2009 Screenwriter's and Playwright's Marketplace so I can look up some contact info for people that might be interested in my screenplays. My romantic comedy is good to go as well in case they want to look at more of my work, so I got that going for me.

While waiting for the book to come in I've taken it upon myself to submit to three different places I've found through google the production companies Paradiso Picture, Newlove Films, and the agents of Greyline Entertainment. I did not see them on any of the "beware" lists I checked and I always get a little antsy, haha.

The wheels are in motion, I just have to keep going. Consequently if any production companies or agencies are reading this, feel free to shoot me a line!