A Letter from Jack London On What Matters to Writers
It’s not prose, grammar, or spelling
I write here about my first novel, published now nearly a half century ago!
My newest, Deadpan, is now in print. It can be ordered from its courageous publisher Heresy Press.
I don’t mind a bit if you review it you review when it shows up on Amazon, share news regarding its release with pals on social media, and tag my accounts (@RichardWalterUCLA (FB) and @RichardWalterUC (X).
All those decades ago, even more naïve and foolish than I am today, I wrote an eight-page treatment for a screenplay called Barry and the Persuasions, an adolescent coming-of-age, loss-of-innocence, rite-of-passage movie set in New York City in the late ’50s, loosely based on my experiences singing doo-wop in an a cappella street choir with several pals. I say ‘naïve and foolish’ because writing treatments is, as I argue elsewhere, a loser’s game. Screenwriters should not orally pitch their tales, nor should they write treatments.
Screenwriters should write screenplays.
Dorothy Parker famously said that Hollywood is the one place on earth where you could die of encouragement. I peddled the script to agents and producers across the town and won tons of encouragement from, among many others, Steve…
