One thing that doesn't come up much when people discuss screenwriting is class. That is, how the process is different for those who don't have financial safety nets, or prestigious credentials, or the sort of baked-in networks that seem to come with, say, a Harvard education.

I want to acknowledge an unfortunate reality: a disproportionate number of the well-known writers working in Hollywood these days come from what I consider privileged economic backgrounds.

Now, coming from a bit more affluent background doesn't take away from a writer's talent. It doesn't mean they didn't have other pressing obstacles to overcome, or that it was easy for them.

Plus, they still have to deliver the goods. That said...I also think it's a different path when you come from a more modest background than when your dad's the head of Goldman Sachs or the director of ANIMAL HOUSE. Or when your parent is a lawyer or professor.

Class obviously isn't the only social barrier to overcome. So can a writer's racial identity, or gender or sexual identity, or their physical or psychological challenges, or their geographic location, or their age. There are a lot of ways of being an outsider.

And lots of people are working on changing this. But Hollywood is never going to be an ideal world in this regard & most people out there can't afford to sit things out & wait for a better version to arrive.

So, in the meanwhile, how can a blue collar or otherwise marginalized outsider screenwriter cope with this reality? Or better yet, how can they maybe try to turn this situation to their advantage?

As I've said before, if you're outside of the entertainment industry, I think your #1 goal isn't to sell a script. Your #1 goal is to get into rooms. Rooms with agents, or executives, or producers, or directors, or with actors & actresses.

Get into rooms, into zooms, onto phone calls. Your career won't start until this starts to happen. And even if it does happen, it still won't happen quickly.

One way of getting into these rooms is by being an assistant of some kind, or a script coordinator, or other support staff. You'll literally be working in a room in proximity with people with power. But if you're working class/an outsider, there are some difficulties.

Because these positions are usually way underpaid for LA, they have often (but not always!) been filled by younger people who have other means of support, like their families. Hopefully this is changing a little.

But also, these positions are demanding as hell (crazy hours, crazy stress) & may make it hard to keep growing as a writer, whether you have financial support or not.

You could look up 5-10 years from now & find yourself still getting underpaid & overworked to keep helping *other* writers get their work on screen. Which likely isn't what you got into this to do.

And finally, people are usually hired via recommendation & referral for these support staff gigs, meaning that it's really hard for an outsider to get one. Usually, you have to already know people, by whatever means.

I also see people talk about contests. All I'll say: I've been working for ten years & if I've encountered another working writer who broke in via a contest, I don't know about it. & I personally have no experience w/ them. So I can't talk about that path.

Another way of getting into these rooms & making these connections is by writing a script that gets someone's attention. That's how I did it. Easier said than done. And even as a blue collar outsider, I did have some advantages that not everyone is gonna have.

I was living in Seattle, at age 35, when a writer friend who I'd been buddies with for ten years got staffed for a TV show. Inspired by this, I wrote an original pilot for a show I invented, called TANGLE EYE. My buddy passed my script to his agents & vouched for me.

The agents read my script & responded positively. They called & offered to rep me. I agreed. They set up a week & a half of meetings in LA by passing around the script & introducing me as an original new writer on the scene.

I flew down, took the week & a half of meetings  --  mostly with executives & producers -- & long story short, it went well enough to start my career. Yay. Great for me. This is where I pivot to stuff that might be relevant to others:

I think the most notable thing I learned was this: although the generally very nice & interesting people in these Hollywood rooms may have met with me because they liked my script (or maybe they just liked my agents), what they really wanted to talk about was me, & my life story.

So if I have any big insight to offer here, it's this: once I got into these rooms, the very things that had kept me out of these rooms were what made me interesting to these Hollywood folks, once I finally did get into these rooms. This surprised me.

Now, if you're an outsider wanting to break into Hollywood as a writer, I have bad news: if you don't have a personal connection like I did with my one buddy, it's going to be ridiculously hard for you to get into these rooms. And that truly sucks.

Hollywood is not a meritocracy. People say things like "the cream rises to the top," but what they don't say is that you usually have to be born in the bucket of milk first. Or at least have ready access to it.

But, if you weren't born with money & connections, & you're on the outside of things, you've still got to figure out how to get your script into peoples' hands anyway. How ? I don't know. And that also sucks. And I'm truly sorry.

But the flip side: *if* you can get into these rooms as an outsider, you're going to have strengths that all of the nicely-polished young Ivy League types won't have. Authenticity. Specificity. Maybe novelty. Plus, if you're good, you'll have a unique voice and/or point of view.

Kind of common sense. But here's my small Yakov Smirnoff type twist: as an outsider just breaking in, your script needs to help sell *you*. In my first initial industry meetings, I was actually selling myself more than I was selling my script. I just didn't realize it at first.

But once I started taking my first meetings, I started realizing that my new agents, in their wisdom, definitely knew this because they had drummed up industry interest in me by presenting a dramatic condensed version of my life story.

That I was born in the Ozarks to a teenage mother. That my biological father spent most of his life in prison. That I grew up in trailer parks. That my parents worked as janitors. That I worked in a pickle factory after graduating high school.

That I discovered books in community college & found out that I had a gift for writing & then paid my own way through fifteen years of school until I got a Ph.D. in English. That I developed into a pretty successful poet, with my first book winning a national literary award.

All of this was true. And it got some people intrigued enough to read my script & maybe get interested in me. Now, this was all basically a condensed, self-flattering version of my life story. But I truly think it really, really helped me get into these rooms.

So, I was lucky to have gotten lucky to get connected w/ very smart, savvy agents right at the start of my career. (They're still my agents.) & these agents sensed that my life story could be told as a condensed, somewhat intriguing little fable. Maybe yours can as well...

Luckily for me, my pilot script paired well with that little life fable. My pilot was a sort of modern day Clint Eastwood western set mostly in the small town I grew up in, near an Indian Reservation.

Almost all of the locations and many of the characters were based on my blue collar upbringing. Plus, there was an elevated language to the writing that reflected my poet's sensibility.

So what I lucked into doing was this: my life story & my script complemented each other. I didn't have the usual everyday Hollywood background. My script reflected that in its sensibility, voice, subject matter. The whole package made sense together. It made me stand out.

How did this help my career? First of all, it positioned me as someone who could authentically write about rural & blue collar America. My script wasn't a pastiche of other crime films. It had personal stakes & specificity. That gave me an identity that's served me well.

Secondly, the fusion of my life story with my script suggested to those that I met with that I had a definable niche. Maybe even, to use a non-artsy term, a brand. "Blue collar poet, maybe." Or "thoughtful white trash."

How did this help? Practically speaking, this meant if executives or producers ended up liking me or my writing, I was now someone they could reach out to if they had a blue collar novel or article or some other property they wanted to adapt.

And at the start of my career, it was actually incredibly useful to be put into a blue-collar type box. Because as I've noted elsewhere, chances are, no matter how great your break-in script is, you'll probably never sell it. (I sure didn't sell mine.)

But a great initial script *can* get you into rooms with people who *might* pay you to write the stuff they actually want written: the adaptation of some intellectual property that they control. Or an episode of some TV show they produce that just got the green light.

But for that to happen, these people in these rooms have to get invested in *you*. There's not really a big market for original material in Hollywood. But, there is a perpetual market for original voices.

Or more exactly, for cheap original voices. So if you're going to break in & start a career, chances are you'll start off as one of these cheap original voices hired to staff a show or adapt a property. But first you have to demonstrate a voice that's actually original.

I never got TANGLE EYE, my original pilot, made, & I never got paid for writing it. But it did open up a very specific set of doors for me. I was hired for LONGMIRE -- a blue collar show set in a similar world as my pilot -- & I wrote & produced for that show for five seasons.

I also got paid for developing blue collar crime shows set in Texas & the Missouri Ozarks for different TV studios. I wrote & sold a blue collar sports movie script & got paid to write a blue collar bare knuckle boxing script.

While I was staffing on LONGMIRE, I wrote (on spec) & sold & eventually showran a series called DAMNATION, which had -- you guessed it -- a blue collar sensibility as a dustbowl western set in Iowa during the 1930s.

Ten years later, I'm largely still in my blue collar box. Luckily, I'm really happy about it, because it's still the shit that I like to write. Each blue collar gig has led to the next, & it all started with TANGLE EYE & my outsider life-story.

So my advice, derived from the limits of my own experience: if you consider yourself an outsider, when you're choosing your story for your "breaking in" script, think about how that script might connect with whatever makes you an outsider.

Also, think about what genre you want to get paid to write. If you had to pick a lane, what would it be? Then consider combining your background w/ that genre. & genre can mean not just horror or crime, but romantic comedy, or prestige period film, or weirdo hipster TV.

So if you're a black woman working at a Walmart in Oklahoma who really loves horror movies & wants to get paid to write them, I'd suggest writing the horror script only you can write, drawing on life experiences & insights unique to you.

Maybe your protagonist looks like you. Maybe she doesn't. Maybe your outsider-status comes through more in your voice, or your humor, or where you choose to set the story. Whatever it is, it might give your script a rare specificity & authenticity.

And maybe just as importantly, maybe it'll fuse with your life story -- your own little self-myth -- to give you a unique identity.

Because unfortunately, just being good enough won't be good enough. The children of privilege still have all the connections, money, & time. You'll need something different, something that these Hollywood people in these Hollywood rooms can grasp & use going forward.

If you're trying to break in by writing a script that chases the newest trends, I'd reconsider that approach. As an outsider wanting to break in, chances are, you won't be able to chase trends or replicate fads as well as these insiders.

They'll get their scripts into hands more quickly than you will, anyway. Your version of EUPHORIA or OZARK will feel like old news once it lands on someone's desk.

My advice, based strictly on my experience, is to not even try to chase trends. I broke in by writing a modern day Clint Eastwood Western set in my hometown. Yes, that meant that a lot of execs didn't even consider my script -- who gives a shit about westerns in 2011?

But some of those exec & producers that *did* read my script responded to my voice & sensibility & apparent authenticity. And here's the key thing: those were the qualities they were really shopping for anyway.

My TANGLE EYE script was just the pretext for us to meet. As an outsider, my breaking-in script actually functioned more like a cover letter than as a blueprint for something to be filmed. I didn't write it with that in mind. But practically, that's how it functioned.

All my script did was give these people in these rooms a sense of what I could maybe do for them. Because that's what 90% of the people I met were really interested in: not in TANGLE EYE, but whether the person who wrote TANGLE EYE could write something for *them*.

Some good news: I think producers & execs love to tell their colleagues that they have some promising writer with real authenticity working on a project for them. And the Harvard educated nephew of a Fox studio exec usually can't offer that. But as an outsider, maybe you can.

You still have to deliver the goods in your script, & you have to somehow get your script into peoples' hands, but: why not use your outsider status to your advantage?

So, my advice for a screenwriting outsider is to ask yourself three questions: 1) what kind of scripts do you want to be paid to write? 2) what interesting life experiences or point of view do you bring to the table? 3) how can you merge these together in an exciting way?

For me, I was able to fuse my love of westerns with my blue collar small town life experiences & wrap it all up in my sort of poet's sensibility. All of that gave me a clear, understandable identity as a writer at the beginning of my career when I most needed one.

Maybe this sounds like exploiting yourself. Or monetizing your trauma or whatever. That's your call. I'm not telling you it's what you absolutely have to do. It's just a possible approach based on my own experiences. And one, perhaps, uniquely fit for the non-connected outsider.

But I will say: don't try to package yourself cynically or falsely, because it'll show. Honestly try to merge your background with a genre or type of story that you sincerely love. A lack of passion will kill your script.

Also: Hollywood insiders are relentlessly leveraging their insider status. Without a shred of guilt. Why not leverage your outsider status in return? Why not offer the industry something the insiders by definition *can't* offer? Instead of playing their game w/ fewer resources?

Doing this isn't without risks. Leaning into your outsider-ness might get you a low score with some contest or have you be set aside by some readers. But remember, your goal isn't to get a good score from some script reading service, or to get a thumbs up from your buddies.

Your goal is to get into rooms & get paid to write scripts. As an outsider, if you get 100 out of 100 industry people to agree that yr script is professional quality, chances are, nothing will happen. You don't have the connections or the safety net for just being good enough.

But if you can get 2-3 of those industry people to absolutely *love* your script & its original POV, & then you can get them invested in the story of *you*, then it doesn't matter what the other 97 readers think, & you might have a chance of getting paid to write scripts.

At the start of your career, you're not selling a script. You're selling yourself and your voice and your point of view. So figure out the true myth about your life as a self-made screenwriting outsider & consider letting your script double-down on that.

Intentionally or not, as far as I can tell, that's what Tarantino & Diablo Cody & Taylor Sheridan & Lena Waithe all did on their unique paths as uniquely gifted writers. And without really realizing that I was even doing it, it seems like that's what I did, too.

Maybe if other paths are failing you, this could be a method to try as a self-made screenwriting outsider. I hope it works for some of you because I know I'd sure as hell love to see more movies & TV shows written by blue collar underdogs & other outsiders than I'm seeing now.

And if you want to hear another version of these many many points, I did a video that basically covers the above but goes into (believe it or not) a little more detail: