Become a Professional Screenwriter

How to Become a Screenwriter

For the new people here, I’m Jason Hellerman, and I’m a screenwriter and consultant for No Film School. My journey into the world of storytelling began with a deep love for movies and a burning desire to craft compelling narratives.

I earned my Bachelor of Arts in Communications and English from Penn State University, where I developed a solid foundation for storytelling. then I went to Boston University and got my Masters of Fine Arts in Screenwriting, before moving to Los Angeles.

Over the last decade, I’ve appeared on The Black List twice, had a movie premiere at SXSW, worked with a bunch of fun directors and actors, as well as optioned and sold spec scripts.

Plus, I’ve staffed in TV!

Over the years, I’ve established myself with a portfolio spanning various genres, from drama and comedy to thrillers. I take pride in my ability to create authentic and engaging characters, and stories with unique twists and turns.

In addition to my screenwriting work, I’m passionate about helping others refine their storytelling skills.

My goal with this article is to give you an idea of the many ways you can become a professional screenwriter in Hollywood.

Internships and Entry-Level Jobs Can Lead to a Screenwriting Career

For me, learning how to become a screenwriter was a bit of an arduous process. I moved to Los Angeles after finishing graduate school, and took a few unpaid internships. I interned at Scott Free and in the Mad Men Writer’s Room.

Eventually, I got a job working at Scott Free and transitioned that into being an assistant for a major producer in Hollywood.

Is this the only way to break in? No. But what these steps can help you do is get a sense of the industry, and figure out what part of it you want to be in and why.

Those internships became a battleground where I learned a lot about the industry. But they were also a proving ground where I saw professional writers in their element.

There’s only so much you can learn in school. It’s way more important to get out in the real world. I also got to learn about how hard it was to work in the industry.

While the internships I did were unpaid, a struggle in itself, they taught me a lot about the workload I could handle, ways to budget my time, and as a result they were a graduate school unto themselves.

Spoiler alert, I did not succeed all the time.

In the beginning, I was great at tasks like getting coffee and lunches, but I had a lot to learn about Hollywood and the way writers work.

I’ll be perfectly honest, I was not a great intern at Mad Men. I was too scared to ask questions, and incredibly intimidated by the level of writers around me to make myself useful. It took me learning some hard lessons there to be good at my other internships. But that failure didn’t stop me. It actually helped me.

Luckily, I heeded those lessons and wasn’t an unpaid intern for long. I was promoted at Scott Free to a floater, and then I became the assistant to the president.

My official title went from intern to runner, to floater, to assistant, and eventually, I was a story editor. The pay always stayed pretty low.

But it was better than $0 as an intern.

So how does all that teach you how to become a screenwriter?

t helps us see that there is more to becoming a full-time writer than writing.

What exactly?

There’s pitching, there’s handling agents and managers, working with directors and producers, and even relating to fellow writers.

My internships put me into the ring with some of the most successful writers of film and television. I got to watch their habits. The way they outlined, broke story, gave feedback, and took criticism. And we still haven’t even gotten to the most valuable thing it gave me.

I made the necessary contacts to get my material read. Suddenly, I was able to get crucial feedback and a foot in the door.

Getting feedback from your Mom and best friend can be great for self-esteem, but if you want to make it in this business, you need to know what working professionals think.

Most of us don’t have access to a development executive on a daily basis, but interning in Hollywood can put you on or near their desk. You can hear how they think, learn what they love, and then apply that as you see fit to your own writing.

Screenwriting Lesson: You can be a great writer, but if you can’t navigate the business, you can never move forward.

Want to Be a Screenwriter? Write A Lot.

Look, I know this is a cop-out step, but here is why you should still listen to me:

I know a ton of people who tell me about their one amazing spec screenplay. They’ve spent years working on it. They think it’s perfect. And it might be. But what if it’s not?

Or what if it’s perfect but Disney has a competing project?

Or what if the life-rights are tangled up?

My point is this, if you want to learn how to become a screenwriter, you need to put the effort into writing and breaking screenplays. Not screenplay. It’s a hugely important difference. The effects of which are far reaching. What do I mean by that? Let me tell you more from my own story.

Shovel Buddies was the second script I ever wrote. After that, I spent a ton of time writing less successful scripts, but the more I wrote the faster I got. The more efficient, the more I learned how to cut, edit, and build character.

Sure, Shovel Buddies made the Black List and helped me become a pro, but the other scripts in between helped me book other assignments.

They proved that I had other stories inside me, that I knew how to work well with others, and that I was getting better on the page.

We can all get caught up in the idea of produced credits. They’re valuable, and if you want to advance your screenwriting career, produced credits matter.

But when you’re starting out, what you really want to do is produce quality work, develop your voice, and stay in the conversation. Why?

Because Hollywood is built on “What have you done for me lately.” You can’t rely on that spec from five years ago to keep you relevant. That’s why you have to be constantly creating. To stay on the tips of tongues and at the fore of executives minds. There are even more reasons to keep writing.

Another is that there are a lot of jobs out there. You might be closing yourself off from them without the appropriate samples. There’s no exact number of spec screenplays you should have, but I would recommend having AT LEAST one feature and two pilots to show people.

And you should have a few ideas of what you want to write next. The catch with those?

These can’t be barely finished. They HAVE TO be polished, ready, and proofed. And you have to be excited about them.

Lots of people break-in when someone asks to read their script and then passes it up the ladder. You’re not going to get passed up the ladder or win a contest with a script that’s not finished.

Screenwriting Lesson: If your first project doesn’t sell, maybe the next one will. Or the one after that. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Keep writing!

Do Professional Screenwriters Win Contests?