{"id":13089,"date":"2008-08-09T06:55:42","date_gmt":"2008-08-09T12:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/\/?p=460"},"modified":"2008-08-09T06:55:42","modified_gmt":"2008-08-09T12:55:42","slug":"ideas-in-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/ideas-in-the-air\/","title":{"rendered":"Ideas in the Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"idea_bulb

That experience got me thinking about innovation and new ideas.\u00a0 A question I frequently get asked is:\u00a0 “What if someone steals my idea?” The fact is, you cannot protect an idea.\u00a0 You can only protect the expression of the idea.\u00a0 Your unique expression or individual point of view is what makes any of your script ideas valuable or protect-able.<\/p>\n

Sometime subject matters, concepts or story ideas are just “in the air.”\u00a0 A number of similar and widely disbursed individuals can all have the same idea at once.\u00a0 Malcolm Gladwell wrote a fascinating study of how this happens in a very interesting New Yorker<\/a> article about scientific or technological achievements.<\/p>\n

The same thing can happen with script ideas.\u00a0 Several people can write very similar scripts independently and all at approximately the same time.\u00a0 Each person thinks their idea was “stolen.”<\/p>\n

I’m not saying that theft of intellectual property never occurs in Hollywood but, quite often, coincidence plays a major role.\u00a0 Your job is to make your expression of your idea so unique, so clear and so particular to your point of view that your script prevails in the marketplace.<\/p>\n

Writers have told every story there is to tell over the course of millenniums.\u00a0 There are only so many plots under the sun.\u00a0 The only thing that makes your script commercial is your unique point of view.\u00a0 That cannot be duplicated by anyone anywhere.<\/p>\n

Ron Bass<\/a>, perhaps Hollywood’s most prolific writer (and he’s a producer as well), once told me that when he is offering a writing assignment he asks a potential writer for ten pages from a sample script.\u00a0 The ten pages can be from anywhere in the script.\u00a0 He said:\u00a0 “I can teach structure, I can teach story and character development.\u00a0 But I can’t teach point of view.\u00a0 That is the writer’s unique voice.”\u00a0 He can tell in just ten pages if the writer has a passionate individual voice (or not).<\/p>\n

That’s why every script should be personal.\u00a0 Why are you the only one who can write your story?\u00a0 How is the script urgent and authentic to you?\u00a0 What drives you to write this script?\u00a0 How are you making the story yours?\u00a0 The answers to those questions add up to your unique voice.<\/p>\n

Of course, you should also register your script in the US Copyright office.\u00a0 My eBook, The One Hour Screenwriter<\/strong>, explains in detail how to do this.<\/p>\n

Registering your script at the Writers Guild (WGA) or any other script registry services does not afford any legal protection.\u00a0 It only establishes the date you wrote the script.\u00a0 You need to copyright your script to get the full protection of US law.<\/p>\n

The One Hour Screenwriter<\/strong> also explains how to draw on and use your personal experience in your writing.\u00a0 It asks a series of question which helps you discover your own authentic writer’s voice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A question I frequently get asked is: “What if someone steals my idea?” The fact is, you cannot protect an idea. You can only protect the expression of the idea. Your unique expression or individual point of view is what makes any of your script ideas valuable or protect-able.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11959,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[27,28,30,522,32,33,523,524,37,39,40,525,41,526,527,70,71],"class_list":["post-13089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-random-thoughts-pop-culture-political-movie-television-blog","tag-emotional-toolbox","tag-etb","tag-film","tag-ideas","tag-laurie-hutzler","tag-movies","tag-new-yorker","tag-ron-bass","tag-screenwriting","tag-scripts","tag-scriptwriting","tag-state-fair","tag-tv","tag-wisconsin","tag-wisconsin-state-fair","tag-writing-advice","tag-writing-tips"],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-768x576.jpg",768,576,true],"large":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"ttshowcase_normal":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",125,94,false],"ttshowcase_small":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",75,56,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",960,720,false],"Image Size 500x500":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n.jpg",500,375,false],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-300x400.jpg",300,400,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-600x450.jpg",600,450,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/30710870_10211699141895539_4496568718662303744_n-100x100.jpg",100,100,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Laurie Hutzler","author_link":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/author\/admin\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"A question I frequently get asked is: \"What if someone steals my idea?\" The fact is, you cannot protect an idea. You can only protect the expression of the idea. Your unique expression or individual point of view is what makes any of your script ideas valuable or protect-able.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13089"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/etbscreenwriting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}