5 Questions with Screenwriter Thomas Grigg

We're thrilled to congratulate one of our favorite screenwriters, Thomas Grigg!  While visiting California from London this week, he just secured a literary manager in Hollywood!  He's now represented by Heretic  Literary Management.  Thomas was a finalist in our Screenwriting Fellowship competition last year and he's been a longtime client of our Consulting Service.  Aside from chatting about his birthday excursion with llamas in England, we had some salient questions about his emerging career thus far.  We expect great things from this writer!  You heard about him here first, folks!

1. You live in London and you just landed a literary manager in Los Angeles.  How did you do it?  What was the process like? 

I think the easiest way to answer that is to say it's not a process, it's many processes. I did the standard sending out query letters. I entered competitions and I even attended a pitch fest. Oddly, for me. the way I found my manager was by keeping an eye on the tracking boards, seeing he had a new company and contacting him directly. ScreenCraft wrote a great recommendation and sure enough, the manager invited me to come in for a meeting! ScreenCraft has always been great champions of my work ever since I requested development notes from them last year.  I've also flown out to LA a couple of times this year and been available to take meetings and see people face to face. Nothing replaces the value of a face to face meeting.

2. What kind of guidance have you received from your manager so far? 

Well it's very early days but already I'm prepping 5 one pager ideas for my manager to look at with me and decide what spec I should be writing next. For me, the great thing about a manager is not just about potentially finding you work (although ultimately that's the end goal) it's their knowledge of the industry and the desire to shape you into a writer that can fit into that industry. So the next time I write a script the question of 'is there a chance this will appeal in the current marketplace?' will have been answered before I put pen to page rather than after I've spent months on a draft.

3. How long have you been writing, and how long did it take before your screenplays started to gain attention in the industry? 

I've been writing 7 years now. My short film script won me the Best Script prize at the National Student Film Festival in 2009 in the UK and gave me the encouragement to keep writing. I spent a long while writing short film scripts but you're not going to gain attention in the industry with unmade short film scripts. So I wrote my first feature screenplay in October 2012. That script did very well on the Blacklist website so I got some early attention then. Ultimately what I learned from that is that having only 1 script isn't good enough, everyone asked me 'So, what else do you have?'. It was frustrating to hear but I realized I needed to go away and create a body of work. So that's what I've been doing for the last couple of years. It meant I had a lot to talk about when I sat down with my new manager.

4. Which script analysis services have you used?  Which were the most valuable and why? 

All sorts, it's great to get your work out there and judged by people who don't know you and are going to give you honest feedback. I've used the Blacklist and Specscout as upload services who offer a page of feedback as well as rating your script. Screenplay contests like Bluecat and Page offer a page of feedback with an entry too. This feedback is valuable to see how your script currently sits and why but in that limited space they're not going to tell you how to take your script forward and offer a detailed criticism. This, for me, is where the real value is and I have used ScreenCraft consultation on all my specs because your coverage has always helped me move my scripts forward. I've also used the consultancy services of a British writer called Danny Stack who also provides excellent detailed coverage.

5. What's your favorite restaurant in Los Angeles? 

Difficult question. I think I'd have to go with Plan Check. I still don't quite know what 'slow cooked duck ham' actually is but that was the best tasting burger I ever had!