What do you know, this networking thing pays off.  A few years back, I attended the Gothenburg Film Festival and had a fine old time: the snow and the setting and the laid back culture made it a delightful experience, and on top of that I was attending a course and got talking to a producer.  That same producer is now assisting me in a big way with a couple of projects that I’m hoping will bear fruit in months to come, and other irons are in the fire.

Which is to say, you never know when you’ll come across someone who you get on with and can assist you in realising your goals.  In which case, treating people kindly in the assumption that they’ll reciprocate is not just polite, it’s a pragmatic stance to take.

Besides which, anxious and paranoid people are no fun to be around, so why join that tribe?  Well, arguably because they have access to drugs, but that brings us back to anxiety and paranoia again.  Nancy Reagan had it right when she said Just Say No, though you’d think a woman of her generation would get kids to append Thank You to that statement: no wonder street crime is in the news, when even First Ladies are contributing to moral decline.

Increasingly, people are using social networking sites to extend their tendrils and get across that they are wonderful people worth getting to know.  Sure, it smacks of desperation when every Twitter update is to promote something they’re selling, but there are people who get the balance right and communicate with you like a human being, and not a representative of a demographic.

One such worthy is William M. Akers, American author of Your Screenplay Sucks! .  William recently got in touch and asked if I’d be willing to promote a forthcoming London workshop he’s doing.  I agreed, so here is where you can find the details of that gig: I’d go myself if I hadn’t got other plans.  And, because I’m cheeky like that, I asked him for a copy of his book to review here.  So, I’ll clear my throat before doing just that.

Harrumph.

It has to be pointed out, I have not read the book in its entirety.  But, the nature of the text is such that you can skip about to areas of relevance to your own particular brand of suckitude.  Different sections cover concept, character, dialogue, scenes, and there are more nuts and bolts based pieces on format, enquiry letters, and so forth.

The advice is solid and good-humoured, with examples drawn from the writer’s extensive experience: he has had three films made from his scripts, and teaches screenwriting too.  I’d be pushed to quibble with most of what he says, except to suggest that he doesn’t challenge his own thinking: having come to a conclusion he underlines it rather than coming up with exceptions to the rule.  But this isn’t the sort of book where you want nuances and prevarication: it’s a very practical no-nonsense screenwriting text.

This is a book I’d heartily recommend, particularly for screenwriting novices and those interested in mainstream success.  Which seeing as that’s where the money is, includes most of us.  And suggests why Akers has staked his claim with a book of this nature: there’s a market for it, and he’s supplied an admirable book for that market.

You could probably guess that Your Screenplay Sucks! doesn’t have the grand paradigm approach that Robert McKee and John Truby have from the title alone.  And that’s fine.  There’s a place for books like those, and there’s equally a place for books like this one, which is more accessible and structured so that you can find advice relevant to your predicament with ease.