Margaret Doyle

An advance look at Barry Blitt’s “Guzzler,” the cover for next week’s issue. #NewYorkerCovers

Cormac McCarthy: “I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.” #writing

Writing tip: If you get stuck on thinking of a name for your characters, watch the credits on a TV show or movie and get inspired by scrolling through those. It's a system I've used for decades and it works every time! Do you have a writer's tip to share? #WritingCommunity

What people fail to understand is that the system is not broken. It is working exactly as intended: to keep YOU out. And the people who have already made it and are now on the inside have a massive advantage over everyone else outside looking in. The peak of the spec boom was in 1995 when 173 scripts were sold – and that number has been going down steadily ever since. In 2023, the year of the strike, that number was 11. Things are looking up this year but the '90s are long gone. Now compare that to the number of WGA members which is about 25K give or take. Not all of them are plugging away on their laptops as we speak but a lot of them are. They're almost always ahead of the game. They've got representation, reputation, and connections to draw upon. The point is, if we look at the market as supply and demand there are way more scripts written each year than the people who write the checks possibly know what to do with. So what you end up with is a lot of mediocre screenplays that are "good enough." The thinking goes something like, "So-and-so is attached and they bring in audiences." Or "It's valuable IP. We just need to get it out there." It explains a lot about why so many movies are so so bad. That's the depressing part. The hopeful thing is this: The Hollywood machinery is such that enormous resources are devoted entirely to finding that diamond in the rough. Panning for gold, looking for the needle in the haystack, pick your metaphor. Readers like me who have not yet been replaced by AI are paid a modest living wage in hopes that 1 in 10 of scripts we read are pretty good. For me, that's a CONSIDER, but a RECOMMEND? That's more like 1 in 100. For scripts like that, there is competition. The demand far exceeds the supply. And the scrappy little production companies have to look even harder because often times they get beat out by the bigger ones. For a writer, no two words have ever sounded sweeter than "bidding war." Maybe you knock one out of the park with your very first script. It happens, but rarely. Most of the time it takes a few strike outs before the writer figures it out. Maybe that's why they call it a pitch. Also I have baseball on the brain. Don't want to jinx it but I'm feeling pretty good about a Dodgers World Series repeat. To sum up: yes, the deck is stacked against you. If you look at the sheer number of scripts being written then it seems like a crapshoot. Put that out of your mind. Keep your head down and do your best work. And when you finally write the one – believe me, they're out there desperately searching for it. That's what I'M looking for every damn day. And honestly, if all I had to read was crap and there was no hope of ever getting a good one, I would have quit a long time ago. But when I do get one, it's all worth it. Not because I get the credit for finding it because I don't. Someone else might but not me. The system is fucked up but it's not broken. It's evolved to be exactly what it is. Sifting the wheat from the chaff through ever finer filters to find that one straw it can make a loaf of bread out of and take it to market. Okay now I'm hungry. I think I'll make some toast

"We're going to get the right deal. The right deal for America, the right deal—obviously, from my perspective—for Canada," says PM Mark Carney when asked why Canada has not yet been able to arrive at a trade agreement with the Trump administration. #cdnpoli

What a cover. The New Yorker’s September magazine cover.