Screenwriter Eirene Donohue uncovers essential strategies for Christmas movie screenwriters. She discusses leveraging writer’s groups, to infusing your personal experiences into scripts for a unique perspective.
She offers out-of-the-box advice on starting a passive income plan. She discusses the power of resilience and a life rich with diverse encounters. This episode is your guide to standing out and thriving in the evergreen world of screenwriting, offering practical wisdom for every aspiring writer’s journey.
Chapters
0:00:00 Introducing the Christmas Movie Screenwriter Podcast, episode six.
0:00:15 Introduction to The Christmas Movie Screenwriter Podcast
0:00:39 Introduction and DIY project
0:07:42 The Business of Writing Christmas Movies
0:09:54 The Growing Demand for Christmas Movies
0:14:57 Adding Diversity to Formulaic Christmas Movies
0:17:41 Moving Towards Production: Selling the Script or Pitching Ideas
0:26:00 Maintaining relationships with producers and pitching new ideas
0:33:41 Finding Producers for Your Script
0:38:15 Exploring Markets and AFM/MIPCOM
0:43:21 The Importance of Organic Storytelling and Representation
0:46:42 The Favorite Christmas Script and the Power of Representation
0:52:35 The Desire for Familiarity with Fresh Storylines
0:54:53 Exploring Songwriting as a New Creative Outlet
0:56:23 Living in Joy and Manifesting Good Energy
1:03:20 Insightful tips and techniques from Eirene Tron Donahue
1:05:39 The Importance of Script Quality and Longevity
Transcript
Introduction
[0:00] [Caryn] This is the Christmas Movie Screenwriter Podcast, episode number six.
[0:15] Hello and welcome to the Christmas Movie Screenwriter Podcast. I’m your host, Caryn McCann. The Christmas Movie Screenwriter is a podcast about writing, producing, and selling Christmas movies. I publish a transcript with every episode if you want to read something later. Just go to the website at www.christmasmoviescreenwriter.com.
DIY project
[0:39] A quick few words about what I’m working on. I’m doing a script that could be my first DIY project. I’ve never tried to reach out to investors directly, so this is all a bit new to me. But I feel the location is not only a character, a main character of the story but that it has a verifiable audience as well.
[1:02] Today’s guest is screenwriter Eirene Donohue. Now just a note, this interview was recorded before the end of the writer’s strike. Here is that interview.
Eirene Tran Donohue is a Vietnamese-Irish writer originally from Rhode Island. A graduate of Brown University, she spent years working and traveling in Asia, Africa, and New York before pursuing a career in screenwriting.
Contests
Her first script was a semifinalist in the Nichols Fellowship, run by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, to identify emerging screenwriters. Since then, she has sold TV and feature projects to multiple outlets, including Lionsgate, ABC Studios, Freeform, Disney, Netflix, Lifetime, and Hallmark.
Her film, A Sugar and Spice Holiday for Lifetime, was one of the first themed cable movies to feature a predominantly Asian cast. Her most recently produced projects include 12 Days of Christmas Eve, starring Kelsey Grammer, A Christmas Spark, starring Jane Seymour, and A Tourist’s Guide to Love, starring Rachel Leigh Cook. Set and shot in Vietnam and inspired by her own love story, it was the first American movie about Vietnam that wasn’t about the war. Upon release, it was the number-one Netflix movie in the world. She currently resides in Los Angeles.
[2:22] Well, Eirene, thank you for coming on the show today.
[Eirene] Thanks for having me.
[Caryn] Now, why don’t you take a minute and tell us about yourself and your work?
[2:32] [Eirene] Well, so like it said in the bio, I originally grew up in Rhode Island, I spent a lot of time traveling, and always knew that I wanted to be a writer, always loved movies, you know, worked in a video store in high school, but then sort of got sidetracked with life and traveling.
And then I didn’t pursue my screenwriting career until I was like 30. A that point, I decided to write a screenplay. So I got some books on how to write a screenplay. Wrote a screenplay. Entered it into the Nicoll Fellowship and made it to the semifinals. That sort of gave me the confidence boost to pursue that career.
The Nicholl Fellowship
[3:14] Also, at that moment, my husband and I had decided we weren’t living the life we wanted to be living. So we sold everything we owned and spent the next year and a half living in our V-dub van. Around the US and Canada. And that was when I was making it through the Nicholl. I was introduced to my manager, and my agent, we started working together.
So it was a pretty fortunate, quick, successful entry into the career, which I’m very grateful for because I don’t know that I would have been able to sustain through what I have seen as the very, very hard, real struggle of trying to break into this business.
Starting Out
But then for the next few years, I sold some TV movies, I did some rewrites, and I sold a couple of TV pilots. I was just sort of doing the grind of being a working screenwriter, pitching on a million things, writing spec scripts, going to meetings, trying to connect with people, trying to sell things, and getting a few things made here and there.
But the Christmas screenwriting happened. This was about, I guess it must have been like five years ago at this point, maybe, or four years ago. Time means nothing now.
[4:27] I’ve lost all track of time. Anyway, a few years ago I had been on a very long dry streak and had not managed to sell anything for two years. I would get so close. It would be between me and this other person, and then they’d go to this other person or, oh, that’s just not right.
Competition
Or it just every single time and I’d written, you know, probably five complete show pitches, two spec features, pitched on multiple open writing assignments, went up for staffing on tons of different shows, and it just wasn’t happening, wasn’t happening.
And then I read an article about, and we were we had burned through the savings. My husband’s a nurse, thankfully, so he had a steady job. But we had a kid where I can’t go back to bartending, which is what I did before I was a writer.
The Christmas Movie Demand
[5:28] And I remember reading an article about how they had made 100 Christmas movies that year between Netflix, Hallmark, and Lifetime. And I just said, oh, I need to get in on that. Because I love Christmas movies. It wasn’t completely cynical. Additionally, I watch a lot of Christmas movies. Also, I love Christmas movies. Likewise, I write romantic comedy. And I love Christmas. I love Christmas as a holiday.
So I told my reps that I was interested in writing a Christmas movie. And they reached out to an executive at Lifetime. I had written a teenage vampire movie for them called Drink, Slay, Love years ago.
[6:07] And so I had a connection with them, and we set up a meeting, and I went in and said, you know, I would love to write a Christmas movie for you guys. And I gave them a couple of different ideas. One of them was A Sugar and Spice Holiday.
And so I sold the concept to them and I wrote it for them. The next year sold three more projects. Two of which were also Christmas movies. So it just sort of became my thing that I write Christmas movies.
It’s one of the things I do and I have a great relationship with Lifetime. And so hopefully there will be this year because of the strike, there was not one, but hopefully that I wrote, but next year, hopefully, there’ll be another one with Lifetime.
I’ve also recently started working with Hallmark, who I haven’t written a Christmas movie for yet, but ideally would love to write one for them as well.
Christmas Movies Changed My Life
[7:07] And so yeah, so that’s sort of just how I ended up being, I mean, I write rom-com and I write a lot of other, I write indie comedies, I write other stuff as well, But being a Christmas movie writer has changed my life.
It has given me a level of financial stability. Because they make Christmas movies every year, they might only make one with my Netflix movie, The Tourist Guide to Love. I don’t know that someone is going to make another Vietnam-set movie.
The Business of Writing Christmas Movies
[7:42] But everyone makes Christmas movies every year, year after year. So when I talk to emerging writers, I mentor sometimes and at different fellowships and retreats because I’m very business-minded. I want people to be a professional writer. It’s not a hobby.
If it’s a hobby, that’s fine. But if you want it to be a profession, you have to think about its financials of it. You have to think about what the market is. You have to pay attention to what’s selling, who’s buying, and what your strengths are, what you can offer to that market.
WGA
And so for me, if I write a Christmas movie a year, that covers my health insurance and the WGA. It helps cover the rent. And then it gives me the freedom and the time and the space to write other projects, other non-Christmas projects.
[8:39] And also, I enjoy it. Every year when they d air, when a Christmas movie airs, everyone I know posts it on Facebook, all my friends from school, watch it with their mom, or my mom plays it with their kids, and my mom gets so proud.
They are the type of thing that hits a wide audience brings joy to people and entertains them. For me, I just love that aspect of it.
Christmas Movie Market
[Caryn] Well, you sort of answered my first question about how you break into the industry and Christmas movie industry. But let me just touch on something you mentioned. And back, you said 100 movies a year, well, last year it was 170.
[Eirene]Yes, I know. This was years ago.
[Caryn] And so that’s, you know, so it looks like it’s growing, but do you think there’s any chance it will get oversaturated with, you know, people are going to like, okay, there’s too many or you think, okay, the demand is there?
[Eirene] Because, you know, a lot of people just watch a Christmas movie every day starting in November. I mean, that’s 60 right there. I just got a residual check. So somebody was watching mine in July.
So I was like, oh, literally, like just this morning for a Christmas party. I was like, sweet, like a little surprise. You never know when you’re going to get them.
The Growing Demand for Christmas Movies
[9:54] And I think that it could get to be too much, but I think that the demand and the appetite for it, I think what will happen is that, and this wouldn’t be great, well it could be great or bad, but for me, is that people will watch the newer ones and not necessarily, because before you just watch whatever old ones were on, you know, so you’d be watching the ones from 10 years ago that Hallmark was playing or something older.
And I think as the amount of content grows, maybe it will shrink the sort of rewatching of certain movies. But I don’t think that the appetite for Christmas movies is going away.
Christmas Coziness
I feel like. Especially I remember after COVID, it had like this big boom because it’s comforting. It’s cozy. It’s joyful. It’s the type of entertainment that I think is having a resurgence, not just in Christmas movies, but across the board.
If you look at some of the things that are popular and that are connecting with people, they’re things that are slightly more positive, more focused on love and uplifting and joyful communities.
[Caryn] Yeah, exactly. Well, that leads to my next question. What specific elements are essential to include in a successful Christmas movie screenplay? And you sort of broke the rules with A Sugar and Spice Holiday. So can you speak to that?
[11:18] [Eirene] Well, all Christmas movies, and I’ve been told this directly from executives, there has to be a big amount of Christmas in it, in case people forget. Because I have read some scripts that people have sent me, and I’m like, this doesn’t have enough Christmas.
Christmas Must Be Organic To The Story
And by Christmas, that’s a fluid term, but because a lot of it can be put in through like set decoration or things like that, but there are those sorts of specific tropes of sort of winter wonderland-type things. There’s got to be some, they got to be drinking some hot chocolate. They got to be, there’s, you know, gift giving, decorating the tree, going sledding, ice skating.
Christmas Activities to Include in Your Story
[11:58] Baking cookies, Christmas parties, Christmas caroling, snowman building. There are a million of those things that I don’t think I need to tell people. I think people can go and identify what those trappings of Christmas are. Those are sort of just the details. It’s sort of like the frosting, the frosting on the Christmas story.
So that’s that level of Christmas when I say it has to have a lot of Christmas. But there has to be something within the story that is linked to Christmas, that is the actual plot of the movie.
Whether it is there’s the giant Christmas party coming up. Or I have to find the perfect gift for this person or I’m bringing my boyfriend home for Christmas for the first time. There has to be something organic about setting it in the time frame of Christmas.
Christmas Themes
And what else? In terms of elements for themes, the themes that I always work with and I feel like are usually pretty common themes of love, family, community, giving, gift giving, or charity.
[13:15] And for me also a big one is faith, but not, I don’t mean in a religious sense, I mean faith as in believing in something. You have to, oftentimes the character needs to learn how to believe again. Whether or not it’s believing in Santa or believing in magic or believing in love or believing in themself.
Christmas Magic
That feeling of belief and hope and magic. And I don’t mean magic like necessarily twinkle twinkle spellcasting magic, just magic as joy. Magic as in like life is magical.
[13:55] That type of feeling, I think is important for a good and successful holiday movie.
[Caryn] Okay, well then how do you balance audience expectations and staying fresh and not being predictable and cliché?
[Eirene] What I try to do is because there is an element of people wanting something familiar, but they want it fresh. That’s the familiar and fresh at the same time. That’s always the goal. People have expectations when they are watching a Christmas or a holiday movie and they want certain things to happen. And so you don’t want to deviate too much from that, but you want to keep it interesting.
Unexpected Twists
And so for me, I try to balance the familiar expected elements with unexpected twists. And so a lot of the times that can be done by you have these universal themes, but you tell it through a specific experience. So for example, A Sugar and Spice Holiday – that was the first Asian-centered holiday, movie, cable movie ever.
Formulaic Christmas Movies
[14:58] But the thing is, if you look at it if you break it down, it is just a pretty formulaic Christmas movie. A big city woman goes back to her small New England hometown.
[15:09] Falls in love with her high school crush, and enters a gingerbread baking competition. That could have been the plot for anything. But what I did was by centering it on an Asian family, you bring in a different perspective, a different view.
And so they’re eating with chopsticks, and they’re making jokes about stinky tofu, and there’s a family altar.
Adding Diversity to Your Christmas Story
And it’s very subtle. It’s not about being Asian, it’s just about the fact that Asian people also celebrate Christmas. And it normalizes that experience. It gives a level of representation that hasn’t been there before for Asian people, but it also gives a look into an Asian family for people who are not Asian, and you don’t have to be Asian to enjoy it. It’s just a Christmas movie.
So it’s things like that. A Christmas Spark is about a widow who goes to visit her daughter and then falls in love, and she directs the town play. And that also came out of the, what’s the typical storyline, how can I find a new entry point and make it an older woman?
An Older Protagonist
Which had not been done very often. The protagonists are always younger, and you get these beautiful older women who play their mom in all the regular movies. And I was like, what if she’s the protagonist?
[16:29] Because that’s a huge demographic of these movies as well, is women that age, or older women. And so to be able to, and I mean, admittedly, Jane Seymore is still in the box, so it helps that she is just a stunningly, like sparkly, magical, leading woman.
Your Christmas Script Recipe
[16:50] But that, so I would say, look at, look at all the pieces. I mean, there is a recipe for it, but it’s like there can be a recipe for plain chocolate chip cookies, or you can make them gourmet, or you can make them gluten-free. They’re different, you can use this or that. You like it crunchier, you like it chewier.
[17:14] It’s all the same basic ingredients, but you add some, you change up your technique. You still want to give something delicious, this, but there are lots of different ways to get there when you’re all baking the same thing because we’re all sort of baking the same gingerbread.
[Caryn] Well, I hope we see more of those older women as the protagonists. I think that’s an underserved market, but then I digress.
Selling the Script or Pitching Ideas
[17:41] [Caryn] Now, after you finish the script and it’s ready to go, what’s your next step? How do you move it towards getting into production?
[17:48] [Eirene] So, I am in a very fortunate position, mostly, that I sell directly to the networks. So it has nothing to do with me. I send it, and we do rewrite, you know, I sell them, the process is usually, well there are different processes, but if I sell a pitch, it means that I have worked out the storyline and the characters and the themes in a sort of verbal, written presentation.
Pitches
And for Christmas movies, usually, it’s about three pages long. It’s not as detailed. The Netflix movie, A Tourist’s Guide to Love, which I sold as a pitch, was much longer, and much more detailed, probably 12, 13 pages of the entire story. Every story beat sort of worked out.
But for the Christmas movies, for me at least, probably also because I have established relationships with people, It’s like a three-page short outline of the main story beats, the characters.
[18:45] And I present the pitch to – when I work at Lifetime, or with Sugar and Spice, if you’re selling a pitch, you go in, you tell them your pitch, and then they buy it and hopefully, and then you do a full outline, and then you do a first draft. Then after that, it depends on your contract.
Drafts
I typically have multiple drafts in my contract to get a second draft, a third draft polished, and things like that. The other ways in which you can sell a Christmas movie, you can sell, now with Lifetime, I will just sell them a concept, and I don’t necessarily have to pitch. But other projects have been sold.
I worked with different producers. Sometimes I have a relationship with the producer, or I have a meeting with the producer, and we’re like, let’s work on something. I give them an idea.
I wrote up the pitch. They take it to multiple, and then the producer takes it to multiple outlets and tries to sell the pitch with themselves attached. And then it’s the same thing, you write the outline, you write, you know, the script.
Selling a Christmas Script
[19:55] Another way is to sell the actual script. To have a spec script that’s been completed and written. And usually, the same thing, it’s I would, in that case, I’m working with a producer, usually.
Or we will then take the script to a producer that I’ve had a relationship with, or that my reps know is looking for a script, and go with that producer. And then the producers are the ones that sort of take it out. I am not the one that sells it. It’s always the producer.
[Caryn] Does your manager introduce you to those producers, or do you have a short list? I know you have relationships, but…
Getting Meetings
[Eirene] Yes, originally it was my reps who introduced my agent, and my manager. They set when you’re a screenwriter, there are these things called generals, where your reps get you a meeting with just this producer, that executive, this development person, and… or director, or whoever.
[21:03] You just have a meeting. It’s like a first date sort of. You’re just like, who are you? Tell me about yourself. You tell me your life story, tell me what you like, what you try to write.
They’ve hopefully usually read a sample of your work so they know what your sort of style or your skills are. And then sometimes they’ll be like, well, we have this, we’re looking for this type of movie. Do you have any ideas?
Make a Christmas Idea List
And you’re like, oh, well, and you maybe throw off a couple of ideas or you’re like, you know what, I’ll get back to you. How about, you know, so then after the meeting,
You go through your log lines, you come up with a couple of log lines, and you’re like, here are a couple of ideas that I have that might work for you. Let me know if you’re interested in talking more.
[21:43] And it’s great sometimes if they like an idea, and then you just start talking to them about it, and then you start developing it, and then you write up a shorter pitch of it, and back and forth, and then ideally, they then decide to work with you on that project.
Or, what can happen is that nothing comes of it, but then maybe like a year later, you know, they might even be working at a different, you know, production company or different studio down the road.
General Meetings And Christmas Scripts
You never know. Those general meetings, even if they don’t lead to anything directly, immediately, will often lead to things down the road. So those are an important part of being a working screenwriter is to, I always tell like take as many general meetings as you can because you don’t know what’s gonna come of it.
[22:37] The thread between different projects in my career that failed or didn’t do this but then led to that and then I mean I can trace it even writing the fact that I’m writing Christmas movies. I can trace back through the very first feature pitch that I sold to Lionsgate because of the producer there I pitched with him on a project at Lifetime.
I didn’t get that job, but then they hired me to do the vampire one, and then I did that, and then years later did the Christmas movie.
Relationships Lead to Christmas Movie Jobs
You just never know. Those relationships are really important, so definitely put yourself out there. Well, two things about that. One is when you’re in a general meeting, yes, it’s not a quote-unquote, you’re not selling a particular project.
[Caryn] It’s more of a meet and greet, but then are you trying to pitch your projects during those meetings?
[23:34] [Eirene] And so I usually will have an idea or two that I think might work for them that they might be interested in that I will just mention and say, you know, oh, you’re looking for that.
And sometimes it’s off the top of my head because they’ll say, oh, we’re looking for this type of movie set here. Do you have any ideas for that?” And like, oh, yeah, I have this one.
Christmas Idea List – Start Yesterday
But usually, I’ll say, I’m not sure about, let me go through my, because I have an idea list that I’ve been keeping for, you know, 15 years.
So I say, let me go through my idea list and see if there are any of my concepts that would work for you. And that gives you an excuse to contact them afterward and email them and to have to further that relationship.
[24:27] Always send an email after the meeting saying thanks for meeting me so great hope we connect in the future something you know try to reference something you talked about or an inside joke or something. So that it’s not just a meeting and it disappears you have that person right now you had connected.
If for whatever reason they come back around and you have an idea that would work for me you can always reach out later and be like hey I’ve got this new script if you’re interested, you know, let me know.
So yeah, those general meetings are, and especially for I mean, because like I said, all of these meetings are set up by my reps and I had a very fortunate, quick entry into this business.
There’s Many Ways To Get A Manager
But I know for most people you are pounding you’re trying to get people to read your script, you’re trying to get managed, you’re trying to get a manager, you know, you’re trying to do all of those things.
Everyone has a different story of how they got their manager, and how they sold their first project. So I can’t like, people always ask me, how did you know? I’m like, I don’t know.
But I would say that relationships are really important. And so put yourself out there, make the connections when you can, follow up on those connections, check in with those people.
[25:42] Research them, and know what they are interested in. If you’re pitching a rom-com to a horror producer, that’s sort of, you don’t want to be wasting their time, sort of thing. And yeah, so that’s sort of some of the advice I would have.
[Caryn] Okay, a follow-up to that, but that leads to my next question.
Maintaining Relationships with Producers
[26:00] You’ve got an idea list and you want to set it, you don’t want to lose those connections. So are you going back like every six months to your producer connections and saying, hey, I’ve got this new script? Or is it more like this one producer I’m going to tell my idea?
[Eirene] It’s all over the place. I have multiple projects right now that I’ve been working on with multiple producers, and I connected with those producers in different ways.
Reps
Sometimes through my rep, sometimes through another project I’d done, sometimes through a friend, sometimes through, you know, it’s, and so sometimes there are certain ideas that I think, oh, and I talk to my reps about it, and I say, hey, who would be good for this?
Who do we think would be a good fit for this in terms of what the project is, our relationship with them, and their relationship with a certain studio or whoever?
[27:03] And so sometimes it’s tailored for, like, oh, well, let’s reach out to them. But oftentimes it’s just, that I had a general meeting, and we clicked, what ideas do you have?
Following Up After Your Christmas Pitch
I came up with an idea, so now I’m gonna take that project out with that person. But then moving forward from that, if it doesn’t work or if it does, then yeah, it depends on the relationship that I have with them, but I’ll check in every once in a while with them. Or they’ll check in with me.
They’ll say, are you working on anything? Or, hey, I hear Hallmark’s looking for this type of movie. Or reaching out and being like, you were recommended by this person, I want to adapt this book. Things like that.
So it goes back and forth. Sometimes it’s me reaching out to them. Sometimes it’s them reaching out to me. Sometimes it’s just my reps having lunch with this producer and being like, you would be perfect to meet with them, you know, some, it’s, there’s lots of, it’s not a set in stone type of business. It’s very fluid.
Networking with Producers Who Make Christmas Movies
[Caryn] All right. Well, let’s, let’s, if, if, if some of the audience is new to this genre and want to break in, how would you suggest screenwriters expand their network of producers? Would you suggest film markets or film festivals? And, if so, which ones are competitions or utilizing online platforms?
[28:16] [Eirene] Let’s see. I would say, first of all, if you’re trying to break in, then you have to have the script written.
No one’s going to buy a pitch from an unrepped, unproduced writer. So definitely have the script written. Make sure. That it is the best it could be.
[28:41] And if you have that connection, you want to use it, but you do not want to blow your shot. Most people will read you once. People, oh, this friend of mine, my friend’s cousin, wants to be a screamer. Will you read it? I’m like, okay. But I’m not going to be reading multiple drafts.
6 Degrees of Separation – Get Your Christmas Script Green Lit
I’m not going to be doing things like that. So don’t, if your next-door neighbor’s uncle is this huge producer and you’ve just written the first draft of your first script and you’re excited about it, don’t send it to them.
[29:11] Don’t, because you’re going to waste that and they’re going to be like, this is not good and I’m not interested.
[29:17] So I would say what you do is, so make sure, and the way to do that I think is by joining writing groups, you know, finding local writing groups or online. There are lots of different writing groups that, you know, people will post, like, I’m looking for writing buddy or writing or some feedback, things like that.
Podcasts
My favorite one is there’s a podcast, The Screenwriter Life with Lorien McKenna and Meg LeFauve. And it’s probably just the best screenwriting podcast or one of the best out there. And they interviewed me. They can go listen to mine. I did an interview with them on Christmas movies as well.
But they I mean, they talked to just I mean, some Oscar winners, you know, like big, I mean, Meg, she wrote Inside Out. So they are just there, it’s a super supportive, wonderful podcast.
[30:10] And there’s so much information on it. Right, right. And you can learn so much from listening to different screenwriters and sometimes they do go into the craft of it. It’s not just interviewing screenwriters, it’s also doing podcasts about actual craft and advice and things like that.
Facebook Christmas Groups
But they have a Facebook page and in that Facebook page, it’s a very supportive community and I often see people saying, hey, can someone read this for me? Is anyone interested in trading reads? So you’re in a safe space with other people who are trying to do the same things that you’re doing.
[30:48] And another Facebook group that I love is Writing for Holiday Movies. So if you’re specifically looking at Christmas movies, I’m pretty sure, yeah, Writing for Holiday Movies I think is what it’s called. It’s a Facebook group. And it’s all focused on writing holiday movies. So some people offer courses.
Connect With Other Writers
There are people in there who have written some books on how to write Christmas movies. there are people just trying to break in, people are looking for advice, people are looking for writing groups, there are all of those, everything’s related to Christmas movie or holiday movie writing. So that’s another great resource.
There are contests you can enter and some of them are better than others in terms of, what you can get out of it, but one thing that everyone can get out of it usually is a read by an objective party and feedback on where your script is at.
Feedback on Your Christmas Script
Because you might think it’s wonderful and maybe your partner thinks it’s great or anything, but to have an objective read on it to be like, oh, this needs more work or they cost money, but it’s like getting notes. You’re getting feedback.
[31:53] I would also say if you can afford it and there are affordable ones out there, hire a script consultant. I did that for my first script. I did not know anything besides what I’d read and how to write a screenplay and read screenplays. And this is when I was living in Rhode Island and I hired this woman to give me notes and she sort of ripped it apart and then I put it back together again and then she helped me rip it apart again and then put it back together.
And that was the one that got me my manager, my agent, the Nicholl Fellowship. It was invaluable, the advice so early on, instead of me just trying to figure it out and this works and that works. And I don’t know if it’s any good. I don’t know.
And she was like, you need to do this, this, and this. Your characters have all of the feedback on it. And so that got it to a level that I wouldn’t have been able to get it to on my own. And again, it’s professional, objective feedback.
Script Consultants
Also, because you’re paying them, you’re more likely to do the rewrite. Because, oh, I’ll get around to it, or I don’t need to implement this, or things like that. So I would say get your script as good as it can be.
[33:13] In terms of expanding your network of producers 0I mean, yes, I think if you can get into these fellowships. I work with the Cinestory Foundation Fellowship, and we do a retreat.
Retreats
There’s a feature retreat, there’s a TV retreat, there, if you win it, if you win, it’s $10,000 and a year of mentorship. But you go to this retreat, you meet all these mentors, you meet all, you work with different writers and producers and directors and managers come and so things like that can be good for networking.
Finding Producers for Your Christmas Script
[33:42] Also, you can, if you’re looking for producers, I would say watch a bunch of Christmas movies. See who the producer is, see what the production company is, see who the producer is, see if you can get their email information, and send them a query saying, I have this script, here is the concept. If you would be interested in reading it, please let me know. I would be happy to send it to you, things like that.
You have to hustle a lot of the time to expand that on your own and any other connections you have. Like I said, friend’s cousin, dog walker’s uncle, That was how I met some people early on. It was just friends of friends of friends, passing your name along. So yeah, that’s how I would do that.
[Caryn] On a follow-up on that, for the Fellowship for CineStory, there’s the film retreat and the TV retreat. Does the TV include TV movies?
[Eirene] No, that is for TV shows.
Applying to Contests / Getting Your Christmas Script Seen
[34:47] So it’s a feature. A TV movie still counts as a feature. It’s okay. It’s a feature film, you know, as opposed to a TV show you’re pitching a, TV pilot script, you know, so in the whole show, there’s very it’s a different skill set Okay, so for a TV movie you would apply for the feature film.
Yes I mean also you don’t know if it’s gonna be a TV movie or feature that still when you write these scripts You don’t know what the it could be either all a feature A TV movie is just a movie that is shown on TV and then there’s, you know, and you write within the conventions and to the audience of whatever your market is.
Budgets
So a lifetime movie might, it has a smaller budget than a theatrical release, but, you know, Christmas movies have the same, like I said, it’s going to have bigger stars, it’s going to have bigger budgets. But at its heart, they’re sort of the same stories, they’re the same world.
So right you’re just writing a feature and then whoever you sell it to then you like Oh, well, I have to tone it down a little bit or I have to okay, you know the budget, you know I think like when you’re writing for Lifetime a hallmark.
Those are the those are where the changes get made. Okay, are there any field markets that you would suggest?
[36:06] Perhaps, you know the the online stuff to Facebook groups and you know research I think a lot, I mean because a lot of these contests and fellowships and stuff, they’re great, they cost a lot of money a lot of the times, entry fees, things like that.
Validation
[36:24] Besides the validation that you can get from doing well in a contest, the other thing is that it validates you in the eyes of other people. So let’s say you are going to have your cousin ask their dog walker to read your script. If you can say, oh, by the way, my friend’s script was a semi-finalist in Page, then the other person is more likely to read it.
So, it’s worth that level of value because it gives you a little bit more legitimacy in the eyes of an objective reader who probably does not want to read it, but is like, okay, at least I know it’s not going to be horrible.
Online Christmas Groups
Right, right. I know that it’s got some skill level to it. So, I would say the same thing with the retreats and residencies, those are also expensive. So online groups, and also I know a lot of these people trying to break in don’t live in LA. You don’t live in LA, you don’t live in New York, and so it’s hard to sort of travel in person to a lot of these things.
Seminars
Online seminars, and online workshops, are great places to find other people. I know in writing for holiday movies, every once in a while, one of the professional writers will say, I’m running a workshop on how to write a Christmas movie. And then that can connect you to more people that can teach you, that can give you feedback.
The Blacklist
[37:43] And the Blacklist is another online resource where you can pay for hosting and pay for reads, but again, it gives you that validation. I don’t know that anyone is going to buy it off of there, or maybe people get ripped off of there, but at least you can use that when you send a query to a manager, an agent, say, this script got an eight rating from.
Eight out of ten ratings from six readers when it was on the blacklist. Those are the things that you can do to sort of up your profile with the people you’re trying to connect with.
Exploring Markets and AFM/MIPCOM
[38:15] [Caryn] What about markets? What I mean by that is like the AFM, American Film Market, or MIPCOM, or do you suggest that?
[Eirene]Oh, I don’t have any experience with that. So I can’t do that either way. I can’t comment on that because I have no experience with any of those things.
[Caryn] Wow, you are the exception, you know, that’s usually a lot of people are trudging around the AFM. But anyway, I digress.
[Eirene] Like I said, I was very fortunate in my reps handle.
Christmas Movie Meetings
[38:44] Reps and producers I I write and I go to the meetings, you know, I pitch I go to the meetings I do all the interpersonal stuff in the writing but the business side of it. I don’t know I don’t have any connection to it and they don’t when you are a professional Screenwriter, you have no power.
You have no control. You hand in your final draft to the executives and sometimes you don’t hear anything back until they tell you when the air date is.
I don’t have a say in who directs it, or who stars in it. I mean, it depends on your relationship with the producer, because there are producers that I am in much more solid contact with and I’ll go visit the set sometimes.
Christmas Movies and Control
[39:31] But there are also movies that I have written where I was never contacted by the director, by the star, by the producer. I sell directly to the network, so then they can assign, they’ll just assign it to someone else, and I don’t know what’s happening with it, you know? So, sometimes it comes up and you’re like, you’re watching and you’re like, oh, okay, that scene, oh, they got that scene, they did this, oh, is that how you don’t know.
So, the business side of it, I have never had to, I mean, a lot of my friends have been more involved on the business side, or a lot of people trying to get their independent features financed and produced, or they’ll produce their shorts, or try to attach people on their own. But usually, for me, I’m working with either a producer or with my reps, or with an executive who handles that whole side.
A.I.
[Caryn] Okay. At the time of this recording, we’re in the middle of a writer’s strike, writers and actors strike, and AI is a big issue. Do you think AI will change the way Christmas movies are written or made? And if so, how?
WGA Strike
[40:37] [Eirene] I think if we don’t get the protections that we want out of this strike, then yes. That is one of the things we are striking for and fighting for is protection from the use of AI by studios and networks to take work away from us and also to take our work without our consent and compensation and use it to create AI-generated movies.
[41:02] And the thing is that right now, the way that the contract is written, technically a movie does have to be written by a person. But what could happen? Because you can’t copyright AI, and it’s already in the agreement that it has to be written, the credit has to be given to an actual person to fulfill the contract. But what they could do, and what we know they totally would do, is use AI. To create an outline or a first draft.
Minimums
And then they would hire someone for the basic minimum to polish it, to make sure that everything works around, give it a little bit of extra edge, a little extra humor, and get around the loophole that has to be written by a person.
But you can’t make a career out of that. You can’t make a living off of the scale minimum of a polish once a year. That’s like $10,000, you know, before commissions and taxes. Do you know what I mean?
[42:00] And so that, I think, is what they would do if they could. And I do think that Christmas movies specifically are susceptible to the dangers of AI because it is formulaic. It is a recipe.
And there are so many of them that they could use all of that content. Because it’s one thing, how do you have AI write a Coen Brothers movie? First of all, super individual and quirky. But second of all, there are only so many of them that they can use as a basis for generating new stuff. But there are so many Christmas movies.
The Danger of A.I., Especially To Christmas Movies
And it does follow a very sort of, like I said, there are certain ingredients. So if you feed all that in, it’s going to shoot out a generic Christmas movie script that could be passable at a certain point. Maybe not right now, but the way that it exponentially improves itself means that they could probably come up with it.
Because people’s expectation levels or the formula aspect of a Christmas movie make it easier to copy. And that’s scary. And I also think it’s detrimental. It’s not going to be as original. It’s not going to be as interesting.
The Importance of Organic Storytelling and Representation
[43:22] It’s not things that come from surprises. They come from individual experiences. They come from the lived experience of the writers and put in unique voices. I also think it would be probably not very beneficial for diversity in terms of representation. This includes the types of characters that would be written the types of storylines or the types of world that it would be set in.
And that, because it’s not being sort of organically created and it’ll fall even more into stereotypes, even more into tropes, and people will be like, oh, Christmas movies suck, you know, because they’re all the same. And you don’t want that. You want it to be, like I said, familiar and fresh.
[44:08] And I think that without the human writer aspect of it, then it’s just going to be very stale.
[Caryn] Yeah, well, let’s hope the writers hold the line because this is the existential threat.
[44:20] [Eirene] We are holding the line. We are very united and very committed to the cause. We’ve been out here for four months and we’re not going anywhere until we get what we want. At this I want to be like, no, we want it all. We’re not even negotiating.
Effects of the Strike
You put us through four months of pain. This was our offer. We thought we would counter and then you find the middle ground. And now I just want to be like, no. You have to give us everything. Now I want more. I want more.
I think we should expand our demands. Because for four months you have wrecked this entire town and put people out of work and out of business. Not just writers. I mean, it’s everything because production is shut down.
Strike Damage
And so all the customers, all the set decorators, all the cameramen, all the marketing people, the caterers, you know, and then the outside services that then support those people, you know, restaurants, because people can’t afford to go out to eat.
People are cutting, they can’t afford to go to therapy, they can’t afford, there’s so many. A knockdown effect. reverberations of their unwillingness to create a fair contract with us are felt beyond just writers. And so that is where it gets frustrating that you can see that they’re just being greedy.
[45:43] And then they’re talking about, you know, and it’s not and it’s not about these, there are very few writers that are, you know, these rich millionaires that can just survive everything.
Christmas Movies and Dry Spells
Like most writers are, even if you’re a professional writer and you’re in the guild, you’re working, you’re grinding, you’re paycheck to paycheck, you can get a big project and then, as I said, for two years you don’t sell anything.
You know, it can seem like a big deal at first for people like, oh, well, they sold this, or that you think that they’re more successful than they are, or that they’re getting paid so much money because, like, for one script, it’s that much money? Oh my god, what are they complaining about?
And it’s like, well, you have to live off of that. First, you’re cutting commissions to everyone, and then you have to live off of that for however long it takes, because sometimes they drag the job out and they don’t get back to you for two months and then you thought you could rely on this paycheck in the next six months and then suddenly, it’s another year before you get paid.
[Caryn] Or the paycheck is late.
[Eirene] Yeah, all of those things.
The Favorite Christmas Script and the Power of Representation
[46:42] So yes, that’s what’s going on with the strike. We’re in it for the long haul.
[Caryn] Good, good. More power to you. So what is your favorite script that you’ve written and why?
[Eirene] Let’s see, I think.
[46:58] Of the ones that I’ve written and gotten produced, it’s hard. It’s definitely between A Tourist’s Guide to Love and A Sugar and Spice Holiday.
[47:07] Of the Christmas movies, I would say, well, clearly, A Sugar and Spice Holiday. I’ll keep it to the Christmas movies. My favorite Christmas script that I’ve written is A Sugar and Spice Holiday.
Personal Connections Inspire Script Characters
It was my first Christmas movie that I wrote. And I loved being able to, the characters are very much inspired by my friends and family. The grandmother and the mother are both inspired by my mom, the cutest little Vietnamese woman, and we call her Nema. Which is what the grandmothers, you know, the character called Nema.
I always put, I put so many Easter eggs in my movies like everyone is named after someone I know, everything is, the neighborhoods, the, you know, where I’m from in Rhode Island, I used all of these sorts of like local references to this neighborhood is, you know like the snobby town is Rumpstik Point, which is sort of like the snobby, the richer neighborhood in my town, you know, things like that.
Christmas Movies and Fresh Ideas
So it was just really fun for me to, for the first time, I didn’t feel like I was covering, you know, whereas as I move forward and write more and more Christmas movies, it’s more challenging to try to keep yourself fresh and to not necessarily use the same story points or characters that you’ve used in the past. So for that one, it was just really fun, the idea of writing this fun Christmas movie and being able to put in some of those details about Asian families or Asian life.
[48:34] Also because that was the first sale that I made after the dry spell. So it’s just like, oh my god, I sold the script, and I am so happy to be working and getting paid, and yeah, so that I and I do I think it was so well done the director she’s amazing.
The Asian Community
It was during COVID it was during like hardcore lockdown they filmed it in Vancouver so I couldn’t go up and visit. But it was it was just a great experience. And the reaction that I had from people the feedback that I’ve had from people not just Christmas movie fans but very specifically within the Asian community, that was wonderful.
So many people reached out and were like, I’ve never seen myself represented on screen that way. And yeah, I just, it was so great. I love this part. I love that part. I love the way you did these things.
[49:28] So that to me was just wonderful. To be like, oh, I did that. I did that for you. And to want to keep doing things like that. To give, to sort of combine that enjoyment factor with representation or with just trying to keep the genre fresh.
[Caryn] Yeah. Well, that’s how I discovered you, because that movie, A Sugar and Spice Holiday, really made the news.
And that’s how I found you. And I’m like, wow, this girl, you go, girl, because I’m a big fan of diversity and having, especially, you know, because I used to live in Asia, having more Asians in Hollywood. And I think, wow, I think it’s a goldmine, personally, a goldmine genre, so.
The Need For Christmas Content
[Eirene] Yeah, and that’s another reason why I love the whole Christmas movie genre and that I tell emerging writers to write a Christmas movie is because they need so much content and because they are trying to reach a wider audience, diversity is actually, it used to be so whitewashed and so just, you know, middle America, Christian, white people, movies.
But in the past few years, it has shifted. I mean, there have been multiple other Asian-centered Christmas movies, and holiday movies since then.
Diversity In Christmas Movies
[50:47] Their Hallmark has especially made a huge, I mean, Lifetime was always a little bit more diverse in Hallmark, but there was a change in leadership a few years ago, and they actively started pursuing diverse voices.
[51:01] And not just, you know, ethnically, you know, class-wise, LGBTQ.
[51:06] Things like that, you know, all the different storylines, because they understand the audiences want to see that. They don’t want to see the same thing over and over and over again. And I mean, honestly, I mean, still 80, 90% of the programming is that.
But now at least there is, you know, every year, and then that builds the sort of canon. Every year that there’s another Asian movie, that means that instead of just being mine, there’s like two, and then the next year there’s three, and there’s four or five, you know, so it just keeps expanding.
[51:37] Definitely if you have a personal, connection, especially for first scripts, for newer writers, when you’re trying to sell yourself and sell your scripts, if your script can in some way be connected directly to your personal experience, that is a super big selling point.
Your Personal Experience
If you’re like, I worked at a zoo, or you know, like, or like, I, I lived in Asia, and this was my, it’s about your first Christmas in Asia as a foreigner, or, you know, whatever, or my mother did this, or my father was a professional Santa. I mean, whatever. You can authentically connect your personal story to what your script and story is.
People value that. And it also gives them a little bit of safety because it’s like, oh, this isn’t some crazy fantastical thing. If someone criticizes us, it’s like, no, this is their experience. They did grow up in a circus or, you know, the writer.
The Desire for Familiarity with Fresh Storylines in Christmas Movies
[52:35] And so, and that’s a way to get fresh storylines in there. They’re looking for something they are familiar with but different. They, you know, they say they want something different, but they want something different. That’s kind of the same.
[Caryn] Right, right. The same, the same, but different. Same, but different.
[Eirene] Exactly. I would say lean into your personal experience for your, especially for your first script.
Work-Life Balance
[Caryn] Exactly. Now getting a movie made can be stressful as we all know, as you well know. How do you maintain a work-life balance and do you have any hobbies?
[53:07] [Eirene] My work-life balance is all over the place. As a writer a mom and the wife of a nurse who works 12-and-a-half-hour shifts, I have to be flexible. I write when I can. I learned how to write in whatever situation, whatever, environment, coffee shops, my minivan, libraries, my laundry room my office.
Writing Christmas Movies is Not Glamorous
Being a Hollywood screenwriter is not glamorous at all. I work in my laundry room. And so that, but then also I’m forced to sort of have the balance of life because when my husband is working and I’m taking care of our daughter, then I can’t be writing, I can’t be doing any of that stuff.
So I’m in life. And then, as she’s gotten older, and she’s in school, it does free up more time to, you know, I try to, I am very, I have a lot of friends. I’m a very people person. So we go for walks together, or I try to go see movies more now. I go on and off with that, but just trying to watch what’s out there.
So that’s sort of, that’s my way sometimes of being like, it’s work, but it’s not work. But it didn’t technically work. I have to watch this movie. I have to read this book, you know. Everything is research, too. Everything counts as research.
[54:32] Because you never know where you’re going to pull that story from. So I travel a lot. We travel to see family. My husband’s from Canada. I’m from Rhode Island. I’m the youngest of six. I’m the youngest of seven. So I have family all over the place. So we go camping. I go to the beach.
Exploring Songwriting as a New Creative Outlet
[54:53] I also, write songs. I just started recently writing songs as a, I’d always written song lyrics and I was never really a singer or musician, but. A couple of years ago started focusing on it more and being like, oh, I want to do this maybe so worked with a couple of people on songs that never really got released. But then started taking voice lessons last year, and decided to record a single.
Hobbies
And so I recorded a song. It’s called The River Flows Anyway. And it’s on Spotify, and Apple Music, and all the other things too. But it was such an amazing experience. It was so much fun. It was such a different level of creativity. And this expression is very different than, so much more immediate than writing a screenplay.
And then you send it in, it doesn’t get made and no one ever sees it. You wrote a screenplay or it does get made, but it’s different. It takes two years and it’s very different than what you had because by then the director, the actor, all of the things.
Finding Joy
So for me, just write a song, record it, and then release it so people can hear it. It has been fun. So I do that. That’s sort of a release for me in writing songs. And that’s been bringing me a lot of joy recently.
[56:11] And so, yeah, those are, you know, that’s how I just try to I’m very, very sort of, I guess what woo woo pagan hippie.
Living in Joy and Manifesting Good Energy
[56:23] I believe in positivity and joy, I do the crystals, I try to manifest, I believe that you can manifest things, I put good energy into the universe, I hope that it comes back to me, and in the meantime, at least I’m living in a place of joy, I expect good things to happen to me, and I can deal with what goes wrong, instead of expecting everything to go wrong and then only getting these like small moments of being at a higher level.
Writing is Hard – Even Christmas Movies
So yeah, it’s hard. It’s very hard. Writing is very hard. And it’s, you know, your brain never turns off and you always feel like you should be doing more. And there’s always another rewrite and everyone always has their opinions and everyone’s going to tell you this. I mean, you could get notes and notes and notes and notes and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite.
And at a certain point, you just have to let it go and just sort of release it out there. I also do, I will go away. I’d like to rent a cabin or go to a friend’s house or sort of lock myself away and I can write a whole script in like a week. If I or less I’ve done it in five days.
Outline
[57:30] Because if I have an outline then I can I I’ll just get up and I write from nine till whenever till nine and then you know maybe watch some TV go to bed and then get up the next day and there’s nothing else distracting me so I can just focus completely on the script.
And I know that I only have that amount of time really to get it done. So that can be helpful for people who have a hard time balancing between those two things. If you can get away for a couple of days, go lock yourself away. Do a writing sprint and just sort of vomit it all out. And then you can rewrite it. It’s easier. I can rewrite easier sort of in and out of my life and at home.
But the actual like the first draft, if I can get away at least for the first couple, if I get the first act written, if you only have like two or three days, it’s like, once I get the first act, the first act for me is always sort of the hardest. You’re really like building everything, you’re putting all the pieces together.
Just Write the First Christmas Draft
And then once that sort of gets rolling, it’s easier for me to just come in and out of that world because I’ve already sort of built the world. But that first act, if I can go away for three days somewhere. Just lock the door, then that is how I create that balance. I like that idea.
[Caryn] Good, good. So what advice would you give to your younger self?
[58:44] [Eirene] I was like, when you sent me this question, I was l what advice would I give? And there’s sort of two and the first leads into the second one. And the first one would be to invest in real estate. I wish I could go back and invest in real estate when I was younger.
Passive Income – Start Now
[59:03] And to have that type of financial asset and it would be incredible because, If you can create, and not like real estate, but like if you can at some point before you embark on this career or while you’re doing it, create some level of passive income or another source of income that is not a full-time job, but can keep you floating in the very long, hard, dry patches, that would be amazing.
And before I did this, I was a bartender. Taught English in Japan. I was a nanny and a tutor. Did freelance work. I did all of those odd jobs, I temped on Wall Street, all of those things.
[59:53] And a lot of those jobs, they’re great for the short term, but they can be hard sometimes because while you’re doing some of these jobs, you don’t have time to write or it’s not enough because you’re working so much that you never can get your work done.
Online Income to Sustain Your Christmas Writing Career
And so if I could have, I don’t know, created some sort of website or servicing that I didn’t have to, or that I was more of a side hustle, but that could come in handy when you’re financially strapped. You know, luckily when I had, when I’ve had dry patches or things, my, as I said, my husband has, he’s a nurse, so he has a regular job with a steady paycheck that doesn’t quite keep us floating, but mostly, you know, and, and so, yeah, I would say if you can invest in real estate.
Be Prepared for the Long Haul
[1:00:44] When you’re, when you’re young, whatever you can do, just invest in real estate, get a rental property and then you can just have that gaining value and renting it out and giving you some sort of income outside of writing. And that leads sort of to the second part of that strategy. Just a life strategy is just to know that you are going to be in this for the long haul. Be prepared to be in it for the long haul.
It is not an overnight success. I’m suddenly a millionaire. I can do whatever I want type of business. Maybe that happens to some people, but even those people, if you’re like in five years are like, where are they now? You know, it’s ups and downs, it’s hits and misses, it’s building and building connections, networks, it’s stepping up that ladder and sometimes falling down and then having to climb up again.
A Christmas Writer’s Career Has No End Date
And it’s also not the type of career that has an end date, that has an expiration date. You can write a script at 70, and if it’s a good enough script, someone can buy it from you, you know, like you.
[1:01:45] At any point in your life, if you are still writing and still pursuing it, you could start. You just retired, you’re an empty nester or whatever, like, I’ve always wanted to write a screenplay. You can write a screenplay. It doesn’t, there’s no, oh, I, with, I mean, I can see how that would, with actors or certain careers, like, I got to do this now. I got to get in Young and all those things.
If I’m not a success by the time I’m 30, then forget it. You know, if anything, the more life experience you have, the more interesting your script is going to be. And the more material you have to bring to the world as a writer.
Be Persistent
And so just be prepared for the fact that it’s, you stick with it. You have to be persistent. You have to not let rejection get to you. Just it’s not personal. A lot of the time you just okay, keep going. Keep writing, keep rewriting new scripts, and new ideas.
Live an Interesting Life
And keep living. Also, make sure you live an interesting life. Because like I said, if you’re not living an interesting life, then that’s when it becomes generic and reductive because you’re writing because of the other Christmas movies you’ve watched and not because of your own interesting lived experiences or your friend’s experience or something you saw, you know, that is the material.
[1:02:57] So make sure you live an interesting life and just go for it.
[Caryn] You have a great attitude, a great attitude. Now, would you like to wrap up? Would you like to share any social media details for our audience on how to keep track of your work?
[Eirene] you can follow me on Instagram at Eirene Tran Donohue.
Insightful tips and techniques
[1:03:20] [Caryn] Is that just spelled as one word or is there a hyphen?
[Eirene] No, it’s just one word, eirenetrandonohue.
[Caryn] Okay, great. Well, Eirene, this has been excellent. Thank you so much for your very candid answers and very insightful tips and techniques. And so thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
[Eirene] Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a great conversation and I hope that people find this helpful.
[1:03:47] Someday I’ll be watching their Christmas movies on Lifetime and Hallmark and Netflix and everywhere else.
[Caryn] Excellent. Excellent. And we’ll talk soon, I’m sure. Okay, great. Thank you. Bte,
[Eirene] Thanks. Bye-bye.
Takeaways
[Caryn] And now for my takeaways today, I have four.
Christmas Writers Groups
Number one, writers groups. You will only get one read, so get your script edited before you send it out. An easy way to do this is to join a writer’s group and swap scripts. Irene talked about how she hired a script consultant on her first script. It ended up as a semi-finalist in the Nicholl Fellowship, which then led to her getting representation.
[1:04:26] So it’s always a good idea to get an objective opinion on your script. You can check out writer’s groups on Facebook, for example, and there’s one called Writing for Holiday Movies. You can see the link in my show notes.
Personal Experience
Number two, personal experience. Christmas movies tend to be formulaic. I think we all agree on that, but how do you stand out?
One way to give your script a fresh point of view is to use your own experience. We’ve heard producers say they want the same, but different. Your experience is unlike anyone else’s. I do this with my scripts. Having lived and worked in Hong Kong, I try to incorporate an Asian element. These are either characters or plot points in my scripts.
Passive Income
Number three is passive income. Being between writing gigs is part of the screenwriter’s job description. You can do yourself a big favor by thinking about creating some passive income. Now, buying real estate for rental income may be out of the question. But perhaps you can start a website or even a coaching service. I did this myself. Besides podcasts and blogs, my website is christmasmoviescreenwriter.com.
The Importance of Christmas Script Quality and Longevity
[1:05:39] Also has a membership section. Number four, no expiration date. Yes, there is ageism in every industry, but luckily for writers, you can write a script at any age.
What counts is not your looks, but how good your script is. But you need to be prepared for the long haul. Don’t let rejection get to you. And make sure you live an interesting life. The more experiences you have, the more material you have to bring to the world as a writer.
Well, that’s the show. Thank you for listening. To show your support, please give us a five-star rating on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts. And sign up to be notified of the launch of our membership plan.
This is where producers will post requests for tailored Christmas submissions and writers can submit a written pitch. Sign up at www.christmasmoviescreenwriter.com
Thanks for listening and I’ll see you on the next Christmas Movie Screenwriter Podcast. Bye!
The Christmas Movie Screenwriter Podcast – Episode 6
Eirene Donohue – Screenwriter
Show Notes
HOST: Caryn McCann
Website: https://christmasmoviescreenwriter.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChristmasMovieScreenwriter
X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/MerryScriptmas
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caryn-mccann-5718058/
GUEST: Eirene Donohue
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eirenetrandonohue/
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5149399/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
Links mentioned:
Facebook writing group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/writingforholidaymovies