No Hollywood Ending in Sight for This Star-Crossed Tale

For several years it has lain on a bookshelf at home. By now, the thing has a life of its own, one that both mocks and haunts me. I should be the master of my own estate; yet it rules me. You think not? A courageous man--a man in charge of his own destiny--would have thrown it out years ago and been done with it. Instead, it sits there tormenting me but still getting the royal treatment--as if it were the Hope Diamond. What is this hold it has over me?

My only solace comes from knowing I’m not alone. They’re everywhere--on shelves, in drawers, in closets, in trunks of cars, in wall safes, under mattresses. Now that I’ve lived 10 years in California, I realize they’re not only indigenous to the area, but indestructible. Some have taken over entire households, destroyed families, ruined marriages. Friends talk about theirs, and I shudder at their tales. We compare notes about whose is the oldest, the most vexatious, the most dominating. Some friends are driven to distraction talking about theirs. My feelings are more along the lines of self-contempt for not sneaking up behind it some night and torching it. An exorcism, if you will.

Ah, the Unfinished Screenplay.

California has 30 million residents and 93 million unfinished screenplays. The only thing we have more of are fleas and ants. Like China and babies, California used to allow only one unfinished screenplay per household. By the early ‘80s, though, the law proved unenforceable. Some residents have as few as one, but a man in Tarzana has 112, including one which he has been one page from finishing since 1962. “When I have the time, when I have the time!” he keeps saying to people who pester him about when he’ll wrap it up.

I began my Hollywood career in 1986 and in a flurry of creativity produced one teleplay and a sitcom, both unsold. Like everyone else getting started in the business, I had read several books on screenwriting and quickly came to consider myself an expert in the field. Undaunted by my early failures, my strategy was to build a diversified portfolio of scripts and then unleash it on Hollywood agents and producers. It all made such perfect sense back then.

After the teleplay and sitcom, the next step was to write an original screenplay. The teleplay had taken eight months to write but was based on a true story, so it didn’t require that I concoct a story line. I wouldn’t get off that easily in my attempt at a screenplay. For starters, I would need a main character. After racking my brain for months on end, I eventually settled on someone who writes for a newspaper.

Pleased with myself, the task then was determining what this person would do over the next 120 pages. In hindsight, that formed the first vague traces of what would become My Unfinished Screenplay.

Don’t let them fool you--filling up 120 pages is no mean feat, especially when you don’t have the vaguest idea what the plot will be. I used up every joke I could think of, put my protagonist into every wacky situation I could dream up, had him fall in love with every woman I could conjure up . . . and still only got to Page 30. A mere 90 pages to go for a full-length film.

This update: I have been on Page 30 since 1987. I tell myself it’s the finest 30 pages ever written but must accept the fact that no full-length movie has ever been 20 minutes long.

From time to time over the years, the urge has struck me to toy with the screenplay, to “flesh it out” and come up with an ending. Or, even, a middle. So far, though, the effort goes no further than leafing through the first 30 pages, chuckling at a gag or two, then returning it to the shelf and going off to watch TV or take a walk.

It would be nice to say I bogged down because I came to despise Hollywood and everything it stands for. That’s what I tell myself when I’m looking for an excuse.

Old friends who know I moved out here to write scripts still ask how the screenplay is coming along. I tell them it isn’t finished yet but that, after all, screenwriting takes time. I suppose they check their calendars and wonder just how long it takes.

Because they’re not Californians, of course, they just don’t understand the essence of Hollywood.

They don’t understand that it sounds better to say, “I’m working on a screenplay” than it does to say, “I wrote a screenplay but no one was interested.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.