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Steph Olivieri Bourbon ~ Writing Coach

~ I TEACH emerging female writers in tv/film & novels HOW to create stories to fall in love with✨© Stephanie Bourbon 2022

Steph Olivieri Bourbon ~ Writing Coach

Monthly Archives: July 2021

Crushing Your Query Letter

12 Monday Jul 2021

Posted by StephOBourbonWriter in Uncategorized

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Film, Novels, screenwriting, storytelling, Television, TV writing, writers life, Writing, writing tips

This week I want to talk to you about your query letter. If you already have an agent then you may not need this, but you can always also brush up on how to pitch your work for when you are meeting with studio executives, and or new editors/publishing houses, and for when you are on the agent hunt again. I have had 4 agents for writing in the last 20 years and whenever I have had to start looking again knowing how to put together a query letter has really helped me.

First of all, if you haven’t grabbed this already, please grab this free guide to perfecting your query letter. It will make you sign up but don’t worry, it won’t put you on the list twice but just give you the FREE resource I have created. Also, you can forward this email to your writer friends who could use it. DOWNLOAD CRUSHING YOUR QUERY HERE

Now that you have the workbook let me go over the basics of what your query letter needs to be successful.

1. It needs to evoke emotions of some kind. The agent wants to know that you can connect with readers. How do you do this? Through emotions. You do this with your HOOK. You hook the agent and your readers in by making an emotional connection. How do readers connect if you have a book about a wizard? Well if he is an orphan and lives under the stairs, well, there it is, you immediately feel for him. If it’s about a clueless teenager living in Beverly Hills obsessed with fashion and things that don’t matter but in a funny way, it makes you feel something? Joy? Hate? Silliness? This is how you get the reader in the store to buy and it’s how you land your agent. Many times your query letter is what ends up on the back of the book. (No pressure)

2. It needs to tell us WHO the story is about and WHAT happens to them. For example, Harry Potter (and I know people are sick of Harry Potter, but everyone’s read it so it works). Harry is a 10-year-old boy living under the stairs of his abusive aunt and uncle until he finds out he is a wizard. That tells us WHO-Harry, and WHAT-he finds out that he is a wizard. Let’s take TWILIGHT. Bella is a 17-year-old who moves to a small town in the PNW to live with her father and is miserable until she falls in love with Edward, a vampire. We know WHO and WHAT. Bella falls in love with a vampire so we know already there are going to be complications, possibly death, and forbidden love. The detail of her moving to the PNW to live with her father tells us that her parents are divorced which informs character. For Harry, the fact that he lives under a staircase and is living with his abusive aunt and uncle tells us that his parents are gone or dead, he isn’t treated well and he what he needs more than anything-a family.


3. It needs to tell the agent the genre and word count with two comp titles. This is to show the agent that you know where your book fits in and you know your audience. It’s important and should be at the top of the query with the personalized note as to why you have contacted this agent. Agents know that you are submitting to multiple agencies but they also like to feel like you chose them and aren’t just sending to anyone. The comp titles should be in the last 5 years and should be in the same genre and age group. For example, if you say that you wrote a book that is STRANGER THINGS meets GENERATION MISFITS the agent knows immediately what that is. A middle-grade book with some supernatural, possibly slightly scary elements about friendship and pop music—sound interesting? Yes, it’s fine to use film and or television if it fits. You can use older titles. I got many requests for a YA novel that I pitched as ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES meets THE SIXTH SENSE and yes the movie referenced came out in the 90s–so there are exceptions, but that film is one that everyone knows and reading that agents knew immediately that there was a ghost element and that someone didn’t know or possibly didn’t know they were dead.

I read queries every single week that are still missing these basic elements and I’m sharing this with you so you can skip past the thousand revisions and get it right so you can find that perfect agent match and get signed so you can get that book or movie out into the world. It’s not super easy to get an agent but you can do it! I know you can. You just have to have the right tools, and spend the time getting to the core of what your story is about and why people should care about it.

HOMEWORK~Write down what is unique about your book. Make a list of all the emotions you want to evoke. Use just one word to describe your story. Build on that slowly until you have a full sentence that tells us WHO and WHAT the story is about. You can do it!!

Live, Love, Create!

XO Stephanie


AND I have some exciting news to announce. My new PODCAST is up and starting THIS WEEK, there will be new short episodes with all things for creatives including free tips, training, and things to help you succeed as well as interviews with authors, artists, musicians, actresses, etc…

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Why Silicon Valley Has It All

08 Thursday Jul 2021

Posted by StephOBourbonWriter in Writing (film & television)

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character, Comedy, Film, screenwriting, screenwriting tips, silicon valley, storytelling, Television, TV writing, writers life, Writing, writing comedy, writing tips

This may be a few years late, but I want to talk about a show that has it all! 

SILICON VALLEY

*pulled from IMDB-Silicon Valley (2014–2019) … Follows the struggle of Richard Hendricks, a Silicon Valley engineer trying to build his own company called Pied Piper

Let’s break down seasons-1-3 (it starts getting a bit more serious at the midway point) 

It has 👇

✅ Great characters

✅ Comedy that comes from character (not joke, joke, joke)

✅ Diverse cast

✅ Heart-meaning, we CARE Let’s break it down. 

The characters

Richard Hendricks-our protagonist/Lovable Loser who is kind, smart, a bit nerdy, pretty much always chooses the wrong thing but we care and root for him. He’s real and authentic.Erlich Bachman-Materialistic One/womanizer – he’s brash, arrogant, causes a lot of trouble and we love to hate him, but mostly love him because he is helping our main protagonist and his group of creators—for his 10% thoughBertram Gilfoyle-Bastard always a jerk to everyone including Richard but especially Dinesh. We have all worked with guys/gals like this. They are smart and arrogant but we need them. Dinesh Chugtai – Logical Smart One – basically is the only one who is always thinking straight and is solid. He doesn’t freak out or anything, he is just steady. Nelson “Big Head” Bighetti-another Lovable Loser-seriously this guy does nothing, isn’t good at anything like the others but keeps getting moved up. His only real qualification is being Richard’s best friend. Donald “Jared” Dunn- another Logical Smart One. Honestly, I could take or leave this guy but in understanding this business, I know these types are always there. Monica-the love interest? Maybe, maybe not. She, like, Erlich, causes a lot of problems, but we like her because we believe she means well.  Then you have the non-main characters but the ones who support the mains. Peter Gregory – billionaire whose company was funding Pied Piper until he died suddenly in a freak accident while on safari (while in real life the actor passed away from cancer in 2013) Played by Christopher Evan Welch based on the co-founder of PayPalGalvin Belson-clearly based on the two founders of Google. He is just a rich businessman and our antagonist for Richard and his gang. He’s all business.Jian-Yang -one of the housemates living in Erlich’s free incubator home for startups.Russ Hanneman also a billionaire but a serious douchebag and it was hard to watch Richard get involved with him.  

Comedy

that comes from character and the situations they are in but it’s not a sitcom. This show has dark comedy and it’s almost hard to watch. Unlike shows like FRIENDS or SEINFELD, you come back to Silicon Valley or go to the next episode because we NEED to know what happens. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny, well…maybe sometimes it is, especially if you know any people who are like this, but it’s meant to be a smarter comedy that all the humor comes from character. It’s really well done. I suggest that you watch it and study it. There are NO JOKES. Also, get Steve Kaplan’s book on writing comedy. THE HIDDEN TOOLS OF COMEDY  Some of the things that happen seem absurd but they all come from character. One of the most pivotal moments for Richard was when he created something unique and he did it based on a stupid argument Dinesh and Bertram were having literally about jerking off people in the audience. They got so specific about it and spent hours making charts on a board to figure the math out and it gave Richard an idea. It seemed random but it wasn’t “wouldn’t it be funny if” (two nerds argued about jerking others off–which would have been low-brow humor) but it was used to illustrate their characters and move the story forward in a big way.  

Diverse cast

You seriously can’t have a show that takes place in Silicon Valley without doing this so well done to the creators for getting this spot on. They didn’t just toss in some other races besides white to be inclusive, which is happening a lot lately, they did it because it informed the story. It was also authentic and realistic.  

Heart

We care about the characters and if they succeed. I was thinking about the show on the way to work meetings, going to the dentist, when I was at work-most comedies don’t have that kind of power, but my heart was in it for Richard and his company. If you can’t stop thinking about a show and the characters like they are real people, then they are doing their job extremely well. Sometimes it was hard to watch as Richard keep choosing the wrong thing but this is also so real to startups in the area and over the years. It’s so well written and plotted out that we are sucked right into it.  These are the reasons I am writing about this show that aired 7 years ago because it’s really great and if you are writing characters for anything it’s worth studying. SILICON VALLEY is currently on HBO Max

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