Open Writing Assignments (OWAs) are one of the more common ways screenwriters can get paid. You can sell a pitch, you can option or sell a spec, but those ways of making money from your screenwriting are less frequently occurring than getting paid to write what someone else wants you to write, e.g. the OWA.
An OWA is a project someone (usually a studio or production company) is looking to hire a writer to work on. OWAs can take a lot of different shapes and sizes, including but not limited to: adaptations of other forms of IP, rewrites of screenplays they’ve already commissioned or bought, and reboots of existing properties.
To be hired for an OWA, generally you’d be up against several other writers, pitching your ideas for what new direction to take the project in, how to fix what’s not working, and how to get it to place where it (hopefully) can and will be made.
If you want to be a (paid) working screenwriter, understanding how to evaluate material and pitch your take on it is a skill to hone.
What’s your take?
Just as you write screenplays and develop your craft along the way, you can set yourself up for later success by practicing how you’d pitch on OWAs.
With any OWA opportunity, your job is to think about what you’ll pitch to get yourself hired.
- What are the issues you want to fix?
- But also, what do you love about the project, or what does it have the potential to be?
- What version of this movie would you want to write and see?
- What’s your unique spin or “take” on the project?
While you may not actually pitch your take to anyone right now, even considering how you’d approach an assignment is good practice to be a writer for hire. It’ll get you thinking about the art of collaboration and how you might write something you don’t have complete control over.
A quick aside: if you want to get a feel for development meetings, check out this send-up.
And even if you’re not quite at that place in your career (or even want to go in that direction) working through how to fix a story is always useful practice.
I encourage you to take the time to analyze the scripts you read and to think about what’s working, what’s not, and how you would address any issues. And for the advanced writers and overachievers, also think about your unique take on the project. What new or different spin would you put on it? What would you bring to the project that no one else would? What fresh version of the project do you envision?