The combination of family travel, lingering illness and Fallout 3 has kept me away from the blog this week, but I should be back to a normal schedule beginning Sunday.

There’s actual news, including my next writing project and an update (post-mortem?) on Shazam!. Plus, I really want to write something about this misguided memo from Thomas Kinkade reprinted in Vanity Fair. It’s a good cautionary tale.

(Update: Fixed spelling of Kinkade’s name. Thanks Matt Redd.)

The sweet, dark gravity of jetlag has subsided, so it’s time I put up a link to the rest of my pictures from France. They’re not all labeled at the moment, but proper titles are coming.

For those who don’t recall, I joined a group of nine American screenwriters on a program organized by Film France to explore Paris and Marseilles. The trip was exhausting in just the right ways, with too many people to meet and too much to see. Over eight days, I rode in several vans, a helicopter, a high-speed train, a very slow-speed train, and far more boats than I would have imagined. I even took a Vélib bike for a spin around Paris.

The purpose of the trip was to inspire American screenwriters to write more movies set in — and ideally, shot in — France. Going in, I thought of it like a location scout: a bunch of interesting backdrops, including things a tourist wouldn’t get to see. But as we got more into it, I found myself more drawn to people than places. I would ask a shipping yard exec about daycare, and an heiresses about divorce.

Of our group, I spoke the second-best French (or more precisely, eighth-worst), so I occasionally found myself shoved at the growing pool of journalists who accompanied us. And while my comprehension was surprisingly good, I found no quantum of eloquence when trying to answer questions in French. I sounded like a drunken third-grader. So I learned to nod thoughtfully, then plow ahead in English unabashed.

The trip was full of strange moments that I’d love to string together in a Sedaris-like monologue. The most meta-cinematic was when we found ourselves on a private island owned by the Ricard foundation. A tram tour took us past experimental lagoons, an old Nazi watchtower and the grave of founder Paul Ricard. It was already feeling a little Lost-ish when we got to the Institut, where we watched a self-produced film which could have come directly from the Dharma Initiative.

There was even a scale model of the island:

Later, we had a lunch in which every course featured truffles. That was on the other Ricard island.

On our last day, we toured Marseilles’ port in a pilot’s boat, brushing up against giant tankers. It provided good reference for my latest obsession, African piracy. Somehow, I don’t think the Somalian film industry will be getting a program together for us to visit.

I recently got representation, and my agents fell in love with my latest spec idea. Cut to nearly six weeks later and I still haven’t been able to hash it out completely. How do you know when to keep going at an idea in an attempt to crack it and or when to call it a day and realize the idea is not as good as you first thought it was?

What do I tell my agents if I can’t crack it?

– Stef

Your agents probably got excited by the idea because they think they can sell it — and you, as the writer.

Six weeks is a long time. I say this not to panic you, but to make sure you understand that employable screenwriters need to be able to produce on demand. You promised them something and didn’t deliver — that makes them nervous. How can they convince producers to hire you when you can’t hand them the script you yourself pitched?

Yes, sometimes seemingly-good ideas collapse upon further scrutiny, and it’s ultimately better to bail. If you truly can’t make your idea work, you need to move quickly on writing something else that is similarly marketable, even if it’s not the same genre. And you need to do it now.

When your agents ask, “What are you working on?” you should be able to answer immediately and passionately. So if it’s not the project you pitched them, make sure it’s something they’re going to be excited to read.

I’m writing a film about a cop whose investigation leads him into the occult, and there’s a particular (real) symbol that crops up several times. It’s more than just a Star of David: in fact, it incorporates several familiar symbols, and also some Hebrew words… anyway, it’s complex. I’ve written the scene where someone in the know walks Our Hero through the symbology, but I want to make sure that my readers really know what it looks like.

Is it appropriate to include an illustration or figure of the symbol at the end of the screenplay? I’ve seen some scripts that have pronunciation guides at the back, so how is this any different?

– Sean Wolfson

You can probably get away with it.

My advice: think about it like a book. In the best-selling novel version of your script, would the author have included the drawing? If so, do it. But only once, and only if it’s really that important.