Rating: 
Summary: Judging a movie by its author
Review: A "reviewer" writes: <Also, in answer to the SINGLE negative review, most writers are aware that you shouldn't judge a writer by the resulting movie.>Since the "only negative review" has been deleted, it's important to chime in with another, and hope it sticks. First, if a screenwriter takes screen credit for a movie, then she darn well should be judged on the resulting film. "Excess Baggage" was roundly panned by critics, and for good reason. The movie was horrible. If Ms Adams really felt that the movie wasn't representative of her work, she had an option to take an "Alan Smithee" credit and be done with it, thereby foregoing her bonus. The Screenwriter's Survival Guide is yet another example of "those who can't, teach," or - in Ms Adams' case, "preach." The information (useful or otherwise) imparted in her book seems born of a resentment towards Hollywood, and would carry more weight of credibility had it been penned by a track-record writer, rather than another unproven screenwriter. Beneath the cookie-cutter affirmations in this book, lies the waning spirit of a critically-panned, yet inexplicably produced screenwriter who has failed to "fail up" in Hollywood. I too have checked out the author's web site, and find more of the same spiteful drivel therein. I would not recommend this book to anyone seeking to make it as a writer in Hollywood. Sincerely, Vacheline Butholey
Rating: 
Summary: the significance of truth
Review: A book for students, working artists, industry professionals, and movie-goers alike -- Max Adams takes us into the world of screenwriting by translating her own hard-bought experiences into specific, easy to read chapters. By treating her career with passion and admirable honesty, Max Adams has accomplished what most gifted screenwriters work years toward but regrettably never find. Her book is a necessary guide to survival in Hollywood. As a mentor and an artist, Max Adams illustrates how to make success a habit. A great book and a great read!
Rating:
Summary: just another review
Review: An excellent book from an excellent writer. This is must reading for all wannabe screenwriters. It's informative and entertaining. I read it in one sitting - could not put it down. She has an engaging voice and her caring personality comes through. This insightful book should be every struggling screenwriters's bible. It cuts through all the bs and gives you the hard simple truths. The only problem with this book is that it wasn't published a few years earlier. It would have saved me alot of grief.
Rating:
Summary: Above the rest
Review: Don't start here. Learn how to write, I mean really learn. Write three, four maybe even five screenplays. Read the other books. Sure, some of them suck, but even books that suck teach you something (if only how to write a book that sucks). Now you're ready for Max's book (and, it doesn't suck). Assuming you have a sense of humour and aren't expecting a little "fill in the form and sell tomorrow" approach, you'll enjoy this and take some really great things away from it. Max covers the fundamentals of surviving in Hollywood. She'll teach you how to write a logline, how to write a query, how to deal with agents, how to dump an agent, how to deal with producers, what to wear, when to call, what to say, and all sorts of other nifty things. Best of all, she presents it in a fun and easy to read manner. Max is an inspiration. She's a small town girl who didn't start out with connections. But there she is, making it in Hollywood. And, she's telling you how she did it. It's the Holy Grail of screenwriting books, the one that actually teaches you how to sell. Many successful writers never earn a screen credit. Many screenwriting book authors have never sold a single script. Max is working, she has a screen credit, and she's good. She's in the trenches and she knows what she's talking about. She's figured out how to break the system and now she's telling you. Don't let the negative reviews fool you, she's the real deal. This book is fun and enlightening with real world examples.
Rating: 
Summary: Shouldn't a mentor to writers be able to write?
Review: First, this is an entertaining book and I enjoyed reading it in spite of a few smallish problems. Most glaringly, the writer cannot string together two competent prose paragraphs in the English language for all the glitter in Hollywood. Yet she writes as if her shallow view is the answer to every dreaming screenwriter's prayers. And therein lies the humor. Adams doesn't put much concentration on screenwriting, but she does dispense such important tips as suggesting that you, when in Hollywood to pitch your story, immediately purchase two nice pillows. Why? Because, like hotel soap, hotel pillows .... For those who have never been in a hotel before, I suppose this is a rather startling revelation. For those who think such concerns are of vital, page-turning relevance, I can only hope that equal attention be paid to writing a couple of nice scripts. Otherwise, I suppose one might stay home where the pillows and soap don't .... If you've seen EXCESS BAGGAGE with Alicia Silverstone, then you have seen the screen credit that the author assumes gives her the authority to mentor others. And, if you've seen the movie or read her original script, and liked either, then the author is exactly the sort of mentor you need. Proceed immediately to Hollywood and start looking for pillows with high thread counts. EXCESS BAGGAGE is one of those odd cases where the movie was better than the script. And the movie was somewhat beneath the expectations I bring to any two hour investment of my time that doesn't include oral surgery or a line at the DMV. A tip for any screenwriter attempting to survive: If you are writing a romantic comedy, it should be: a. Romantic b. Funny c. Both. But, while overlooking such glaring suvival tips, Adams does make more important suggestions, like: "When you arrive at a meeting with a couple minutes to spare? Use the bathroom." This kind of confusing sentence structure and seemingly random punctuation are typical of the book, but overlook grammar for a moment and appreciate the actual suggestion. This may be groundbreaking (even watershed) water closet advice too long overlooked by rare unfortunates pounding out screenplays during an upbringing by wild gibbons, but for those of us who have lived in society for some years, the concept of not interupting an important meeting to go potty is pretty common as courtesy goes. One can only imagine the event that prompted the inclusion of this urgent advice. Perhaps in the next edition, Adams might suggest adding a catheter to her list of goodies one should lug around on pitch trips. Chapstick, lipstick, fresh socks, fix-a-flat (2 cans, mind you), "breath stuff," dental floss, and lozenges all made the cut this time out. If one is looking for a serious book on surviving the jungle of screenwriting, I'm afraid this isn't it. It is difficult to take seriously the writing advice of a person who has not mastered the most basic rules of grammar. Efforts at sentence structure are sporadic and punctuation is random. Question marks pop up in the oddest places?? And commas? The comma misusage alone is sufficient to give one pause when considering the writing advice of one whose authority is merely tonal. The copy-editor was obviously asleep on the job, but blame must still rest with the writer. One can only assume that her first draft wasn't rushed through galleys and printed off without anyone picking up a blue pencil, but the pages read as if her notes for the book were mistakenly used at the last minute. One might generously call it a charming, comfortable, personal approach to addressing the reader, but I prefer to call a spade a shovel and say it is unprofessional, lazy, and disrespectful. A quick perusal of the author's web site will clue you in as to the source of all the 5-star reviews. The site is her solar system and there is no shortage of wannabes wading in shallow sycophantic orbit around her, thrilled to be in contact with a produced entity. The site is the equivalent of two nice pillows designed to prop up her self esteem until EXCESS BAGGAGE 2 or some other theatrical approximation of bubblewrap can grace cineplexes across our great land. One might wish to bookmark Fandango now so as not to miss the sneak. Any day now. While the book fails to live up to its title or to be of any real use to a serious writer, it is funny. Sadly, it is funnier than the author's produced romantic comedy... and almost as shallow.
Rating:
Summary: Blockbuster
Review: Having just finished a screenplay, I was looking for ways to secure representation, and laboring under a wealth of misconceptions. This book brought me back to earth, but also made for a soft landing. Max Adams provides a succint, funny, clear and concise list of rules to follow for getting through to agents and producers. She also blows apart some myths (you're going to be rich as soon as you sell your first screenplay) and decodes the executive-speak you're sure to deal with in any meetings you go to. Thanks, Max.
Rating:
Summary: Brace Yourself...
Review: I recently finished reading Max Adam's excellent "Screenwriter's Survival Guide". What an education! The author has delivered a comprehensive how-to guerilla manual for aspiring screenwriters trying to break through in Hollywood. An invaluable book from the trenches by a talented writer who has been keeping her eyes open and taking extensive field notes, it is practical, funny, sharp, sobering, generous in spirit, full of pithy, laid-back prose and a wealth of essential information. It also contains an implicit and lucid critique of an industry that routinely cannibalizes and perversely sabotages the talent it ought to nourish. Max Adams clearly cares about other writers. And while her book of harsh truths and nitty gritty details will likely appall as well as amuse the aspiring screenwriter, it will also thoroughly prepare them for the long haul.
Rating:
Summary: So. "Red Hot?" Ahem.
Review: I'm a screenwriter and screenwriting teacher in Los Angeles. I only mention my credits because Max Adams trades on hers so much. I found this book because one of my students asked me about it. My response was probably the same as 95% of people in the business. Who? Ahem.
(Sorry, the book is written in a distractingly conversational style, filled with fragments and one word interjections, guaranteed to drive you crazy. So.)
I bought the book, read the book, and even went to the author's website, advertised at the back of the book. Here's all you need to know about the author's expertise: she constantly refers to herself as "red hot Adams," taken from an article in Variety. There it is, on the back of her book, and on her website. What she fails to mention is that she was "red hot" five years ago, and as far as I can tell from her credits, she hasn't worked since.
Reading the book and the website, here's how I figure her career went. (And the story of her career is really the hidden, and more informative, story of her book.) She won a couple of amateur screenwriting contests. One of her scripts sold. The author tried to sell more scripts, with little success. An actress, who at the time everyone thought was smart and a star, decided to do the movie. In that window when the movie was being shot and before the movie came out, the author made three quick sales, and got herself dubbed "red hot". This is common. If you have a "go" movie, you sell a lot of other things. People are afraid not to hire someone who got a movie shot. Then the movie came out. It bombed and got panned. Turns out the actress wasn't so smart, and wasn't such a star. People stopped hiring the author. For five years. That brief moment when the author was "red hot" is the biggest problem with the book. The author decided that she was selling pitches because she'd hit upon a magical combination of elements, not because she was the flavor of the week. And those elements became gospel to her. And she presents them as such. The trouble is, some things she says are true, some are false, and some are just plain bizzare. But she presents them all as if they're the only way things work in Hollywood. Let's start with the bizzare. According to the author, writers have a "uniform." Jeans, high top sneakers, plain t-shirt, and a loose casual jacket. I don't think I've seen a screenwriter dressed like that in fifteen years. In fact, the only group I think I've ever seen dressed like that is bad stand up comics from the eighties. Writers do wear jeans, unless they're wearing slacks, shorts or sweatpants. They occasionally wear t-shirts, unless they're wearing polos or oxfords or sweatshirts or sweaters. High top sneakers? Maybe Shaq wears them, but I think he's a rapper, not a screenwriter.
Also, when going to meetings, the author says you need to carry certain necessities with you at all times. Including fresh socks, safety pins, masking tape, a toothbrush, and two cans of Fix-a-Flat. The only thing I can think is that the author got confused, and put the list of items she takes when she's going to a taping of "Who Wants To Make A Deal"? Needless to say, I and most other screenwriters manage to sell scripts without carrying even one of those items. There are many more bizarre things, but more dangerous are the information and advice that are just wrong. Such as: agents don't send scripts directly to studios, they have to go through a producer. Untrue. It's quite common to send a script or take a pitch directly to the studio. Then, after it's sold, a producer is attached. Maybe right away, maybe down the road. Or, "don't even make casting suggestions unless someone asks you who do you see in the lead roles". Wrong again. You don't have to do this, but it is very common. One of the easiest ways to explain your character is to go into pitches and introduce the characters as a "George Clooney" type. Again, I, and a lot of other people, sell scripts this way. Or, when executives ask what the theme is, they're really asking what the plot is, since they don't know what theme means. I don't know who Adams was dealing with, but when an executive asks for theme, they want theme. You're going to look like a fool if you're a writer and you give plot when asked for theme. (A common refrain of the book is that someone didn't understand Adams or didn't like her writing because they're stupid. Stupid readers, stupid producers, stupid executives, stupid agents, stupid actors. It's always someone else's lack of intelligence -- nothing is ever rejected because of a lack of talent.) There's also a lot of information that's wrong and very easy to check. You'd think the publisher would have spent a few bucks looking into the few facts in the book. Such as Adams saying not to use a "non-proportional font", which she defines as a font "that changes spacing on the page to fill in the right margin, creating block paragraphs that make business letters look 'crisp.'" She's wrong on the advice and the definition of the term. The term she was looking for was "fully justified text," and it has nothing to do with the font. Screenwriters are supposed to use a non-proportional (or fixed) font, which is a font that takes up the same amount of space no matter what letter you use. This is because scripts are used for timing (roughly a page per minute) and a proportional font would mess that up.
This isn't a horrible book. It has a few interesting stories, and is an interesting case study of a writer's rise and fall. But I wouldn't follow the advice -- a lot of it is wrong, dated or just plain weird. If everything the author said in the book worked, she'd be doing it and making a living as a screenwriter. Instead, a quick visit to her website will show you how she's making money these days. She's selling t-shirts, mugs and boxer shorts with her logo on them, she's selling copies of her script, and she's selling herself as a consultant, where for 1500 dollars, she'll fix your script for you. Oh, and she's selling a book telling you how to be a screenwriter. Ahem.
Rating: 
Summary: Good for anyone
Review: I'm not a screenwriter - I mainly write fiction - but I'll read most any book on writing: screenplays, plays, poetry, novels, short stories, essays, magazine articles, etc. And this book is if nothing else a very fun read. She has a straightforward 'just-you-and-me-here' style like she's sitting across the table from you. (I find books that address the reader as "some of you" and "most of you" off-putting.)
As a bonus, I really liked her very simple (and cheap) method of "submission tracking." She's the only writer I've seen who specifically addressed the issue and even shared any method at all, let alone one so quick and simple. A keeper!
Rating:
Summary: Finally...
Review: I've been a patron of Max's website for a couple of months now and my respect for her grows with each visit. She's smart, she knows what she's talking about and she's sharing her insights in this book. And they're pretty good insights too. Whether you're a seasoned screenwriting vet or a wide-eyed newbie, Max's advice cuts through the clutter of ubiquitous screenwriting books, tapes, videos and seminars and gives it to us like it is, straightforward and unflinching. For anyone tired of the repetitive glut of screenwriting information out there, Max's book is a welcome relief. And do yourself a favor: disregard beaunercozi's 1-star review below. For starters, Max's "Excess Baggage" script bears as much relation to the film as Sam Jackson and Joe Pesci do to each other. If you want to blame someone for the movie being offal, blame its young, naive leading actress, who thought she knew how to write as well as a screenwriter. Those who can't write, act....
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