Riding the Alligator: Strategies for a Career in Screenplay Writing (and Not Getting Eaten) by Pen Densham (review)

Around forty thousand screenplays are registered with the Writers Guild of America every year. It seems like just as many books have been published on how to write a marketable screenplay. They range from the supremely practical—Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field—to the obsessively analytical tomes of the three Lindas: Aronson, Cowgill, and Seger. So do we need yet another book on screenwriting? I would have said no, until I was sent a copy of Pen Densham's Riding the Alligator. In the interests of disclosure, I have known Pen Densham since 1989, when he and his partner, John Watson, optioned a pilot of mine that had been picked up by ABC. The franchise concerned a beautiful Moscow detective who was forced to seek asylum in the United States and was close to being given a green light, but shortly after I handed in my second draft, the Berlin Wall fell. As always, timing is everything. Densham and I have worked on other projects over the years.

What makes Riding the Alligator such an invaluable book for screenwriters? Well, it is one of the few books on the market that comes from a screenwriter who has actually been in the trenches. A quick look at Pen Densham's accomplishments on IMDb.com reveals the breadth and longevity of his career. The title of the book springs from an incident in the author's childhood, when his father filmed four-year-old Pen riding an alligator who belonged to a rather eccentric woman in London's Chelsea neighborhood. When Densham saw the results on a big screen, the magic of film became his lifelong obsession. Of course, the title is also a rather vivid metaphor for survival in a cutthroat industry.

This is not a book with specific information about the fundamentals of screenwriting: formatting, structure, character development, dialogue—the usual suspects. Densham assumes that in their passion for the craft, his readers have already explored these rudimentary skills. His goal is far more ambitious. He succeeds in making the reader dig deep and explore the entire creative screenwriting process. It is indicative of his holistic approach that in one of the opening chapters, "We All Have Doubts," he prefaces his account of how he develops an idea into a complete screenplay by telling the reader to ignore everything Densham says if it inhibits the reader's courage to create: "What works for one might disable another's inspirational process" (25). In actual fact, I found his methods to be very much along the lines of those I employ myself, even down to using old-fashioned index cards spread out on a table rather than subscribing to one the many story management software programs available. In this chapter, he also imparts invaluable advice on that all-too-familiar bête noire of writers— writer's block. This chapter is a perfect example of why this book is so helpful for writers at any level of achievement. There is sound practical advice combined with a penetrating examination of the inner life of the screenwriter. I have been a member of the Writers Guild for over thirty years, and on a number of occasions throughout this book, I was forced to stop and examine my own writing methods, my own work ethic, and my own goals. This book is like a shot of truth serum for any writer, young or old.

When Densham gets into the heart of his book, he really starts to excel. The phrase "character arc" has been tossed around for decades, to the point where it has become almost meaningless. In his chapter "How to Structure a Story," he talks of giving the protagonist a nugget, "a dark and powerful life experience that affects how he or she navigates emotionally" (52). In other words, your protagonist's character arc is jumpstarted long before your screenplay begins. A...