Dear Mr. Knopf:

I’m pleased to inform you that we would like to represent you in selling your script, My Dinner With Andre II: Desert. 

JUST KIDDING!!!  Since you write such funny lines, I knew you’d have a sense of humor about this (I absolutely read at least two full pages of your script that I found on my boss’s floor).  You also asked that “whether you accept my script or not, I would appreciate your opinion”.  That presumes that anyone in this insane office has the time to write to people like you.  However, I, in fact, have a little time this afternoon having spent the whole morning

throwing away bankers boxes full of scripts that just came in yesterday.  As the Executive Administrative Assistant to Head Agent Ryan Gossling (he was born Dirk Bogarde, but changed his name for business purposes), this is one of my principle responsibilities.  For some reason, being a recent graduate from Smith College qualifies me for heavy lifting, not that the tray of coffee mugs I transport when I’m not lugging boxes (the cocktails are in the afternoon, and they’re a lot lighter) disproves this theory. 

I looked you up on Facebook, BTW, and it looks like you graduated from college a year after my grandfather.  Doesn’t this give you a teensy-weensy little suspicion that maybe this agency might be looking for writers a little less, “seasoned”?  However, your IMBD page has a lot of scripts listed!  Some are even uncredited, which has to piss a person off.  Why else would you go to all that trouble?  I even saw some of those movies, I think, when our babysitter brought over DVDs (who has a DVD player anymore?  I do!  I work in film, after all).  The ones she let us watch, as opposed to others strictly reserved for her jerk boyfriend with the nose ring. Ick.

Google says you’ve also written books.  Aren’t books awfully long?  I mean to actually write?  You have to get so incredibly bored just tapping at the keyboard all day.  Unless you write at night.  I hear old people don’t sleep that much.  My parents have a whole bookshelf arranged by color.  It’s gorgeous.  Designed by eduardo.svengali.com, of course.  Whose isn’t?

Not that scripts are all that short.  I should know, since I have to lift them up and into the dumpster.  At least they have a formula you have to follow.  I have it on no uncertain terms the exact length of each act, the number of stage directions (like almost none, so why bother?), the size and type of the font, the width of the margins (down to, like, the millimeter) and the make and model of the binder (you can tell if it’s counterfeit by measuring the little holes.)  I know this because I’m told to throw out anything that doesn’t conform to these important standards, I mean EXACTLY.

So good news for you, sir.  You nailed it!  I mean Sherlock Holmes couldn‘t find anything wrong with your script format, and I’ve seen Robert Downey, Jr. play Mr. Holmes, so I know.  Amazing. 

This is why I’m writing to you, because I think you are the perfect person to help me write scripts.  Since no one wants to make your movies anymore, you probably have a lot of extra time.  I averaged a B+ in two courses of Creative Writing at Smith so I have credentials.  (My parents wanted me to lobby for the A, but I have my principles.) My sister’s ex-husband has published articles in magazines all over his town in Northwestern Connecticut, and though he hasn’t read anything of mine, he said I have potential based entirely on my personality. 

According to Google, your third divorce just concluded.  Congratulations!  So I know you still have the house in Beverly Hills, though I’m sure you’ll miss the ranch in Arizona.  I love horses, though they make me sneeze.  And I can’t help thinking about Christopher Reeve, who fell off a horse and became totally paralyzed.  As my Latina friends like to say, this is no bueno.  Superman?  I’m mean really. 

I’m guessing pool time is now a big part of your day.  I could come over to discuss.  I mean fully dressed.  THIS IS NOT one of those types of student/mentor situations. 

The thing about scripts I most want to learn is how do you write something people have to say.  I mean, isn’t writing you hear in your head different from speaking out loud?  I want to do this because my parents are hinting that maybe my rent in LA is a little too much to keep paying and since Mr. Gossling and his partners have nicer cars than even them, I could maybe have a big “so there!”

Thanks so much for reading all this, and I’m sorry they don’t want your script, but you know how great you are, and by gosh, you never give up!  (Keep telling yourself this.  It’s life-affirming.)

Sincerely,

Wrenlee