Screenwriter and professor Neil Landau has spent more than 20 years working in the entertainment industry. A cowriter of the 1991 Christina Applegate film "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" and longtime contributor to the hit television series "Melrose Place," Landau is presently a visiting professor at UCLA's School of Film and Television and a faculty advisor for the Creative Writing Program at Goddard College. He will be hosting a two-hour screenwriting lecture and workshop beginning at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 9, at the Douglas Library.

Hooligan caught up with Landau to talk about breaking into the business, writing the epic script and Saturday's workshop.

Is it possible for an Average Joe to sell a screenplay and break into the business in this day in age?

It is. It's just harder and harder to get noticed. At the time I was first breaking in, that happened in 1987, it wasn't as competitive as it is now. Now there are so many screenwriting programs, film schools, I just think there is a glut of material. But I was always told when I was in film school that it's really hard and don't count on ever breaking in. I was always discouraged, actually, and I just kept thinking at the time, "Well I'll be the exception. I'll break in anyway." Anybody who was a naysayer I didn't want to talk to. I went to school with a lot of really talented people, some of them have become extremely successful and some of them have never gone anywhere and gave up the business.

I understand the workshop will focus on story structure and character development in movies. Can you elaborate on that for me?

There are generally two different kinds of movies. There's sort of a Hollywood-style blockbuster movie, which tend(s) to be like a hero's journey. ... My personal favorite type of movies are Indies. In those kinds of movies they don't really have to follow a hero's journey traditionally. They can just be as simple as a person making a connection with another person. They tend to focus more on relationships and putting relationships and characters under a microscope, but revealing something about them - something surprising. ... I'm going to talk about both kinds of movies because I think they are both viable and focus mainly on the evolution of a character, whichever structure they might follow. Just how a character needs to evolve in some way from beginning to end, even if it's just in a small way.

What got you interested in screenwriting and how did you get into the business?

I started out as a playwright. I actually wrote my first play when I was in fourth grade. I don't really know. I had kind of a very bad childhood. It was probably my way to escape reality to create my own reality. Then I went to UCLA film school, I got a scholarship. I was very interested in writing plays for theater until somebody told me you can't really make money doing it and I knew I didn't want to be a starving artist, so I started looking into screenwriting. Then I got really into the cinematic structure and the excitement of being able to tell a story without limitations, in terms of just the special effects, all kind of things you can do. With movies you don't have the limitations you have on stage.

What do you feel a screenplay requires to be a considered a quality script?

The most important thing is at least one iconic character, meaning a character that is sort of original and indelible. ... Iconic characters are what you really tend to remember in all movies, even more than the plot. James Bond is an iconic character. Indiana Jones is an iconic character. Even like Lester Burnham in "American Beauty," the Kevin Spacey character, that's an iconic character. Just a character that is so unique and memorable that an actor is going to get excited about playing the part. You need to get actors and directors interested in the work. I think that's most important. And creating a cathartic experience so the person who is gonna read it is either gonna laugh out loud or cry or be filled with anticipation. You want to create a page-turner no matter what genre you're writing in. It should be a really engaging read first because the only way to get anybody interested is they're gonna read it on the page.

What is the main piece of advice you wouldgive to an aspiring screenwriter?

Well, kind of two conflicting pieces of advice. One is sort of the cliché, but it is, write what you know. You have to really write something personal and something that you can provide a unique perspective on based on your life experiences. Because as much as you research something, if you don't really know it in a very intimate way it's going to read like you're sort of faking it in a way. I think people are always looking for authentic voices. I think you have to write stuff that is personally interesting to you and you have to write with emotion. You have to dig deep into the work and try to find some emotional component to it.

The conflicting piece of advice is you do have to be aware of the marketplace and you have to have some sense of what is doing well at any given time. You need to be aware, when you're writing something, about other movies that have come out recently on the same subject so you're not just blindly writing and finishing a script where there's a movie about the exact same thing that just came out a year or two ago.