What is the common practice and is there preference of one over another? I suck at writing dialogue and quite frankly, I know the chances are high that my words will get changed anyway if I submit a screenplay and, by the grace of God, it gets picked up. Thoughts? Feelings? Considerations? Thank you!
Treatments are merely a tool to help sell the script. That's the way it works: a producer or agent says, "Let me read the treatment." Then you send it, they read it (eventually) and (if you're lucky enough and talented enough) they think highly of it. "Yeah, it's good. I'd love to read the script." But wait -- you don't have a script. Will they hire you to write the script? Um, no. Will they simply purchase the treatment and get someone else to pen the script? Well, there's a 99.9% chance that's not gonna happen. So...get a great script written, then write a killer treatment to aid you in selling the script.
Hope this helps.
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^ pretty much.
It is needed for a screenplay marketing package, but a treatment alone is not enough. There was a period (by several years) where treatments wear making sales, but that really dried up after the writer's strike of 07, just one of the casualties of it.
Thank you for your help. I will keep calm and carry on.
Melissa Anderson-Knox