ABSTRACT
There is a depressing rumor going around that there is nothing new under the sun. Every story has been told. Self-analysis lite, so to speak, is like those low-cal frozen dinners—"Le Menu". Le Menu is about identifying those attitudes, values, and experiences that will energize the work of screenwriters, creating a menu of what they know and care deeply about. It is one of the most important things screenwriters can do, because their unique material and vision is the source of unique screenplays. It is hard to create a short screenplay from hating something as sweeping and vague as nuclear war, but one can begin to see possibilities in a terrified tomboy crouched under her South Texas school desk plotting shortcuts through cotton fields or a high-school preppie in Connecticut plotting to rip off a Jeep. A screenwriter should seek oneself, one's experience, one's unique vision. In the end, that is the most valuable thing a screenwriter has to offer.
