ok, so this from the nytimes.....yeah, well, there was more, but i caanot be bothered my non-keillor prose....

How to Write Your First Hollywood Comedy
By Garrison Keillor, star and screenwriter, “Prairie Home Companion”

1. Don’t start writing yet. (Very important.) Postpone writing. Too many writers make the mistake of plunging right in — Scene 1. Ext: the home of the zany holmberg clan. The camera pans slowly across toward the driveway, where the young couple are necking in the back seat of the white Buick, and we see the three figures approaching with the water hose don’t do this. Writing the screenplay will only tangle you up in a lot of minutiae and inevitably lead to discouragement. Get the money first, then write.

2. Find a director. A famous one who is older than you and who is famous for improvised dialogue. This takes so much pressure off the screenwriter. Let’s say you choose Robert Altman. Call up your friend who knows a guy who went to college with a guy who is now Robert Altman’s attorney and wangle a dinner date with Mr. Altman. A threecourse meal in a place with ficus plants and white tablecloths. Mr. Altman has just finished shooting a new picture and he is in a grand mood. He regales you with stories about his famous movies, and then, polite man that he is (he is from the Midwest), he asks if there was something you wished to talk about. “Yes, sir,” you say, “there is.”

3. Do not lead with your best idea. Your first idea is going to get shot down. Do not lead the ace. Lead the two of clubs.

You say: “Mr. Altman, I want to make a movie about a family named Boblett whose grandpa dies, and they have to bring his ashes to South Dakota and scatter them at Mount Rushmore — Gramps was a crusty old Republican and wanted his remains to be put up Jefferson’s left nostril. Anyway, it’s all about this family — one is into heavy metal and one is obsessive-compulsive about nasal cleanliness and one is a Wiccan covered with tattoos — and they have various misadventures and car breakdowns and then must try to climb up to the nostril. And there’s a lady park ranger named Chloe who accidentally takes a love potion.”

Mr. Altman looks off into the distance, pauses a decent interval and says: “It’s not for me. But keep in touch. Maybe we could come up with something else.”

4. Start writing Something Else. You set Mr. Altman up with the “Looking for Jefferson” idea, a weak one, and now he will read your new screenplay and say, “I can’t believe this came from the same bozo who tried to sell me the nostril picture.”

5. And here’s how you write the thing. You rewrite it, that’s how you write it. You rewrite the rewrite, then prune that and add other stuff. Your wife reads it and does not laugh at any of the hilarious parts, so you replace them with funny stuff. You turn the script over to Mr. Altman, and as he reads it, you reach over his shoulder and cross out lines.

Then Mr. Altman directs in his own inimitable style, encouraging improvisation, so in the end nobody quite understands it, and critics hail it as “one of his better pictures, if not among the very best,” which is not bad for you, and they offer you a nice deal to write your second picture. But that’s another problem. I can’t help you there.