John and Craig look at the trend towards hiring two writers to work on separate drafts of the same project. Is it better to have writers in parallel than serially? Or does it end up with studios ordering off a Chinese menu: this scene, that character, that other set piece?
Both Craig and John just started new first drafts, so we talk about the difference between the Map and the Territory, and how outlines can’t always anticipate the discoveries made while writing.
Finally, we answer a bunch of listener questions ranging from the Peter Stark Program to loving your day job.
Links:
- John Gary on spec sales, lightning strikes, and making the NFL
- Hot Hollywood Trend: Two Scripts, One Movie
- On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, by Stephen King and Making Movies, by Sidney Lumet
- Screenplay, by Syd Field, The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield, Sex, Lies and Videotape, by Steven Soderbergh, and The First Time I Got Paid For It
- The Peter Stark Program
- The Total Film-Maker, by Jerry Lewis on cinearchive.org
- What Writers Can Learn From Goodnight Moon by Aimee Bender
- Outro by Scriptnotes listener Sir Funkytown (send us yours!)
You can download the episode here: AAC | mp3.
UPDATE 8-4-14: The transcript of this episode can be found here.