John welcomes back Liz Hannah (The Girl From Plainville, The Post) to ask, how do you know if a character can carry a story? They look at ways of identifying your protagonist, defining privileged storytelling power, and the choices to make when figuring out which characters can hold narrative point of view.
We also look a the phenomenon of the “Stranger in the Room,” follow up on writing during crazy times, brain trusts, plays vs movies, the phrase “begs the question,” and the usefulness of sharing your pronouns.
In our bonus segment for premium members, John and Liz explain the difference between East LA, West LA, and why the valley might beat them both.
Links:
- Liz Hannah on IMDb and Instagram
- Episode 676 – Writing while the World is on Fire
- Slate Culture Gabfest
- The Post | Screenplay
- Episode 128 – Frozen with Jennifer Lee
- Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2 on Disney+
- Highland Pro
- The Girl From Plainville on Hulu
- The Dropout on Hulu
- “The Stranger in the Room” by @toddalcott on Threads
- Episode 399 – Notes on Notes
- Dragonsweeper by Daniel Benmergui
- Dare I Say It by Naomi Watts
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
- Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
- John August on Bluesky, Threads, and Instagram
- Outro by Spencer Lackey (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.
UPDATE 3-25-25: The transcript for this episode can be found here.