John August

QandA

Jessica Bendinger on How I Write

First Person, Writing Process

jessica bendingerfirst personI think of myself as a very non-linear, intuitive writer. I have discipline and focus when I need it, but I allow myself to be very messy and unfocused and all-over-the-place, and I find both ends of the spectrum very useful (as you’ll see from this response)! I find balance through exploring the two extremes, then using them in a conscious way. I can get very bored, so this vacillation serves me really well.

My process has many parts to it and there’s no simple answer, and I’ll say with as much authority as I can muster through text:

"BEWARE THE EASY, ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL ANSWER!"

There are many ways to come up with ideas, write outlines and birth screenplays. The biggest journey we all have is finding out what works for us, and the beauty of that is that it will be so radically different for everyone. But as for me? I believe in following my enthusiasm, my curiosity and my fear. Not necessarily in that order.

The World

For stories, I begin by exploring arenas and worlds I am secretly or overtly enthusiastic about.

  • What lights me up?
  • What do I want to try, go,do, be, see?
  • What are my closet fascinations?
  • What are the things I TiVo or scan at the bookstore?
  • Who and what am I drawn to?

If it’s a really personal or compulsive fascination that I wouldn’t necessarily discuss with just anyone, or a theme that is so intrinsic to my fantasy life or dream life that it’s almost invisible? Then I am really onto something. These are where my best ideas for arenas are born. This process of warming to an area can take me a while. My big ideas are gestating for a long time before I even get to story, character or outline. Sometimes I’ll get random scene ideas or visuals, and I just tuck them away. I know they’ll be useful eventually, or might lead me somewhere I’m supposed to go and were merely a conduit. The point is, this part can be meandering for me. When it starts really pulling my attention, or filling me with images and ideas I know it’s time for arena to meet story.

The Story

Once I have the arena, then it’s onto the story itself. If I’m unclear, I use a question method to spitball ideas, or will start randomly combining things that interest me without attachment to outcome. For Bring It On, that was simple: I was bananas for those crazy cheerleading competitions, and I loved hip hop and started asking ‘what if?’ Hip hop’s assimilation and appropriation into the culture had been so thorough, I thought, “How can I illustrate that in a fun way?” I started there and kept asking “what if” questions until I got a story that felt really fun, meaningful and juicy for me.

  • What if the best squad in the country had been cheating?
  • What if the squad they’d been stealing from was sick of it?
  • What if the perp tried to make it right?

As I said earlier, I resist easy answers…so my remedy for that malaise is almost always questions. Questions are at the heart of my process, and I keep asking them until I have an idea I am happy with.

The Character

Once I have arena and story, I like to hit the brakes and move into character in a pretty in-depth way. That means more questions.

  • Who is the character?
  • What is their core fear?
  • What do they need?

What do they believe they need or think their goal is, versus the real need and real goal necessary for meaningful transformation in their life?

The tension of that discrepancy helps me to build the narrative. But I’m of the “Character Is Plot” school, so this stuff is my fuel. Otherwise, the process is just too flat for me, and I get really bored. I want a thorough understanding of who he/she is emotionally, intellectually, physically and spiritually. I use those four markers to give my characters substance, and each marker is invaluable to me. If a character is an agnostic or an atheist, for example, that knowledge gives me a valuable place from which to understand how they operate in the world. If someone is a people-pleaser because they were neglected as a child, I can really play with what potential reactions for them will be given the confines of the idea (even if that is never announced anywhere in the script!). I revel in knowing what the inner push-pulls are before I dive into story, so the world around the character can toss him where he needs to go.

The Outline

Once I have the character and the idea, I start working the story beats out from macro to micro.

ROUND ONE (aka Three Big Beats): Beginning, middle and end.

ROUND TWO (aka Nine Medium-Sized Beats): The beginning, middle and end of the (drumroll, please) beginning, middle and end!

ROUND THREE (aka Twenty-Seven Bitty Beats): The beginnings, middles and ends of each of the aforementioned beginnings, middles and ends.

I used to use eleven beats per act and thirty-three total for my outline, but I always ended up with scenes I didn’t need. I’ve grown to prefer a really tight first pass because it’s easier for me to see what’s missing when I’m not floating in excess. But sometimes I over-write, and whittle down, too. It really depends on my mood. If I can beef up twenty-seven scenes into three or four pages per scene, I’m looking at a nice, first rough draft.
[Read more…] about Jessica Bendinger on How I Write

How I Write

First Person, Writing Process

Since I was asking other screenwriters to explain their process, I thought it was only fair to explain my own.

I wrote my first real script — or at least my first attempt at a script — on Microsoft Word on an Macintosh SE30. This was probably 1991. I don’t know if there even was screenwriting software like Final Draft at that point. I wrote everything up through GO on Word, then made the switch.

These days, I’ll write longhand, or type, or a combination. I strongly believe in not having a set routines or rituals, because they often become excuses for not working: “I would write, but I have to have a brand-new blue pen and natural sunlight streaming through that window over there.” I’ll do index cards if something is especially complicated, but usually a short outline will suffice. I generally don’t write in sequence. Rather, I’ll write whatever scene appeals to me at the moment. A lot of times, I can write a short scene while waiting at the dentist’s office. For all the fancy software and books about it, on a fundamental level, writing only requires focus and something to write on.

I can write any time of day. Nothing is better or worse for me. If I can get two hours of serious writing done, I consider it a sucessful day. But I don’t beat myself up if that doesn’t happen.

A lot of times when I’m first starting a project, I’ll go away by myself for a few days. To Vegas, San Diego, Hawaii, wherever. I won’t take a computer. Instead, I’ll just take a bunch of notepads. I’ll write scenes longhand, then once a day, fax them back to Los Angeles. My assistant then types them up and faxes them back. It’s a good system for me, because it keep me from editing the work too early in the process. Working this way, I can write 17 pages in a day. It’s exhausting, but very helpful to achieve that critical mass in such a short period.

Tyger Williams on How I Write

First Person, Writing Process

first personThe process of finding my way into a story is different each time. It depends on the subject matter, how innate the material is to me and my sensibilities, or just depending on where I am in my own headspace at the time. I usually try to find my way into the character, or whatever cool set pieces or beats are going to make me really excited and make it fun to write. Some projects require more research, some less. But all of them require a great deal of procrastination.

I generally start with a beat sheet, which I develop into a short outline. It’s all very sketchy at the start. I use a program that allows me to lay my entire story out in blocks (sort of like index cards) so that I can see what it looks like from beginning to end. It also allows me to color the blocks separately so that I can track the protagonist beats, action beats, sub-plot beats, etc. Once I have the outline I make a list of the scenes that I want to write each day. (sort of like a director’s shot list) Sometimes I write in sequence, sometimes not. Often I’ll do dialogue on a tape recorder, just to hear how it sounds and then rewrite it later.

A typical day at he office varies for me depending on whether I’m developing ideas or writing a draft of a script. When I’m drafting I approach it pretty systematically. I budget out my days. Six pages a day, five days a week. Four weeks to a first draft. I usually get in the office around 10:00 a.m. and will write until 1:00 p.m., or at least until I have four pages done before lunch. Then I’ll write again from 2:00 to 6:00. During this time I will write another two pages and loosely revise the day’s work, in addition to returning the necessary phone calls. Now this is all ideally speaking. There are times when I spend the whole day in the office trying to figure out what I’m supposed to write and won’t get it done until I get home and the family’s asleep. Either way, I try to make the day’s pages or I know I’ll have to play catch up later. I only put myself through these paces in order to get a first draft done, and the rewriting/editing phase is considerably more flexible.
***
Tyger Williams, a product of southern California, attended the University of Utah and Long Beach State University, where he studied Film, Television, and Marketing. After interning as a story analyst, he tried his hand at screenwriting. The immediate results were an unintended comedy, the semi-autobiographical film everyone writes, and his first produced film, MENACE II SOCIETY. Williams has most recently worked on NIGHT TRAIN: THE SONNY LISTON STORY, as well as a remake of the 1970′s blaxploitation film FOXY BROWN, and GRIDIRON GIRLS, a dramedy about life in the world of women’s professional football. He has also developed various television pilots and is currently adapting the Marvel comic character Brother Voodoo into a series for the Sci-Fi channel.

Getting rights when the story is based on actual events

QandA, Rights and Copyright

When doing research for a screenplay based upon an actual event, using various sources, at what point do you have to give credit or get rights?

–Melissa

The underlying issue here is “public domain.” Any writer is free to use the cold hard facts of an actual event, be it a Pennsylvania mine fire or the rescue of Jessica Lynch. Setting aside issues of defamation and the ill-defined rights of publicity/privacy — complications that may or may not apply — you have quite a bit of freedom to tell whatever story you choose. That is, as long as you’re sticking to the facts themselves, and not someone’s interpretation of these facts. But the dividing line is not always crystal-clear.

As an example, the recent film SHATTERED GLASS, which tells the story of disgraced journalist Stephen Glass, is based on the Vanity Fair article of the same name written by Buzz Bissinger. The article is non-fiction. But Bissinger’s interpretation and structuring of the real-life events — his storytelling — was meaningful, and the forces behind making the movie decided to buy the rights to his article and have their movie be “based on the article by…” rather than just “based on actual events.” (See earlier columns for discussion on how murky the definition of “actual events” can be.)

Could you write another movie about Stephen Glass without owning the rights to that article? Absolutely. TV movies do it all the time. The details surrounding the Glass case are widely available, and as long as you’re not using another writer’s interpretation of the events, you’re pretty well protected.

That said, a producer may decide to get someone’s rights anyway. Many times, producers will want to “lock up” a key figure’s film rights just to scare off rivals. For instance, if Producer A owns Jessica Lynch’s “life rights” (an incredibly vague term that’s used all the time, unfortunately), that doesn’t preclude Producer B from making a movie with a Jessica Lynch character. But it makes life for Producer B much more difficult. While Producer A has much more latitude in his portrayal of Lynch, Producer B must stick to whatever facts are generally known. That makes telling a compelling story more challenging.