John August

Writing Process

Does a working writer keep improving?

QandA, Story and Plot, Writing Process

questionmarkI am a reasonably successful screenwriter. A working writer. I’ve sold two pilots, gotten a freelance episode of a high-quality one-hour drama, done some comic book gigs, and just sold a feature with myself attached to direct at a production budget of $3M.

Not A-list, or B-list, but maybe C-minus working my way up. I’m in my early thirties and have been at this a couple years.

My problem/question is: I feel like I have hit a wall with respect to my sense of story. I feel like most of my success has been gotten on a combination of ability-to-pitch, charisma and the ability to turn a phrase _inside_ a scene. But I have this real weakness when it comes to knowing what the right scenes are in the right order. Story. Plot. I can put two people in a room and have them riff in a pleasing and entertaining way and to the extent that my story supports this kind of loose, Kevin Smith-esque writing, I do well.

But I know that if I want my career to go to the next level, I need to improve my understanding of story and plot.

So I guess I have two questions…

1) Any ideas on how to do this on an intermediate/advanced-level? How can I go from a “B” understanding of story/plot to an “A” understanding of story/plot?

and

2) What are your thoughts on how to keep making breakthroughs in the quality of your work when you are at an intermediate/advanced level? Do you feel like you are constantly improving? How do you keep improving?

— Scott
Los Angeles

You’re already the envy of most of the readers of this site: you’re a working Hollywood writer. So congratulations, and don’t dismiss what you’ve accomplished. I’m happy to hear you attribute it your skills (pitching, wit) and not pure dumb luck. ((Luck accounts for a small but not unimportant part of success in screenwriting, or any career. Being ready to be lucky, and what you do with that good fortune, is a big part of how a career goes. I was lucky to get into my film school — I honestly didn’t know how competitive it was. I was lucky that Tim Burton happened to be looking for a project when Spielberg dropped off of Big Fish. And, of course, I was lucky to be born in an upper-middle class family in Colorado.))

So let me offer some good news. The stuff you’re not especially good at — story, structure, plot — can actually be learned. If you were writing in for advice about how to be funnier or more charismatic, I would have probably let your email sit in the growing folder of unanswerable questions, because those are pretty much inherent qualities.

My advice for you is to dedicate one day a week to disassembling good movies. Take existing films (and one-hour dramas) and break them down to cards. Think of yourself as an ordinary mechanic given the task of reverse-engineering a spaceship. Figure out what the pieces do, and why they were put together in that way.

Here are the questions you need to ask about each scene or sequence:

* As the audience, what am I expecting will happen next?
* What does the character want to do next?
* Is this a good moment to let the character achieve something, or knock him back?
* How long has it been since we checked in with other character and subplots?
* What would have happened if this scene had been cut? Or moved?

By asking these questions about other people’s movies, you can take some of the pressure off.

When it comes to your scripts, it might be worth writing something that’s deliberately outside of your comfort zone, a script that doesn’t let you rest on your scenework. Because to answer your second question, yes, I think you can keep making breakthroughs in your writing, but only by challenging your preconceived limitations.

I’m currently writing my first period movie, my first stage play, and my first stage musical. Part of the reason I’m enjoying them is because they scare the be-Zeus out of me. I’ve passed on some more obvious projects that I’m sure I could have written competently simply to stretch a little more.

Yes, I’m deeper in my career than you are. And my flitting from genre to genre has probably hurt me in some respects. ((Despite Big Fish, I rarely get sent the “big books” that sell out of New York. And it’s hard for me to set up a pricey original, because I don’t have a long track record in a specific genre.)) But a career isn’t one script, or ten, it’s the years of your life. You’re working. Your ability to turn clever phrases won’t go away. So you’re right to focus on the areas you think you can improve, if only to increase your confidence and enjoyment of the career you’ve chosen.

The six-hour scene

Writing Process

I spent the end of last week in Des Moines, where I had a trustees meeting for [Drake University](http://www.drake.edu/). It was also a good excuse for barricading myself in order to get some more pages written on my current project. (The thing I [went to Maine](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2008/northeaster) to research.)

In [How To Write a Scene](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/write-scene), I explained my basic process for getting a scene on paper, which consists of looping it in my head, doing a “scribble version,” and then writing up the final thing. But like all workflows, there’s something a little best-case-scenario about the way I described it. So in the interest of myth-busting, I want to explain how some scenes are a lot more work.

(Note that I’m only promising to explain “how,” not explain “why.” After a decade doing this, I’m still sure not why some scenes are exponentially more difficult to write than others. Many times, you don’t see the monsters coming.)

In this case, it took six hours to get one scene written. And it wasn’t, on the surface, a particularly challenging scene: Two characters in a room, talking. A very clear in and out point, with the bookending scenes already written. But it was a beast to get on paper.

In general, when I reach a scene that seems unyielding, I’ll happily skip ahead to write another scene. ((Actors and directors generally have to shoot the scene listed on the schedule, whether it suits their mood or not. The writer, working independently, can check his inner barometer and determine which scene would be most fun to write. “Fun” being relative. At some point, all the easy scenes are finished, and it’s only the sight of the finish line that gets those last scenes written.)) But in this case, I knew I needed to crack this scene before writing any others, because it introduced a major character’s primary goal, his cri de coeur that would set the tone for much of the movie. That’s something you don’t get in an outline — the emotional drive. I needed to feel it in order to write any of the major scenes later in the script.

So I needed to write it.

The scene looped in my head pretty well. I could see the basic action, and had a sense of what the characters were saying. But when I tried to do a scribble version, it refused to come together. I had a notepad full of dialogue, mostly just single lines, with arrows trying to arrange them into a meaningful sequence. I spent two hours on the flight to Des Moines trying to make the pieces fit before finally putting it aside.

After writing three comparatively easy scenes, I took another stab at it. I asked some obvious-but-necessary questions:

* Was I starting at the right place?
* Was I ending at the right place?
* Could another character drive the scene?
* Would changing the location help?
* Did it need to be two scenes, rather than one?
* Did the scene even need to exist?

The answers confirmed my frustration: it was the right scene. It was just a bitch to write.

I went back to looping it in my head, and tried to forget about the half-written dialogue. If you’ve ever watched a movie with the sound turned off, that’s basically the effect: you don’t know what they’re saying, but you know they’re saying something. And you can tell what the tone is.

Tone ended up being the variable that needed tweaking. By cranking one character up to a near-manic state, his leaps of thought made a lot more sense. I did a new scribble version on a clean sheet, this time with half the arrows.

On the flight back to Los Angeles, I finally wrote the scene itself. It was still tricky, but it hit all the points in an agreeable way. It felt like a scene you could see used as a clip on a TV review show, in that it embodied the tone and ambition of the story.

So now it’s done, and I can continue on the remaining 60-odd scenes left.

Why screenwriters have it so good
—–

Here’s the thing: You don’t always have six hours to write a single scene. In television, that level of output would get you fired. Even on features, there is real time pressure. Spending six hours on two-and-a-half pages is a luxury problem.

So what do you do if you have to write the scene, and you only have an hour?

You muscle it. A good writer with enough experience can get a version of the scene on paper that will range from unobjectionable to pretty damn good. Particularly on production rewrites, I’ve had to muscle scenes that in a perfect world would have been handled more artfully. But [the results](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163025/) aren’t terrible. Given the needs of the director, cast, production and studio, you do the best you can with resources you have. Time is finite. So is mental energy.

But when it’s your own script, you owe yourself the time and effort to let each scene be the best it can be. The first 10 pages of Big Fish took three solid weeks of work. I’m convinced that almost any lesser version would have significantly hurt the movie.

The six-hour scene is now typed up, and I’m happy with it. In the cold light of Courier, I know it still needs tweaking, but I’m pretty confident it will remain in the movie in largely the shape I wrote it. If I’d brute-forced it, I’d always wonder if it was the right scene.

When friends read your script

Education, Film Industry, QandA, Writing Process

questionmarkWhat are your thoughts on choosing readers for first drafts? I’ve noticed that, for example, giving a Disney movie to a Fincher fan can turn a favor into a chore and leave the writer lacking in constructive feedback. Better to give it to someone who knows and enjoys the genre and is aware of that marketplace, past and present. You’re asking them to work for free, after all.

I’ve also made the mistake of allowing someone unfamiliar with screenwriting to read a script because they asked me to. You end up explaining everything to death and they still don’t get it which can feed your rampant first-draft-phase insecurity. Was there a strategy you followed back in the day to get the best feedback or did it just happen organically?

I looked but didn’t see anything on the site to help with this. May be helpful to myself and others.

– Matt

The screenplay format is so unlike traditional fiction that it’s hard for newcomers to offer much useful feedback. They often can’t distinguish between the strange experience of reading a movie on paper and the story they just read. You may feel a social obligation to let non-screenwriting friends read your work, but don’t plan your rewrite based on their reactions.

With friends and colleagues who are familiar with screenplays — by which I mean they’ve read at least a dozen, and can talk about them comfortably — you may still need to pick carefully. Certain people and certain genres just don’t mix.

A thoughtful reader, though, can often offer constructive feedback even when it’s not her type of movie.

Back when I was in the Stark Program, we all read each other’s scripts. Al Gough and Miles Millar made their first sale with a script about a cop and an orangutan — a very high-concept comedy. That’s not in my wheelhouse, but I went through two or three drafts with them, offering very specific notes about trims and clarifications. They did the same for me on my overwritten romantic tragedy. Regardless of the genre, a good reader can help a writer see problems and find solutions. More than anything, you want a second smart brain to bounce ideas off of. That’s why you ask people to read your work-in-progress.

And for the praise. You want people to tell you you’re great.

Another thing to keep in mind: Don’t burn out your readers. Unless they actively ask to read the next draft, give them a break. You may even want to keep one or two reader friends “fresh” for the inevitable rewrite.

Northeaster

Projects, Travel, Words on the page, Writing Process

pierI spent five days in Maine, writing and researching my next project. A few observations, in bullet point form:

* Part of my motivation for visiting Maine was that I’ve always claimed to have visited all 48 contiguous states, thanks to endless summer roadtrips with my family growing up. But my mom recently told me that we’d never been to Maine, which kicked in my set-completion instinct.

* I was reluctant to try to pronounce any place names in front of people. Bar Harbor is on Mount Desert Island. “Desert” is pronounced like “dessert,” which conjures images of a fantasyland of fudge and sprinkles.

* Even though a screenwriter isn’t trying to capture an accent per se, it’s important to choose words and patterns that can work with the accent when spoken by the actor. (“Down the road apiece. Can’t miss it.”)

* That said, I feel lucky that this won’t be a big accent movie, because several Mainers were adamant that Hollywood always gets the accent wrong. Which is probably true. But what I resisted pointing out was that no two Mainers I met had the same accent. It’s all over the place, particularly when you talk to people under 30.

* Going somewhere to write has become my standard operating procedure. I barricade myself somewhere without TV, internet or familial distractions, and crank through as many hand-written pages as possible in three or four days. I fax these pages back to Los Angeles, both for safety and to let my assistant type them up. This time, I faxed to an eFax account, which had the bonus of creating a digital backup in .pdf form.

* I took a lot of photos, [which you can see on Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnau8ust/sets/72157604470043300/). It wasn’t really location scouting — we’re not at that point yet. But since there’s already a director on board, it can give him some sense of the place.

* One place had flies. [A lot of flies](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/stupid_flies.mov).

* Man, I was lucky not to be flying on [American](http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-trw-american11apr11). [Or ATA. Or SkyBus. Or Aloha.](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24018687/) (Though the last one would have been an unlikely choice.)

* house wrappedAnother reason for the trip: we had to have our house tented for termites. This is probably alien to readers in colder climates, but in Southern California, termites can become pervasive enough that you need to nuke the house. Generally, you do it when the house is sold (and thus empty), but we’re not moving anytime soon, so we had to bite the bullet. But it looked cool, like a [Christo](http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/wk.shtml) project.