John August

Writing Process

Rethinking motivation

Big Fish, Charlie, Projects, So-Called Experts, Words on the page, Writing Process

I’m in the planning stages of my next project, which is honestly my favorite part of the writing process. There’s no emotional cost to killing unwritten scenes, no niggling logic flaws, no exhaustion at page 72.

Plotting a movie is mostly figuring out who the characters are, and what obstacles they’ll face. In film school, we were taught to look at character motivation as the combination of two questions: ((My recollection is that these ideas are featured in Syd Field, but I’m not inclined to look it up, for fear of sparking of an enraged tangent about how damaging I think most screenwriting books are.))

1. What does the character *want?*
2. What does the character *need?*

The implication is that your characters should be able to articulate what they want (true love, the championship, revenge) at or near the start of the movie, but remain clueless to what they truly need (self-respect, forgiveness, literacy) until quite late in the story.

The screenwriter-creator leaves explicit prayers unanswered, but performs subtle psychological revelation so that the characters exit profoundly changed.

Like most screenwriting hackery, this want-vs-need concept works just often enough to seem useful. You can trot out the familiar examples. Every character in The Wizard of Oz can be addressed this way (the Scarecrow wants a brain, but needs to realize just how smart he is). Ditto for The Sound of Music, though it gets a bit vague amid the younger Von Trapps.

Of my films, Big Fish and Charlie and Chocolate Factory come closest to fitting this template, though it requires a bit of hammering to get there. In Big Fish, Will Bloom begins the movie *wanting* to find the truth in his father’s tales, but he ultimately *needs* to accept that his father is contained within these tales. In Charlie, Willy Wonka *wants* an heir, but *needs* a family. ((Charlie Bucket *wants* a Golden Ticket, but *needs*…well, Charlie doesn’t really need anything, which is another argument for why Wonka is the protagonist, and Charlie the antagonist.))

Bolstered by these two examples, I spent a few hours this week looking at the characters in my project through the want-vs-need lens, before finally concluding it is complete and utter bullshit. Trying to distinguish between characters’ wants and needs is generally frustrating and almost universally pointless. The fact that I can answer the question for Big Fish and Charlie after the fact doesn’t make it a meaningful planning tool.

I’ve written about character motivation a [few](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/write-scene) [times](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/clarification-on-point-one), but hadn’t thought it necessary to define my objectives. But I think it can be simplified down to a single question:

**Why is the character doing what he’s doing?**

Here’s what I like about this definition:

* **It scales well.** You can ask this question about a character in a specific scene (“Why is he trying to get in the bank vault?”) or the entire movie (“Why is he racing in the Iditarod?”)

* **It implies visible action.** Characters in movies need to do something. That sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised how many scripts slather motivation on like spackle to fill the holes. ( “He has OCD because his father abandoned him.” Umm, okay, so why is he robbing a bank?)

* **It can be both concrete and psychological.** In Go, why is Ronna trying to make the drug deal with Todd Gaines? (A) Because she’s about to be evicted. (B) To prove to her friends (and herself) that she can. Both are true.

When I started asking this question, many of my concerns with the project I’m writing slipped away. The problem wasn’t character motivation, but how I was looking for it.

That said, you need to be careful not to stop at the first easy answer: *Why is he racing in the Iditarod?* “To win the prize money.” The better answer will likely lead to a better story. *Why is he racing in the Iditarod?* “To beat his ex-wife, the five-time champion.” “To catch the man who killed his brother.” “Because the ghost of his childhood dog is haunting him.”

For the record, I’m not writing Snow Dogs 4.

Changing horses mid-stream

QandA, Writing Process

questionmarkI am on page 75 of a screenplay that I am writing, and I was so excited about finally finishing a draft. Then today, I went to write and came up with a MUCH better first act — which would mean completely rewriting the first act and seriously reworking the second and third act. I pitched it to an exec I used to work for and he agrees that, while the old idea is viable, the new idea is much more organic and the characters are inherently more flawed, and thus, more likeable than the Kate Hudson-esque characters that preceded them.

If you were in this situation, would you proceed with the current draft, or immediately begin on the rewrite?

— Anna
Los Angeles

If your new first act embodies the movie you want to make, then grinding out the last 45 pages of the “old” movie will do you no favors. So write the new first act.

Yes, I generally caution that rewriting is the enemy of finishing — you can find yourself rewriting the first 20 pages a dozen times, and never complete the full script. And your new ideas will always seem more exciting than your old ideas, simply because they’re fresh and unimplemented.

But there’s nothing so dispiriting as finishing a script you know is fundamentally flawed. As a professional writer, you’re sometimes stuck in that situation, forced to implement notes that couldn’t conceivably work (c.f. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle). But for your own scripts, you should never be printing out 120 pages of ambivalence.

Continuing this discussion of mixed emotions, what is “Kate Hudson-esque?” Is it a mathematical derivative of Goldie Hawn, approximating the slope of comedy without ever achieving intersection?

Because while I can sense the stereotype you’re wrestling with — pretty, manic, girl-next-door — there’s a fairly wide swath of actresses I’d put in that category: Jennifer Aniston, Mandy Moore, Katherine Heigl. Many actresses could play a “Kate Hudson-esque” role, more or less interchangeably. And that’s not good, particularly in a comedy. (I’m guessing you’re writing a comedy.)

So as you’re rewriting the first act, and introducing your characters, create situations and motivations that will keep the reader from ever thinking of Kate Hudson. If it helps, make the oddest mental casting choice you can and write the role that way. When your script sells, and Kate Hudson stars in it, she’ll have the opportunity to not be “Kate Hudson-esque.” And she’ll thank you profusely.

Calling on the hive mind: Writing the future

Resources, Writing Process

beeThis Thursday, I’m giving a university-wide public lecture at my alma mater ([Drake](http://drake.edu)). This would normally be terrifying, except that I did essentially the same thing last year at Trinity University (“[Professional Writing and the Rise of the Amateur](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/professional-writing-and-the-rise-of-the-amateur)”), and loved it.

Writing a one-hour speech is different than a typical essay. For one thing, the stakes are higher. There’s an implied social contract between speaker and listener: the former will keep it interesting, while the latter will pay attention.

One can stop reading an article at any point. One can’t walk out of a lecture without being a dick.

My title for the Drake talk is “The Challenge of Writing in a Digital Age.” My thesis is that in the age of the internet, good writing has become both more important and more difficult. And while my speech is directed at a university community, part of my premise is that the distinction between “academic” and “professional” is artificial and irrelevant. A university isn’t “real life with training wheels.” The same issues that matter on a history paper about the Reconstruction come into play in business memos, screenplays, annual reports and US Weekly.

There are (as of now) seven qualities I want to examine. But since this is in fact a digital age, it seems appropriate to invite readers to comment upon and redirect my theses. So have at ’em:

1. Authority
—
When I was a student in the early ’90s, if you could find it in a book or magazine, it was a fact. You worried more about citing it properly than questioning its accuracy. But when you’re using online resources, who’s to say whether a source is worthy of inclusion?

I’m using “authority” to denote the confluence of expertise and reputation on a specific subject. For example, I have a lot of authority on issues of screenwriting, not only because of my credits, but because of the consistency and accuracy of my articles on the topic. Although I’ve written about [mathematics](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/vampires-are-the-imaginary-numbers-of-modern-literature), I have a lot less authority on this subject, and you’d be foolish to include me in any serious paper on imaginary numbers.

And yet, as evidenced by the virulence of internet hoaxes, way too many readers seem to believe whatever they read online. They’re still treating life like a early-90’s term paper.

2. Authorship
—
I was calling this “copying,” since it’s largely about plagiarism and copyright infringement (related but frustratingly incompatible issues). But I went with “authorship” in order to cover what I think is a bigger issue: the degree to which you can claim and defend work as your own. To me, it has less to do with the law, and more about how you define yourself as a brand.

As a writer, I’m very careful not to steal, and not just because it’s illegal or morally wrong. I don’t steal because doing so would gravely hurt the reputation of John August, Inc.

One thought: If every class paper you turned in went not only to your professor, but also online for the whole class, would you be less apt to plagiarize? I think the social pressure would be enormous, and helpful.

3. Exposure
—
With the rise of blogs and internet forums, the boundaries between public and private, publisher and reader, have disintegrated. For all of the positive benefits — reaction, clarification, the gadfly factor — it’s brought a lot of bad writing into the world. Worse, I think it’s reinforcing the two-sides fallacy, where extreme positions are given equal footing by the “real” media in a misdirected attempt at fairness.

There’s a term for when this happens in forums, which I’m finding impossible to Google. It’s something like tumbleweeds. If this rings a bell, please share.

4. Transparency
—
It’s an over-used term, so I’d love to find a replacement. I’m talking about how difficult it can be to identify the source and motivation behind a message.

On last night’s Desperate Housewives, was Bree’s shopping spree at Macy’s a scene, or an ad? A bit of both, it turns out. And while there have always been “advertorials,” the rise of stealth marketing makes it harder to trust any sources.

5. Permanence
—
Do you want to see what johnaugust.com looked like in [2003](http://web.archive.org/web/20040119091405/johnaugust.com/qanda/42.html)? It’s all there, archived for eternity. Along with every comment you typed in a forum, and what you wrote on your friend’s Facebook wall. Pre-internet, 99% of what we wrote disappeared, with term papers thrown away and diskettes rendered obsolete. For better — but often for worse — an increasing percentage of our work is everlasting, retrievable not only by the author, but by anyone else.

During production, AICN put up a review of my script for CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. Only it wasn’t. It was a complete fabrication, an intellectual masturbation that was actually labeled “a loving work of fiction.”

When I complained, they put up a follow-up article saying that, “Oh, yeah, that wasn’t real.” But they still left up the original fake review, with no amendment.

6. Transience
—
The flip side of permanence, I’m talking about how difficult it can be to lock down the “final” version of anything. Links break, and articles are revised. When Variety first published Michael Fleming’s article about the [Fox writers’ deal](http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117970235.html?categoryid=13&cs=1) online, the quotes kept changing. Every 20 minutes, it was a slightly different article, with a slightly different spin. Once upon a time, you yelled, “Stop the presses!” Now you just click “update.” It’s not just less dramatic. It’s a fundamentally different act, with the stakes so lowered that there’s less pressure to get it right the first time.

7. Immediacy
—
Not only does news (or its bastard cousin, “entertainment news”) get reported more quickly today, but the reaction to it is much faster. Chris Crocker got his 15 seconds of fame not because of a particularly insightful reaction to Britney Spears, but because of a timely one. If he’d delayed one day, it wouldn’t have been worth mentioning.

But it raises an obvious question: If 24 hours makes something unimportant, was it ever important?

Journalism pundits will argue whether the rush to be first has eclipsed the need to be right. But I think it misses the larger point — that we’ve all essentially become journalists. By allowing anyone to reach a global audience, the internet has destroyed the traditional channels. The challenge is to find a way through the chaos.

My hunch is that it depends on Authority, Authorship and Transparency — a way to trust that the individual writer is speaking honestly about a subject within her sphere, with verifiable facts. In academics, this happens through peer review. I think it’s a similar type of social pressure — the need to be liked, to be respected — that will ultimately shape writing in the digital age.

Thoughts? Examples? Objections? That’s the point of the hive mind. If you have something to share, please do.

Where to begin a script

QandA, Recycled, Writing Process

When you start writing, or right before you start writing, what do you know?
What do you know about the story and characters before you start putting words
on paper?

–Dustin Tash

Although I don’t do it on every project, I’m a big fan of writing off-the-page,
which means creating character bios, alternate scenes and sequence chronologies
to help me figure out the story and the characters. For example, I’ll write
out the whole story from the villain’s point of view, both to track that the
logic works, and also to gain insight on why they’re doing what they’re doing.

You don’t have to stop doing this once you begin writing the screenplay, either.
If I’m getting frustrated with the script, sometimes it’s much more helpful
to write up related pieces than to bang out another scene I don’t think is
working.

Just make sure this prep-work doesn’t keep you from actually starting your
script. You don’t have to know everything about your story and characters before
you begin. Discovery is the best part of the writing process.

(Originally posted September 10, 2003.)