John August

Writing Process

Interview up at cecil vortex

Meta, QandA, Resources, Writing Process

I have a very long (and hopefully interesting) interview about creativity up at [cecil vortex](http://cecilvortex.com/). While there’s a lot of material in it I’ve written about previously, this interview is a pretty good primer on my brain and work habits.

CV: How do you use your day-to-day life to feed your writing?

JA: When I was writing for my first TV show I found that I was sorting through life with a filter: what could be “in” the show and what would stay “out.” If I heard a song on the radio that I liked, I was mentally putting it into the bin for the show. If someone said something interesting — or something boring but in a particularly interesting way — I would literally stop to write it down.

That was probably necessary for the show, but I don’t think it’s particularly helpful for real-world sanity. I began living a large part of my life inside the show. That break from reality ultimately became one of the main story points of The Nines — what are a creator’s responsibilities to his creations? At what point was I allowed to walk away from the universe I’d created and get back to my real life?

I think I’m healthier now. I certainly always have my ears open for interesting phrases, but I don’t feel like I’m in constant collection mode.

You can check out the full thing [here](http://cecilvortex.com/swath/2007/06/07/an_interview_with_john_august.html).

Inconvenient brilliance

Psych 101, QandA, Writing Process

questionmarkHow come I get all my best ideas when I’m jogging? Any experience with this phenomenon?

— Ben
Los Angeles

It’s because your brain hates you.

Well, maybe not *hates.* After all, it is giving you what you want — a good idea. It’s just that its timing is atrocious. It’s like having a girlfriend who is only in the mood for love during the last 20 minutes of [Lost](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411008/). You have to choose between sex and seeing the underwater station for the first time.

Here’s my advice: always choose sex. Because if you don’t, eventually, you’ll stop being offered it.

Those great ideas that come while you’re jogging? Write ’em down or you’ll lose them — and worse, you may dry up the well of ideas. If your brain notices you’re not paying attention to the good ideas it generates, it may decide to stop bothering. And then you’re screwed.

So always carry a pen. Pick up a piece of paper trash. Write on your hand if you have to. It’s often just one or two words which will let you remember what the idea was.

For me, the majority of these inconvenient ideas come at 11:30 at night, as I’m trying to fall asleep. There’s a weighing process as I decide whether it’s worthy of hauling my ass to the bathroom, where I keep a notebook handy to scribble down these ideas. Probably 70% of the time, I do get out of bed. At least half of the “big ideas” in [The Nines](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810988/) were first scribbled down in this book, along with the plots of enough unwritten movies to keep me busy for a decade.

This is part of what sucks about being a writer. I have a hunch that accountants don’t have this problem.

What if my agent doesn’t like my idea?

Film Industry, QandA, Writing Process

questionmarkHow much influence should an agent and/or manager have on the specs that you choose to write? I have an idea for my next project that one of my reps is enthusiastic about, but the other doesn’t care for at all. I love the idea and several execs to whom I’ve pitched it seemed to like it as well, but is it foolish of me to write the script anyway despite the knowledge that one of my guys may not be interested in sending it out when I’m finished?

— Jason
Los Angeles

Agents aren’t producers. Or directors. Or studio executives. But they deal with these people constantly, so they tend to have a pretty good idea what everyone’s looking for. If your agent or manager doesn’t care for your idea, it’s worth asking whether he, personally, doesn’t love it, or whether he, professionally, thinks it’s going to be a hard sell. Only the latter opinion actually matters, and perhaps not as much as you’d think.

Remember: Knowing the market isn’t the same thing as taste, and everyone’s taste is different. Nineteen readers can be non-plussed by your “Wuthering Heights on Mars” spec, but if a few key execs at Dreamworks love it, Spielberg will read it this weekend.

When I was writing Go, my agent was unenthusiastic, both about the concept and the chances of selling it. I finished the script and found another agent. In a way, the original agent was right — every studio passed. But it only took one “yes” to get it made. Go became my first produced movie and started my career.

I’m not telling you to dump your agent (or manager), but to keep his advice in perspective. Yes, he wants you have a long and satisfying career, but most immediately wants you to write scripts that will sell. Ideally, scripts that will sell for a lot of money. And his sense of what those scripts are may not jibe with what you’re doing. So listen to him, but don’t feel obligated to take his advice.

How to write dialogue

Words on the page, Writing Process

Continuing my efforts to blog less about the profession of screenwriting and more about the craft, I thought I’d offer up some thoughts on dialogue. As with my earlier post on [How to Write a Scene](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/write-scene), this isn’t an exhaustive tutorial by any means. But it’s at least a guide for how I do it.

1. Listen to how actual people talk
====

We all watch movies and television, which is chock full of dialogue: good, bad and inane. One might think it helpful to listen to great actors speaking great words. It’s not. In fact, it will probably screw you up.

It’s like trying to paint landscapes based on how other artists paint landscapes. The best you can do is a crude approximation. In order to paint a great landscape, you need to get your butt out in the cornfield and paint what you see. There’s really no alternative.

Fortunately, the world is full of dialogue cornfields. Sitting at Fatburger for lunch, I eavesdropped on two engineers discussing fire door trim allowances, and two women in their 60’s clucking about how small the hamburgers were. Far more important than the content of the conversations was the flow, the back-and-forth. We tend to think of dialogue as a tennis volley, with the subject being hit back and forth between speakers. But when you really listen, you realize that people talk over each other constantly, and rarely finish a complete thought.

To get a sense of this flow, you need to stop paying attention to the actual words being spoken. It’s the auditory equivalent of un-focusing your eyes. Listen for which speaker is dominating the conversation, and how often the other party chimes in to acknowledge he’s still paying attention. (“Uh-huh.” “Yeah.” “Really?”) Questions are often not phrased as questions, and in real life, no one speaks with exclamation points.

How often should you eavesdrop? Pretty much constantly, with particular focus on finding interesting speakers. Some people are inherently funny, and if you soak up enough of their rhythms you can recreate them on the page fairly faithfully. But even the annoying woman ahead of you at the checkout line deserves a listen. You never know when she might come in handy.

2. Figure out the flow of your dialogue
====
Generally, before I put pen to paper, I let the scene loop in my head 10 or 40 times. Those first cycles are silent, but eventually characters begin to talk. Based on what needs to happen in the scene, it’s often pretty clear who’ll be saying what. But figuring out the flow — the how, the when, the why — takes time. You can rush it, but you’ll often end up with too many words in the wrong order. Or worse, you’ll end up with characters talking at each other rather than with each other.

So imagine watching your scene, but in a foreign language with the subtitles turned off. What does the talking feel like? What’s the emotion behind the words? Who’s in control? There’s a classic drama exercise in which actors have to stage a scene speaking only faux-Chinese. That’s what you’re looking for at this stage. Not the words, but the texture.

3. Pattern out the information
====
Conversations in real life are often empty (“these burgers are too small”), but movie conversations almost always involve an exchange of information (“the fingerprints don’t match” or “I’m not sure I ever loved you”). Your job as a writer is figuring out how your characters would tell each other the information.

Let’s say Bob needs to tell Mary that her dog has been eaten by a python. As the writer, you need to decide not only what facts Bob knows, but how he’s anticipating Mary will react to the news. This will determine not only how he starts the conversation (“Say, you were talking about how you wanted to get a new dog, right?”) but every subsequent decision along the way.

Of course, as the screenwriter you’re not solely interested in helping the characters convey information to each other; your primary focus is getting that information to the audience. The challenge is to do the latter while pretending to the former. So if it’s slipping a bit of exposition in a joke, or staging an altercation to reveal a piece of backstory, find a way.

Bad dialogue tends to spray out information in every direction, whereas smart dialogue sneaks the facts in while you’re otherwise entertained.

4. Write the scribble version
=====
The [scribble version](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2007/scribble-version-final-scene) is the very rough draft of a scene, devoid of formatting, punctuation and other garnishes. My scribble versions tend to be largely dialogue, with an emphasis on the overall flow rather than finding le mot juste.

5. Write the nice version
=====
Once you have the blueprint for the scene, it’s time to go back and start worrying about getting each word right. Great dialogue has a melody to it, and achieving that is probably unteachable. But you can write pretty good dialogue simply by reading each line aloud, over and over, smoothing off the awkwardness through better words or a different composition.

Movie dialogue is how characters would speak if they had a few extra seconds to compose their thoughts between lines. It’s just slightly optimized. But it’s very easy to overshoot and end up in soap opera land. Keeping dialogue real but efficient is one of the hardest challenges in screenwriting.

6. Ask: Are characters listening, or just speaking?
=====
Once you have the scene finished, take a look back and make sure your characters aren’t just speaking because it’s their turn. That’s a common problem, perpetuated (I believe) by the prevalence of exposition-heavy crime dramas.

  • BOOTHE
  • Two campers found the body in a culvert five miles down river.
  • GARMAN
  • Toxicology shows arsenic in the well.
  • BOOTHE
  • Looks like we got ourselves a serial killer.

While actors could probably pull this off as a conversation (with a lot of head nodding), it’s not hard to get Garman listening and responding:

  • BOOTHE
  • Two campers found the body in a culvert five miles down river. Once we get the toxicology back…
  • GARMAN
  • Just came. Arsenic in the well.
  • BOOTHE
  • Looks like we got ourselves a serial killer.

7. Ask: Is there a shorter version that works as well?
=====
Many times, the best way to improve dialogue is to cut it. Once you’ve let a scene sit for a while, revisit it with a red pen and look for what could be cut. If a piece of information isn’t essential, it should probably go. And a joke isn’t worth it if you’ve had to break the scene to achieve it.