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The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2021/getting-staffed-in-2021).

**John August:** Hey, this is John. Today’s episode was recorded just a few hours before the WGA officially announced that it had reached a deal with WME thereby ending the two-year agency campaign. Now I promise Craig and I will talk about it all next week, including revealing the contents of that encrypted thumb drive I gave him backstage before our live show in Episode 431. You remember that. We set that up a long time ago and we’re going to pay off that set up I promise on next week’s episode. But today’s brand new episode is really good so listen to that and watch the feed because we might put out this next episode a little bit early if we get it recorded in time. Enjoy.

Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

**Craig Mazin:** Hello and welcome. My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Episode 487 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show we unwind a Twitter thread with great advice on getting staffed as a writer on a TV show. And we look at the state of assistant pay in Hollywood. We then fulfill our cultural obligation as a podcast to discuss GameStop, specifically do we really need three movies about it. Plus, listener questions. And in our bonus segment for Premium members we’ll share awkward dating stories from our past.

**Craig:** Sorry. I was just getting coffee.

**John:** We’ll share awkward dating stories from our history.

**Craig:** That actually – you should keep that as it is because that was awkward. And I think it’s important to just own awkward moments. It really is. So I think that’s wonderful. Actually quite lovely. We had an awkward moment that was applicable. I love it.

**John:** Fully, fully applicable.

**Craig:** Love it.

**John:** Yes, exactly. Comedy comes from awkward moments and acknowledgement that the specific awkward moments are also a universal phenomenon.

**Craig:** They’re the best.

**John:** My present awkwardness is they are jackhammering a building behind my office right now, so if you hear some background noise that Matthew is not able to cut out that’s what you’re hearing is a jackhammer. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.

**Craig:** It’s not awkward. That’s just annoying.

**John:** No. It’s not been nerve-wracking all day. I’m not jangled.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** Nothing like that.

**Craig:** Nah.

**John:** In our crucial IP update the Uno Movie starring Lil Yachty was announced this week. So, the toymaker, Mattel, has announced a live action heist comedy is in development. It’s written by Marcy Kelly and set in the underground hip hop world of Atlanta with Grammy-nominated rapper Lil Yachty eyeing a starring role. So, phew, it’s good to have one piece of IP that has a plan. It didn’t announce who the studio was for it, but Mattel is on the case and naturally the Uno Movie is going to revolve around underground hip hop which is just a natural fit there.

**Craig:** I’ve got to say, like if you’re going to do it, right, you might as well just blow it up and do it. When I first read this article it seemed almost like someone had done Mad Libs. I need a noun. I need a famous rapper. I need a city. But, you know, I guess the point is what you can’t do – we know you can’t do this. You can’t do the cards come to light at night and number four is to figure out how to join the blue cards. Blech. So, screw it, let’s go all the other way and make it about Lil Yachty.

**John:** Yeah. We wish nothing but the best for Marcy Kelly and the whole team [unintelligible] and making this movie.

**Craig:** It’s a heist movie apparently.

**John:** A heist movie. Sure. We love a heist movie. Got a plan. So Uno joins the Mattel films in the works, including American Girl, Barbie, Hot Wheels, Magic 8 Ball, we’ve talking about before. Major Matt Mason, I don’t know who that it is. Is that a GI Joe kind of character?

**Craig:** Huh? Who? [laughs] Oh, ha-ha. OK. Matt Major. Matt Mason. I got to be honest that’s a WTF for me and you and I are not young, so we should know this. Unless is it a new thing?

**John:** It could be. But, I mean, it doesn’t feel like a new thing. It feels like a very old thing.

**Craig:** I’m looking it up right now.

**John:** Masters of the Universe. So, I would say that Masters of the Universe is a genuine IP in the sense of like they were characters. They were doing things. There was a cartoon I remember about it.

**Craig:** They made a movie before.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** With Dolph Lundgren.

**John:** Thomas and Friends. View-Master. View-Master is a strong contender there, because think about what View-Master is.

**Craig:** Oh my god, dude. Do you know, this is crazy.

**John:** Tell me about Matt Mason.

**Craig:** There needs to be some sort of intervention at Mattel. They’re out of control. Major Matt Mason was an action figure created by Mattel. He was an astronaut who lived and worked on the moon. When introduced in 1966 the figures were initially based on design information from a Life Magazine, Air Force Magazine, and other aviation and space interest periodicals. So this was before we landed on the moon, Major Matt Mason in 1966. Come on.

**John:** I’ve got to say I am genuinely fascinated by that idea because there’s some sort of like retro future thing where it’s just like it’s the ‘60s vision of what space would be like. There’s some kind of great comedy to make there. They’re probably not trying to make some great comedy there. I’m rooting for it. It’s Matt Damon in The Martian but he’s on the moon and, yeah, it’s great.

**Craig:** Well, maybe if there is some sort of – or if there’s an amazing nostalgic take that’s like meta or something. Here’s the point. You can do something interesting and creative with just about anything. The question is why that thing. So, one thing that these companies do in a strange way that is I think not terrible for artists is it limits the artist’s focus to a thing, like we can sit around and – I can write 100 different things. I can write anything I want. Well here comes a company saying, “Or, here’s a puzzle. Figure this out, smart guy. Major Matt Mason.” And you go, well, I’ve got an idea. You’ve focused my attention.

So, you know, Wishbone. What the hell is Wishbone?

**John:** Wishbone I believe is a dog. Let’s see what Wishbone is.

**Craig:** Oh golly.

**John:** It could be an American salad dressing. It could be a football formation, obviously.

**Craig:** Of course.

**John:** A computer bus. Is a boom for wind-surfing?

**Craig:** It’s the clavicle of a bird.

**John:** In popular culture, American children’s program. I bet it’s the American children’s program. Let’s click through that Wikipedia article.

**Craig:** Wishbone.

**John:** And yet I don’t see any Mattel connection to Wishbone. So, I don’t know.

**Craig:** Do you think that they think they own the bone? [laughs]

**John:** Yeah. That’s possible. I’m finding an article from July 15, 2020 which is that there’s a Wishbone movie in the works from Mattel and Universal. This is a Variety article. So there’s something here.

**Craig:** I’m going to get an angry phone call now. Stop bagging on our Wishbone movie. I’m not!

**John:** It’s about a Jack Russell Terrier. So now we know.

**Craig:** Oh, OK. So he was a dog. It’s a dog movie.

**John:** It’s a dog movie.

**Craig:** Fine. Great. Wishbone. Mattel.

**John:** Yeah. Uh, OK.

**Craig:** Huh?

**John:** In further follow up, in one of our Three Page Challenges last week we looked at a scene in which a character got electrocuted when using a vibrator. And you and I both expressed skepticism about that scene.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** Some of our listeners wrote in including Kate from LA and many of them were pointing towards the Hitachi Magic Wand which does in fact plug in and therefore could conceivably electrocute someone if used in a bathtub. So I want to acknowledge that, sure, there was some cis male bias here in our ignorance of this plug in vibrator being a real thing.

But I also want to defend ourselves for saying I don’t think it was a great beat in those pages.

**Craig:** No. And I am aware of the Hitachi Magic Wand. It is the Cadillac of vibrators, John. The Hitachi Magic Wand famous for being the solution to women like the character in those pages that can’t have an orgasm. But I did a little research, because I love Googling vibrator and electrocution.

**John:** The most research Craig has ever done for an episode apparently.

**Craig:** By the way, there are vibrators that – so I thought, OK, if I Google vibrator electrocution I’m going to get a lot of stories about Hitachi Magic Wands falling into tubs. I got none. Zero. My guess is probably because everybody’s bathroom now to code has the GFI circuit on, so it would just trip a breaker and not.

But there is apparently a new generation of vibrators that electrocute you on purpose.

**John:** Oh yeah, electrical stimulation. Sure.

**Craig:** Yeah. That just seems like you’re, I mean, I don’t know, it just seems like you’re asking for trouble.

**John:** Sure. I think whatever someone likes in that area is phenomenal and fantastic.

**Craig:** Until it kills you.

**John:** Until it kills you. So, getting back to that specific use of it in that script is it relied too much on the fact that it was a vibrator being used in a bathtub with water apparently, which didn’t seem – that’s what I wasn’t necessarily believing and felt like a bit of a stretch and wasn’t working for me in those pages.

**Craig:** It is.

**John:** But I want to acknowledge that I was wrong. All vibrators are not battery-based. I got you.

**Craig:** Yeah. That is true. Hitachi Magic Wand. Been around for a long time.

**John:** It’s a classic. So we’ll put in links in the show notes to both the Hitachi Magic Wand and stories about electrocution, which there are basically none.

**Craig:** The person that you think is jackhammering behind your house may be using the Hitachi Magic Wand. It is apparently very loud.

**John:** Oh my gosh.

**Craig:** That is the one thing that I read. If you’re in an apartment with thin walls other people will know that you are Magic Wanding.

**John:** All right. Continuing our follow up, about two years ago Craig and I started talking about assistant pay and sort of the problems assistants were facing based on emails we got in from people. We’re starting to have that conversation. But at the same time Liz Alper and other folks were talking about the PayUpHollywood movement. They stated this group called PayUpHollywood.

So we’ve been working with them to try to figure out what are the issues, how do we get assistants and support staff in Hollywood paid better. Then over the course of the pandemic, or when the pandemic started, it became less of an issue of pay equity and just sort of survival. How do we make sure that people who are working in these positions can actually afford to keep living in Los Angeles? So that became a source of urgency.

We raised a bunch of money for support staff, Liz and I and Megana, who is also on the call, were instrumental in trying to get that money out to people facing this kind of crisis. Now it’s time for sort of an update on where we’re at with assistants, assistant pay, and so I wanted to invite on two folks who know a lot more about this than we do at the moment. Liz Alper is a writer whose credits include The Rookie, Hawaii Five-0, Chicago Fire. She’s a WGA board member and the cofounder of PayUpHollywood. Welcome Liz.

**Liz Alper:** Hi. Thank you guys so much for having me.

**Craig:** Hey Liz.

**John:** Jamarah Hayner is a political consultant who founded the public affairs firm JKH Consulting. In her career she’s worked with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and then California Attorney General Kamala Harris. Welcome Jamarah.

**Jamarah Hayner:** Hey guys. Great to be here.

**John:** Give us the sense of where we’re at right now. You just put out a big sort of survey and results of that survey. But can you give us the 10,000 foot overview. What’s happening in the assistant and support staff landscape right now at the start of 2021.

**Liz:** So right now the big takeaway is a lot of assistants and support staff are very, very broke. Unfortunately because of the pandemic about 80% of assistants and support staff didn’t make $50K in the last year. In Los Angeles in order to be considered not cost burden, which is basically making three times what your monthly rent would be. The average is $53,600 per year. When 80% of assistants and support staff are making well under that, I think 35% were making less than $30,000 in 2020. It’s sounding alarms.

And obviously we’re in such a weird predicament because nothing like the pandemic has ever really happened before. I don’t know, John and Craig, if you guys can speak to this but I’ve never been in Hollywood during a recession that’s actually impacted the industry as strongly as the COVID-19 pandemic has. But what we’re seeing is that we’re losing a lot of assistants to financial stress and there aren’t necessarily supports in place to help them out of this time and keep not just their bank accounts in tact but keep them on this same upward trajectory that they’ve been on. It’s derailing a lot of careers.

**Craig:** Yeah. I don’t think there’s ever been anything like this. There have been turn downs. There was obviously the major economic crisis of 2007/2008. When I graduated college in 1992 there were some lovely headlines about how it was the worst year ever to graduate. The recession and blah. But what we didn’t have was a combination of a downturn in the economy and an inherent kind of state of economic despair.

So, if you had a couple of bad years you fought back, but what you weren’t doing was paying exorbitant rent and exorbitant other things while also not getting paid much. Generally speaking the prices of things kind of moved up and down with the amount that you would earn. Generally speaking. It doesn’t seem like that works that way anymore. So, one of the things that I looked at in your beautifully designed presentation is how many support staff had been essentially – have been relying on friends and family to essentially help them survive, even though they have fulltime or in many cases more than fulltime jobs. And 19% of support staff are as reported having had to move back in with family or friends or relocate out of the city because of lost income from COVID-19. That’s one out of every five. That’s awful.

**Liz:** Yeah. It was kind of devastating looking at these results. I think Jamarah and I can both attest that we knew that 2020 had not been a good year for most of us but seeing how hard hit the assistant and support staff community had been impacted was really, really hard to read. We read every single one of the thousand plus survey results that people took and we’ve read all of the anecdotal messages that they left. A lot of people just saying I don’t know how I’m going to get through this next year if things don’t turn up.

The other thing that people were really shining a light on, and we made sure to include this in our survey as well, was that not only were they making less money that they had in previous years but because the people who were working from home were working from home they were being forced to take on the additional office costs that would normally be paid when you’re working in an office. So things like extra electricity. Increased power bills. Buying a printer. Buying paper. All of these other expenses that you tend to take for granted when you’re in an office setting, all of that piles up. And when so many were reporting that, you know, my hours have been cut, I still have the same workload and in addition to that I’m actually taking on added expenses to compensate for not having an office space, you’re sitting there going how are assistants and support staff paying more to do their jobs than ever before when at this point the studios and the companies should be stepping in to say how can we relieve this financial burden that you guys are under to make sure that our businesses are working as efficiently as possible because we’re making sure that our employees can work as efficiently as possible.

**John:** Jamarah, when we were first talking though these issues, this is a system that was inequitable, it was broken in so many ways. And so we were trying to highlight those issues. I remember the roundtable sort of gatherings we had where we would talk about what they were experiencing. And it feels like in many ways it’s gone from being broken to just like shattered glass on the floor. We sort of long for the problems we used to have in the system.

But, as we pull out of the pandemic, as we sort of imagine a life sort of outside of this sort of crisis, what are some ways we can think about building back the system better? Because I’m wondering whether some of these assistant jobs are just not going to exist in the same way that some of these systems will be there in the same way. What are ways we can think about getting people back to work and getting them back to work in a way that was better than how they left it?

**Jamarah:** Yeah. I mean, I think one of the really great things about PayUpHollywood is, as difficult as these realities are right now, is that this movement is working. Right? We’ve seen major employers and studios, Verve, ICM, WME, CAA, UTA leading with increasing pay rates for assistants. So, I want to make sure that doesn’t get lost in this, right.

So when we are organizes, when we’re speaking up, when we’re telling the truth about our realities and encouraging people to be intentional about how they’re running their companies, we actually make progress in really significant ways. So I think as we start to move out of sort of panic and recovery mode into rebuilding that increased attention is really, really critical. Not just sort of across the board we’re all going to get back at this together, but realizing that there are some real inequities that have existed for years and exist more so now.

You know, Liz talked about people relying on their families. For assistants and support staff that come from families that themselves are feeling economic stress right now, they may not be able to help chip in a few hundred dollars a month for your rent. So parents and other supports aren’t going to be able to be there. So I think it’s not just about lifting everyone up but being really intentional about naming those inequities which we know exist. We’re putting the out data to show it exists. People know this. They’ve gone through it themselves if they were assistants back in the day. And really leaning into that.

But I think that we know as PayUpHollywood that when we speak up and we speak loudly and speak boldly we get results.

**Craig:** And if we had not, I say we, I mean it’s you guys, but we were sort of cheerleading there early on, if this hadn’t been in place already and hadn’t already won some victories I shudder to think of where we would be right now.

**Liz:** Yeah. I completely agree with that, Craig. Because I think you guys say cheerleading and I really say instigating and invigorating kind of this movement. Because I think the difference between now when assistants are speaking up and the difference between all of these past years that they’ve been speaking up without anyone listening is people like you and John and other showrunners are speaking up in support of these assistants. And making sure that their voices are amplified. Their concerns are amplified. And you guys take them seriously. And there’s a level of care and respect that hasn’t been there before. And that’s so important to making sure that this movement succeeds.

**Craig:** Philosophically there’s something I wish I could say, oh no, I can. I have a podcast, so I’m going to. To the people who work in Hollywood who employ support staff, whether they’re like me or John and they are running shows, writing movies, or if they are working at a studio as an executive or anything like that, I think because Hollywood is so success-focused, obsessed with winning and earning and money and quotes and how well you do and how big your house is and all that stuff, that there is almost this philosophical fear of staring closely at something that isn’t what you would define as financial success in Hollywood.

So, when you are employing people I think a lot of folks in Hollywood just don’t want to look at this stuff because it makes them uncomfortable. And rather they would just like this person to magically show up. You have no emotional accountability to them whatsoever. They do their job and they go home and you don’t have to think about it ever. And I submit respectfully that we do. And that financial success is not the only kind of success there is. And more so you’re not going to be able to get financial success if you are burnt out and chucked aside, or if you are barely keeping your head above water, or if you have to live at home, or borrow money from friends just to stay afloat. That it is important for all of us to look at these numbers. And then act on them.

Because the amount of money that is required to move people from the “I’m drowning” column into the “I’m breathing” column is not that much. It’s certainly not much for the corporations. And I know it’s not much for big showrunners. I know it’s not. I know it’s not much for big actors. I know it’s not much for big directors. It’s entirely doable. You just have to be willing to look at it and give a damn. And that means, oh my god, thinking about somebody else. So, there, I’ve said it on my podcast.

**Jamarah:** Hey, Craig, I’ll raise you there. I would say a lot of the content that is being created these days is about racial inequality, income inequality, and we see that whether it’s the beginning of a season or during awards. So, I would say that if you are part of a production that is doing great work onscreen talking about these issues, keep those issues in mind as you go back into your office and pass that person in front of the desk. Or think about the person that you’re calling to do something for you at 11pm at night. The issues are the same. And if you can talk about it in the screen you can live it out in your life.

**Craig:** Oh my god. Thank you so much. Because, I mean, look, Hollywood hypocrisy is beautifully florid. It’s everywhere. It always has been. But this is one area of hypocrisy I think where maybe we can just go, nah, we’re not going to do that anymore. We can’t all sit around and applaud Parasite and then go home and be the rich people from Parasite. We can’t do it. You’re not allowed to do it anymore. It’s got to stop.

So pay attention and just look at this stuff. It’s not petty. It’s not beneath you. If you don’t have to worry about these things and somebody is working for you that does have to worry about these things then you have to worry about these things. You are accountable to the people you employ. I believe that.

**John:** Now, Liz, before the pandemic you and I had many phone calls where you were talking heroically with the head of a major agency about assistant pay at that agency. And made some great progress and I want to commend you on that progress. But some of the stuff that came up in terms of like assistants working at that agency were the demands of wardrobe and lunch and hours and clocking in and clocking out. And it occurs to me that as people go back to work they stop working from home and start going back to work new systems are going to need to be figured out. And what I’d love to make sure we are empowering support staff to do is to help make some of those decisions about how work should work now. Because just getting back to work safely is going to be a challenge. It’s going to be so interesting.

You as a writer working on a writing staff, I assume you’ve been working remotely all this time. And same with the support staff for this. And getting people back into a room is going to be challenging and I want to make sure that we are thinking about support staff in those conversations.

**Liz:** Yeah. I completely agree with you, John. Because I think right now a lot of what support staffers are facing are – they’re being asked to come back to potentially unsafe conditions. A lot of the support staffers who took this survey reported that their employers were taking the pandemic seriously, which was great. But if you look at some of the anecdotal stories that are happening on Twitter, some that were submitted to us, a lot of the people who are being put in charge of monitoring Covid testing on sets are assistants who are being paid less than a regular PA rate daily to be in charge of this very, very important aspect of production.

And then there are other things that we’ve tried to tackle with PayUpHollywood and we’ve realized that the scope is so big that it’s almost impossible for us to figure out every single issue that every single assistant is going to be facing. A wardrobe assistant is not going to have the same problems as an agency assistant.

And I think that’s what we were talking about at the end of the survey when we were encouraging employers to actually talk to the support staff in their company because different support staffers are going to have different needs. We just received an email from someone who said, “I can work from home. My company is OK with my company working from home, but I can’t afford to live in an apartment that has central air or even decent air conditioning. So come summertime I am going to be dying because I don’t have an office to escape to or a coffee shop to escape to because I literally cannot afford to pay for AC on the salary that I am given.”

And I know in the grand scheme of things that seems so small, but that’s one of the discomforts that support staffers are putting up with right now, in addition to being underpaid. In addition to having to adjust to their employer’s new schedule and potentially not being considered in the plans of restructuring the company and how that works within a pandemic.

So, there’s a lot going on and we can’t be the only ones who are catching all of the problems. We do need every employer and every company to actually start stepping up and start investigating what it is that their support staffs need from them. Because it’s going to be unique from case to case.

**John:** Thank you both very much for this update. Thank you especially for the survey and the results of the survey. We’ll put a link in the show notes to both the press release that went out, but also this terrific infographic you guys designed.

**Craig:** It’s lovely.

**John:** That walks us through where we’re at at the start of 2021. Can we have both of you guys back on a year from now to sort of tell us what next year’s survey results were and hopefully we can see some progress along these lines?

**Liz:** Yeah. I think that’s the goal. Every year we’re just tearing out the old foundation and putting in a new one. And then building upon it.

**Craig:** Let’s see how we do. I’m just going to be the guy that just keeps banging the shame bell walking alongside these rich people going, “Come on, people. Come on. These assistant are sitting there going through your bills. They know what you pay your pet psychic.” I hate pet psychics.

**John:** Liz and Jamarah, thank you so much.

**Liz:** Thank you guys.

**Jamarah:** Thank you guys.

**Craig:** Thanks Liz and Jamarah.

**Jamarah:** Bye.

**Craig:** Bye.

**John:** Cool. All right, moving on. So this past week, past two weeks, one of the biggest stories in the United States has been GameStop. And this has been a significant event in world news, so I can see that. But it has also been a source of a bunch of folks tweeting at us and emailing us saying like, “Hey, do you see there’s a GameStop movie in development?”

We often talk about How Would This Be a Movie. This is a situation where there’s a story in the news and suddenly there’s like three movies that are brewing.

Keith Calder, a previous guest, tweeted, “Is it possible to short the movie adaptations of the GameStop story?” To take a little meta quality there. But for folks who are listening to this episode in 2026 and have no idea what GameStop is or was Craig would you talk us through the briefest version of what happened?

**Craig:** Yeah. GameStop is a videogame brick and mortar company. And they are publicly traded. A number of large institutional hedge funds, I think the big one was called Melvin I believe, they bet against it. So, they took out short positions on it that basically said we are betting that in the future the share price is going to be lower than it is now. And if that is the case then we are going to make money.

A lot of people feel like hedge funds essentially which generally short stocks are kind of ruining everything. I don’t know enough about finance to agree or disagree. All I can say just as a person is it’s like when you go to Vegas if you play Craps and somebody comes and bets against the people at the table it’s like screw you man.

So, anyway, there is a sub-Reddit called Wall Street Bets and they like to kind of work together to buy stuff and I guess maybe the combination of GameStop being something that a lot of people that are Reddit-y are familiar with/nostalgic for, plus the idea of just sticking it to these hedge fund dickheads rallied the folks on Wall Street Bets together and they just decided we are going to start buying GameStop. We’re going to buy it regardless of its earnings, its potential, anything. We’re just going to buy the stock.

And they did most of that through a trading site called Robinhood. And what happens when you buy, buy, buy? Price goes up. Price goes up. Price goes up. Price goes up. And if they make the price go up high enough all the people that had bet against it using their various metrics would lose millions, possibly billions, possibly their entire hedge fund. Gone. And it very quickly became this underdog story of a bunch of people on the Internet essentially turning the same sort of trickery, nonsense gaming that a lot of our financial industry runs on against them.

So, it was incredibly attractive. And so the price went from $35 to like $400. Alas, it has plummeted recently all the way down, I think it’s currently in the $60s. So that’s where we’re at.

**John:** So looking at this from, pulling back and looking at it, you can see, OK, there’s some stuff that feels a little bit movie-like in the sense of sticking it to the man. You have clear class divides there. There’s a sense of it feels like a heist movie that’s being done sort of through the Internet in a way. You could ascribe good motivations to these sub-Redditors and the folks who are buying the thing and sort of driving up the price and perhaps saving this struggling business.

There’s different ways you can approach it that feel like there’s a narrative there that could go towards a movie. And yet it’s not clear where we are in the act structure of this story. It feels very, very we’re still in the news cycle of it. So it seems premature to be talking about this as a movie, and yet there are three movies in development.

So let’s talk through at least what we know of so far. MGM has acquired a book proposal of the events written by Ben Mezrich. He was the guy whose previous books were adapted into the films 21 and The Social Network. So he feels like a person who would be good at writing this kind of stuff.

Netflix is apparently in talks with the Zero Dark Thirty screenwriter, Mark Boal, about a film that would star Noah Centineo who is the star of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before. That’s a possibility. And then RatPac which is the Brett Ratner company has apparently bought the life rights to the guy who created the sub-Reddit. So that’s another way to sort of approach it. And these are three potential movies, three different approaches to sort of how they’re getting into it. One is buying a book written by a guy who is really good at writing books about this thing. One is bringing on a big screenwriter. One is getting the life rights.

I don’t know that there’s one right approach to it. I don’t think we’re going to see three movies come out of this though.

**Craig:** Not a chance. Not a chance. We will see one, maybe two. This is the danger. So there’s risk and reward. Just like all of the betting on Wall Street itself. This is a story that people are fascinated with.

Now, what people are fascinated with today is not necessarily what they’ll be fascinated with tomorrow or two or three weeks from now. What this story has going for it is that it is about something that feels very relevant to what it means to be an American right now. Economic inequality. This kind of Wall Street machinery that both the left and the right are resentful against. The sense that we are not really in control of our economy. And then here comes these folks that sort of prove it. And then get turned on, you know, by the powers that be as the powers that be kind of influence Robinhood to shut down a lot of the trading there.

But we don’t know how it ends. Right? So we don’t know necessarily what the full story is here. So the bet is that you are going to have a story that ultimately turns out to be something that is a full story, A. B, will still be relevant when the movie comes out. Won’t feel dated or like yesterday’s news. And, C, will feature characters that are fascinating and feature actors and filmmakers that people connect with. So, that’s the big gamble. And the additional risk that you’re dealing with is the fact nobody owns facts.

So, there could be 17 other Wall Street bets GameStop Robinhood movies quietly in development. There could be people just writing specs right now. So, what do they have going for them? Well, if you can find somebody like Ben Mezrich who has proven to convert things like this into books that then can be converted into very good movies, that seems like – you know what you’ve done? You’ve hedged your bet. That’s pretty good. I’m going to keep doing money analogy. I like it.

So that’s what it is. It’s basically gambling. You’re gambling with ideas.

**John:** Let’s talk about two book adaptations that feel appropriate here. So obviously Ben’s book, The Social Network, which is about the rise of Facebook and the infighting that happened at the early days of Facebook, an advantage that The Social Network is that it has characters. It has characters who are interacting with each other in physical spaces and can actually have arguments.

And so Aaron Sorkin is a great writer, but he also had really good real life people who can become characters who can actually do things cinematically. That’s going to be a challenge for any writer who is looking to adapt the GameStop story because these people are not in rooms together. They are people working with their own agendas separately and the movie has to stitch them together in ways that they would not naturally be there together. The conflict between two characters on a screen is going to be challenging to do in the GameStop movie because they’re not physically there together.

So, someone who is making money through Wall Street bets or who has spent money – has spent money in through Robinhood and has seen their net worth go from $5 to $300,000, that’s transformational for that character but you’re basically going to be probably inventing that character because that’s not going to be a real person or at least a person who is going to have conflicts with other folks in the world of your story. That’s going to be challenging.

The other book that came to mind as I was looking at this was Hillbilly Elegy which was a big bestselling book talking about sort of coming off of the 2016 election a lot of people were using that as a way to look at and explore a story of white working class people that had been underreported. And so there was an adaptation of that, but it was a challenging adaptation and did not sort of set the world on fire in its cinematic form. And I wonder and worry if that could be a similar kind of problem with this story which is so amorphous and kind of hard to hold. There’s not a plot to it.

**Craig:** Well, there is a plot in the sense that there’s a beginning, there’s a middle, and eventually there will be an end. The question is what will that end be? And will it feel like it justified the journey? So we’ll find out. There are some fascinating stories that I’ve read. You can look. You can go to Wall Street Bets and just read through individual people saying I think I screwed up. I put all of my money in this and I just lost it all and I haven’t told my wife and I don’t know what to do.

I mean, there are people that are talking about suicide on there. It’s terrifying. So, there is a kind of like dream and nightmare scenario going on there that I think is kind of fascinating. But you’re right. To wrangle it into one compelling narrative they are going to need to focus on some individuals. I will say that I do believe that we have an appetite for process stories, arcane process stories, more than Hollywood used to think. Hollywood generally the rule was that people are idiots and what they like are boobs or cars going fast or something exploding. And not that they don’t, but movies that come along like The Big Short which are deeply process movies, or The Social Network which is very much a process movie, people lean in. They want to actually see how the things that they interact with on a daily basis work under the hood. They really do get interested in that.

Whereas it used to be that diving into the weeds was a recipe for people not showing up, well now it kind of works. Is this a theatrical release? Well I don’t know if there’s going to be theaters anyway. But, no, I would think that this very much feels like it should be a play on Netflix or HBO or Apple or something.

**John:** Yeah. So I remember during the time of The Big Short, the movie The Big Short, not the actual real events, you and I, I think, both had sit down with Adam McKay and or Charles Randolph, the writers who adapted Michael Lewis’s book, and really good conversations you and I each had about sort of how challenging that process was and how to find character stories that could help illuminate really complicated situations about the housing crisis and sort of what actually happened there and how to visualize and narrativize those stories. And that’s probably what’s going to need to happen here. The way that we are sort of trying to obliquely get around what a short squeeze is, we’re going to have to find good ways to visualize that so the audience can understand that.

But I agree there is sort of a hunger for that. The same way that we have hunger for military thrillers where they explain sort of how some warship works. We do love to see that and we love to see people demonstrating their expertise in a very specific field.

So, it’s all conceivable and possible. I think my biggest hesitation is that we just don’t know what the third act of this is at all. And are we going to look at the events of GameStop five years from now as being like oh that was a big positive transformational event, or the start of something horrible? And we just don’t know yet.

**Craig:** Yeah. I think it’s going to end poorly for the people who invested in GameStop. That’s just my guess. Because in the end there is this interesting – what’s the game theory, the problem of the commons?

**John:** Yes, the tragedy of the commons.

**Craig:** The tragedy of the commons. This is a classic tragedy of the commons situation. Eventually, and it’s already started to happen, people who can walk away with a massive amount of money are going to. And this in fact is kind of the problem with the whole thing. There’s a fascinating discovery of how human behavior underlies all this stuff. And there is a little bit of a sadness in how we celebrate the underdog in our traditional fictional narratives, but in real life the underdog almost always loses. And what does that mean about us and our society and the American dream?

So, interesting things to look at. I do think that it will end – my guess is that it’s going to end poorly for people that bought into GameStop. My guess is that the billionaire hedge fund guys will remain billionaires. But that in and of itself is an interesting ending. We’ll see how it goes.

**John:** I’m hoping that Steve Mnuchin produces at least one adaptation of this. Because really who would be more qualified than Steve Mnuchin to – he’s a Hollywood producer who was also a Treasury Secretary. So he should be the person who should produce this.

**Craig:** Oh boy.

**John:** Boy. All right. So we’ll flag this for follow up. Obviously we’ll see what happens to any of these three movies or other adaptations along the way. But it’s a great example happening in real time of the urgency which people feel to acquire rights to hold down this thing which as you point out anyone could do. So we’ll see what happens.

**Craig:** Anyone could do.

**John:** Craig, you have left Twitter, although I do see you replying to other people on Twitter sometimes, but you have mostly left Twitter, so you may not have seen a really good thread that happened this past week.

**Craig:** I didn’t.

**John:** Rachel Miller put together a thread with advice for people who might be staffing or looking to staff on a TV show. And I thought it was terrific. And it also occurred to me that a Twitter thread does not work especially well at all on a podcast. So I reached out to Rachel and said hey would you mind recording your Twitter thread so we could actually talk about it here, because I thought your advice was flawless and succinct and so brilliant. But it needed to be working in an audio format. So we reached out, Megana worked with her to record this all.

**Craig:** Great.

**John:** I thought we would go through her advice and listen to it, but also respond to it and see what people could do, how people could implement this in their own lives. So, some context, Rachel Miller, she is a founding partner of Haven Entertainment, so she’s a producer rather than a writer. She’s also a founder of a nonprofit, Film2Future, which is a pipeline for underserved LA youth in Hollywood. She was just staffing a show for a streamer. And so she and her showrunner/partner read 368 scripts and they reached out to another 50 people to check availabilities for five writer spots for the room.

**Craig:** Ooh.

**John:** And she said that the truth is that the odds are not in your favor, but there’s some things you can do to help improve your chances of getting staffed. So, let’s take a listen to her advice.

**Craig:** OK.

**Rachel Miller:** One. Write something buzzy. Your sample needs to be something that cuts through the noise, that makes us remember your script after reading 368 scripts. For staffing, we aren’t necessarily looking for a pilot that sets up a series, just something that makes us remember you and your writing.

**John:** Yes. And so I remember when we’ve had TV showrunner guests on before them talking through like I will read the first couple pages. I just need a sense of can this person write. They kind of don’t care about the plotting overall. They just want to know is this a person who has an interesting voice. Is this someone who I want to keep reading?

**Craig:** Yeah.

**Rachel:** Two. Work on the first 15 pages, make them sing. If the first 15 pages aren’t good, it’s unlikely that we will keep reading, but if they are, we will most likely keep reading to the end of the script.

**Craig:** Well, because if the first 15 pages are good the next 45 are also probably going to be good. I mean, if you write well you write well. That’s how it kind of goes.

**John:** Absolutely. And so it also speaks to don’t hold back crucial things, oh, I don’t want that reveal to happen. I would say really do focus on that initial experience. So when we talk about the first three pages of this Three Page Challenge we really are getting a sense very quickly whether this is a script we want to keep reading.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** So just make sure that works.

**Rachel:** Three. Have a second sample ready to go. Many times we asked for a second sample to read more of a writer and was told they had none. A second sample should show off something different about your writing, we should not read two versions of the same story in two separate samples.

**Craig:** That’s reasonable.

**John:** Yeah. That’s great advice. You know, when I talk to people who are looking to staff I ask them sort of what they’re sending out, but also what else have you got. Because you want something that shows some range. It doesn’t show the same person every time.

**Rachel:** Four. Make sure you have a bio and credit list and that your rep has it and it is updated. For a bio, tell us something that makes you unique. You never know what someone is looking for in a room so adding something specific that separates you from everyone else is always helpful, especially if you are a lower level writer and a ton of credits a good bio is key.

**Craig:** Hmm. Well.

**John:** Yeah. Craig, you’re not hiring writers for your show, but there’s other folks who you’re reaching out to. You’re trying to find out information about them. Do you find yourself Googling them? Are you looking for information about them? Or are you just taking what the reps send you?

**Craig:** Yeah, so I’m not hiring writers, therefore the people that we’re talking to we will generally get IMDb breakdowns on them. And sometimes if it’s a certain kind of person, particularly actors, but also for department heads, if there’s an interview online I’ll watch it. Interviews are fascinating. If you ever have a chance to be interviewed for anything – maybe you’re not on a staff or anything but you’re a writer and somebody has interviewed you for any little tiny program, well any little tiny program is going to be Google-able. Anything. Right?

And so take it seriously. Take that interview seriously. Be gracious. Be interesting. Don’t be me, me, me, me, me, but just be fascinating. Somebody might find that. Those things matter to me more than – look, honestly, this one is not my – bios are fake. That’s the bottom line. Bios are super fake. Like all resumes are fakes. Everybody who has ever written a resume knows that resumes are fake. So, I don’t put too much credence in those, but an interview. Well that’s something.

**John:** Yeah. So before we started recording this episode I was on a Zoom with some strangers who I’d – people I’d never met before. And I found myself just Googling them while we were talking. And I was curious the difference I saw between like some people I could find information about them that sort of helped me get a bigger picture of them. And some people were just un-Google-able. There was nothing out there that was helpful. Or the only thing I could see was like in 2016 this person obviously went to Harvard. But I couldn’t figure out really what they’d done in the time since that time. And so if they’d had a site, if they had other stuff out there that could help me get a sense of who they were that would be great. And so I think that’s the advice that Rachel is giving too, to make sure that if it’s an official bio or some other site that it gives some sense of who you are as a writer because you may not even have a rep who is there advocating on your behalf. The script could have just been handed in by somebody else.

**Craig:** Right. Right. Exactly.

**Rachel:** Contact info. And this seems easy, but it wasn’t. Make sure your correct rep’s info is on your script, is on IMDb and Studio System, and on your website. It is very difficult to actually contact a writer if there is no way to get in touch with that writer. Make sure your website is up to date as well. And if you don’t have reps, make sure your contact info is on the script.

**John:** Yeah, so for Three Page Challenges I’ve been happy to see that that’s actually improved. I’m consistently seeing contact information on the Three Page Challenges that we’re getting in. Stick in an email address there and they will email you if someone is interested. And we know people who have been featured on the Three Page Challenge who are getting contacts from reps and managers because there’s something they liked. And they can just reach out to you directly. They don’t have to go through Megana. That’s good.

**Craig:** Yeah. How are people missing this? I don’t understand. I mean, that’s one where – when you are going through all this stuff, everybody who is going through this has 12 other things they also have to do. Any tiny friction point is going to hurt. And if you’re interested and you want to talk to somebody and they didn’t put their contact info on I’m already angry at them for their weird judgment. So unless the script has blown me away I’m just going to keep going.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** It’s just weird. Like how do you miss that?

**John:** The other thing I would add, if you are a WGA member you should update your Find a Writer profile because that is a way you can give your contact information, show who your agent is if you have one, your manager if you have one, attorneys if you have one, and include some samples. It will take you 20 minutes to do and that is another way people can find you. So, update that in the directory.

**Rachel:** Six. If you hear about a staffing job and you have no reps and you think you are a perfect fit, take your shot and reach out to the producers with an email explaining why you feel you might be a perfect fit. Not all producers will say yes to reading someone unrepped but some will and it’s worth taking a shot. Just make sure you specify why you think you are a perfect fit. Do not attach the script in the original email. That will get your email immediately deleted. Wait till the producer writes back and says it’s OK or not to send the script.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** Yeah. And so you and I have always been skeptical of query letters and sort of that sense of like, “Hey, I have this thing,” but it sounds like what she’s talking about is being very specific and targeted towards like this person is making a medical investigator show set in Philadelphia and I am a person with a background as a medical investigator in Philadelphia and I’m a damn good screenwriter. You should reach out to that person.

**Craig:** The second part is the key. You have to be able to say, listen, now that I’ve told you this thing you and I would both agree that I would be an idiot to not try. Right? I mean, so that’s the key. You just don’t want to do it and be like, “I’m not repped and I don’t know anything, but I love the stuff that you guys are doing and I think I’d be a great fit.” I love it when people say, “I think I would be a great fit.” And I’m like do you? What does that mean? OK. But there’s no evidence. You know?

**John:** You know who is a great fit? Zoanne Clack when she’s getting hired on to Grey’s Anatomy. She’s a doctor.

**Craig:** She’s a doctor. Exactly. That’s a great fit. That’s a fit. Exactly. That works. Not, oh, you’re a great fit because we have a job and you want a job? That’s not fit.

**Rachel:** Social presence – if you have a website, make sure it works. Even if it just lists your contact info, make sure it’s not a dead site. Think about joining Twitter, Instagram, all the other socials. Being part of a writing community is always helpful but also it’s a way to express yourself so a producer, or showrunner, or exec can get a glimpse of you. There is a flip side to this: Think about what you are posting. No one wants to hire someone who is constantly negative about other people, other shows, other rooms. Build your writer community. Often a showrunner or producer will reach out to their friends for personal recs and those scripts will always go to the top of the pile.

**John:** Great. And I’m glad she’s pointing out the double-edged sword of having social media because that is a way of sort of showing your voice and showcasing what you’re interested in. It gives me a sense of who you are as a person. But in giving me a sense of who you are as a person I’m going to decide like, oh, I don’t want to be anywhere near that person. That person seems like a real bummer to be around. So, you’ve got to be really mindful about what you’re putting out there.

**Craig:** Yeah. I think if you’ve written a good sample and they like it and you are not on social media at least for me that would not be a problem for me whatsoever. Most people are too online. And I guarantee you, no matter what I feel about you, if I’m going to read 100 of your tweets I’ll find two that piss me off. No question. That’s anyone. Anyone. Much less somebody sitting there and digging back through your history.

So, I’m not sure about that one to be honest with you. I don’t know if that is good advice. That one I’m questioning.

**John:** But I think of like Ashley Nicole Black who we only know – we were only sort of put in contact with through Twitter. And has been a guest on the show twice and is just a phenomenal writer both on Twitter and in real life and is doing great.

**Craig:** But we’re not hiring her. And she’s not doing great because of Twitter.

**John:** I don’t know if there’s really any correlation between her Twitter use and her writing. I think it enables other people to find her.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, there is that. I like the idea of having a presence on the web where you can express yourself in a controlled way and you’re not kind of necessarily – believe me, it’s not like I’m saying don’t be on Twitter. It’s just be really careful. I think that the potential for trouble is actually greater than the potential for benefit in terms of if you’re not on it don’t – I’m just saying if you’re not on it and it’s not your thing, don’t feel like you have to be.

**John:** Yup. This is a good place for me to plug on the 18th of February I’m going to be doing a WGA panel on public relations and social media for writers.

**Craig:** Oh great.

**John:** So if you have other thoughts on that you can join us there.

**Rachel:** OK, so now you’ve got a meeting. Now what? One, be enthusiastic. Tell us what you liked about the show, what excites you? What part or what characters are you most interested in writing about? Have show pitches ready to go. Some showrunners won’t want to hear them, but some will. At least have them ready in your back pocket should a showrunner ask. Read the materials before the meeting. Sometimes you’ll just have a pilot, sometimes you’ll have a pilot and a book. Sometimes it will just be a link to watch. Make sure you do all your homework and Google the showrunner and producer. Come in as prepared as you can.

**John:** So, it’s not surprising that she’s saying to come in prepared. And we’ve talked about going in for meetings and going in for general meetings, going in for specific meetings on a project. But I think our biases as feature writers is it’s always like how are we going to approach this project that’s here in front of us. And what’s different about going in for a meeting with a showrunner is that you’re responding to that person’s work. And so you have to be super positive about the thing that they’ve made and how great that is. But also sort of being able to “yes and” and sort of talk about where the series can go, what’s exciting to you about that, which is a subtly different thing than going in to meet with a producer about the Uno Movie.

**Craig:** No question. And beyond the evidence that you are a worker, and an adult who reads what you’re supposed to read and knows what you’re supposed to know, actual demonstrable passion for a show is going to move you further than almost anything else. And you can’t fake it. It’s got to be real.

The reason you do all of your homework in addition to your actual passion for the show is because it is not only a sign that you are an adult. It is a sign of respect for the people that you’re sitting with. They wrote that stuff. They’ve been working on it. They don’t want somebody sitting there going, “Yeah, I guess I could work on this. You know, I’ll come in and do what you need, whatever you need. You like what I wrote, I’ll write some stuff like that for you.” Well, get out. Get out of my office. You make me feel bad about myself and my show.

What I want is for you to come in and say, “I love what you do. I love your show. It means something to me. I want to be a part of it. I want to learn from you. And I want to leave my thumbprint on it. I want to influence this because I care about it.” Then I lean forward and I go who is this? I want to know you. And, again, you can’t fake that. It’s got to be real.

**John:** Yeah. So don’t play hard to get. I mean, the opportunity to get hard to get is when there’s multiple people who want to hire you for a job for a slot. That’s fantastic and then you can maybe get your price up a little bit. But, no, you want to seem like the person who has passion for this specific job who they can imagine being in a writer’s room or writer’s Zoom for weeks on end with and not dread seeing you.

**Craig:** Yes.

**Rachel:** Four. Write a thank you note after the meeting. Your reps or an assistant will forward it on. It looks great. Five. Most importantly, be yourself. Again, you’ll never know what exactly the needs of the room are. And what mix the showrunner, producer, or network are looking for. So being yourself is always the best answer. Break a leg out there.

**Craig:** Yeah, being yourself.

**John:** Great advice. So thank you notes. I’ve generally not done them. Maybe I should do them more. I’ve always liked it when I’ve gotten thank you notes when I’ve been interviewing for people to come work for me. I do notice when those thank you notes come through. So that’s a good idea. I just haven’t done it.

**Craig:** [laughs] You like getting them, you just don’t like writing them.

**John:** That’s so totally true. Just like the opposite is true. I prefer to give a present than to give a present. I don’t really like getting presents.

**Craig:** Sure. Well, no, I hate getting presents because mostly it’s just an exercise in me trying to convince you that I don’t want to throw this thing out. But I do like writing a thank you note. And I’m sort of the opposite. I don’t really care about getting the thank you notes so much, but I like writing them because, again, it’s just to show respect I think mostly. Just to show respect, no matter what the power dynamic is. Whether it’s somebody that was trying to get a job from me or somebody that I’ve been talking to about a job. I do that because it just feels, I don’t know, nice.

But the be yourself advice is always the best advice. It is true that there’s stuff going on that you’re not aware of and never will be aware of that sometimes qualifies you or disqualifies you within seconds. And you have no control over it. It just is what it is. And so you can’t calculate your way to success. Be your enthusiastic, passionate, authentic self.

**John:** So I want to thank you Rachel Miller both for writing that lovely Twitter thread and for recording it so we could talk about it here on the air. So thank you again Rachel Miller.

All right, I think we have time for one listener question. So **Megana Rao:** if you could come on board and talk us through a question that we could answer from the mailbag. Because I see there’s a bunch here, but maybe this top one would work for us.

**Megana Rao:**: All right. Great. So Oscar asks, “What are your thoughts in showing something in flashback versus hearing a monologue about it? Let’s say you have the limited resources to actually shoot that flashback. What would be reasons you would cutaway versus leaving it as a monologue?”

**John:** That’s a great question.

**Craig:** I love this question so much because I literally was confronting this very question just a couple weeks ago in thinking about a future episode that I have yet to write of The Last of Us. And the answer Oscar is you’ve just got to feel it. Because there are some stories you really do want to be in. And then there are some stories that you want to hear. And I can’t tell you why one thing feels like it’s better to hear than another other than to say if it seems like if you’re in it and it’s happening it might feel possibly melodramatic as opposed to if you’re just hearing about it and that person can kind of play against some inherent melodrama than maybe that’s a reason to have somebody relay it as a story.

If you think that the story would be fantastic to see and not really a good story to tell then you don’t really have that option. But, if it’s something that you think the storytelling would kind of contrast with. And a great example is in Jaws. So there’s Robert Shaw delivering that amazing story about what it was like floating in the water after the USS Indianapolis is hit a torpedo I think. And they’re all floating in the water and then the sharks come.

Well, you could say it, but then it’s sort of like, oh look, a camera is there and people are in the water and it’s a big action sequence and people are screaming. But having him kind of tell that story with that weird smile on his face because that’s how he covers up the pain, and he’s slightly drunk, and you can tell every now and then inside of the story he starts to reveal feelings and then, no, not at all. And the way he ends it as if to say, “Well, there you go. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.” That becomes fascinating because now the story isn’t about plot, the story is about character. So that’s your choice. You’ve got to figure it out. You’ve got to feel it.

**John:** Yeah. I would say that whatever movie or TV show you’re doing you also are setting some rules for yourself about are you the kind of thing that tells stories or flashes back. And if there’s one flashback in the whole movie or the whole TV series well that’s weird. It feels like you’re just breaking the rules to tell that one thing. So there has to be a really good reason why you are doing that thing.

Also, you need to ask yourself do you have a good person to tell that story. Is there a person who actually would be an interesting narrator to tell that story and who their choice to tell that story within the scene is meaningful and makes sense? Because it’s not just the story. It’s the scene in which the story is being told. And if you have that moment where it actually really makes sense for this character at this moment to tell that story, that’s awesome. But if you’re just dumping information at the audience that probably is pushing you back more towards a this is the movie wants to tell you, show you what happened, versus this character wants to tell you what happened.

**Craig:** Yeah. You never want your story to feel like, oh, they just needed to save money. Or, oh, they just needed you to know a whole big bunch of crap and they didn’t want to make you sit through all of it because it’s boring. It’s got to be a great story. That’s the key. It’s got to be a great story.

**John:** We have many great questions here so I think next week will probably end up being a mailbag episode because I was just looking through this outline and some primo questions being sent in to ask@johnaugust.com, so thank you everyone who has sent those through. And thank you Megana for sorting through all of these.

**Craig:** Excellent.

**John:** All right. It’s time for our One Cool Things. I have two One Cool Thing this week. The first is an article by Dan Froomkin entitled “What the next generation of editors need to tell their political reporters.” What he’s arguing for in this piece is basically that we need to stop having politics reporters or political reporters and relabel them as government reporters. Because when you start talking about politics you inevitably move to a this side versus that side and to a sort of sports team kind of reporting on things which is not actually helpful for the good of the nation or for people understanding what’s actually happening.

So, it was a really interesting framing. And I think it could potentially be really useful in terms of what if we just talked about what government is doing and what the issues are and stopped talking about it as a race. And I think some really good points being made in there. So, I will point you to Froomkin’s article there.

And once you’ve read through that long piece I think you need a palate cleanser which I will send you to. This is a clip of Whitney Houston and Brandy singing Impossible from the ABC version of Cinderella. And I just – this is behind the scenes of them recording this. And it’s just such a reminder of what – not just what an instrument Whitney Houston had but just how much life she had. It was just so good to see her so joyful as she was singing this. And as she’s ribbing Brandy to actually sing on pitch, it’s just great. So I loved this little bit. I’m going to play a little clip for you here Craig so you can appreciate how good this sounds.

**Craig:** I would like that. Yes.

[Song plays]

**John:** That made you smile right?

**Craig:** So good. I mean, just – just the GOAT. Just unbelievable.

**John:** And it made me remember that like I think too much about the tragic end of Whitney Houston. And I need to move past that and appreciate the joyful beginning and middle of Whitney Houston and what she was able to do.

**Craig:** Effortlessly.

**John:** That I got to be alive while she was singing like that.

**Craig:** Just effortlessly. I assume you’ve watched the famous clip of her singing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl.

**John:** Oh yeah. Yeah.

**Craig:** And when she redefined, literally redefined the melody at the end of the National Anthem. No one else had done Free-hee. No one else had done the octave jump on free. And now you have to do it.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** She just made that. She made it. She invented it. It’s amazing.

So my One Cool Thing is, I know I’m off of Twitter, but if you are lurking on Twitter which I think is perfectly fine because it’s free to everybody there is a fascinating woman named Stella Zawistowski. Stella Zawistowski is part of the crossword world. She’s often in the mix at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The big one in Connecticut. And she’s got a great – this is what makes her especially fascinating. This is her, what do you call the little bio thing on your Twitter profile: “Personal records…” I’m going to do it backward from the way she does it because I just like the reveal of it. “Personal records: New York Times Sunday crossword, 4 minutes, 33 seconds. Back squat 265 lbs.” That’s right. Stella Zawistowski not only can solve a Sunday Times puzzle in under five minutes, but she is a powerlifter. There’s a picture of her doing it. It’s impressive.

So that’s a combination you don’t see too frequently. Not to rip on my fellow crossword people but we are not known for our brute strength. [laughs] So, Stella is. But what I love about Stella lately is that she’s been helping people with understanding and getting into cryptic crosswords which I’ve talked about on here before. And she has a hashtag she’s been doing called #ExplanationFriday where she shows a clue and gives people a chance to get it right. And then she gives you the answer and explains how the clue works, because that is how you learn how to do cryptics by sort of going back and reverse engineering the clues and learning the conventions and the tricks and all that fun.

So, it’s a great way to start learning, because honestly I’ve become too bored with regular crossword puzzles. I need the cryptics. So, cryptics or metas. So, Stella Zawistowski for all of your powerlifting, crossword, and cryptic clue needs. @stellaphone. @stellaphone.

**John:** Excellent. And that is our show for this week. So, as always, Scriptnotes is produced by **Megana Rao:**. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli who also did our fantastic outro this week. So stick around and listen to that. If you have an outro you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send longer questions. For short questions on Twitter I am @johnaugust. Craig is not really on Twitter so don’t at him.

We have t-shirts and they’re great. You can find them at Cotton Bureau.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you find the transcripts and sign up for our weekly-ish newsletter called Inneresting which has lots of links to things about writing.

You can sign up to become a Premium member at Scriptnotes.net where you get all the back episodes and bonus segments like the one we’re about to record on awkward dates. So stick around for that. Craig, thank you for a good episode.

**Craig:** Thanks John.

[Bonus segment]

**Craig:** That’s great to see. What are they saying?

**John:** I don’t think they’re saying anything.

**Craig:** Just Latin sort of just chanting?

**John:** Just Latin chanting.

**Craig:** That’s awesome.

**John:** It’s great. I also love that it’s so creepy and yet beautiful. I mean, it’s joyful and creepy at the same time, which is just a uniquely church-y kind of thing you can do.

**Craig:** Yes. Yes. That was beautiful.

**John:** Yeah. Our topic this week is also potentially creepy and beautiful. Adam in Los Angeles wrote in to say he wants to hear us talk about bad dating stories. And here’s a situation where I think I probably have more dating stories than you do just because you met your wife in college and probably didn’t date a lot post-college. What’s your dating history?

**Craig:** I didn’t date at all post-college. I dated in high school and I dated in college. I mean, dating in college is really just like I sleep with you, I sleep with you. But then I met my wife my junior year and it’s been her since. So, yeah. I’m out of that whole scene man.

**John:** I was dating up until I was 30. So I have lot more dating history.

**Craig:** You’ve got some stories. Yeah.

**John:** I’ve got some stories.

**Craig:** Tell us stories.

**John:** But let’s go back to high school. So my most notable date, I have two things from high school that are embarrassing, which most high school dating is kind of embarrassing. This first one though I remember very distinctly. So, I got set up with a friend of a friend. A girl named Tonya who I didn’t know at all, but she was friends with other friends and apparently she was really into me and I didn’t know who she was. But we got set up.

So we talked on the phone and we ended up going to see a movie for our first date. And, Craig, that movie was Fatal Attraction.

**Craig:** That’s working.

**John:** That’s working really, really well.

**Craig:** Everything about this situation is clicking.

**John:** Absolutely. So this girl who is apparently a little obsessed with me takes me to see Fatal Attraction. So we see Fatal Attraction which is a really good movie, but also not a good first date movie.

**Craig:** No!

**John:** No.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** So then we go back to her family’s house and her parents aren’t around because her parents are gone for the weekend or something. And I was like I don’t kind of feel safe here. And so I should stress she’s lovely and so I’ve met her at the high school reunion and she’s great and phenomenal and happily married and everything else. But it was not a good experience for me.

**Craig:** No, that must have been – yeah, you walk into the house, there’s no one there. It’s the reverse right. Normally you go, OK, I’m the straight guy. I go home with this girl. I walk into the house. The parents are gone. Woo! Party time. And then not the case in this circumstance.

**John:** It was not the case in this circumstance. Do you have a high school story?

**Craig:** Yeah. I’ve got some high school stories. Sure. I’m trying to think of a bad, a really – well, I’ll tell you actually prior to high school you know there’s like the awkward early crush, like so now you’re talking like fifth grade crush.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** It’s not quite a date story. But I had this like beyond crush on the girl who lived across the street named Sandra. And I told my friend Eric about her. And he was like you’ve got to write a love letter to her. And I was like what, no way. And he convinced me. And I did it. I wrote a love letter to Sandra. And I walked across and I put it in her mailbox because you could do that. And then I went home. And then I had terrible regrets. I had terrible regrets. What have I done? She’s going to tell everybody. I’m going to be laughed at. She’s not going to like me.

So I went back over there. It had already been taken out of the mailbox. I rang her doorbell. She came out. And I basically said, yeah, none of that’s true.

**John:** Oh no, Craig.

**Craig:** Yeah. I just took it all back. And she must have – look, I’d like to think, this is the most charitable imagining. Sandra got this. We’re all like 10, OK? Sandra go this, read it, and went, “Huh?” And then I came to her door and she’s like, “Oh, hi.” And then I say this crazy stuff about how I didn’t really mean it and it was all just a joke. And she was polite about it and then she went back inside and went, “What?” And then just moved on with her day like what the hell was that about.

**John:** Yeah. And that’s very classic comedy. Something that was so important to you and it meant nothing to her at all.

**Craig:** I hope. I hope. But, yeah, you know, I don’t have too many disastrous date stories I must say.

**John:** So this isn’t even really a date story, but it actually has a similar dynamic. So this is in, I don’t know if it was in high school, or maybe it was I was back for summer in college. And I ended up making out with this girl at a party and, whatever, you make out with somebody at a party. And then I guess we exchanged phone numbers or whatever. But she’d said like, “Oh, I work at Fashion Bar in the Crossroads Mall.” And I think she had said something like, “Oh, we could get lunch or something.” And so I showed up at like where she worked.

**Craig:** Oh, you’re a stalker.

**John:** Yeah. And in retrospect I’m looking at this from her perspective. She could not get away from me. So I regret that. But I fundamentally did not understand that I was meeting her at work. It was just weird and I’m embarrassed now to even sort of tell that story.

**Craig:** You know, it’s important to hug yourself.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** And forgive yourself. We all have done these stupid, stupid things. Just, you know, everyone has one. But that’s not too bad, you know.

**John:** It’s not too bad. I didn’t keep stalking her in any way like that. I think in going there I was like, oh, we’re not going to be able to have a conversation there. And so therefore I should just–

**Craig:** Right. What is Fashion Bar?

**John:** Fashion Bar was some sort of retail clothing store. I think there was a Fashion Bar Men’s and a Fashion Bar Women’s. It was a private chain.

**Craig:** Got it. So she could be like, “Look, I know we made out at a party, but if you want to stay here you need to buy a sweater.”

**John:** That’s pretty true.

**Craig:** And use my sticker for the sale.

**John:** Now, Craig though, you missed out on all dating in your 20s which was the beginning of online dating and all that stuff.

**Craig:** Yeah, never done it.

**John:** I’ll quickly talk you through some of the highlights of that. So, not an online date, but I do remember an Aspen gay ski week, meeting a guy on a chairlift and sort of flirting there. And then it’s like, oh, come by my place. I’m like, great, I’ll come by your place. And then he ended up living in New York and so we had phone conversations. So you never had to do a lot of phone dating either.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** But I remember this one conversation where he said, “Oh, you’re exactly the kind of guy my therapist wants me to date.”

**Craig:** Oh no.

**John:** That first red flag. And so he was like an investment guy. And I was a broke aspiring screenwriter. And he’s like, “I keep dating these sort of like hot guys who are wrong for me. Listen, I’ve got the money, I can get your surgery. I can get you a trainer. Basically I can change you into the thing that I want to date.”

**Craig:** Wait, he was Pygmalion-ing you?

**John:** He was trying to Pygmalion me.

**Craig:** [laughs] Well, hold on a second. You don’t necessarily want to turn down free surgery. What was he offering?

**John:** I don’t know. You could be dealing with a completely different host here.

**Craig:** That’s so weird.

**John:** So weird.

**Craig:** That’s psycho. I can get your surgery. That’s what you want from somebody. That says love.

**John:** Yeah. I wish I could figure out this guy’s name to sort of see where he’s at now in life.

**Craig:** If only we could cut into you and rearrange your meat. Then…

**John:** Do you need all your ribs? I don’t know that you do.

**Craig:** Oh my god. That’s terrifying. All right, well, you know.

**John:** That’s dating.

**Craig:** Hey, he was open with you at the very least.

**John:** And so the one last sort of Internet dating story I’ll share. I will say that I do miss dating in my 20s because I like seeing people’s apartments.

**Craig:** Oh, that’s a thought. Sure.

**John:** It’s nice going to see people’s apartments. A guy who, an Internet date, and we ended up going out to lunch at like a Baja Fresh. And Baja Fresh is a chain in Southern California that is known for, they have a salsa bar. And you can have lots of different kinds of salsa there to put on your burritos and your tacos. And this guy got like 15 little cups for salsa. And filled them up with pico de gallo, the chopped up tomato thing, and just sort of ate that as a salad.

**Craig:** What? [laughs]

**John:** That should be a giant red flag. And it was a giant red flag. There was not a second date.

**Craig:** I don’t know. I mean, what if that was just this adorable affectation that he had and he was amazing. He’s like the best husband ever to somebody and they’re like, “Oh my god, Jimmy, the one thing about him is the pico de Gallo thing, but otherwise he’s perfect.”

**John:** Other than like stalking that girl at Fashion Bar.

**Craig:** Exactly.

**John:** He’s a good guy.

**Craig:** Other than the fact that he came to my house, delivered this love letter, and then 20 minutes later came back and said the whole thing was fake, he’s great. We suck. God we suck.

**John:** So you shouldn’t judge people by the worst thing they’ve ever done. Which in your case was mail fraud.

**Craig:** Mail fraud. Exactly.

**John:** And in my case was stalking at a retail store.

**Craig:** And Aspen gay ski week guy’s worst case was just being Jame Gumb from Silence of the Lambs and wanting to cut into you.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** That’s terrifying. “You’re the kind of person my therapist wants me to date,” what that means is I don’t want to date you.

**John:** Indeed. It really does. It frankly does. It’s like you’re not a thing I want, but I want to want you.

**Craig:** You’re the kind of food my dietician says I should be eating. OK, I get it. I’m asparagus. Screw you man.

**John:** Fun stuff. Fun times.

**Craig:** Bad dates.

**John:** So you haven’t dated in forever, so do you miss any part of that life?

**Craig:** No. Not at all. I mean, I don’t know – it seems to me like it’s chaotic and disruptive and scary. Fraught with pain. I mean, I’m painting a terrible picture of it. I guess mostly the reason why is if you’re not dating, if you’re in a monogamous relationship and you have a lot of friends who are dating they don’t come to you with good dating stories. They come to you with the disasters. That’s all you hear are just – I was on my skateboard and it went great. Nothing happened. Crazy. And I came home. You just hear like fell off my skateboard, smashed my face into the ground, lost five teeth. Traumatized. That’s the kind of dating story I would get. Just the disasters.

**John:** Yeah. I think I miss being young. I miss my youth. But I think if I were to ask that person then like what do you want, I totally want exactly what I have now which is like a really happy marriage and family and all the stuff. So I’m just the luckiest person alive. So I don’t miss that dating.

**Craig:** Yeah. Well that’s the idea. That you know what you want. You get what you want.

**John:** I won.

**Craig:** You’re happy with want you want. And you don’t need to, for instance, surgically alter Mike.

**John:** I do not.

**Craig:** He’s perfect, except for this one slice.

**John:** No, no. Perfect.

**Craig:** I want to meet this guy. This guy sounds awesome actually.

**John:** Thanks Craig.

**Craig:** Thank you John.

Links:

* [Lil Yachty Uno Movie](https://deadline.com/2021/02/mattel-uno-lil-yachty-1234687330/)
* [PayUpHollywood Results](https://drive.google.com/file/d/10movS-DYGCxXdFf0daf1XnVSAmv2bWH4/view) and [article](https://medium.com/@elizabeth.alper/the-2020-payuphollywood-survey-results-are-here-3e5c6be8744f)
* Thank you to [Liz Alper](https://twitter.com/LizAlps?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) and [Jamarah Hayner](https://jkhconsultingservices.com/about/)!
* The Gamestop movie at [Netflix](https://deadline.com/2021/02/netflix-gamestop-stock-movie-screenwriter-mark-boal-noah-centineo-scott-galloway-makeready-1234684568/), [MGM](https://deadline.com/2021/01/mgm-ben-mezrichs-the-antisocial-network-wall-street-1234684378/), and [RatPac](https://www.wsj.com/articles/reddits-wallstreetbets-founder-sells-life-story-to-movie-producer-ratpac-entertainment-11612440001?cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_2&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s)
* [Rachel Miller](https://twitter.com/RachMiller) [Twitter Thread](https://twitter.com/RachMiller/status/1357048517143851008)
* Check out Rachel’s nonprofit [Film2Future here!](https://www.film2future.org/)
* [What the next generation of editors need to tell their political reporters](https://presswatchers.org/2021/01/what-the-next-generation-of-editors-need-to-tell-their-political-reporters/) by Dan Froomkin
* [Whitney Houston and Brandy singing Impossible from Cinderella](https://twitter.com/ivyknowIes/status/1357387970807005185?s=20)
* [Stella Zawistowski](https://twitter.com/stellaphone)
* [Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!](https://cottonbureau.com/people/scriptnotes-podcast)
* [Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/gifts) or [treat yourself to a premium subscription,](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/) also we’re now offering annual memberships!
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Matthew Chilelli ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/487standard.mp3).

The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2021/sexy-ghosts-of-chula-vista).

**John August:** Hey, this is John. Today’s episode has one bit of swearing so just a warning if you’re in the car with your kids.

Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

**Craig Mazin:** My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Episode 486 of Scriptnotes. It’s a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show it’s a new round of the Three Page Challenge where we take a look at listener’s pages and offer our honest feedback. We’ll also discuss some of the most common mistakes we find in these samples and how you can avoid them.

Plus, we’ll look at irony, which is not ironic. It’s just a topic.

**Craig:** It’s a topic.

**John:** And in our bonus segment for Premium members we will discuss money and happiness.

**Craig:** Ooh.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Can’t wait to see what happens.

**John:** And what is the relationship between money and happiness. So, for these bonus topics you and I just sort of come up with them last minute, realistically I come up with them last minute.

**Craig:** Absolutely.

**John:** And so I emailed out to all of our Premium subscribers saying like, hey, what do you want us to discuss in bonus topics. And at last count Megana had gotten 165 suggestions for bonus segment topics.

**Craig:** Oh boy. So, we’re locked into this show for at least another three years is what you’re saying.

**John:** Yeah. That’s basically what we’ve come down to.

**Craig:** OK.

**John:** But, Craig, there’s big breaking news because this last week Craig Mazin announced that he is no longer going to be on Twitter. Tell me about this.

**Craig:** It had been something I was thinking about for a long time. I mean, I didn’t do the big huffy cancel your account thing. I’ve just made my account private. I’ve stopped tweeting. And I turned my notification filter down to the most narrow band, so I don’t really get any. So, if for instance – the thing that’s different, like I quite Facebook many, many years ago. If you quit Facebook you can’t really see much on Facebook. With Twitter you can. So, sometimes if I’m reading an article it will link to a tweet, so I’ll be there, but my days of tweeting and responding, that’s over.

And it’s because I just kind of felt a growing list of issues that were part of the Twitter experience. Some of which I think people generally are familiar with, like the addictive nature of it. Also, I felt like Twitter was starting to change the way I was thinking about things as I learned them. So, information hits you, like news hits you, and without even trying or thinking about doing it I start to have a reaction. An opinion begins to form immediately. Twitter demands your opinions now. Now! You must have it. And that’s probably not good.

There are a lot of things that I just don’t need to have an opinion on. There are a lot of things that I don’t need people to hear from me on. And I think that there was something that happened, you know Bean Dad, right? Remember the whole Bean Dad fiasco?

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** So when I was reading the Bean Dad thing and I saw how that was all going down I thought to myself I think Bean Dad probably thought he was going to get love for this. I think that’s what was happening. I think Bean Dad was like people are going to applaud my story. They did not. And it does seem to me that underlying a lot of the interaction that people do on Twitter at least, maybe it’s just me, I don’t know, there’s a sense of like I think people are going to like this. And I don’t want that. I actually don’t want likeability or approvability or agreeability to be behind opinions I have or things I say.

And lastly, and perhaps most importantly, every day without fail a number of people would have some advice for me on The Last of Us. Who we should cast. Who we shouldn’t cast. What it should be about. What it shouldn’t be about. Who I should be working with. And I don’t do well with that. It’s not that I don’t care. I do care what people think. It’s just that there’s no way to actually do something that way. For every person that feels very strongly that it should be blue, there is somebody else who feels incredibly strongly that it should be yellow. And so you can’t make everybody happy and people are very emotional about it. And they’re very insistent. And it just starts to mess with your head. And I want to just be somewhere quiet. And make the show without feeling like I’m surfing people’s feelings, because my own feelings are so hard to surf at times.

So, all of that kind of added up to “it’s time.” But there were some good things about Twitter, I think, for me in particular. I thought Twitter made me a more empathetic person. I do.

**John:** Talk more about that. So empathetic in terms of you’re seeing different people’s experiences, you’re seeing their opinions and understanding sort of what it might feel like from their perspective?

**Craig:** Yes. But the way to get – Twitter is really good at getting under the hood of those things. Because there’s a lot of culture where people say through essay or interview this is how I feel, this is my experience, this is what’s hard. There’s a lot of fictionalized narrative and drama that does all of that. But it all feels a little bit crafted.

And on Twitter what happens is you see people in a very under-the-hood specific way talking about not only how something good makes them feel, but specifically how something bad makes them feel. Like I don’t like this and here’s why. And I think it’s normal for people who are – look, nobody wants to feel bad about themselves. Let’s just start with that. We avoid that shameful feeling if we can. So here’s something, an aspect, that you can feel shame about. If you are wealthy you can feel shame about the money that you have compared to somebody who doesn’t. If you’re white you can feel shame about the way that racial superiority has kind of shaped the world and you continues to do so. If you’re straight you can feel shame about the fact that people who are not are being limited in their freedoms or are being mocked or made miserable.

And for a lot of people I think when somebody confronts them with a possible mistake, their first instinct is to say, “No, what I just did is actually, no, you should not be upset about that because I don’t want you to be because I don’t want to feel like I made you upset.” That’s really underneath all of it. I don’t want to feel the shame of knowing that I made you feel upset.

So instead I’m going to tell you why you should be upset. And Twitter is really good at allowing the upset person to explain it. And to get out of like the cycle of people going, “I’m offended,” and other people going, “Oh, god, you people are offended by everything.” And that whole like people yelling in each other’s face it kind of still happens on Twitter, but there are times where people explain it and then you suddenly go, “I think I understand not only why you’re upset but why you’re upset that other people aren’t upset.” I’m starting to understand.

**John:** For sure. And I think the rise of threading made that more possible where you can provide additional supporting evidence behind those claims. So some things I’m hearing from you is that it was not just the consumption cycle of Twitter, and the doom-scrolling which we’re all familiar with, that was part of it. But really the need to have a reaction to things and then to feel the need to process any new piece of information in terms of like what is my take on this, what is my response to this, just become exhausting. Particularly when it’s something that you’re in the middle of creation, like The Last of Us, I can totally see why it makes sense to jump off that.

I’ve at times taken the Twitter app off my phone which sort of breaks the cycle of it. And I found that to be helpful. This feels like a nice natural step for you, too.

But I do have a question for you because one of the things I’ve appreciated about Twitter is the sense of being caught up on the popular culture and sometimes it’s stupid culture that you don’t need to be caught up on, and sometimes it’s fun.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** So three things in the Trending Topics of today, and I’m curious whether you even know what they are. Jewish space laser.

**Craig:** I know what that is, because I built it. [laughs]

**John:** Harsh advice for writers.

**Craig:** Not familiar with that, but I can imagine what it would be.

**John:** So this was somebody had harsh advice for writers. Your writer friends are also your competition. And so people sort of jumped off of that, in reaction to that, but also made funny responses to it which is just delightful to read.

Mount Rushmore 2.

**Craig:** No. No clue.

**John:** I just made that up. But it feels like something that could be on Twitter, right?

**Craig:** I do love Jewish space laser. We are blamed for so much. I wish that we had the ability to make a space laser. She said that it caused the forest fires, where Marjorie Taylor Greene said forest fires in California were caused by a large laser in space that was possibly built by the Israelis? Is that about right? Something like that?

**John:** That’s about right.

**Craig:** That’s all I need to know.

**John:** Or there was Jewish money behind it.

**Craig:** There’s Jewish money behind it. Yeah, because the one thing I can tell you as the most Jewish person you know is that we love forest fires. Oh, boy, do Jews love forest fires. Yeah, it’s our favorite thing. What a lunatic. Good lord.

**John:** Yeah, she is.

**Craig:** She’s nuts.

**John:** Good lord. All right, some follow up from previous episodes. Back in 483 we had the episode Philosophy for Screenwriters and I had pointed out that I didn’t see a lot of examples of female characters in stories having to make ethical or moral choices. Andrew wrote in to say, “Isn’t Sophie’s Choice a classic example of a female protagonist with a moral debate?” Yes, Andrew, you are right. It’s like literally called a Sophie’s Choice. And it’s a thing we use all the time. So it’s a very good counter example in terms of just like a character having to grapple with an impossible decision. So, Sophie’s Choice.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s a very specific decision that rarely will people have to make, but yes it is. No question.

**John:** And Airy wrote in. She said, “Regarding the female character philosophical question, in Godzilla: King of the monsters,” which I’ve seen, “Vera Farmiga’s character Emma has a bit of a villain philosophical speech where she explains why it’s a good thing to let the titans roam free and take back control of the earth.”

And I will say that it’s a really odd moment in this movie that I guess I was surprised to see a female character having that sort of villainous turn. So, yeah, that’s another counter example. There aren’t a lot of them, but I do like that people are finding some of them and I think it is still a very fertile ground for people to create female characters who are grappling with these decisions.

**Craig:** Yeah. Women can root for the destruction of all humanity, too.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** They can be just as good as men at rooting for the destruction of humanity. I love those speeches. Those are my favorite. Isn’t there like a factory that makes that speech and they just update it?

**John:** There is. Well it’s always the eco-terrorist who really wants to turn his back to the Stone Age.

**Craig:** Look what we’ve done to this planet. Why should we be here? We’re a virus. We’re a parasite. Yup, factory just churned out another model.

**John:** Oh, it’s good stuff. J. Harris wrote in to say, “Could you discuss the use of irony within your screenplays, including situational irony, verbal irony, dramatic irony, cosmic irony, and tragic irony?” And it occurred to me that we have not really talked irony as a literary concept very often in the podcast. I think it’s because I don’t like the term. I find irony to be one of the most pedantic sort of – just the fact that you’re trying to split this into five categories of irony kind of drives me crazy.

And yet I think the use of irony is so fundamental to narrative and to dialogue and just to so many different things. I thought we might spend a few moments talking about irony as it is used in screenplays.

**Craig:** Sure. I do talk a little bit about it in the How to Write a Movie podcast, mostly I think in terms of what we’re breaking down here as possibly situational irony. That’s probably the one I think about the most when I think about writing.

**John:** Yeah. And so we’re not going to reference the Alanis Morissette song because I think that’s partly what turned me off of ever using the word irony.

**Craig:** It’s a song about non-ironic things.

**John:** Yeah. And the pedantry of sort of like well it’s a bummer but it’s not ironic. Well, ironic is maybe just not a great word for it. But it’s a phenomenon and it’s a feeling that permeates so much of what we write. So let’s talk about this umbrella feeling of irony, even if we’re not sort of going to zero in on the subcategories of it.

Irony in a very general sense is the contrast between expectation and reality. What you thought you were going to get and what you actually get. And in many ways to me it feels like the punchline to a joke, even if it’s not a funny joke. It’s the idea of you thought you were going this place, but I took you this place.

**Craig:** Yeah. And I think contrast between expectation and reality is an excellent way of thinking about it. And I would just add one little Philip to that and that is that the reality that you weren’t expecting is related to what you were expecting.

**John:** Exactly.

**Craig:** So, if a banker is walking down the street and a piano falls on him and kills him, that was not expected. It’s also not ironic. But if a safe falls on him and kills him, he’s a banker, got killed by a safe which is a thing he uses at the bank. There is a connection between the thing that wasn’t expected and reality vaguely. And that’s where you kind of start to feel the usefulness when we’re writing because it is a fun and interesting game to figure out how to connect the surprises in some sideways interesting contrasting way with what you thought you would get.

**John:** Yup. And so I want to avoid talking about a character being ironic, because I think when we say that we really mean that a character is sarcastic and is sort of using words in a specific way. I want to talk about irony more in the sense of what it’s doing for story. So let’s look at how irony is often helping to create the conflict, the tension, the plot itself. A classic example is the audience knows something that the characters don’t.

So, the audience knows that, oh, that’s actually the characters mother rather than his sister. Or that there’s a bomb underneath the table and they keep lingering around this conversation. There’s a tension being created there because that is suspense, that is comedic. At the end of Romeo and Juliet all the trouble of the poison. We know that the poison was real, or not real, and the characters in that scene don’t. So, we feel the tension because we have information the characters don’t.

**Craig:** And typically this will be referred to as tension. I mean, while technically it is a form of irony, it’s pretty rare that people would call it ironic. It’s that feeling that you get when Clarice Starling shows up at a house and it’s supposed to be a billion miles away from where Jame Gumb is and whoops, actually he’s right there. That is the house. And she’s there and she doesn’t know he’s the guy and we do.

So, that’s tension. But technically irony, yes. Typically we don’t use it that way.

**John:** Yeah. More classically sort of ironic is in Aladdin he wants to become rich so he can impress Jasmine, but she’s repulsed by his riches. And sort of the fancier he gets the less she likes him.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** That’s irony.

**Craig:** Good old backfiring. Yup.

**John:** In The Incredibles Mr. Incredible gets sued for saving a person from suicide. There’s an irony underlying that situation. So because the suicide and saving the life are related and they’re not related in the ways you would expect them to be related. It’s helping to ignite the plot of the story as well.

**Craig:** Yeah. And it’s pretty common that you create these odd details that make you think, oh, how strange. Irony tries to make sense of the chaos of reality. So, it’s not just that some random thing happens to somebody to help them or hurt them. But it’s almost as if somebody, like God, or a writer, did it in such a way as to make a comment about that person and their life. Like, oh, you wanted – have you ever seen, I’m not a huge fan of the movie itself, but there’s a movie called Wish Master. Have you ever seen Wish Master?

**John:** I have not, but I have a sense of what may happen there. Is there a Monkey’s Paw kind of quality there?

**Craig:** There sure is. So the Wish Master is a gin, you know, that’s the root of genie. But he’s evil. And he’s released from his captivity and he grants wishes. And whatever you wish for you get. But only in the most literal sense, which ends up killing you every time. And so it’s just one situational commentary/irony moment after another. Backfiring supreme.

**John:** On the thread of like what you’re wishing for, the whole category of situational irony, like because of who you are this is ironic that it’s happening. In The Wizard of Oz everyone wishes for, everyone wants the thing that they actually already have. Scarecrow actually is quite smart, but he’s looking for a brain. That’s natural.

Darth Vader is Luke’s father. Harry Potter has to kill Voldemort, wants to kill Voldemort, but the only way he can do that is to let Voldemort kill him. So there’s a reversal of expectation there.

Classically The Twilight Zone episode, which are all sort of Monkey Paw situations. The main character wants to be left alone so he can read, but then his reading glasses break so he’s stuck there alone but can no longer read the books he wants to read.

Oedipus is searching for a murderer who is actually himself. Those are examples of sort of situational irony where a fundamental reveal in the plot, in the story itself, is character’s misassumptions about themselves or their situation.

**Craig:** And I think we like it as an audience because it does organize stuff. Irony implies intention. If someone has to die in a story you could just shake a big old bingo roller full of little balls with possible deaths on it, pull one out, and kill her. But that doesn’t feel as interesting to us as something that is intentional. Well if it’s intentional then it’s probably going to have that ironic vibe.

**John:** Yeah. We like there to feel like there’s some order and some sense to the universe. And so when we see a twist ending that works really well it’s probably because like the punchline to a joke all that setup was there, you just weren’t anticipating the setup taking you to that place. And that’s the pop. That’s the little bit of surprise you get.

**Craig:** Exactly.

**John:** But even when it’s not the whole movie, or the whole story, we use irony in smaller places to provide some texture and some detail. So, you have a married couple in counseling and they find out that their therapist has been divorced three times. There’s an irony to a divorced marriage therapist. You have a fire station burning down. You have a police car that the tires have been stolen from it. There’s an irony to that that feels – it makes the world feel just a little bit more, I don’t know, detailed, textured. It makes it feel like there’s some intention behind it.

**Craig:** Interesting. Yeah. It’s just more interesting. I mean, because you could, I mean, look the marriage counselor when they say, “Well what about you? What’s your secret?” And she says, “Oh yeah, no, I got married when I was 22 and we have the occasional fight, but mostly it’s been wonderful and we don’t really have challenges and we’re still married. It’s been 40 years. And the secret is just, you know, like all these things that I showed you on this worksheet, yeah, just do the worksheet. That’s great.” That’s super boring. It’s super boring.

And we like the idea of a failure somehow having some wisdom from their failure that they can impart that helps other people, but they’re struggling to help themselves. This is interesting. Our minds are wired to contrast. You know that vision and hearing are entirely based on contrast. So, hearing in particular, if someone plays a pure tone at a frequency and just keeps playing it you’ll stop hearing it after, I don’t know, 20 seconds. Because it’s not changing. So the little fibers that are twitching against the nerves in your ear, they activate because it’s a new. And then after a while they’re like, OK, we get it, we’ll stop. This hasn’t changed. The way that they encode videos, you know, with MPEG and all that stuff is basically by just encoding the things that change. Why encode the things that don’t?

So, this is kind of how it works for us when we’re watching stuff. We want those weird changes of things we would expect because that’s the information that makes it through our filter. Otherwise, boring.

**John:** Yeah. But we want things ideally to change in a way that matches to some degree our expectations. And so as you said earlier, if it’s just random then eventually you’re going to give up on it because you cannot follow what’s actually happening.

**Craig:** It’s just noise.

**John:** So it has to feel like, OK, there’s an intention that’s taking you to a place. And so often dialogue, irony and dialogue, is giving you that texture and giving you that bit of surprise. That little pop that keeps you coming back to it. And so sitcom writing is so full of joke after joke after joke, and it’s these little bursts of ironic surprise that sort of keep you going through it.

Generally in verbal irony it’s the difference between the literal meaning of something you’re saying versus the figurative meaning of what someone is saying. And so that’s how you get into your double entendres, your shade, your sarcasm, your passive-aggressive, “the good news is we’re all going to die.” It’s all those things that sort of have a little bit of a spark that sort of keep you engaged in a thing, keep the ball up in the air.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Irony is a useful way to do that.

**Craig:** Yeah. Use it.

**John:** Use it. Use it, and use it smartly. And so be thinking about it not just on a big story-wide scale, but on a smaller scale. And I would urge people to not be thinking about these little subcategories of stuff, because that’s literary criticism and papers you write when you’re a sophomore, but it’s not the kind of work that you’re doing writing a new scene in a script.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Your use of irony and use of these techniques is setting a tone for what your script is doing and the way the characters talk, the way the world works. And as long as you’re consistent with it it’s going to be great. But if you try to dial that in for the first time on page 60 it’s going to bump.

I remember a script I wrote at Paramount years, and years, and years ago I had this one great line of dialogue and I was so excited about it. And my executive called it out. “That’s a great line for a completely different script. It just does not make sense here.” And I’m like, yeah, you’re right. Just it’s a great line.

**Craig:** Yeah. Irony is a fundamental ingredient. You can’t bake cookies without sugar and then sprinkle some sugar on these little flour dough balls and call it a cookie. It’s got to be in there. You just have to plan it.

**John:** All right, well let’s move to some actual writing on the page that we can look at and see if there’s any irony on display there. This is our Three Page Challenge. So for folks who are new to the podcast here every couple weeks we open up the mailbag and look through and see these submissions that our listeners have sent in, generally the first three pages of their script. It could be a TV script. It could be a feature script. And we look at what we see and give you our honest opinions on what we’re seeing that works and what could be a little bit better.

So we get in a zillion of these. And Megana Rao is responsible for looking through all of these. I want to invite her on because before we get started on these three specific ones she and I were looking through some of the examples and had some general guidelines and suggestions for everybody else sending stuff through. So, Megana, why don’t you come on board here?

**Craig:** Take it away, Megana.

**Megana Rao:** Hey guys.

**John:** Hey. So, how many of these samples do we get in on a given week in preparation for a given episode?

**Megana:** I usually look through about 100.

**John:** That’s a lot. And when you’re looking through them are you mostly focused on this is an interesting story idea, these are interesting problems I’m seeing, this is really good, this is really bad? What are the kind of things that bring it up to this next level for you?

**Megana:** Yeah, I think I’m looking for people who are taking risks, doing something interesting, or within three pages are quickly establishing the world and giving us some character development. And I think recently as I’ve been getting better at this, filtering through what’s just not going to work, too, issues of formatting or if I can read in the first couple of lines the writer is just trying to do too much within the description, I think it’s much easier for me to filter those out.

**John:** Yeah. We don’t want writers to ever be embarrassed. We don’t want people to feel like, you know, these people are doing this voluntarily which is great and awesome and so thank you for sending this in, but we don’t want to embarrass somebody and it does nobody any good for us to slam on somebody.

We want this to be helpful and educational for the person who sent it in, but really for everybody. And so we’re trying to find that balance of like examples that have enough things to talk about that can be improved but also have some good things to talk about as well.

Some of the pages you’ve sent through recently in this last batch, some things that I noticed, I’ve put them into kind of two buckets. One is sort of sloppiness where I just sense that this writer did not proofread carefully. And there were mistakes where like the wrong word was used. There’s extra spaces in places. It’s not even that it’s formatted wrong, they’re literally just typos. And second is unfamiliarity with the screenplay format. And it’s great that some people are sending in some of the first stuff that they’ve written, but I also feel like they have not read enough screenplays. And I think the great thing about 2021 is you can find the scripts for any movie that’s ever been produced online.

I just feel like you need to read like 30 scripts and really get a sense of what that format feels like. Because sometimes I get stuff in that’s like, oh, that’s just really don’t know what a screenplay is or does. And they just need to take in that format a little bit better.

**Craig:** I agree with all of that.

**John:** Some other sort of ongoing things I’ve noticed in a lot of these pages is confusion about punctuation. Confusion about where do commas go. You can make different choices about where to put some commas, but some of these commas are just really in the wrong place. I see semicolons sometimes. Almost never have I seen a semicolon used properly. If you’re thinking about using a semicolon you really need to stop, take a few steps back, maybe look up what the usage of semicolons is, and see if that’s really the right choice.

**Craig:** It’s not. [laughs] It’s not the right choice ever in a screenplay ever.

**John:** I mean, I can think of, having written 120 or more scripts, I’ve probably used a semicolon in a screenplay three or four times. It’s just not a common thing you’re going to use in a screenplay.

**Craig:** I literally don’t think I’ve ever done it.

**John:** Yeah. You probably want a colon. You may want two dashes. More likely you want a comma or a period. Simplicity is generally your friend there.

A thing I noticed in this last batch is people tend to not put a space before parenthesis, and so they’ll have a character’s name and then there won’t be a space for the parenthesis, the character’s age, or what the description is of that person.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Put a space there. That’s great. Same with brackets. You’re doing like day or night or after something, just give us that space before then.

Lastly I would say on the title page, Written by, Screenplay by, Story by, those are all credits you’ll see. Something you’ll never see on a real screenplay is Story Edited by.

**Craig:** Story Edited by?

**John:** Or Story Editor. That’s not a thing.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** No. That’s not a natural credit.

**Craig:** Don’t do it.

**John:** Written by, Screenplay by, Story by, nothing else is really appropriate for the stuff that you’re sending in to us.

**Craig:** The semicolon of credits.

**John:** It is.

**Megana:** And I guess the only other thing I’d add is verb tenses. I see a lot of people, just even within the three pages, flipping through a bunch of different verb tenses and that’s just something I think to be mindful of.

**John:** Yeah. Let’s talk about that. Because screenplays are written in the present tense. And they’re never written in the past. They’re always in the present tense. And you can use the present continuous, like “Joe is putting on his shoes when he hears a noise.” “Is putting on his shoes” is great and fine. But you’re not going to use that for everything. Use that in cases where action could be interrupted. Most of the time you’re going to be using the simple present. “Joe puts on his shoes. Joe opens the door to find something.”

If you’re using present tense continuous there’s got to be a reason why you’re using that other than just the normal present tense.

**Craig:** Yeah. I think there’s just a lot of overcomplicated – all right, so John and I have a slightly different view about whether you should be going back over your stuff, but I’m such a go-backer over my stuff. And at least in this point I think even if you don’t want to creatively go back over your stuff just take a moment to go back over your stuff just for compression and concision. And just look for the bunch of words and things that maybe you just don’t need. And just concise it up a little bit if you can. It does help, right, because there’s a buildup of stuff over time.

We start to think of the things that have survived a month, or two, or three of rewrites as worthy of lasting all the way to the screen, but maybe they’re not. Maybe it’s just that you haven’t roughed them up when you could have. And these little dinky things, sometimes if you don’t do it right away you’re never going to get around to it and it’s just suddenly – there is a cumulative effect of too many words. “Too many notes,” as the emperor said.

**John:** And what Craig is saying about going back over your stuff, I think just so that everyone is clear, I try not to go over my last week’s work before I start on today’s work. I try to stay within the scenes that I’m working on. But in that scene that I’m working on I will go through that hundreds of times to keep tightening it up and to keep working on it.

And so he and I are both believers in, yeah, there’s probably your first approach to how you got through that scene, but there’s going to be a tighter version of that. There’s going to be just better choices of words and really making sure everything fits lockstep. Because screenwriting is very concise. You’re trying to use the fewest words to create the best effect possible.

So, sometimes we don’t see that in the pages that we’re getting and we’d love to see more of that.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** And as a reminder we’re going to be talking through with some descriptions of these things, but if you’d like to actually read the pages we have PDFs. They’re attached to the show notes of this show. Or you can go to johnaugust.com. So you can read along with us as we go through these.

**Craig:** Let’s get onto it.

**John:** Cool. All right. Let’s talk about specifically the three pages that were sent through this week. Megana, can you give us a summary of this first one which is Echopraxia by J. Vernon Reha.

**Craig:** Or An Interdimensional Coming of Age Ghost Story.

**John:** Which we’ll talk about as well.

**Megana:** OK, great. 19-year-old Bianca fiddles with the radio as she drives through a quiet neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee. She approaches a stop sign, but instead of slowing down she accelerates through the intersection and crashes. Time slows as we watch the fall out of the crash and ghostly images of dead squirrels in buildings flicker on screen. Bianca speaks to us in voiceover as we watch the scene of the accident from a bird’s eye view.

Police and paramedics ID Bianca’s body, but find that the car she crashed into is mysteriously empty.

**John:** Great. Craig, so you set up the first question here. So Echopraxia Or An Interdimensional Coming of Age Story. This is by J. Vernon Reha. I bumped on that subtitle.

**Craig:** Well these are more common now. I have to say. This is sort of – it’s a trend. Nobody wants to just write a thing that’s called Rebound or whatever you might want to call something like this. So, it has become common to do these funky, twisty titles like for instance Echopraxia. There’s also a trend to do funky, twisty titles where you say something like Rebound, colon, and then some sort of Charlie Kaufman-ish overly worded musey kind of Synecdoche, New Yorker-y kind of thing.

And in this case J. Vernon did both. Echopraxia or An Interdimensional Coming of Age Ghost Story. This is essentially a promotional choice. I don’t think that J. Vernon is expecting that there’s going to be a movie with this on the marquee, or in whatever the tiles are on HBO Max or Netflix. This is really about getting people to go, “Oh, I think I’ll read that one from the pile.” That’s my guess.

**John:** Yeah. I think that’s a fair guess. And a couple of the other samples we got through had something kind of like that. It kind of annoys me and yet I can see why somebody does it. So, I’m not going to come out strongly against it. I can’t imagine some buyer is going to go, “Ugh.” It doesn’t feel kind of fair on the title page and yet I can see why people do it.

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s promotional. But, you know.

**John:** Well let’s get into the pages itself. So, the first page of this is essentially the car crash and going up into the car crash. And that first line was an example of sort of the not putting a space before the parenthesis. It’s not a big deal, and yet at the same time it’s like the first word I see a problem. And that doesn’t give me a lot of faith in what’s going on.

Mostly what I wanted to see in this opening section, because I think some of the writing of the actual crash is really nice, is stuff was in the wrong order. Stuff was in the wrong place. So it says, “I/E. CAR – MORNING,” well right now the writer is starting on Bianca. But then later on it’s talking that it’s early, the sun is still rising. We keep hopping around in terms of are we talking about the day or are we talking about Bianca. Give us one thing, then give us the next thing, then give us the next thing.

So I feel like if you’re going to set up what time of day this is, or what this feels like, what the neighborhood is like, do that first. And then get us to Bianca. And then get us into the crash.

Craig, what are you thinking?

**Craig:** There are a lot of really interesting things going on here. There are some things that are also poking out where I just think I’m not sure how this works practically. So, for instance, “She turns on the corner of Fourth and Lake.” And then you point out, “It is early – the sun is just rising.” OK, couple of things. There is practically no difference between the sun rising and the sun setting, unless we literally see a west or east sign with an arrow, like in a cartoon. We don’t know which one it is. So we’re going to need some other indication that this is morning. Any other little indication would do if that’s what you want.

Similarly, turning on the corner of Fourth and Lake, is that important? Do I need to know it’s Fourth and Lake? Do I need to know it right now? If I do, I need to be outside of the car. I don’t want to see her turning on the corner of Fourth and Lake. I want to see a car turning onto Fourth and Lake. If it’s just her, I just need to see that she’s turning. That’s all. She turns to head down a different street. It’s early. The sun is rising. Did the sun just get into her eyes? Has it shifted? You know, give me some stuff there.

This is where it gets a little trickier.

**John:** Craig–

**Craig:** Go on.

**John:** Let’s just talk through sort of how you might do that on the page. So I could envision, if the first slug line of this was “A quiet residential road in Liberty, Tennessee, a suburb of Memphis, one of those neighborhoods where all of the homes are eerily similar. It’s early.” And then some other description about dew on the laws. You know, newspapers on sidewalks. Whatever you want to do there. And then a car turns onto Fourth and Lake. And then we are interior the car afterwards. That’s a much more natural way to sort of – it helps us see what are the shots. It lets us visualize the movie a little bit more easily.

**Craig:** Yeah. Or stay inside the car the whole time. And then we don’t get out until the crash happens. So you have choices to make. “Bianca is pretty, but nondescript, with a face you could forget.” Well, why don’t we just start by saying, “This script is fine, but nondescript, with a story you could forget?” Why would you want to advertise? This feels like a reaction to a “hot but doesn’t know it.” But it’s not actually giving me anything. I don’t know what she looks like at all. And I definitely don’t want to be told that I need to cast an actor whose face is so generic I’ll forget them.

I want to know what her hair is like. I want to know what she’s wearing. I want to know if she has makeup on.

**John:** Are her nails painted?

**Craig:** Are they dirty?

**John:** A 19-year-old young woman could be a zillion different things, so give us some choices here.

**Craig:** “She Flicks through radio stations,” so J. Vernon capitalizes flicks, which I think is OK. At first I was like, oh, is that a mistake, but I see there’s a flick, flick, flick, flick thing going on. Flicking through radio stations is something that was far more common when you and I were learning how to drive. Because now you tap, tap, tap I think to get through radio stations at this point. But I get the point. What I was a little bit more concerned about was that this is being intercut with the following: “A child runs into the street for a ball. Flick. Squirrels chase each other up a tree. Flick. A man and his wife shout indistinctly behind an open window. Flick Flick Flick…”

How are we supposed to get to any of that? Are we just dead-cutting to a squirrel? Are we dead-cutting to a window and people maybe behind it and you can’t hear them. Are we dead-cutting to a kid in the street which you know you’re going to think is going to get run over? How do we do that? And why?

**John:** Yeah. And how does it relate to Bianca? Is she noticing this? I assume that we are in POV because of how this scene started, but this didn’t feel like POV, so–

**Craig:** Right. It doesn’t feel like POV. And the reason that I’m kind of picking on this is because I really like what happens next.

**John:** Very much.

**Craig:** And that’s what sort of matters. And so I’m wondering maybe we don’t need all this junk because really what’s important is that she does something surprising which is she intentionally crashes into another car. And I would love to know, since it’s day, I don’t know why we’re being blinded by approaching headlights? It’s morning.

**John:** I noticed that, too.

**Craig:** I’d like to see what kind of car that is. That’s actually going to be very helpful for what comes next. Is it a Prius? Is it a pickup truck? What is it? Then she crashes. The description of the crash was fascinating. I mean, obviously we’re getting into science fiction here but it was really cool.

**John:** Yeah. So this is the moment that gave me some hope because I felt like the writer was picking very specific visuals to dramatize what was actually happening here. So I love a good car crash in slow motion. And I love how it’s going to feel. I love the description of glitching. It let me know that something unusual was about to happen. And that was great. And so I loved that we got there.

So, if earlier it was just more normal and got to that moment, great. If earlier, you gave us a sense that something was odd and then we got to that, great. But I wasn’t led into this moment with any confidence. And so if I had been a little more confident going into it it would have felt even better.

**Craig:** Yeah. Then the first line comes from Bianca, who has just theoretically killed herself. And it is in voiceover, “Sometimes I wonder if I have a personality.” That’s not kind of – you want that line, whatever that line is, it needs to grab you by the face and go here we go. This is fascinating. She’s making a statement. And it doesn’t quite do that. It’s a little bit more of a thinky line than a grabby, shocking line.

**John:** Yeah. I think it’s close. And I would have loved to have – there’s going to be a first line, and whatever that first line is I would have pulled it up earlier towards the crash so that we have something to anchor us to before we get to this sort of wide open street scene, or people we’ve not established before looking at the results of the car crash. I would love to hear that line somewhere in that car crash scene.

But I like the voiceover over all as a feeling. And so I was, you know, excited to see it. I don’t think the line is quite right, but I like where it was headed.

**Craig:** Yeah. Tonally it seems like it’s dancing around the right thing.

**John:** So, Craig, the answer to your question, they are both gray 2004 Ford Fiestas.

**Craig:** Now I see.

**John:** Which feels like well that’s got to be important. I feel like that is an intentional choice. And yet I don’t know what’s important and what’s not important because there hasn’t been any signaling to me as a reader. So if that feels like the kind of thing which is so important that I might underline it or bold face it or somehow call it out or stick it on its own line. Because that’s weird.

**Craig:** I’d go further.

**John:** Why would two identical cars crash into each other?

**Craig:** That to me requires actual direction on the page. First of all, gets its own paragraph for sure. And then her car we now see is crumpled. Her 2004 gray Ford Fiesta is crumpled and smashed. We come around to see the other car on its back. Also gray. And then as we move around the back we see an upside down the word “Fiesta.” Then we go it’s the same exact model and make. Two of the same cars just smashed into each other. Because you want the audience to go Whoa, not like, Huh, those are similar.

**John:** Yeah. There must have been a sale on 2004 Ford Fiestas.

**Craig:** Meh.

**John:** So then we get into two detectives, one with glasses and one with a beard, talking. I want to cut most of their dialogue because it was just yada-yada. They’re basically saying that she’s alive and stable, but there’s no other body in the other car. I felt there were ways we could visually see that and get to that point and have it be the moment of discovery rather than two people talking about something that has already happened.

It would be great to see people looking in the car and there’s no body in the other car. There’s no person in the other car.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Rather than reported moments, seeing the moment feels better to me.

**Craig:** Well, yeah. I mean, you can do a thing where a detective shows up and he walks over to the other guy and he says, “OK,” and the guy is like, “Yeah, she’s…” And they’re wheeling her into – that’s Bianca Armitage, 19, no criminal history, family has been alerted. We’re running a tox screen. Looks like she’s going to make it.

OK, what about the other guy? Or what about the other car? And the cop says, “There was no one in the other car.” And that’s it. And just like, what?

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** It’s weird.

**John:** What? What?

**Craig:** We don’t need this back and forth. “It’s the strangest thing.” No one ever says that. Ever.

**John:** A real head-scratcher.

**Craig:** It’s the strangest thing. Real head-scratcher. These guys are actually diminishing the drama of the situation that you’ve created by kind of being weirdly bland about it.

**John:** Yeah. So I can envision a scenario in which the crash has basically just happened, or we’re coming in like 30 seconds later and there are neighbors who are like looking at Bianca and like, OK, she’s alive in there, and they’re looking. And then we dolly around to the other car and there’s nobody in the car. And that’s surprising. That is shocking. That’s a cool moment. And then we reveal that the license plate is blank. Like that is really creepy and interesting and goose-bumpy.

But having these detectives who aren’t going to be important characters have this dialogue isn’t doing it for us.

**Craig:** No.

**John:** And then going to the reporter.

**Craig:** No. No, no.

**John:** That just has to go.

**Craig:** No, no, no.

**John:** I never believe the reporter covering this thing. You don’t cover car crashes like this.

**Craig:** No. I mean, Memphis is – maybe in some tiny, tiny Podunk town in a county where nothing ever happens. But this is Memphis, Tennessee. It’s not necessarily New York, but it’s a real city. And, no, car crashes happen all the time. They stay on somebody going, “A car crash happened.” It’s just, no. No.

**John:** So, I don’t know if I’ve ever talked about this on the show, but at the end of my street there are car crashes all the time, or at least there used to be car crashes all the time until we finally convinced the city to change how traffic flows and put in some one-way turns and things like that. But I would just be watching TV and I’d hear the squeal of tires, crash. And like, OK, it’s a crash. And so I’d put on my shoes, I’d get my phone, and I’d go down. And so I’ve had to deal with so many flipped over cars over the last couple of years.

**Craig:** Oh god. Jesus.

**John:** And it’s terrible. And so I know what these crashes are like and never does a news crew show up. I mean, this is Los Angeles. But even in Memphis, Tennessee a news crew is not going to show up. This is just not realistic or believable.

**Craig:** It’s not news.

**John:** Not news.

**Craig:** It’s not news.

**John:** It’s not news. Then we get to the hospital room and I’m curious what happens next. And so I will say that the good writing of the car crash and of the mystery of like, wait, where is the other person in the other car, who is Bianca, is Bianca possessed by some other spirit, I’m fascinated by all of those. So that’s what makes me curious about what’s going to happen next.

**Craig:** And that is exactly how I would think about rewriting this. What would the person watching this be most curious about? And I can assure you it is not a reporter talking about a crash. It is not two detectives yapping back and forth in a bland way. I want to know, wait, was there somebody in that car? Can you convince me there was nobody in that car? What does it mean that these two cars are exactly the same? What does that mean? And where is that car now? That’s what I want to know.

So, think about what people would want. Give it to them. But in an interesting way. This is the big secret. Now you know.

**John:** Now we know. All right. Let’s move onto our next Three Page Challenge. Megana, tell us about The Little Death by Autumn Palen.

**Megana:** All right, so Brandy, a young woman in her 20s, stares blankly at the ceiling of her bedroom. Tony, male 20s, emerges from beneath the covers and asks if she “got there.” Brandy admits that she did not and that she has never “been there.” Brandy reveals that she’s been too scared to masturbate on her own. Tony asks why not and we see a series of quick cutaways of Brandy’s fears, i.e. that someone will walk in on her or that she’ll electrocute herself with a vibrator.

They banter about what Tony can try next.

**Craig:** You really can’t electrocute yourself with a vibrator. I mean, if it was plugged into a wall?

**John:** These are battery controlled. So back in the days of plug-in vibrators, which I’m sure was a thing at some point.

**Craig:** Was it?

**John:** Then you could have, but you can’t.

**Craig:** Not in my lifetime. I think there have been batteries for a long time.

**John:** It’s probably more like hair dryers in bathtubs was maybe a thing. I bet some people actually did die of that. Exposed wire.

**Craig:** Oh yeah. Early on, I think like in the 20s, a man would get on some sort of bicycle contraption and then an egg beater type electric vibrator would be attached to a woman. And this was all done under the heading of curing her hysteria. But, no, not since I would imagine the ‘40s has this been.

By the way, that actually counts. I have to say, people may think we’re just being picky, but it counts. Because people need to know that the characters are living in our world and thinking somewhat logically.

**John:** Yeah. Craig, it does make me think though I’ve seen so many examples of like shows from the ‘70s where a woman was murdered because someone threw a hair dryer into the bathtub. But how was it ever a believable death? What person is using a blow dryer while in a bathtub?

**Craig:** Well, you know, people are incredibly stupid.

**John:** Yeah, I guess they smoke in bed.

**Craig:** They do. The good news is that somewhere along the line the ground fault interrupter circuit was invented so in your bathroom all those things you would plug a hair dryer into now has its own little circuit breaker. So, you probably won’t die.

**John:** All right, Craig, so The Little Death, what is your take on The Little Death?

**Craig:** Well, there’s nothing wrong with it. OK. There’s nothing wrong with it. There’s just not a lot right with it. Because it is somewhat familiar. We have seen conversations a little bit like this in all sorts of sitcoms and things like that, and other movies. My biggest thing about it was it read, it flowed, the dialogue sounded perfectly fine, I just didn’t believe much of it.

So, Tony seems to have feelings. Tony is just totally cool with everything. And Brandy is in a very strange place because she’s never had an orgasm before, which is not horribly uncommon for women in their 20s. It’s a thing. OK, so I’m with it. But she neither seems to be open or closed about it. She just sort of tells it in between like let me just tell you a big secret of mine. And his reaction is like, oh, OK, let me just try a different thing. And, does that work?

It all feels a bit sort of shruggish. Like a shrug. Like I’m watching a fairly mild discussion between two perfectly nice people.

**John:** So, I enjoyed that it was overall sex positive. I enjoyed Tony’s sex positivity and that Tony was trying hard. And I really like that. I like the specific details of like “wipes his lips with a thumb and forefinger.” Great. Love that. I see the image. It’s terrific.

And while I like him being sex positive, I don’t have a sense of where are they at in their relationship. Like how long – who are they specifically individually and how long have they been kind of a couple. And I think we can get that information into this scene. Or we can get some sense of what their connection is in this scene.

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** Some of the problems are like, Brandy, 20s. 20s is anything from 20 to 29. That’s a huge range.

**Craig:** It’s a big spread. Yeah.

**John:** So I think you got to give us a very specific age on Brandy. Like is she still in college? Or is she killing it as a consultant at a top law firm? It’s just too general here. And that’s I think my biggest problem with all of this is that it didn’t feel like it was rooted in very specific characters encountering a specific situation.

**Craig:** I mean, look, Brandy has a problem. Right? It’s not like Brandy loves this situation. She doesn’t love this situation. She’s sort of trapped by a fear. I’d love to know a little bit more. I think this fear part is the part that I believe the least, not only for the aforementioned batteries can’t kill you reason, but also because that doesn’t actually seem like why women are too scared to masturbate. It’s not a fear of physical death as much as there’s shame, culture, family issues, religion, whatever it is. It seems like it’s probably a little more complicated than that. So it seems so readily and immediately psychologically accessible to her.

Also, she seems to not – at least in these pages – she doesn’t come off as aware that this is a problem. So it’s only a problem suddenly and then it’s a problem always. Meaning, she’s letting him do this. Now, if she has a problem and she’s allowing him to do this, either she’s saying, “Here’s the deal. It’s not going to work, but you try and let’s see if you can be the one.” Which I don’t get from this. Or, she’ll fake it.

But what she’s not going to do is think, oh, for some reason this time it will be different than all the other times and I’ll just sort of mention that it actually turned out to not be different from all the other times. It just feels like there’s not backstory built in. There’s not experience built in. We’re dealing with sex, so there’s shame around it and it’s tricky and it’s psychological. And both of them just seem too simple. They just seem like incredibly simple people.

**John:** I think my biggest issue with how the pages were flowing is I didn’t get a good sense of – I think the tension of the pages is that she’s telling the guy sort of what these different encounters were, because he’s reacting to them. And I think all those cutaways back to “I just told you that story, I just told you that story,” get rid of those. I think you have a stronger story.

I think it’s more interesting if we’re, as the audience, are being led into these things and she’s not telling him those things. Because then it becomes a source of tension between the two of them. Because someone who can be too nice and too supportive and it can drive you crazy, I think that could be the source of real good comedic tension within the scene. Where she’s like I don’t want you to even try. I don’t want to deal with this right now. I don’t want to try to fix this. And then we don’t need to sort of have the escalation and the rule of three in terms of like all the things that have gone wrong.

Just the one occurrence could be great. Right now on page two, “The sound of the door slamming open snaps her from her daze. Brandy jolts up, focus fixed on the door in a panic.” And right now she says, “I didn’t know you were home.” That’s kind of generic. If she says, “Grandpa!”

**Craig:** Yeah.

**John:** That’s funnier.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And then we don’t even need to see grandpa. We just know like, oh god, I can’t even imagine how terrifying that would be.

**Craig:** Or we just see grandpa. We see him staring there dropping his little bag from Trader Joe’s on the floor in shock. No one says a full, complete sentence when they’ve been caught masturbating, I have been told.

**John:** Mm-hmm.

**Craig:** Allegedly.

**John:** Allegedly.

**Craig:** It just seems way too, yeah, sort of rigged. By the way, I didn’t quite understand thumb and forefinger. Do you understand her to mean like wipes his lips, like wipes his mouth with the back of his hand?

**John:** No, so sort of pinching – using thumb and forefinger on each side to sort of clean off his mouth.

**Craig:** I dispute that that would be effective. [laughs] I dispute that.

**John:** Sure.

**Craig:** Yeah. That seems odd.

**John:** I would also, getting back to sort of the basics here, it’s such a clichéd moment of like the guy comes up from the covers and asks like “how was that/did it?”

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And I just feel like I’ve seen that so often. I could cut those first couple lines and – or even if he just says, “No?” And you could just get rid of the question, I guess.

**Craig:** I have a question for you. Why did Tony stop? What clue did he have that it had ended? Right off the bat I was so confused. Did he set an egg timer? What happened?

**John:** We won’t know.

**Craig:** And he was like, “How was that?” And she’s like, no. And he’s like, “No? Really? You mean that you didn’t have an orgasm right when I arbitrarily stopped going down on you?”

That’s what I mean. They just seem a bit dim as people. So, make them smarter.

**John:** Yeah. We like that. Let’s get to our final Three Page Challenge. This is Chula Vista by Kristen Delgado. Megana, talk us through it.

**Megana:** Enrique, 17, and his father, Ignacio, 34, are selling a wealthy homeowner, Mr. Lawson, 45, on their landscaping services. Mr. Lawson’s daughter, Stevie, 17, pokes out and tries to talk to Enrique who barely acknowledges her. Enrique secures the sale and as Enrique and his father are leaving Ignacio asks his son who the girl was. And Enrique pretends he doesn’t know her. As they leave the Chula Vista neighborhood Enrique tells his father that one day when he’s a doctor he’ll buy him a home there.

Then we see a tired-looking Enrique getting ready for school in the morning. He almost forgets to pack the burrito his mom packed and the dad makes a joke that Enrique is too good for it because he’s going to be a doctor.

**John:** Great. We’ll start on the title page. This includes an image. It looks like an image that’s maybe custom made for this script. You and I have talked about images in screenplays before. I felt like this set a nice tone and a picture of it. What did you feel about this image?

**Craig:** I liked it. I liked it. I thought that because the image was a bit soft and watercolor-y and defocused that it immediately said this is romance. And not just because a boy and a girl are sitting there on the ground by some lit candles at night and all the rest. Just the Chula Vista itself, the valley, the world, the sunset, the lights. Everything felt romantic.

So, even if this turns out to not be a romance, which I suspect it will turn out to be a romance, it put me in a nice place. I was happy. It felt sophisticated. You know? It was an interesting image.

**John:** Yeah. I liked it, too. One challenge with images in screenplays is that images want to be centered across the width of the page, but of course text in screenplays shift slightly to the right because historically we’ve had bindings, we’ve had three holes on the left hand side. So it bugs me a little bit that the image is off-center compared to the text. So it’s a thing you could figure out how to manipulate in whatever program you’re using. You could figure out how to do it in Highland. Being off-center bugged me more than the fact that there’s an image there. That’s me.

**Craig:** It looks on-center to the title and her name.

**John:** To me it’s on-center to the page but off-center compared to the title.

**Craig:** I printed it out, so there may be some funky printer stuff going on.

**John:** Ah, so it may look different to you.

**Craig:** But it’s a nice image. You know what? Actually, Kristen, this is by Kristen Delgado, the only thing I would think about is if you have a little Photoshop-y thing or Gimp is a free one that you can get that’s like Photoshop, to somehow just do something with the edges of this thing so it doesn’t seem like such a hard edged Internet grab. You know what I mean? Like something that’s a little softer and kind of blended somehow. Fading on the edges. That sort of.

**John:** Let’s get to the script itself. The writing of the script itself. And so I believe after these three pages that this is a story about Enrique and his probably coming of age story in 1979 Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve never seen that before. It does feel like probably about a rich girl from Chula Vista and his dad is going to be the gardener for this family. I got that off of these first three pages and I would be curious what the complications are in that relationship that go ahead. And obviously the image was helping send me to that place.

Craig, what was your overall take, your overall feeling of these three pages?

**Craig:** Nervousness. Because I think you’re right. And that is what they’re promising. And I feel like I’ve seen this. A lot. I mean, there have been a billion Romeos and Juliets, but more importantly it seems like we’re getting a little bit of a kind of already done quite a bit take on being the child of immigrants and the mixing of immigrants with people who aren’t immigrants and different races and different classes and looking down at people.

It feels like this is well trod upon territory. And I didn’t get anything different from these than I normally would. It feels like I’m getting set up for Enrique to start to turning his back on his parents and his family because he’s a little bit embarrassed about them because he kind of aspires to be more with the rich kids. And so there’s going to be conflict there. And the first page I was a little nervous because Mr. Lawson does not seem like, again, this doesn’t seem like the way people are. Someone says, “We’re doing landscaping. We noticed your grass is kind of high.” “Uh, yeah, I haven’t had a chance to get to it.”

But more importantly he goes, “How much?” “$30.” “Great. Go ahead. Do it.” That’s it? Did he not think of this before? It just seems so kind of like mild. And the other thing that was kind of odd is Ignacio in Spanish says, “What a fucking asshole.” And I’m all for the good old classic fucking asshole rich white guy, but I don’t see what Mr. Lawson did. He answered the door.

**John:** He didn’t shake his hand, but he did say yes. He got a job. So I was also thrown by that.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, I guess the part that he closes the door in his face. Also, that’s – that’s not even how racists work. Like they do shake your hand. Then they close the door and then they bad mouth you. It feels like there’s a slight kind of – there’s a bit of a corniness going on to something that I think as a culture we’re getting and more honest about. I mean, there’s just more honesty.

I’m nervous that this is not going to give me something new. That said, it might. I can’t tell from three pages.

**John:** Yeah. So, Mr. Lawson, 45, dressed for racquetball at the country club.” So, I don’t really quite know what dressed for racquetball at the country club means. Unless he’s carrying his racquetball racket, I just see a guy in shorts and a headband maybe. But I immediately stop and think like you don’t actually go to the club dressed that way. You change into that kind of stuff at the club.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** It was a weird first image for me. I love, obviously, hair and makeup and clothing details to help us tell about the character, I just – it felt like we were trying to get to like you’re interrupting some other moment. And so figure out what that moment was.

I like the idea of Enrique, and we’re starting this story with Enrique trying to get the job to mow the lawn there. And I thought his first dialogue does make sense. But what Craig is saying is like Mr. Lawson is going to hear that and then immediately sort of know what’s going on. He’s going to check the Blakey’s home, OK, this really is a person. You know you’re not making this up. And he’s going to push a little bit more. And I just didn’t see that pushing.

And if this scene were a few lines longer there could be a little bit more back and forth in looks in terms of Stevie, the girl who is coming out, and sort of what that whole dynamic is. I just felt like it got a little rushed to get through this and I didn’t believe that he got this job.

**Craig:** Yeah. I mean, if this is a rich guy, if that’s the point, then nice house in nice neighborhood, he either has somebody mowing his lawn, or he’s like a little kooky and doesn’t give a shit. But he’s not going to be this kind of stuffy classic country club kind of white guy and be neither of those things, just be negligent about his lawn. It just seems odd.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** There must be a reason why he’s been mowing his own lawn if he has been. Also, where did Stevie come from? She just like suddenly steps out from behind her father. That’s weird. Does she just follow him around and hang out behind him and then just slide into? You know what I mean? You have to think about, OK, on the day where is she? Can she just be coming around the other side of the house? Or coming down the stairs? Or something.

**John:** Yeah. You could mention her coming around the other side of the house and she’s using the hose to spray off her feet or something that are dirty. There’s got to be a more interesting way to sort of see her than just like behind her father.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Another opportunity here is while I do like the idea of getting the job for the first time, that is a lot of work to set up. If it works for the story, he could have been cutting the grass here for a time and he’s basically saying, “Oh hey, I need a check,” or “I need to get paid.” And that’s that moment. And then there’s actually money exchanging hands which could feel good and actually help set some stuff up a little bit better.

So, I think there’s just opportunities here.

**Craig:** Yeah. Like Mr. So-and-so who has been doing your lawn, he’s retired, he just retired last week. We’re doing your neighbor, Mr. Blakely’s, lawn. If you like we can just pick up yours now. There’s some kind of – it just makes sense, you know.

But Stevie, yeah, like if that’s the thing, if this is the Enrique and Stevie story, this is not – this is weird. It’s like a weird dud of a moment.

**John:** Yeah. So then we get to Ignacio and Enrique in the pickup truck and this could be a really good moment. It’s not working for us right now because I don’t get what the real vibe is between father and son here. I felt like the “when I’m doctor I’ll move here,” I didn’t buy – that just felt like an author talking. It didn’t feel like an actual kid talking.

**Craig:** Corny. It just feels corny. And similarly like a dad, generally speaking, if you think that maybe like your son likes this girl and you’re like, “Oh, who’s that?” “Oh, she’s this girl from school.” You’re like, “OK, cool.” You don’t say, “That’s what I said about your mother.” Eww.

**John:** Yeah.

**Craig:** Eww. That’s an eww. You just don’t do that with your boy.

**John:** Yeah. So, but I wonder what their vibe is. Is he ribbing him? What’s going on? I like the dad is drinking a beer, so there’s stuff you could do there. Also crucially, it’s in this pickup truck sequence that we’re establishing Chula Vista as a place and we’re seeing this sign. So think about, again, this is the inside/outside of the car. There’s a good argument to be made for being outside of the car, see the sign, the truck drives past, and then we’re inside the car with them.

Because if we’re inside the car with them it’s very hard to then pop out to see the sign and then be back in the car. If the sign is important, which I think it is, because I wouldn’t know that Chula Vista is necessarily a neighborhood, then tell us that.

**Craig:** Yeah. I think this little spot here is one, Kristen, that I want you to think about really carefully. Because you have a point of view, you have a perspective, and you have a feeling about this place. I can tell. And I am not from there. So your job is to make me feel what you want me to feel. And in this moment you want me to feel some sort of connection and kinship to this place. But what you’ve done is you just have a guy that I just met just announcing something that frankly he wouldn’t normally announce. Because they’ve been living there a long time. So, how common is it for you to drive around the place where you’ve been living with somebody else who has been living there and then they suddenly announce, “Man, this view never gets old.” And then a fact. “You can see the whole valley.” No shit, dad. We drive here every day. I live here.

**John:** I can see, too. I have eyes.

**Craig:** So you need to figure out another way to make me feel this thing that maybe dad is upset that Enrique takes these things for granted or maybe that he doesn’t look closely enough and that he’s teaching him a lesson. But then the lesson has to be inspired by something that’s lacking that he sees in Enrique. So these are the things you’ve got to kind of figure out so that I feel what you want me to feel. Because I can tell you feel stuff. I just want it for me.

**John:** Absolutely. But if you’re trying to tell us that as the author, as the writer, then give us the wide shot and describe what it feels like and give us a sense of like this is the panorama and we get a sense of what the music is like. Oh, that’s really pretty. Rather than having the character comment on how pretty it is. Just show us how pretty it is. And that’s a thing you can do as the writer.

I felt the transition between this truck scene and then Enrique’s house, getting ready the next morning for school, was just a weird jump. And it didn’t feel like a natural handoff between this truck thing and then the next thing we’re getting ready for school. There needed to be some other moment between those two things.

**Craig:** Night.

**John:** Or maybe this wasn’t the next – night feels natural. Because as time progresses we’re used to – you know, a couple episodes back we talked about that we are time lords. And as an audience the next thing we want to see is night. We don’t want to see like the next morning getting ready for school. So, you could do the same kinds of things in the scene, but have it be a dinner thing. Like maybe he has to get all his homework off the table to set the table for dinner? Great.

**Craig:** Or maybe he’s just alone in his room thinking. You know, or he’s walking around thinking. We learn something about him or we learn something about Stevie. But if you go from day to morning you’ll just be so confused. Like, wait, why are they going to school suddenly in the afternoon. It won’t feel like morning.

**John:** It feels like a scene got dropped out in the edit and it’s just weird. Let me save you some grief in pages. The first time you have characters who are speaking in Spanish, do that “in Spanish” and then you never need to do it again. So if you’re going to use italics from that point forward you don’t ever need to do that again.

This is something I should have mentioned. The setup overall. If you have a parenthetical, that first letter inside a parenthetical is not uppercased unless it has to be uppercased. But that “in Spanish,” that should be a lowercase “in” for that parenthetical.

**Craig:** Correct. It’s just a strange convention, but that’s how it is.

**John:** Yeah. I want to thank these three writers here for sending in their pages, but also all the writers who sent in pages because it’s a tremendous amount of work for Megana to go through them but we get such a broad sampling of what our listeners are writing in with. So thank you very much for trusting us with these and for sharing your work with other people so others can learn.

**Craig:** Yes.

**John:** If you have three pages you want us to take a look at, don’t send them to the “ask” account. Instead, you need to go to johnaugust.com/threepage which is all spelled out, threepage. And there’s a little form there. You say who you are, that it’s OK for us to talk about on the air, and then you attach a PDF. So if you want to send in your pages that is where you send in those pages.

But thank you to everyone who submitted, especially these writers for these pages.

**Craig:** Thanks folks.

**John:** All right, it has come time for our One Cool Things. Craig, do you have a One Cool Thing this week?

**Craig:** Nope. [laughs]

**John:** All this time you’ve completely forgotten about the conceit of the show.

**Craig:** I whiffed.

**John:** Which is absolutely fine. So I will give two One Cool Things.

**Craig:** Oh great.

**John:** One of which I think you would especially enjoy. So the thing you would enjoy is GeoGuessr, which could have been a One Cool Thing many–

**Craig:** I’ve played that. Yeah.

**John:** It’s a great, great game.

**Craig:** I think it’s been one before. Yeah, it’s fun.

**John:** So, tell us about GeoGuessr. That can be your One Cool Thing.

**Craig:** Yeah, sure. I’ll steal it. So in GeoGuessr you’re basically using the Google Earth function where you’re looking at a street view and what it does is it just generates a random street view somewhere in the world. And your job, and you can click around on the image like you an on regular Google Street View. You can move this way and that way and up and down. And your job is to figure out where it is, down to as close to the exact point as you can.

So what you’re doing is you’re looking for clues. Obviously any text on the side of a building or a truck or even license plates. You start to think, OK, am I on the left side of the road driving forward or the right side of the road? What are those trees? And then if you’re lucky enough to get a crazy phone number, you can really get close.

So, you know sometimes you do really well. Sometimes you’re like I honestly don’t know where this is. And sometimes you can get within – the best ones are when you’re within three meters of it or something, which is just a joy.

**John:** Oh yeah.

**Craig:** But you get points and it’s for nothing other than just your amusement. It’s just fun. It’s a fun game.

**John:** Yeah. So my family has been playing that to pass random time. And it really is a good detective sort of game and you can work really hard to get yourself within three meters and then other times it will come up with one that you’re like I think I’m in Australia but I could also be somewhere in South America. You just have no idea because it plops you down in the middle of no place. But it’s always fun to find new places.

So, GeoGuessr. We’ll put a link in the show notes to that.

My One Cool Thing is a newsletter that comes out every week by Noah Kalina. I know him through a podcast I also listen to with Adam Lisagor, but his newsletter is terrific. I don’t think it has a name, it’s just his newsletter. He is a photographer in Upstate New York and he just goes on these sort of weird missions that he’s inspired by things and finds all the poppy seed bagels in his neighborhood in New York and figures out the poppy seed distribution on these bagels and photographs them beautifully. And it’s fun. Every week it’s sort of a weird little adventure.

It reminds me of, folks who are fans of Reply All, it feels like Reply All, or those episodes where they go off on these weird missions to figure out stuff. It feels like that. So, there will be a link in the show notes, but check out the back episodes and maybe subscribe to Noah Kalina’s newsletter.

**Craig:** I’m just looking at it right now and he actually did like a little MythBuster’s thing to see if it’s true that if you eat a bunch of poppy seeds that you will test positive for opiates. Because obviously that’s where heroin and morphine and all those things ultimately derive from the poppy plant. Not that poppy seeds get you high.

And he ate six poppy seed bagels in a week and then he did a drug test and he came back positive for narcotics, opiates specifically.

**John:** Yeah, opiates.

**Craig:** It worked.

**John:** So, lesson learned.

**Craig:** Lesson learned.

**John:** And so the podcast I was referring to is All Consuming. And so that’s where he and Adam, they look at all the products that show up on Instagram and they buy those products and see what they actually are like in real life. And they are delightful people and I also listen to their podcast.

**Craig:** Fun.

**John:** That is our show for this week. I want to thank Megana Rao for reading all those submissions. Thank you very much our producer.

**Craig:** Thank you, Megana.

**John:** It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by Nora Beyer. If you have an outro you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send questions. You’ll find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find the transcripts and sign up for our weekly-ish newsletter called Inneresting which has lots of links to things about writing.

You can sign up to become a Premium member where you get all the back episodes and bonus segments like the one we’re about to record on money and happiness.

Craig, thank you for a fun show.

**Craig:** Thank you, John.

[Bonus segment]

**John:** All right, Craig, the first of our Premium subscriber questions, or suggestions comes from Lianne in Burbank. And she writes, “In your own personal experiences has becoming wealthy actually made you happier? Has there been a certain threshold of your income where you noticed diminishing happiness returns? Is being truly wealthy all it’s cracked up to be, or are there difficulties beyond the glamour that you find often aren’t discussed?”

**Craig:** That’s an interesting question.

**John:** Craig, what’s it like being rich?

**Craig:** Well, let me tell you. [laughs] There are levels of wealthiness, but safe to say that John and I do pretty well. So, here’s my experience, Lianne. Being wealthy has not made me happier. Being wealthy has made me less unhappy, because when problems arise, as they often do in life, sometimes they’re mundane, something is leaking. Sometimes they’re very involved. Someone is sick. Money can solve problems. Money can’t make you happier, but money can definitely make some unhappy things go away faster or more efficiently. And I don’t kind of undersell that. That actually is a big deal.

The ability for money to diminish misery is impressive. That’s not everything. But it is impressive.

What it can’t do is keep you off the psychologist’s couch. The problems that you carry with you, your shames, your fears, all that stuff that was kind of in you and fomented within you by childhood, that’s still there. And sometimes being paid a lot exacerbates those things. It makes you feel guilty, undeserving. It makes you feel like you’re an imposter. You’re a liar. You’re somehow ripping people off.

There’s all sorts of crazy things that can bang around in your head if you are somebody that deals with some core shame issues…and some of us do not. But, you know what, making bad stuff go away, hooray money.

**John:** Yeah. And I think what Craig is describing is there really is a threshold beyond which it’s like, oh, some of the things which are not annoyances or aggravations or really anxiety I guess is probably the best way to put it diminish because I’m not going to be so worried about that thing. And so I do remember going from, after having been hired to do my first project, I’ve talked about on the show how I used to have just a spreadsheet and I knew what my monthly expenses were. And I knew I can afford to live for three months, or six months. I could just sort of count down and I could watch the money run out. And that was really stressful.

And once I started making enough money that I didn’t need to worry about that so much I was happier just because I didn’t have that source of constant dread and anxiety. Not really unlike having a president I couldn’t count on. A president I was convinced was actively trying to destroy the world. When you free yourself of that you’re like, oh, you have more space to be a little bit more happy.

But it plateaus and I think you’re sense, Lianne, is that there’s a plateau, there’s a zenith at which more money doesn’t make you any happier and I think that’s very, very true. And I don’t know the specific dollar figure, but when you – I think it’s when you don’t have to worry about every expense. When you can be just like, oh, I’ll just put that on a card and I know I’ll be able to pay for it. That is a nice feeling, knowing that I don’t have to worry about certain kinds of choices that just don’t really matter.

But I think Craig and I have both described how one of the ways you can stop that anxiety from coming back in is to just not live beyond your means. And we both know people who have made a lot of money and then have lived beyond their means and are on this terrible treadmill where they have to sort of keep making money or else everything falls apart.

**Craig:** Right. So those people never get the benefit of what we’re talking about, which is a sense of security, financial security. And it is, when you don’t have it, and I’ve certainly – I was definitely, you know, on the month-to-month living plan when I first came to Los Angeles, it is exhausting. You’re expending a lot of energy in fear and concern about how that functions. And if one thing goes wrong, there’s not a lot between you and real trouble.

So living beneath your means is incredibly important. It’s also, generally speaking, it’s a value. I don’t know how else to put it. It’s a value. I think that there’s a grace to it. And also one really nice thing about making a lot of money is that you can be charitable. And some people aren’t. And OK, fine. I’m not going to yell at them. But it is rare that I feel as effective and impactful on the world as I do when I’m making some kind of significant charitable donation. More so than writing television and movies and things, which I know people see and they may or may not care about. But actually making charitable contributions to either political causes or medical help or developing nations, whatever it is that you pursue, you know, curing diseases, it feels good. It does.

And I know that John you and Mike are pretty charitable folks as well.

**John:** For sure. A thing that I think people can intuitively sense and yet they can get tripped up on is buying the next thing will not make you happier. And buying that fancy car, you may enjoy driving it for a time, but that will fade. And buying a bigger house, you know, beyond a certain point just becomes an extra source of anxiety and stress and tension.

We have friends who have multiple houses and that fills me with dread. I would constantly be thinking about that house that I’m not at and sort of something going wrong with that property.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** And that’s just a choice I made to not invite that into my life. And people, obviously there’s many ways to do things, but I think not getting caught up in the expectation to really be happy, if I had this thing I would be happy, that’s not true. Happiness comes from having enough. Having plenty and not needing to have more.

**Craig:** Sharing is generally when I feel the best about spending. Sharing. That’s a great feeling. It’s a great feeling to have friends over and cook them dinner and know that you’ve bought lots of good food and you don’t have to freak out about it and you could put a good bottle of wine out. That, to me, the kind of quiet – here’s what I’m not, for instance, I’m not a collector. And I now a lot of people who are collectors. And most people are collecting things that don’t cost a lot of money, but there are people who make a lot of money and then they just begin collecting incredibly expensive things.

I’m sure Jay Leno is a great guy. This isn’t even a criticism of him. It’s really more just a difference of opinion. I don’t understand why he has 800 cars. I just don’t understand it. I don’t. Just drive one, and then, you know, rent it or something. I just don’t understand the idea of having them all. Or I think Seinfeld has like 80 Porsches or something. That gets weird for me. It just feels like a dragon sitting on its hoard.

So I think just sharing and that sort of thing is fun. But, you know, again, look, here’s the truth. The guys like Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld have so much more money than I do that they can hoard things like cars and such and then in their charity however they perform it donate vastly more money than I do. So I can’t really criticize them. It’s just a difference is how I would put it.

**John:** It’s a whole different conversation to have about that level of super wealth and sort of like what that does. When a person has the wealth of a nation, that is such an odd difference from the lives that you and I are leading. I’m still scrubbing the bathroom. We’re still doing our own laundry at our house. So it’s a different kind of life than some other people have. And that’s fine, too.

Craig, have you ever heard this explanation for why altruism exists? That sense of an evolutionary adaptation to recognize that the best place to store food is in your friends’ bellies. After a hunt there’s more meat than you can possibly eat and so you cannot store it. So, the best thing you can do with that meat is to give it to everybody else so that they will share their wealth the next time.

**Craig:** I wrote a paper about this in college. And I think the center of it was there’s a story. In the ‘80s there was a terrible plane crash. Plane went down in the Potomac. I don’t know if you remember this. Right there in DC. It was a frigid wintery day. A plane goes down. There are people alive but they’re in this icy water. And a man driving by stops and basically jumps into the water and saves some people. And the question was why. He doesn’t know them. And it’s quite clear that there is great danger connected to jumping in that frigid water. He himself might also die. So why/how evolutionarily does this make any sense at all?

And the answer, or at least an answer is this. That evolutionarily we are better off as members of a society, strength in numbers, right? So, we are selected for pro-social instincts. People who generally feel a connection to a group beyond just their own immediate family members will tend to do better overall because they stay inside of a group. But that tendency, that pro-social tendency is stupid. Meaning it can’t make choices in a moment about what would be advantageously pro-social. It just is pro-social.

And so that’s why you find people who just that instinct kicks in. And it’s the instinct of holding a society together which in its own way is a beautiful thought.

**John:** Yeah. We’ve talked about empathy on the show as well. In leaving Twitter you said it taught you empathy. And for me pulling over to the side of the road and jumping into the frigid water is like it’s because I could imagine myself as the person in the water and needing somebody to help save me. And so it’s easy to see that other side. And the folks who don’t have that are sometimes our elected president and that’s a bad thing.

**Craig:** Or run movie studios. [laughs]

**John:** True. Thanks Craig.

**Craig:** Thank you, John.

Links:

* [Irony](https://www.masterclass.com/articles/what-is-irony-different-types-of-irony-in-literature-plus-tips-on-how-to-use-irony-in-writing#what-are-the-main-types-of-irony) and [cosmic irony](https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-cosmic-irony-definition-and-examples/)
* Three Page Challenge: [Echopraxia or an Interdimensional Coming of Age Ghost Story](https://johnaugust.com/index.php?gf-download=2020%2F12%2Fechopraxia-three-pages.pdf&form-id=1&field-id=4&hash=3daf6520c3d18584e970f76e9b48965308dfbca379eb9e229603392f8b8c2ece) by J Vernon Reha
* Three Page Challenge: [The Little Death](https://johnaugust.com/index.php?gf-download=2021%2F01%2FTheLittleDeath_AutumnPalen.pdf&form-id=1&field-id=4&hash=0abfaa550f0e35fa9e1fe7d11adc10079351101e68f0a6e46563289eb367bd82) by Autumn Palen
* Three Page Challenge: [Chula Vista](https://johnaugust.com/index.php?gf-download=2020%2F11%2FChula-Vista-pg-1-3-Kristen-Delgado.pdf&form-id=1&field-id=4&hash=4d0c0d1249961917d27dcfa77679d4b7713ef86147a3a00e2860e4bfacd3d97e) by Kristen Delgado
* Thank you to all of our Three Page Challenge submissions! [Apply here](https://johnaugust.com/threepage) to be considered for our next round.
* [GeoGuessr](https://www.geoguessr.com/)
* [Noah Kalina Newsletter](https://mailchi.mp/6068da7c609b/noahkalina)
* [Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!](https://cottonbureau.com/people/scriptnotes-podcast)
* [Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/gifts) or [treat yourself to a premium subscription!](https://scriptnotes.supportingcast.fm/)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Nora Beyer ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/486standard.mp3).

The original post for this episode is available here.

John August: Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

Craig Mazin: My name is Craig Mazin.

John: And this is Episode 476 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters.

Today on the show we welcome back a writer whose credits include Get Shorty.

Craig: Never heard of it.

John: Out of Sight.

Craig: No.

John: Logan.

Craig: Don’t like it.

John: Marley and Me.

Craig: Stinks.

John: Minority Report.

Craig: Terrible.

John: Godless.

Craig: No.

John: And the new limited series, The Queen’s Gambit, on Netflix.

Craig: Garbage.

John: I’m talking of course about Scott Frank. Scott Frank, welcome back to the show.

Scott Frank: Thank you very much for having me back. I really didn’t think you ever would after the last time. But glad to be here.

Craig: We didn’t want to. But I guess there was some sort of popular clamoring, and so we have to respond to our many tens of fans.

Scott: Many.

John: The real reason I wanted you here today is I’m watching your show and it’s great, but it occurs to me that you may be breaking some longstanding screenwriting rules.

Craig: Oh no.

John: About what you’re allowed to include on the page. So it’s a celebration and also an intervention for you, Scott. Because there’s some stuff you’re doing you’re just not allowed to do.

Craig: Yeah. There are a number of gurus who have never sold a screenplay or much less had a produced credit who are upset. We need to acknowledge their feelings and talk about why you, Scott Frank, are apparently no good. But also while we’re talking about that I do hope that we get into a little bit of a discussion about why you, Scott Frank, are in fact spectacularly good at what you do. And I have questions about it, like how can I be as good as what you do. Things like that.

Scott: [laughs] Drugs.

Craig: Other than those.

Scott: No, it will be a relief to be uncovered as a fraud by these other gurus. Finally we can get it all out today. So, thank you.

John: And we also have some listener questions that I think you are especially well-suited to answer, so we’ll get to those later on. And in our bonus segment for Premium members I want to get an early start on Thanksgiving and talk about some of the things we’re actually thankful for in 2020 because this has been a really crappy year. But I think there’s some things to be thankful for, so maybe we can brainstorm about some things we are grateful for that came about in 2020.

Craig: How much time do we have for that one?

John: It may be a short segment. But, hey, let’s talk about The Queen’s Gambit. So, Scott, give us some backstory here. Because I think I knew it was based on a book. It’s a book from 1983 by Walter Tevis. How did you come to make this as a series? Why a series not a feature? What was your on road to this as a series for Netflix?

Scott: Well I tried and failed to make it as a movie maybe a dozen years ago. Everybody, since it came out, Bernardo Bertolucci I think was the first director who tried to get it made as a movie. Various people were in and out of it over the years. Michael Apted, Tom Tykwer. Heath Ledger was going to direct it as his directorial debut before he died. I think Ellen Page was going to be the star of that. And right before that happened Bill Horberg and I tried to get it made. He’s the producer along with a gentleman named Allan Scott, who is known primarily for being Nic Roeg’s screenwriter. He wrote Don’t Look Now, The Witches, all sorts of things for Nic Roeg back in the day and is also a producer and a theater producer and so on.

He owned the rights outright. And we were getting together with him and trying to get it made and no one was interested. And then after I made Godless I realized, you know, the way to do this as a limited series, not as a movie, because if you do it as a movie it just becomes about the chess matches and does she win or does she lose. And it’s sort of reduced to that. But if I can do it as a limited series I thought I can kind of get into her head space as a character.

And Netflix had passed on a few things since Godless and I figured they would pass on this as well and I gave it to them to read and Cindy Holland just fell in love with it and said let’s do it. And so we ended up doing it. And it came together so fast that I was doing most of the adaptation during prep. So, it was one of those, which is not my normal way of working.

Craig: There’s certain similarities between you and me, not just the irritable bowel syndrome, but also—

Scott: Yes.

Craig: That you and I both came recently from feature world and now find ourselves in limited series world, and I want to talk a little bit about specifically some of the freedoms that you feel in that space. And I also want to talk a little bit about your choice, which is again a choice that I’ve made myself, at least for now, which is to not do what is typical in the limited series space which is to get a room full of writers and have people working on drafts and all the rest of it. You do it all on your own. Is it a case of you can’t take the feature writer completely out of the feature writer? Or is there just something about the freedom of a limited series that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to go all the way into TV writer room ville?

Scott: That’s a great question. The answer is simple. I only know how to do it the way I know how to do it. And I don’t know – I’ve written things with other people and that’s fine, where we started and began collaborating, and passed it back and forth. I’ve done that a couple times now. And that was great. Were all great experiences. But for this it seemed like I wouldn’t know how to assign, you know, episodes to people. I write it like a long movie and then carve it up.

In fact, so much so that there were six scripts but seven episodes, because I thought I kind of guessed how it would be carved up in the script phase, but ended up really organizing it in post. And so because I also know I’m going to direct it I have to write it all, you know. I can’t – it seems like make work to give it to somebody and then take it back and make it my own after that. I just wouldn’t know how to do that.

Now, if it were a longer series and a different kind of thing I might want a writer’s room, but even then I would only want a couple of people. The idea of looking at a big whiteboard and sitting there – I know people really enjoy it and ordering lunch and all that sounds like hell to me.

Craig: Ordering lunch is the worst part, I think. That’s the part that would absolutely paralyze me for sure.

Scott: I’m too self-conscious. I take too many naps during the day. And I kind of only see things the way I see them, so it’s tricky. But if something began that way I suppose I could try.

Craig: And do you think that now that you’ve had this experience back to back with Godless and with Queen’s Gambit that – and let’s put aside things like rewrites and things like that, but just actual starting from scratch, building a building – do you think you’re going to go back to features or is this were you live now?

Scott: I don’t know. I mean, I’m doing a few things going forward. Two are like this, and one is a movie. So, I definitely – it just depends on the story and what’s appropriate for the story. And in both cases, with Godless and with The Queen’s Gambit, it just seemed like the limited series was a much better way to serve that kind of story. But there are other ideas and things I want to do that feel more like movies to me.

And the challenge for screenwriters going into the limited series world, at least it’s a challenge I felt, is to be disciplined about it. Just because you have more time doesn’t mean you need as much time as you think you do. And you can kind of spend a lot of time sort of getting in the weeds because you have a lot of episodes to fill, or more episodes to fill, certainly more real estate than a movie. And you have to be very careful about that. You really have to be careful about that. Because people – and also as people watch more and more of these things I find that they’re waiting for it to happen as they’re watching.

John: Now, in prepping for this episode you sent through this really amazing, evocative image that you said sort of inspired the look of The Queen’s Gambit. So can you describe what you sent through here and we’ll put a link to this in the show notes, but it’s a very cool image of a chessboard. So tell me about what we’re looking at here.

Scott: So, it’s from a hotel lobby in Toronto. I’m blanking on the name now but it’s got a chess-themed lobby. There are giant chess pieces in the lobby and this interesting chessboard setup as well. And when we scout the cinematographer and I, Steven Meizler, we always bring the red camera along and we’re always taking both stills with it and moving images with it so that we can see how we might shoot someplace, even if we don’t end up shooting there. And this place we didn’t end up shooting.

But he was taking a still of this chessboard when this little girl ran by in the yellow dress. And the board, the dress, the chair, the wallpaper, all of it was the show for me. I looked at it and I instantly zeroed in on it. And I’d been trying to find an image to give to Uli Hanisch in the art department something, because I like to do that. I like to find an image or two and then they create a kind of larger palette board from that. Because I like to have a super limited palette because then you can control the look of the show so much better. And that along with natural light, I just feel like you have so much more control. Whereas too much color for me starts to feel – unless you’re doing it as a riot of color, but even then it should be just there are only a few in there. It just makes it easier for me to control it all. I may be wrong, but it’s what works.

Craig: I like that idea of control. It’s something that you and I have talked about a lot over the years about the writing as well. And it’s something that I always admire in your writing. Full disclaimer, I’m halfway through, so listen, I don’t know. If you guys want to get into spoilers that’s fine. If it’s awesome, like she kills everybody at the end, don’t tell me that.

Scott: She does.

Craig: I said don’t tell me that.

Scott: Yes.

Craig: But I’m going to assume that there is a big chess match at the end that is either won or lost, or it could be a draw. But as I’m halfway through what I’m doing is I’m watching the episodes and then I’m going back and reading your screenplay after the episode. And what always strikes me about your writing in particular is how there is just such a beautiful amount of control within scenes themselves. And it’s something that I learned really from you. Well, I mean, I try and get there as best I can, but I think that for most professional writers they have some kind of good instinct to start with. That’s why they keep working, I suppose. There’s just a good instinct about what is the scene about, what is supposed to happen in it, what is its greater purpose in the overall narrative.

And then there’s this other thing that I guess I’m just going to call finishing. Which is the far rarer thing. Because when we start to craft scenes and put them together, even if our instincts are right and the scene is where it should be, with who it should be, about what it should be, the pieces, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle where there are gaps and some of the bits are rubbing on each other and it’s not quite perfect. And then there are people like you, and maybe just you in your way singularly, who finish it. Who make sure everything fits perfectly, seamlessly. No gaps. No rubbing. No nothing. It all is machined to within a micron of its life.

And I want to ask you because the effect – the reason I bring it up is because the effect on me, as both the reader and a watcher, is that I am being taken care of. That this car will not wobble and that the control is perfect. So that my experience is solely what you want me to experience. How you want me to experience it. Or at least within the range of acceptable reactions to your material.

Can you talk a little bit about that finishing aspect? The perfection that is required to take what is good instinctive craft and make it something beautiful?

Scott: Whoa. Well, my One Cool Thing today…

Craig: You want to jump right to the end? We can do that. I can do my impression of you for the middle part and no one will notice a difference.

Scott: I mean, thank you. I don’t know what I’m aware of as I’m working in terms of that. I just know – like when we were just talking about the visual stuff a moment ago, I’m just trying to be specific. And I think a lot about tone even as I’m writing. I remember when I was writing Godless I realized, oh, it has to be in a voice that feels like the tone. It has to feel like the old west without being silly or kitschy, or feel ersatz. It just has to feel like it’s both authentic but there’s this tone to the script. And it took me a long time to sort that out and figure out how I was going to do that.

And with every script, you know, if I can’t – this sounds silly – but if I can’t hear it I can’t write it. And if I can’t hear the way people are talking it means I just don’t know anybody. And the character of the screenplay comes through the character that I’m writing about in a way. It’s almost like there’s a subtle point of view change that sometimes happens. So in the case of The Queen’s Gambit I was writing from Beth’s point of view. It’s really always in her point of view. And so that helps me with the tone, because I feel a certain kind of tone there. And it was very unusual. That’s what I loved about the novel. And so I’m trying to keep that in the script.

And what happens is I think many writers embrace the mechanical, or they lean into the mechanical because it’s so much easier to understand and see. If you follow a template, if you write an outline and then follow your outline. If you have all these things that are supposed to be in a good scene then you have a good scene. So, frequently you end up with scripts that look like scripts but read like nothing. And so what I’m always trying to sort out is what is the tone. And so I think what you describe as finished or even perfect as you said is for me more just specific. And what is it that makes this specific?

And in terms of the idea of control, you can tell when you open a novel or you read a script the first page. You don’t know whether you’re going to like the script or not, but you know if it’s somebody’s got you or not. I don’t mean hooked. I mean you know they’re in control.

Craig: Like they’re holding you in their hands. Yeah.

Scott: They’re in control. If they’re doing some generic description of something stupid you know they can’t write. You know they’re not going to spin good yarn for you.

Craig: Right.

Scott: So you’re looking for what is the kind of specific thing that brings me into it. That tell me what I’m looking at in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s telling me what I’m looking at. And you only do – you really do – only get two senses in a script. You get sight and you get sound. And so you’re using what do we need to see and what don’t we need to see. What’s important? What things will you describe in this room that will tell me what the room is in the least amount of words? And do you even need to describe the room first?

Frequently when you shoot a scene you’re starting close and you don’t know where you are until you need to know where you are. And then that rhythm is a different kind of rhythm and tells a different sort of story from a different – has a different feel to it. So it becomes feel. And so I don’t know if I’m thinking about it so much as I’m aware when I’ve lost specificity. I’m aware when the tone has changed. I kind of come out of my trance and go, wait, what’s wrong here.

John: All right. Well let’s get specific and actually look at your pages here.

Craig: Rip these apart.

John: Let’s take a look at the first two pages.

Scott: Tear them apart.

Craig: Tear them apart.

John: From the first episode. Because they are terrific and I feel like the image that you shared with us is so closely related to how your series is opening. That shallow focus that you’re kind of in a dream space as we’re beginning. So we’ll put a link to these first two pages in the show notes. But we’re opening in this Paris hotel room. A knock on the door. “Mademoiselle?” A splash. Someone stirs in a bathtub. More knocking. And we’re hearing things. We’re seeing some things but it’s mostly a sound experience. “Mademoiselle Harmon? Etes-vous La?” We make out a face in the dark. Breathing. Watching. Frantic pounding on the door followed by, “Mademoiselle! Ils vous attendant!”

Finally in the darkness, “I’m coming.” So we finally get to see Beth here. She’s getting herself out of the water. I remember as I was watching this how you established this room and we’re not quite sure what the space is we’re in, but suddenly the curtains are being pulled back. We establish that we are in a fancy Paris hotel room. She is clearly a mess. She needs to leave but we’re not sure why she needs to leave. Is she trying to just get out? Does she need to go to some place?

Then we’re going downstairs and we’re walking through this crowd as she’s going into this giant ballroom and then we finally get to the chessboard. She sits down and she says, “I’m sorry.”

They are two terrific first pages. We often do a Three Page Challenge on the show and I would say, Craig, I mean, you could have your own opinion but I think we would talk favorably about–

Craig: No. They’re garbage.

John: These pages.

Craig: Let me explain why these are garbage. [laughs]

Scott: Thank you, Craig.

Craig: No, the thing that I love about these on the page is how dynamic they are. Meaning the way that we talk about dynamics in music. Soft. Loud. Quiet. Rest. Play. Fast. Slow. Things keep getting changed. So we’re in the dark and then we’re in the light. And then we’re in more light, because the curtains open. And then we go from disheveled and a mess to beautifully made up and gorgeous. We go from a small space into a large space. We go from silence to then cameras. And when I see, “And now we hear one sound,” and the word one is italicized, “THE WHIR OF CAMERAS. A DOZEN PHOTOGRAPHERS gathered at the entrance snap her picture.” I see it. I hear it.

Not only do I see and hear it. I know where everyone is standing. That’s the beautiful. If you write well it means you saw it and you heard it so clearly that the people reading it can see it and hear it so clearly. That’s the point. And I try as best as I can to emulate this basic method.

And, John, you and I have talked a lot about transitions. And here every single scene number, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, on page one and two, has a transition. Every single one. And it’s a transition – even like for instance the transition between 6 and 7 is not just from a hallway into a giant ballroom. But it’s punctuated by “a hundred heads turning toward her” in that ballroom silently when the doors open. That’s what I’m talking about.

John: But let’s also be clear what you’re not talking about. You’re not talking about literally cut to with a colon or a transition to with a colon.

Craig: You don’t need to.

John: We don’t see any of that on these two pages. Instead it’s just that naturally, logically as the action is flowing we can feel the transitions moving us from this moment to this moment. And it feels natural. Everything is falling forward in a good way.

Craig: Yeah, like cut to is actually not a transition. Cut to is simply an acknowledgment that a transition is about to occur. But the transition itself is defined by the difference of things. And so what Scott does really, really well here, we’ll keep talking about him like he’s not here—

Scott: Great.

Craig: Is constantly considering – because you’re not – is constantly considering the difference between things as he moves from scene to scene. And this is what I mean about completion. These are complete pages. Every single thing has been thought through. We do say specificity a lot. Sometimes I think that the word specificity becomes too generic in an ironic way because it can be applied in so many different ways. So to just zero in a little bit more on specificity, what he’s doing is thinking constantly about how big or small, how quiet or loud, how full of people, how not full of people. Power dynamics. She is at one moment bigger than a little girl, smaller than a room full of people. Every single moment is completed like this. This is how you write.

All you need to do if you want to be a good screenwriter is be as good as this. No problem.

John: Now, I said at the start this was going to be a celebration of Scott Frank, but also an intervention because one of the things I noticed here on this first page.

Craig: Seriously. My god.

John: And we have to talk about this. “We can just make out a A FACE in the dark.”

Craig: We?

John: We. Scott Frank, you’re using “we hear” and “we see” throughout the script. I did a search. 47 times you are doing “we see” or “we hear.”

Craig: Oh my god.

Scott: Oh my god.

John: In one script.

Craig: You’ve done the worst possible thing 47 times.

Scott: I’m so ashamed. I’m so ashamed. A couple of things. I also never write “cut to” ever unless it’s in the slug line because I need it to make the transition felt in a certain way. Cut to is a waste of time and a waste of space on a script because if you don’t know it’s a cut then what. I mean, Tony Gilroy’s scripts are great to read. They’re all cut to. They’re kind of a version of what Bill Goldman used to do. But he doesn’t use slug lines. So it’s OK. I use slug lines and I feel – I mean, it’s whatever conveys the image. Whatever conveys what you’re doing.

And transitions, because I’m so pretentious I will quote Tolstoy.

Craig: Oh god.

Scott: Because like all screenwriters do. Tolstoy said transitions are the most important part of storytelling. And they’re certainly the most important part of movie storytelling because it’s all transitions. It’s not like you’re writing a play where you’ve got to get them off stage and on stage. You’re using transitions to create rhythm. You’re using transitions to create tone. Humor. Horror. Whatever it is, there’s another tool that gets ignored because people just end their scene and they go, OK, where am I now. And they don’t think about where they were. And they don’t think about how they might dovetail.

And you don’t have to get cute every time. But you have to feel like there’s a real transition happening. And good novels do that. Good storytelling does that. And so there is that. And the cut to feels like it’s in the way for me. There’s too many things that people don’t even really read anyway. Why is it in the script? Dissolve. I rarely do it, and if I do need it for a certain reason it’s in the slug line so it doesn’t take up any room.

Craig: Right.

Scott: And I want you to read it. I actually need you to read it. It’s not a format thing. It’s a storytelling thing. There’s a difference. People, again, lean into format because it’s easy to remember the eight things about formatting.

Craig: Like don’t use “we see.”

Scott: We’ll get to that. So, yeah, and I love using it. And I use “as” as the first word too often after a slug line. As we…whatever it is. It’s just whatever feels right and sounds right is fair game for me or for anyone.

John: Now I want to talk about fair game though, because one of the things you said in your description well this is an audio-visual medium, you can only write what we can see and what we can hear, and that feels true. I mean, we’re probably not cheating specifically on those things. We’re not describing smells. We’re not describing inner mental states like a novelist. Like a novelist has the ability to take you fully inside a character’s experience and describe things that we as screenwriters don’t describe.

But I do wonder whether we are over-learning this lesson in saying that you can only write about what you can see and what you can hear because just looking at your pages here Scott I think we are getting a sense of those other senses through this. The way that her wet clothes are clinging to her. You’re not describing the smells of that room. You’re not describing what the liquor is that she’s using to swallow the pill tastes like. But those are experiences that the character actually has. And so I do wonder if sometimes as we talk about screenwriting as being just what you can see and what you can hear we may be doing ourselves a disservice because good writing actually does involve all the other senses even if a person watching those movies isn’t directly experiencing those.

So I wanted to explore that a little bit.

Scott: So, yes and no. Or no and yes.

John: Please.

Scott: Right train, wrong track. So, I would say what you’re smelling or thinking you’re smelling when you’re reading that is teed up for you by the description. And the tone of it. And what a screenwriter or writer is choosing to describe for you. They don’t have to say what it feels like and what it smells like.

I’m allergic to getting into too much other than sight and sound only because most often it’s done out of lazy writing. Most often it’s done because they haven’t done the job as a screenwriter already. It’s like when you read the introduction of a character and you get this whole thing about their life and he’s ambitious and he wishes – the audience doesn’t get to read that shit. They don’t get to see that. So if we don’t know who they are from their behavior and the first words out of their mouth, or have a good idea at least, then you failed.

And so the same thing happens with the other senses. Writers who try to do that, it becomes purple. They’re doing it because it’s stylistic. And it’s like this thing that we’re going to do and we’re going to describe this.

I find it not helpful and it gets in the way. So, you want to get out of the way. If you want to have rhythm and flow and feel like you’re moving forward, to describe smells and things stops you when you’re writing a movie. It doesn’t when you’re writing a book and you can describe why someone is smelling something or what it makes them think or whatever. Here if you convey enough sense of the scene you’re going to get all the other senses. You’re going to see it all. It’s going to be as I said teed up for you. That’s the trick.

John: So that’s what I want to push towards is that sense of you’re using the tools you have, which are what you can see and what you can hear, to create those senses that you’re not actually describing. So I’m not trying to argue for we should all be describing smells or textures, but I think you are making choices in terms of what the characters are doing, the environments you’re putting them in that naturally lead to those other senses. That give us a sense that these characters exist in a real world where they would be experiencing these things. They’re experiencing heat and texture and smell.

Scott: Yes. But that takes us right back to specificity. And that’s about choosing the right details that throw off enough description and feeling and tone as opposed to saying it’s a well-furnished apartment. You know? So you pick the things, the telling details are everything. And that’s what writers ignore. They kind of race through the description or they over-describe stuff that really has nothing to do with anything.

Craig: I mean, where you find differences is where I’m always fascinated. Where you present things that are different than what I would assume on the default.

John: Well, I want to talk about the senses as sort of my thesis for this episode which is that obviously sight and sound are crucial for screenwriting. Smell, taste, and touch are things we don’t directly put on the page, but they’re things that characters would know about and explore. And those are the five senses we most often think about. But there’s actually a bunch more and I see some of them in your first episode. The sense of movement. The sense of where we are at in a space. You move that camera a lot. And the sense of balance. Is a character standing on her feet or not standing on her feet? You’re finding visual ways to show balance.

Pain. Time. Temperature. Thirst. The sense of hunger or fullness. The sense of tension or stretch. These are all things that we actually feel physically that we have characters in spaces who can do these things. And so I want to make sure that as writers we are not just painting pictures for people, but we’re actually thinking about what it feels like to be that character in that space. I worry if on this podcast and as we talk about screenwriting in general we’re not emphasizing this enough in terms of what does it actually feel like to be in that place. And once you do that how do you find ways, how do you find actions that characters take that can sort of reveal those things. How do you make people feel like they are inhabiting these beautiful rooms that we’re drawing for them?

Scott: If we were in the room together right now I’d hug you, John. Well, actually if we were in the room together I couldn’t hug you because of Covid. But I would bump elbows with you. That is exactly the goal. That’s what you what to feel like. And I think the disconnect comes from how you convey that. How do you write descriptions or write words, the most basic way of putting it, that throw off those other feelings? And that, again, is the thing.

And people – it goes back to a couple of things. It’s a way of thinking. It’s not what Craig said is picking out different details than someone else would. It’s just a way of thinking. And thinking about this stuff is a way of thinking. It’s not a template. It’s not even rules. If people are telling you not to say “we see” or “we this” or “we that” then your script isn’t very good anyway. Because if it’s a really good story–

Craig: Right. No one cares.

Scott: Then no one is going to notice what you did. I mean, I read a Coen brothers’ script recently that was like formatted in Microsoft Word somehow. And I don’t even know – but it was a great read. It was so good. And it was not particularly screenplay-ish. But still because what they were saying was so great to read.

And so people get hung up on the rules in lieu of being creative. And so it’s a way of thinking. It’s a way of thinking. And you can get stuck. You can become so mechanical if you’re writing to the rules all the time. You know, you just have to be able to spin yarn. And what makes a good yarn? What are those things? And you can analyze it backwards from the end of a story. You can say, yes, you need conflict, and you need this, and your character. And you shouldn’t have someone show up on page whatever. But you know what? I have new characters that have shown up on page 90. I’ve had 30-page opening scenes.

Craig: I’ve seen them.

Scott: Melvin and Howard is a 20-minute opening scene. I mean, I’m going back but I always was blown away by that. They’re singing Santa’s Souped Up Sleigh in the front of the truck and he wins an Oscar.

Craig: Star Wars.

Scott: Star Wars. There you go.

Craig: Goes on forever before we meet Luke. It’s 25 minutes or something.

Scott: The Godfather.

Craig: Right. It’s a wedding. It’s a wedding. Absolutely. A lot of these kinds of analyses I always say are like pathologists showing you a corpse and saying this used to be a this, and this used to be a this. But it’s not the same thing as making life. And one of the things that I find fascinating about the way you evoke these things that we’re talking about is whether you are doing it intentionally or not very often you are relating these kind of intangibles through relationship. Rather than just sort of saying this person is now cold. Even in these first two pages there’s a relationship between her and a voice outside that is causing her to emerge from this kind of pseudo drowning state. And then when she’s getting ready there’s a guy in her bed that she doesn’t even know and we don’t even see his face, but that is a relationship. There’s a sense that there are witnesses. That there is a contrast between her and another person.

When she’s coming downstairs that little girl is looking up at her and witnessing her and things are happening between them. There is a relationship. When she gets her period for the first time, you know, a lot of writers I think would just have her in the bathroom going, “Oh no, what do I do? There’s blood everywhere.” And then she would come out and we would see that she had handled it. No. Another girl comes in and they have a discussion. There is a human connection. And from those human connections that you create, whether there’s a conversation, or they’re silent, you are able to convey a lot of these intangibles and just for my money that’s always more interesting.

And it’s always more true than it is when it is just sort of fabricked in there and meant to be evocative for evocation sake.

John: What you’re describing Craig is in addition to sort of like the standard list of senses, we also have – people have cognitive senses. They have the ability to understand how they’re relating to other people. That they’re being watched. They understand connections between things. And we understand connections between things. So we know what it’s like to be that girl in that situation even if we have not actually had our period then. We know what it’s like to feel the need of trust or fear or disgust. We know what those things feel like. And a good writer is able to evoke these things and can put some of that stuff in subtext rather than having to have direct conversations about those things.

Craig: And the relevance therefore is implied. So it’s not just purple. And it’s not just description for description sake. Or look at the lusciousness of my scene. But we understand that there is something with which we can identify. Something that has some universal meaning for us and this is the best fullest use of what we can do.

It is amazing what you can do on a page. You know? It’s amazing. When you read something really well done it’s remarkable how full it is. Which is why I get so lava-incensed when I hear people say don’t direct on the page and all I want to say is that’s all we’re doing. That is literally what we’re doing. We are directing a movie on the page. We are creating a full space. And then the director, whether it is you, Scott, directing your own work, or somebody else directing your work, is hopefully translating that from the space you’ve created on the page to the space in the real world.

But this is what we do. And when it’s done well like you’ve done it here it’s just beautiful. And, congratulations. I mean, it’s a hit. I know Netflix says that five billion people watch it because anyone who watches four seconds of a Netflix show counts, but I know even in real terms it’s a hit. What are they saying, is it up to 78 trillion people?

Scott: I don’t know. Actually if you watch it you have to watch all of it. You have to watch over half of it.

Craig: Well, that’s real.

Scott: They don’t count people who turn it on and turn it off.

Craig: Oh, I thought that they were doing that like two minutes thing.

Scott: No, there’s something they have as part of it. But I don’t know the exact numbers.

Craig: Here’s the thing. It doesn’t matter. Netflix is such a black box when it comes to that. But we can tell over on our side. Like I know when people are watching something on Netflix.

John: The discussion you have about it.

Craig: And this is being watched. This is a hit. Which I don’t mean to sound vulgar, but we make these things to be watched and this is being watched in a massive way. And I love that. I love that a show about a lady who plays chess is being watched in this massive way. It wasn’t always like this. You know, television has come a long way.

Scott: It’s very confusing. You know, there’s so much to talk about outlining and this and that. And I don’t know how to write an outline or treatments, but what I do outline are scenes. And if people put that same kind of thought into well what’s going to happen in this scene, and spent a lot of time in the scene and realized, oh, I don’t have enough character here. I don’t know who these people are. What am I going to do with them? I outline scenes before I write them. And then I write about the scene and, you know, do everything but write the scene until I end up suddenly it just starts to become a scene. Unless I hear dialogue right away I’ll start with the dialogue and just write dialogue and then begin to shape it with other things.

And I think that’s really important. The other thing that I would say, if people spent less time worrying about format and anything else and just focused on character, and just focused on who they’re writing about. I get stuck every time around page 60. I don’t know what to do. Because I realize I don’t have enough character. I don’t have enough character to figure out where we go next. So the characters are either behaving because the script says so, which is a pet peeve of mine, or I’m just thinking, OK, and then this happens, and then that happens. I’ve lost all of it.

And so, you know, if you spend a lot of time just thinking about who you’re writing about, every character. Even if they only have a line or two. They should be someone that’s understandable and readable. And so that helps you. Then when you get to your scenes you have all this information that you have that you can use to show, give it an attitude, what’s happening, how would they respond here, what would be the honest way they would respond. And maybe in your outline, they have to disagree here, but if it doesn’t feel like they would disagree then you need to either, A, have them agree and figure out what’s going to happen, or figure out what you did wrong where they’re not disagreeing anymore. It’s no longer true to the person you’ve created as opposed to again what the script says so.

Craig: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Truth to who you have and what would really happen there. I think the biggest mistake that is made by every writer, every writer, I mean, we all do it and then hopefully we catch it and fix it, is writing something that just wouldn’t be what would happen. Sorry, it just wouldn’t happen that way. You wouldn’t say that. You wouldn’t do that. There’s nothing that feels less satisfying than someone making a great sacrifice where you’re like would you though? Would you? Well there goes your big moment. It just doesn’t work.

Scott: Or the boss who doesn’t believe you or whatever just because – or the parents who don’t believe you. I’m telling you. I saw him. He’s a monster. No, he isn’t.

Craig: No, he’s not.

Scott: You know what? You got too much sugar. Whatever it is.

Craig: You’re not going to take even a moment to think maybe?

Scott: And you’re missing really good character filigree and plot stuff you can explore to actually get to that point. Instead of just skipping to it, maybe by earning it you may actually create some interesting character facets or something that would get you there so you believe it. Why don’t they believe me? Why don’t they want to believe Jack Bauer is trying to save the world for the 50th time?

Craig: I know.

Scott: But this time he’s wrong.

Craig: I know. If Jack Bauer shows up, if Jessica Fletcher shows up and says I think it’s murder, it’s murder.

Scott: It’s murder!

Craig: It’s absolutely murder. There’s no question.

John: So Jessica Fletcher is here to solve crimes. Our producer, Megana Rao, is here to answer our listener’s questions.

Craig: Segue Man.

Scott: Nice. Transition.

John: In a segment we like to call Question Time with Megana. Megana, please join us and talk through some questions that our listeners have sent through.

Craig: Hey Megana.

Megana Rao: Hi guys, how are you?

John: Hey Megana.

Craig: Good.

Scott: Hello Megana.

John: I feel in the mood for some crafty questions since this has become a very crafty episode. So what do you have for us this week?

Megana: OK, awesome. So, Sophie in London asks, “I’m currently writing a TV series based on historical events in 1920s Argentina. I’ve never written any true story scripts before and I’m struggling with the sheer amount of research each thread pulls me into. How do you balance staying true to the history and communicating essential facts while crafting the heart of the story and character’s development? How do you know when you’ve researched enough and when it’s time to start writing pages?”

John: Ah, a crucial thing. So, people can fall into the abyss of research forever and actually never write their things. Scott Frank, so you are setting the story, the ‘50s and ‘60s?

Scott: Mm-hmm.

John: And so how much research did you do? How much did you not do? What was the process? When did you stop researching and just do stuff?

Scott: I didn’t do much of any research on this one because I had the novel and I had Gary Kasparov and Bruce Pandolfini to talk to. So I did very little research in, you know, traditional. I have a researcher that I work with. I did a ton of research on say Godless. But research is a trap. It’s a wonderful thing because it gives you, again, telling detail. It gives you these things that you can find story. But if you’re just trying to write to the facts then you’re going to get lost. And the story should come first.

What is the good story? What is the story you want to tell? And you first need to figure out what is the yarn you’re going to spin. And, again, that’s a feeling. It’s not a crafty thing, it’s a feeling. What story do I want to tell here? What characters do I want to write about? And then as you get into that then you start to look to research to answer your questions. As opposed to look to research to sort of find your story. I mean, sometimes you do that. I mean, I did that certainly on Godless. But I didn’t know what I was going to write about. I just knew the genre.

You’re writing about something that’s true, so you have a lot of stuff there already. You need to sort of figure out, I would say, what the story is. And then use research to make sure that you’re being honest and true, but figure out again what yarn are you spinning. I’m going to just keep saying that.

Craig: Yeah. I would say to Sophie what got you interested in this thing in the first place. If it feels like you’ve given yourself a book report then, yeah, you’re going to get lost because what do you write about. How do you stress one aspect of this historical event in this decade in Argentina over another? What characters should you be focusing on? So you’re asking how do you stay true to history and communicate essential facts while crafting the heart of the story and character’s development. Why did you want to do this?

So what were the things that grabbed you? And why did they grab you? And how did they immediately in your mind connect to human beings and a story about human beings that would be relevant to anyone, whether they lived in 1920s Argentina or not? And that should help focus you.

You will probably swing back and forth at times between trying to figure out do I make the history, put these characters in a situation that reveals who they are? Do I make the characters and their relationship guide me towards which aspect of the history I should be focusing on in this moment? That’s a little bit of a push and pull balancing act. But keep coming back to what fascinated you. That will be your lodestone.

John: Yeah. I trip on the essential facts because facts – you’re not a journalist here. And so obviously you want to be truthful, but really emotionally truthful should be your goal. What are the essential themes, the essential questions, dramatic questions you want to explore here? And the true life details, the history, can help get you there, but you’re not trying to tell a history lesson. Or if you are trying to tell a history lesson maybe the screenplay is not the right way to do it.

Craig: All right. Megana, lay another one on us.

Megana: Cool. So Truthy asks, “I’m adapting a first person short story about a young woman struggling with depression. More than external events the story deals with the protagonist’s internal journey with her mental illness. I feel like having first person voice over narration in the screenplay would really help, but I’m concerned that voice over can seem like a writing crutch and that somebody detest the concept entirely. What are your opinions on using voice over narration and what do you think are the common mistakes people make with it?”

Craig: Scott, what do you feel about that?

Scott: I feel like the only thing worse than using voice over in this case is to use depressed voice over in this case.

Craig: I’m so bummed out.

Scott: Don’t yeah. Voice over can be great. It can be really fun. You know, if it’s used as kind of ironic or if it’s used – if it feels like it’s a character, you know. If it feels like there’s something – there’s a good reason for it. Goodfellas had great voice over. But then Casino was wall-to-wall voice over. It felt like they were just fixing something. But I love the voice over in Goodfellas beginning with “I always wanted to be a gangster.” It’s awesome.

And so you have to think about it. And frequently it’s a solve, but usually it works better if it kind of grows organically out of your concept. You haven’t said anything about, I don’t know what the story is that you’re telling. I just know that you have a depressed character. And I would just say that there are three things that get old fast. And I just had to wrestle with it. They get old fast on screen or in anything. Anger. Drinking, getting drunk. Drunkenness. And I would say depression/grief. So, those things.

It’s really hard to have a character wrestling with that unless they’re in some situation that’s really interesting. And, you know, what is – I don’t know where you’ve located this person and so I don’t know. It’s hard to answer the question. But voice over could work, but I don’t know how you’re going to use it. If you’re just going to use it to say how she feels and what she’s going through I think you can solve that better by putting her in situations that show us that. And giving her conversations that help us with that. Behavior that helps us with that. But be careful.

Craig: Yeah, Truthy, I think that the thing that’s maybe most concerning to me is that you’re saying your story deals with a protagonist’s internal journey with her mental illness. I don’t actually know what an internal journey with mental illness is. I’ve had my own mental illness. I know what the process of dealing with it is. I know how it makes me feel. I know how the nature of the discussions I’ve had with a therapist or with friends. And I know how it manifests itself in my relationships with other people. But there is no internal journey per se.

There’s a kind of story that externalizes an internal journey. You know, when Robin Williams goes to heaven/hell to find his dead wife, or one of those things. You know?

A great version of that is The Fisher King that Richard LaGravenese wrote which clearly shows an internal journey with mental illness by externalizing it completely in a kind of fantastical element. But if you’re dealing with a very kind of down to earth wide-eyed, clear-eyed view of mental illness it needs to be, I think, experienced through someone’s relationships and behavior. The first person voice over narration when you say it will really help, help what? Help us understand what she’s thinking? That is not the goal.

The goal is to have us feel for her. And a lot of times clear explanations of how someone is feeling takes away our feeling for them. It becomes more of an essay that we’re reading as opposed to something that we’re feeling heart-wrenched over because we’re seeing somebody struggle. Or somebody – I mean, what’s sadder? Having somebody tell us that they’re terrified but have to keep a smile on? Or watching somebody that we know is terrified trying to keep a smile on? See what I mean?

So, I think you might want to just consider that internal journey part first and interrogate whether or not that is a necessary part of how this story should be told.

John: The other thing I would stress is that if you do a first person narration you’re creating a very different relationship between the audience and that character. We get insight into that character’s thinking and thoughts. And that can be great and powerful. You know, Clueless is a great example of first person narration. And if we didn’t understand what was going on inside her head the movie would not work nearly as well as it does. So it bonds us very closely to that.

But it also can interfere with sort of the natural unfolding of story, particularly based on when is this narration happening. Is it happening simultaneously to what the character is experiencing on screen, or is it something that happened before and you’re basically retelling the story? You’re pitching a yarn, in the Scott Frank sense.

Many of the mafia movies are sort of like this is what happened, this is what happened next, and they’re going back and telling you how a thing happened.

So there’s not one right or wrong answer here. I think we’ve just experienced so many times in movies where something wasn’t working right and they tried to throw a voice over on it and it just made it worse. Make sure that you’re doing it, you’re being very deliberate about it and you’re really thinking how is this going to help the audience really identify with this character’s story rather than just being an easier way to have some things being said.

Scott: And that points out something really, really important, too. Which has two parts to it. The first part is you need to know what story you’re telling. That’s really what it is. Who is this – right now you’ve described almost a type. It’s almost that reductive. It’s a depressed person. So, without knowing where you’ve put that person and what story and what else is about this person it’s very hard to know how to kind of address your question.

But more importantly what John was talking about now about voice over is a lot of times, you know, the studio will ask someone to come fix something. The ending doesn’t work, but we think it will work with voice over. If you add voice over people will understand. And the problem is it isn’t about understanding. And they’ve cut out all the things, by the way, at the beginning that got you invested because it was “slow.” So, the problem is you need to feel something at the end. We can understand, oh, they got together, I’m supposed to be happy. But then there is really feeling happy when they get together. Or feeling sad. It’s a very different thing between understanding what’s supposed to be happening and knowing that, yeah, that’s right but really feeling it.

Your job is to make us really feel it. You know, you have to really feel – when you get to the end it can’t be this perfunctory exercise in paying off the beginning because of screenwriting rules. It has to be something that feels really, to use the overused word, earned. And that’s really what you have to feel.

And so voice over or description or explaining things, that’s sort of looking in the wrong place for a solution. You need to look at the character and the story that grows out of that character. All answers are there. Everything is there.

John: Now Megana while we have you here, one of the things – it’s been a full year since PayUpHollywood started and all that stuff. It seems like another lifetime ago. Are you getting any emails in from assistants, from people who are dealing with that? What’s the status of that right now? Is there any sort of news on that level?

Megana: Yeah actually. We’re just about to launch our next survey. We pushed it back because of the election, so I think it’s like November 16. And I’ll include all of that stuff in the show notes for assistants. I think in particular the survey is interested in how people have been affected by the different Covid shutdowns. But take a look for that survey because things seem to only be getting better.

John: Great. So we’ll have a link to that in the show notes. And if people want to send in questions where should they send them?

Megana: To ask@johnaugust.com would be fantastic.

John: And we always love when people attach a voice memo because that way we can hear your voice and know who we’re actually talking to. Megana, thanks so much.

Craig: Thanks Megana.

Megana: Thank you guys.

Scott: Thank you, Megana.

John: All right. It’s time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing is a book I’m reading right now called Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light by Jane Brox. It is just a book about how light came to be. How humans got to have light. And to be able to push back the darkness.

Craig: God. I mean, isn’t it just god?

John: God did it all. And so here’s a thing that I feel like all the movies I’ve seen and TV shows I’ve seen that were set before like 1900 have been cheating. Because most people just did not have the ability to have real light inside their houses to do things. But we needed to film period things and so we just sort of cheat the light and make it seem like these things were lit when they really weren’t.

And our ability to do things at night is actually very, very recent in human times. I mean, moving beyond campfires, which you can’t do very much by, to electric light we went through this transition where we had candles, and candles were just terrible, and then lanterns were a little bit better, and finally get to electric light. But I’ve just really enjoyed her laying out the history of this stuff and how much human civilization has changed because we’ve been able to control light.

So, Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light by Jane Brox.

Craig: Fantastic. Scott, anything on your One Cool Thing list?

Scott: I have a very analog One Cool Thing. Because I’m obsessed with the fact that writing has become so much about screens and looking at screens. Even getting notes on things. It’s just all on screen. And so I have taken to carrying this little teeny tiny Moleskin notebook that has changed my life. It’s tiny. It’s like the size of your Air Pods case, maybe a little bigger.

And what would be great, or what is great, is when you’re out there and I’ll be reading something or I’ll be listening to a podcast and I’ll hear a word that I think is a great word. And I just put that one thought on that page because they’re not huge pages. I don’t feel required, or feel pressured to fill it up with everything. But I think about little thoughts and sentences that I hear and that I want to plug into whatever it is I’m working on or thinking about. And it’s great. You just carry a little pencil stub or they make these great little tiny pens now. And I feel like if we did that more we would kind of find these little things out there in the world that would be better than finding them on screen.

Because I can’t tell you how often I hear something I think, wow, that’s a good use of that word. That’s amazing. I want to remember that. Or, wow, that was a really interesting image I just saw. I want to remember that. And I love notebooks. I have a notebook for every project. But this is something different. You just take it with you and knowing that it’s in your pocket makes you feel strong. [laughs]

Mind blown, right everybody? Yeah.

John: I like it.

Craig: It doesn’t take much to make Scott feel strong. A small amount of paper.

Scott: A little notebook in my pocket. It’s my little secret.

Craig: No one touch my notebook!

Scott: Your little secret.

Craig: Um, Scott can’t find his little notebook and so we can’t get started today. If someone could find his notebook. [laughs]

Scott: [laughs] It’s with his medicine. He left it with his medicine.

Craig: Exactly. Scott, you put your notebook and your wallet in the freezer again. Sweetheart.

Scott: By the way, you can get it on Amazon. The teeniest, tiniest Moleskin. You can get them on Amazon. They sell you like a six-pack or something.

Craig: Yes, of course. We’ve got to keep Amazon’s profit margins up, so here’s another thing you can get on Amazon. We’re heading into Thanksgiving. I don’t think either of you guys are big chefs, but–

John: I cook. But what you’ve posted here I’m fascinated by because it looks so much like a ShamWow kind of commercial.

Craig: No, no, it’s quite beautiful. And it’s cheap which is nice. I always like a nice, cheap thing. And it actually solves a problem. So when you approach Thanksgiving you are going to be making a lot of things with butter. That’s why Thanksgiving tastes so good. And there is a slight annoyance with butter. When you’ve got your sticks of butter you need to maybe grease a pan or something like that. You know how butter is wrapped, like the stick of butter is wrapped in such a way that you can’t unwrap it properly? I don’t know what they do. It’s like an origami thing around it. And then when you need to cut away a tablespoon or whatever you’re never quite cutting evenly. Plus the butter is always super hard.

This is a very simple gadget. It’s called The Butter Twist. You stick your stick of butter in this little plastic thing. Costs $15.49, or I guess the same equivalent as 4,000 of Scott’s little notebooks. Those cost a hay penny a piece. And you put it in there and it obviously holds the butter so if you need to grease a pan or something like that, but also if you need two teaspoons you just set the little dial on a thing and you twist it and it cuts that amount perfectly and drops it out onto your plate which is really nice. Because as you’re cooking like a big meal, like Thanksgiving, you don’t want to just keep screwing up knives and things to cut butter. That’s just a waste of dishwasher time. So, cute little thing. Works real well. $15.49.

The Butter Twist. Spread, cut, measure, dispense, and store your butter.

John: So unfortunately this only takes standard size sticks of butter. We use this weird Irish butter that’s really, really good, but it’s too wide to fit in that thing. So then we’d have to cut it and it would be a lot to do.

Craig: Yeah. This is really for…

John: Americans.

Craig: Well, and also for cooking. I mean, I wouldn’t waste the good Irish butter on cooking. Spread that on your toast. But for cooking just throw the crap in there. Your old Land-O-Lakes.

Scott: Craig, does this device fit in your pocket?

Craig: It does fit in your pocket. Yup. It does not come with a little pencil.

Scott: Just wondering. Just wondering if it fits in your pocket.

Craig: If you had a certain kind of small notebook you probably could write a word or two with butter on it.

Scott: There are marks on the butter where you can just slice right through.

Craig: Again, you must not have been listening to me. I mean—

Scott: About the dishwasher. Blah-blah-blah. Don’t you have to throw this in the dishwasher, too?

John: In fact one photo shows it going into a dishwasher.

Craig: Correct. So instead of the multiple things you just have the one thing. You can store your butter in it and, listen, I’m not talking to you. You don’t cook anything. You sit there at Thanksgiving. You’re asleep before Thanksgiving. Then they wake you up. They send you in there to eat. And then you go back to sleep. Sometimes I think–

Scott: They don’t even wake me up.

Craig: Exactly.

Scott: They don’t even want me in there. They’re glad I’m asleep.

Craig: They mush some potatoes around your slightly open mouth. I’m actually cooking.

Scott: They dip my hand in hot water, warm water, and leave me alone.

Craig: So that you’ll just get to the inevitable pants-peeing quicker.

Scott: Yeah. Dad’s in his chair.

Craig: We know exactly how it goes in your house. I’ve been there. I’ve seen this. [laughs]

Scott: [laughs] Yeah.

John: And that is our show for this week. Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by William Phillipson. If you have an outro you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you can send longer questions. For short questions on Twitter Craig is @clmazin. I am @johnaugust. Scott Frank, are you on Twitter? I don’t think you are.

Scott: I’m on no social media.

Craig: He’s smart.

John: That is smart.

Scott: But I do have a little notebook in my pocket.

John: That’s right.

Craig: He can tweet with his little…he says to himself, “Oh, people would love that.”

John: Yes.

Craig: You’re going to like my own thing.

John: We have t-shirts. They’re delightful. They’re at Cotton Bureau. They make a good gift if you’re looking for a Christmas gift for somebody. You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com. That’s also where you’ll find the transcripts.

You can sign up to become a Premium member at Scriptnotes.net where you get all the back episodes including the one where Scott Frank talks about Godless at the Austin Film Festival. We also have bonus segments like the one we’re about to record on Thanksgiving. But, I want to express my gratitude and thanks to Scott Frank for joining us here on this podcast. Great discussion.

Craig: Thank you, Scott. Miss you.

Scott: Thank you guys. It was fun.

Craig: I miss you and I regret to say that once again you’ve done brilliant work. Pisses me off.

Scott: That’s my goal.

Craig: I know.

[Bonus segment]

John: All right. So my thought behind this is that Thanksgiving is coming up. It’s going to be a weird Thanksgiving because of the pandemic. And this has just been a weird kind of generally terrible year. I think this will go down, for the rest of our lives, we’ll know, oh 2020, that was the year that was just awful.

But there were actually some good things that happened this year so I wanted to take a moment to think about the happy things that happened this year and I have a couple things on my little short list. One is that I had a movie that went from like, oh here’s an idea, to oh we’re in production and it all happened in 2020 which was just a delight. It was a fantasy project that I always wanted to do, that I got a chance to do, and weirdly the pandemic was kind of good for it. Because it was animation and nothing else could get made everybody could just focus on, OK, we can do an animated movie. And that was a good thing that happened in this bad year.

Do either of you have some things you’re grateful for in 2020?

Craig: You’re talking to the wrong Jews. A lot of complaining over here.

John: Scott Frank, you had an acclaimed series that you were able to finish post-production on.

Craig: But he’ll never do that well again. [laughs]

Scott: No. I never will. I’m very grateful that I peaked in 2020. I’m very grateful that the show got the response that it did which is surprising and yet lovely at the same time. I am grateful that we finished shooting last year. And am grateful that the technology caught up so that I could do all of post from my house in Connecticut. So that was – I’m very lucky that way. I know a lot of people who had to abandon production in the middle and then go back to it and I feel very fortunate that I didn’t have to.

I also feel lucky that the whole Covid thing forced everyone to kind of, in terms of family at least, to be a little more connected. And it got me to settle down a little bit that way. And it was nice to just be kind of in the quiet and enjoying – I wouldn’t say enjoying because there’s a lot of anxiety, but just kind of being with my family. I really like that. Who would have thought? They didn’t like it, but I did.

Craig: No. They like being with me. I know that.

Scott: They do. They love you. Especially Jennifer.

Craig: And I love them.

Scott: Yeah, they know.

Craig: They know. We all know. Everyone knows. That’s mostly what I’m thankful is the time I get to spend with Scott’s family.

Scott: Yes. [laughs]

John: I will say as the parent of a teenager, you know, in general I would not see her kind of at all, but for this last year we’ve had every meal together. We’ve been with each other this whole time. And it’s been actually really good. So I am also grateful for the sort of chance to hang out with her for this last year when she normally would have been off with friends and I would have been doing meetings and I would have been doing things in person. And I just wasn’t doing those things so we were all just together all this time. And I’m really grateful that it well.

Scott: It’s nice. And my kids are out of the house, but still they would, when we were in the city we would see them, or they would come up here. Because two of them live in New York. And my son came out from California and stayed here and wrote music. And every weekend we would come up and see him and we never would have seen him so much.

And even with Jennifer, you know, we’re married 32 years. Just to kind of cook at home and be at home and just, you know, hang out. There’s something that felt like a reset. It’s a little confusing given that not everybody has that experience.

John: Craig, there’s nothing we’re going to get out of you?

Craig: No, no, that’s not true. I am thankful about things. This is a pretty rough year just for the world and it is a weird thing to think about what’s gone well, because a lot of people have been suffering. But here’s a couple things that went well in 2020 for me, or at least me and the family.

My wife had breast cancer. And the treatment went really well. There’s a little surgery in there that was not too drastic and kind of just went well. And then the radiation after went really well. She didn’t need chemo, which I was really happy about. Because I think both of us were just sort of dreading that. Because, OK, Scott you’ve been married for 32 years. I’ve been married for 24 years. And I always say like any change after that amount of time is a positive. What, lose your hair? You’re going to be bald? Hot. That’s so great. I’m down. Let’s do this.

Any change is exciting. But she didn’t have to lose her hair, so I was a little bummed about that. But she didn’t have to get sick or anything like that from chemo which was really nice. And it looks like it’s all clear.

You know, you feel like you dodge a huge bullet with something like that. My son has Crohn’s disease and he was in the hospital again last week, because he had had some emergency surgery a couple years ago. And then he had a following surgery a year later because when you have stomach surgery there can be these adhesions in your colon that will sometimes just block everything and then they have to do another operation. Which is why the only good thing about him getting an abdominal obstruction and having a second emergency abdominal surgery was that it got me out of running for Vice President of the Writers Guild. So that was great.

I was in the hospital with him while that was going on. But it happened again last week. But this time happily they just – they kind of put him in the hospital and put him on fluids and just waited. And he did not need surgery. And so that was – it was sort of like dodging these bullets. When there are bullets flying all around I guess at some point you’re like, OK, people are dropping like flies so mostly I’m just looking at where the bullets don’t connect and saying, there. That’s a very good thing.

So I’m really happy about that.

Here’s another strange, like you try and find these little upsides to Covid which has killed nearly or more than a quarter of a million Americans and is on its way to ultimately being the deadliest thing America has faced since WWII. In fact, I think it will overcome WWII and be the worst deadliest thing we faced since the Civil War I guess.

My dad died and we couldn’t have a funeral or a memorial thing because of Covid and everything, so we have to wait. But it occurred to me that when we finally do have it, let’s say after vaccines and things it will be summer or something, I don’t know, that we will have a memorial service maybe eight months or a year after he died. And in doing so I think can have the experience that we’re supposed to have when people die. Like I think this should be a thing anyway. Somebody dies, you should wait a year and then have the memorial service. Because then it’s fun and it’s positive and you can actually do the whole thing of like remember. All the things they tell you you’re supposed to do you can do them. Because you’ve had time.

Why do we make ourselves do this when we’re in the lowest point and in the most wretched grievous state? Everybody should get time. And then have a memorial and it can be fun. It can be the kind of memorial the person who died would like to have been at. So, there’s a weird silver lining to that.

So those are the things for which I’m thankful this year. And I would argue that all of those things are more important and better than the things that you guys are thankful for.

Scott: Without question. Just one big ray of sunshine. Thank you, Craig.

John: Indeed.

Craig: And I’m also thankful for Jennifer, Scott’s wife.

Scott: Of course you are. And she for you.

Craig: I know. I know. I know. I know.

John: All right. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Craig.

Craig: Thanks guys.

Scott: Thank you.

 

Links:

• If you’re an assistant or coordinator interested in a PayUpHollywood survey please email ask@johnaugust.com
• Queen’s Gambit
• Queen’s Gambit Script Pages Opening and Basement Chess Scene
• Queen’s Gambit Palette Inspiration
• Scott Frank
• Moleskine Notebooks
• Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light by Jane Brox
• Kitchen Butter Twist
• Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
• John August on Twitter
• Craig Mazin on Twitter
• John on Instagram
• Outro by William Phillipson (send us yours!)
• Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

The original post for this episode can now be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2020/474-the-calm-one).

**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

**Craig Mazin:** My name is Craig Mazin.

**John:** And this is Episode 474 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. This episode is coming out Tuesday, November 3, 2020. So if you’re listening to this while standing in line to vote, thank you.

**Craig:** And if you’ve already voted, thank you also.

**John:** And that’s the last we’re going to talk about the election in this episode. Instead, we’re going to try to lessen any anxiety you may be feeling today.

**Craig:** Think of this episode as a much of hot chocolate with the little mini marshmallows.

**John:** Or a dog sleeping in a sun beam.

**Craig:** Or that song you hear that takes you back to a fun night in college.

**John:** Let this episode be a half a Xanax and a glass of red wine. Not that you should ever do that. But people have.

**Craig:** Or if you’re more risk adverse a fuzzy blanket and a good book.

**John:** It’s Bob Ross painting fluffy little clouds for an hour.

**Craig:** It’s the Monday New York Times crossword puzzle. It’s just so easy to fill out.

**John:** It’s McDonald’s French fries that you don’t have to share.

**Craig:** It’s a lost episode Ted Lasso where he goes grocery shopping with Nate.

**John:** It’s Elmo from Sesame Street giving you a hug.

**Craig:** It’s your high school coach saying he’s proud of you.

**John:** It’s a marshmallow roasted over a campfire to just the right shade.

**Craig:** AKA completely burnt. It’s a hot shower you can stay in for an hour.

**John:** It’s hitting the snooze button on the alarm clock and then realizing it’s Sunday and you can just sleep in.

**Craig:** It’s an episode where we answer some listener questions. We help a writer figure out how to his agent. We discuss the quiet moments before the big set pieces. And we just keep things calm.

**John:** Yeah. And, in our bonus episode for Premium members, we’ll talk about dogs.

**Craig:** I mean, dogs.

**John:** Dogs.

**Craig:** Dogs.

**John:** In the spirit of keeping things calm and quiet the only bit of news is that I’m going to be doing a panel for YALL Fest. So, if you’re a person who is interested in middle grade writing or YA writing, either reading those books or writing those books, I’m doing a panel on November 13. YALL Fest is great. And it’s all organized by middle grade and YA authors. And so it’s a national thing. It’s all online. It’s all free. My panel is on November 13 at 3pm Eastern, 12pm Pacific, with a bunch of other middle grade authors. But if you’re interested in writing in that space at all you should sign up for it because it looks to be a great, great program this year.

So there will be a link in the show notes to that.

**Craig:** Wonderful.

**John:** Now, Craig, why don’t you start us off? You suggested this topic of the calm before the storm.

**Craig:** I wonder why. I wonder why this came to mind. So, in movies and television shows we have all experienced this moment and it’s something that I think we write a lot without being even conscious that we’re writing specifically this moment. It comes before the end. Pretty much right before the end. Something big is about to happen. The final movement of the story. And right before the final movement of the story whereas the normal order of business is to propel things constantly forward everything just stops. The whole thing stops. It’s like everyone takes a break. Which theoretically is anti-dramatic and disrupts flow.

But in fact the calm before the storm moment, and I’m talking about right before the verdict of a big case, or right before the big battle in the war movie, or right before the performance in the singing movie, or right before the big final game in a sports movie, in the moment before that everybody has this quiet night before/moment before moment. And I wanted to talk about why we have those moments and what’s supposed to happen in them and what the value is.

**John:** Yeah. What is the dramatic purpose of these moments? Because as you describe them, yeah, I see them in all of these stories. In all of these movies. And I feel like it’s true because in real life there is a buildup and a buildup in anticipation, but there is also a moment before the thing that I know is going to happen is going to happen. And it can be a moment of anxiety but it can also be a moment of coming together. It can be a moment of synthesis of sort of what I’ve learned so far. So talk to me about this moment. What do you see there?

**Craig:** Well, it’s usually at a point in your story where all of the things the characters needed to do, all the things they were capable of doing, they have done. So, there’s a sense of you’ve earned a break. We need to know as the audience that you have done all the preparations. And then you have this moment that we right now as people are listening to this are probably experiencing. Because we are in it right now. On Tuesday we wait to see how this all turns out. We’ve done it. We voted. We did what we could do. And all of the phone-banking and all that stuff is over and now you have a moment of reflection. And before the big final action typically there is a shared moment.

It is shared between our main characters. There is some sense of a relationship that is completing. Oftentimes these moments are a drink or a celebration. In the last season of Game of Thrones, before the big huge crazy battel began there was an episode that was basically a long party. And in the party people were drinking and celebrating. They were essentially reconciled. All of the “family business” had been completed. What happens in those sequences? People give each other advice. People consummate relationships that maybe were meant to go to a higher level. And they have a moment where they can help define for us watching who they actually are. Because in those moments – I think when I watch those moments at least – what I’m seeing is something that most closely approximates those moments in real life where things feel slowed down.

Where everything just slows down to a stop.

**John:** Classically in a story we’re looking at a protagonist/antagonist relationship. And so there’s still going to be a battle, a final moment to come. There’s going to be that big showdown is going to happen. But then a lot of smaller protagonist/antagonist relationships along the way. And so talk about those family relationships, how the team has come together, those other smaller tensions are hopefully resolved in this moment so we can basically concentrate all of our energy and all our force on this last thing.

So it is that backstage moment where the two rivals finally sort of come together to do this thing. Or the two people on the team who were always fighting and bickering are now united in a common cause. This is the moment where that happens so it doesn’t have to happen in that final set piece.

**Craig:** Right. In fact, it needs to happen here because it can’t happen in the final set piece. The problem with those things happening in the final set piece is that they feel circumstantial. When you make an alliance in a moment where if you don’t make the alliance your head is going to come off that’s not a dramatically fulfilling alliance. That’s just an alliance of convenience. But in these moments before what happens is we do take a minute to quietly talk to each other about where we went wrong and how it can be better and right and how we are now unbreakable.

So our alliances are secure. There’s no more question of where we stand with each other. We solidify our position no only vis-à-vis each other but with the community around us, whether that’s a baseball team, a small town, a city. Or an entire country. Thinking, OK, another classic example, the rah-rah speech is a version of this. The “we will not go gently into the night” speech before you fight the aliens. Everybody is now on the same page finally. All on the same page.

And why? Because symbolically these moments are about preparing for death. We are getting our affairs in order. It’s remarkable how similar these scenes are to pre-death scenes. What do you do? You get your affairs in order. You say your goodbyes. You tell people you love them. You bury the hatchet and squash all beefs. You write your final messages. You complete the circle. And we need this in our drama because if we don’t sense the characters are prepared to die then victory just seems sort of inevitable.

**John:** Yeah. Now we’re talking about this from the point of view of the characters. We’re talking about it from our point of view as the writer. But let’s think about this from the point of view of the audience. Why does the audience need this moment of calm? Think about your experience watching a movie and if it’s just relentless, you’re on a constant forward march to this finale, you never get to catch your breath yourself. You never sort of get to resettle in the seat and enjoy the movie that you’re watching. It’s just relentlessly pushing at you.

And so it gives you a moment of a tonal break. A moment to pick up the popcorn that you sat down on the floor and get back into it. It’s just changes the dynamic for you so that you have some different textures in your movie, otherwise it can just be the same thing the whole time through.

**Craig:** Yeah. And it also decouples your feeling about the hero from their potential success. Because I don’t want to love someone simply because they win. I want to love them for who they are in a moment. And when they have finally struggled past their flaws and patched up the conflict between themselves and the people that they should love or protect, or be an ally for, you feel like they’ve earned your love. Before they go into that battle I go, “They get it. They’re good. If they die now they die. But if they win they win. But either way I love them now.”

As opposed to just sort of like, well, let’s see. Because if he wins, then hooray, but if not, screw him. He just didn’t have it. And we don’t like that. We want to know before the big swing happens that they’re good. We want to know they’re good.

**John:** It’s crazy that you bring this up right now because this is actually the scenes I’m working on this week are in this space of the script. And it is so fascinating that you need to give the story permission to sort of go either way. So that the central characters, we want them to succeed, but we also know that if they don’t succeed, if this thing that we hope happens doesn’t happen that’s also OK. And obviously we’re talking about in general movies where there’s a final set piece, a final sort of thing that needs to happen. But even the thing I’m writing right now which is not so set piece driven there’s a fundamental dramatic question that’s being asked at the start of the story and changes along the way. But it’s a binary choice. What’s going to happen?

And to have this moment of quiet at this place 85% of the way through the story it makes it OK with either answer, which is important.

**Craig:** It is. It doesn’t have to be right before something large. My own example when I was working on Chernobyl was our big battle is a courtroom case which isn’t even a courtroom case. It’s a show trial. So the verdict has been predetermined. There’s nothing less dramatic than that. But there is a break in the trial and two of our three main characters go outside and they sit on a bench. And essentially what happens is one of them says, “I’m dying. And I didn’t matter. But you did and I’m happy I was with you.” And the other one says, very convincingly, “No, no, no, you mattered the most.” And in that quiet moment where there are no stakes, nothing changes other than that, their feelings about each other, there is a conclusion. And we need it. We just need it so that we understand when they go back into the courtroom whether they both die quickly or slowly. It doesn’t matter. They have settled their affairs with each other. And they have essentially said to each other that they love each other.

If you don’t have it, then what are the symptoms of the story without these moments? A sense of rushing. And it’s so weird because you will feel people complaining about a sense of dragging everywhere except this one spot. This one spot they will accuse you of rushing if you don’t take a pause.

**John:** Now, a thing that you will sometimes notice as you’re looking through a script that’s not working in its last section is you may be trying to do this either during that last set piece or after the last set piece. We’ve talked before about how in a football movie it’s not really about winning the game. It’s about the quarterback’s wife being proud of him. Then that’s the emotional moment. But don’t mistake that for this quiet before the storm moment where you see important relationships resolve. Important things being solidified and anchored before that last set piece.

And so if you’re having problems in your third act this may be one of the issues is that you’re not getting into that last beat right, or you’re trying to pay off a thing after the movie kind of wants to be over. After the story of the movie kind of wants to be over. So you may need to pull something up earlier on.

**Craig:** Yes. Exactly. Because once it’s over it’s just a confirmation of what happened in this moment we’re talking about, the moment before. Where typically you look at somebody like across the field you’ll see the person that you had the night before with, that whole discussion. You’ll see them. They’ll smile at you. You’ll smile at them. Because, yup, what we said last night, that was true. That’s all you need.

**John:** Yeah. You’re establishing the emotional stakes for this last set piece as well. You’re reminding the audience of where the characters started, where they’ve come from, and what literally just happened right before this moment is that they are unified as they’re going into this last thing.

And so you see this on every episode of Glee for example. It’s all the tensions that happen during the course of the episode and then in the final performance there’s a look between two characters and it’s cheesy and you just know it’s going to happen. But if it didn’t happen it would be very frustrating.

**Craig:** You’d be like where’s my look?

**John:** There’s your look. So, what lessons do we want people to take away from this quiet before the storm? I think it’s just a reminder not to rush. A reminder that you need to actually plan for this. Because if you didn’t anticipate you need to do this it could just be – if you’re just doing sort of like the note cards of set piece, set piece, set piece, set piece, set piece you won’t think about how important it is to have these transitional moments. Because it’s not flashy. It’s not exciting. There’s no big giant fireworks happening in this moment. And yet the movies you love most probably have this moment and you’re just not paying attention to it.

**Craig:** Absolutely. Just imagine your characters when they have nothing being asked of them. The movie essentially says, oh, normally there’s an event after an event after an event. But unfortunately because of a scheduling problem there’s no event right now. The event will be in one hour. The event will be tomorrow morning. What do you do? What you’re doing is you’re giving them time off. And in their time off they can reflect on what has happened and how it made them feel. And what they think is going to happen tomorrow.

And they can be honest with each other and they can express that they’re afraid. And they can express why it matters more than it might otherwise. All of that stuff is the most important stuff. If you don’t have it your climax will be active. But it may not be meaningful.

**John:** Agreed. Great. Now in previous episodes we’ve discussed when it makes sense to write something as a spec versus pitching it, but it’s not always a binary choice. In many cases you’re pitching these nascent ideas to your reps, your agent, or your manager who are going to weigh in on what they think they can sell or help get you into rooms to meet.

So my personal experience with this, my first agent was a good guy, a good friend, and I liked him a lot, but he just did not seem to share my taste. I had a hard time expressing to him what it was that I was trying to write. So I wrote this horror western and he just had no idea what to do with it. And I wrote the first part of Go and he’s like, “I don’t get this at all.” And that was a sign that, oh, then maybe you just don’t really get me as a writer and I ended up moving to another agency.

But then I started to realize that in some cases I was having a hard time describing these ideas and sort of why I should write these ideas. And it wasn’t really just the other person’s fault. I was having a hard time communicating what this was just because I was new at this.

And Craig what was your experience as a newer writer? Did you have a hard time describing what it was you were trying to do?

**Craig:** No. But it took a lot of work. Because I was working exclusively in feature comedy, and this was the ‘90s where everything was generally high concept feature comedy, you had to actually have this really clear concept. You needed to be able to explain out how the movie was actually a movie and not just a comedy sketch. And you needed to give them a sense of set pieces. So there was a lot of rigging and moving parts that needed to be there. And somehow you had to do all of that without boring them to tears. And it’s really hard to pitch comedy – I’m sure Drew can get into that as well – because pitching is not funny. It’s a comedy-killing medium. So it can get sweaty and it’s hard.

**John:** Yeah. So let’s bring on a guest because he wrote in on Twitter saying that he was running into this exact problem where he’s having a hard time connecting with his agent about the things he was trying to write. Drew Champion is a writer whose animated show Archibald’s Next Big Thing has its first two seasons on Netflix and a third season coming on Peacock soon. Drew, welcome to the program.

Drew Champion: Hi. Thanks for having me.

**Craig:** Drew Champion is such a good name. I want you to be like one of those huge robots in Pacific Rim. Like Gypsy Danger. Drew Champion.

Drew: It’s a great last name that unfortunately growing up you had a lot of pressure. Like, oh, let’s get him on our team. He’s going to be great.

**John:** Good omen.

**Craig:** And then what happened?

Drew: Exactly. Exactly.

**Craig:** Blew a draft? Take on Champion. Oh god.

**John:** Now, Drew, talk to us about what you’re writing right now because you have a writing partner but you also write by yourself. So what’s your current situation?

Drew: Right now my writing partner and I we did this show, Archibald’s Next Big Thing, at DreamWorks and we’re kind of between shows right now. We’re doing a little bit of development for DreamWorks Animation. And at the same time together with my partner we are also doing non-animated stuff together. And trying to work that out. And then also I’m doing some solo stuff, non-animated, as well.

**John:** Great. And so in animation, so it’s DreamWorks Animation, the stuff that you’ve been doing so far is not WGA work. It’s Animation Guild?

Drew: Yeah. It’s all Animation Guild. Yeah.

**John:** And you have an agent and a manager? What’s your representation situation?

Drew: Just an agent. No manager right now.

**John:** Great. So what stuff are you having a hard time with right now. Is it stuff you’re working on with your partner? Or stuff you’re trying to pitch that’s just you? Or figure out if it’s just you.

Drew: The stuff that I mentioned when I messaged you on Twitter was just my personal stuff. It’s like this fine balance of writing a pilot and sending it to my agent and having it not really connect very well. And then thinking, OK, maybe writing the full pilot was too much work. Maybe I’ll just write an outline. So I wrote an outline, a comedy, and sent it to him and didn’t really connect. And so it’s like, OK, what’s even less work than an outline? Let’s just try a logline. And so my loglines haven’t been landing as well. I feel kind of like I want to – I need my agent to be on my side. It’s the gatekeeper. And I need to write something that he’s excited about so that he would be able to take it around and do those things. But at the same time I feel like it’s kind of wearing down some of my enthusiasm on some of my projects.

So it’s like this push and pull of where should I put the effort into and should I just write it anyway? At most one of these outlines could be a sample. So, yeah, that’s kind of where my situation is at.

**Craig:** That’s a situation. Well, a lot of times there is some sort of systematic best practices answer. In the case like this, and I don’t mean your specific case, but just the experience of trying to convince a partner of yours, whether it’s a writing partner or an agent that what you’re doing is worth pursuing, I think the best practice is what fills your sail with wind. And if someone is not filling your sail with wind then it’s just no good.

Now that’s not to say that agents should just read things and go, “Great!” Because then that’s patronizing and it’s not real wind. But it does seem like maybe what’s happening is the dynamic has become I show up and I’m like here, what do you think about this, and he goes, “Yeah, it’s OK. I don’t know.” All right, well what about this? “Meh, I don’t know.”

As opposed to sitting down and saying, “I’m not going to pitch you anything. I’m going to tell you how I see things going. And what I want. And how I want to get there. I want to tell you about why I’m passionate about certain things and how I think it would connect to other people and why.” And rather than serve up some food, explain the theory and the desire. And also explain the context of what you want from them. Because, I mean, just as a side note, agents don’t know what good is. I mean, apologies to all of them, but that’s not their job.

Their job is to get you as much money as possible or as much work as possible. They generally figure out what good is based on what everybody else says good is. Generally. I mean, some of them really do have excellent taste. But that’s not their primary function.

Think about maybe like a tête-à-tête I guess is what I’m suggesting.

**John:** Yeah. I think Craig’s suggestion in terms of having a general discussion about where you want to be working in the next two years is a good way to sort of start this rather than focusing on this one thing that’s going to go out as a pitch versus that thing that you’re going to try to write as a spec. Talk about the kinds of things you want to be doing so that he gets the sense of what you’re looking at with your partner and what you want to be looking at doing yourself.

One thing to think about in terms of agents and managers is it’s cleaner when we think about like a real estate agent, because that real estate agent you don’t go to them for advice on what color should I paint this wall. They’re just there to help you sell your house or to help you buy a house. That’s their function. And our literary agents are really good at that and they have a good sense of what the market is and all that. But you’re not necessarily paying them for their taste or their ability to predict this is the thing that’s going to be the one that’s going to set you on artistic success. Based on their experience this is the kind of thing that’s going to make it pretty easy for me to get you in rooms to talk about stuff.

And so in addition to having a general sit down with your reps I would say imagine those hypothetical general meetings you’re going into and what are the projects that you want to be able to pitch to those executives you’re meeting with rather than thinking about what it is – how you’re going to pitch it to your agent.

Drew: Right.

**John:** Do you want to pitch any of the stuff that you’re thinking about to us? Is there anything that you’re working on that feels like–?

**Craig:** Good lord.

**John:** Well is there any sort of general spaces, like talk to me about – imagine that we are the agent where you’re having the sort of general conversation. What kind of stuff do you want to be writing?

Drew: Well part of my situation is that I come from kid’s animation. And this is the first show I’ve ever worked on. So I feel like I have a good foundation and then breaking out of animation might be – it’ll be a struggle. It might be a little difficult. But with conversations with my agent it sounds like that doing half hour comedies is probably the most adjacent thing to animated TV, especially in the kids space, rather than trying to do a broody period piece drama feature. That might be a little bit more difficult to get me on. But to do something in comedy.

So that’s where I’ve been kind of focusing right now is half hour comedies.

**Craig:** Let’s put aside what maybe structurally seems like the business appropriate move. What do you actually want to do?

Drew: I want to do those brooding—

**Craig:** Great. We just got somewhere.

Drew: That’s what I want to do.

**Craig:** Do you think going from Archibald’s Next Big Thing to a brooding drama, do you think that that is impossible? Ask the guy who went from Hangover 3 to Chernobyl.

Drew: No. I mean, it doesn’t sound impossible. It just feels, well, it doesn’t sound impossible, but then it does sound impossible. Because then it’s like well who the hell is this guy? He was just writing about a talking Chicken for Tony Hale. Why is he doing such-and-such?

**Craig:** Well, you know, I’ll just say that there are a lot of examples of this. Sometimes we miss them. Or we forget that Walter White was the silly dad on Malcolm in the Middle. There is a lot of this. In acting and in writing and in directing. And the beautiful part of doing what you truly want to do as opposed to trying to fit into some scaffolding is that it’s actually much easier. Believe it or not it’s easy.

It’s really hard to wake up in the morning and write what you’re supposed to write. It is incredibly easy to wake up in the morning and write what you want to write.

Drew: Right.

**Craig:** And it will open doors in a way that – look, if it’s good. Right? It will open doors in remarkable ways for you. What happens is they tell you you can’t go through any of those doors. You have to go through this one door. You write something else, you come in, and all those other doors fling open. Fling open. It’s like they just didn’t believe it until they saw it.

**John:** So, Craig, a very specific example that I can offer Drew from my own experience. My first paid jobs as a writer were A Wrinkle in Time and How to Eat Fried Worms. They’re both kid’s books adaptations. And the only things I was getting sent at my old agent was movies about gnomes, elves, dwarves, and Christmas. I was very, very typecast as the guy who writes those kinds of things. I was typecast and I was pigeonholed. That’s what I was getting sent.

And so I wrote Go largely as a kind of middle finger to I can write other things. Don’t just think of me as this one kind of writer. And I ended up using that as the script that got me a new agent and sort of got me started on a new thing.

What was great about Go is it was the movie I most wanted to see. It’s the movie that didn’t exist that I really wanted to see. And happily people could read that script and apply it to whatever they wanted to be. Some people said like, “Oh, he can write an action movie. He can write a comedy. He can write serious stuff.” It was a very useful script for me on that level, even if it hadn’t ever gotten made. It would have gotten me plenty of work.

And so I would say be thinking about what is the movie that you, Drew, specifically could write that best shows the kind of movie that you could deliver to the world. You also do have a fallback plan. You do have a writing partner and you have a deal at DreamWorks Animation so you can keep doing that stuff. That’s the kind of great situation you find yourself in is you can always just do another animated kids show. Take this opportunity to write the thing that you really wish could exist. And I don’t think it is about pitching it, honestly. I think it is just going to be a brand new thing that you write that shows that you are a different kind of writer. And a writer who can do this by himself without the partner.

Drew: Right.

**Craig:** It’s scary.

**John:** It is scary. But exciting.

Drew: I’m terrified.

**Craig:** Yeah. Good. I mean, you’d be kind of sociopathic if you weren’t. I mean, I was scared. But also there’s a freedom to it. I was talking to Alec Berg the other day about how as you go on in your career you get better at writing. It’s inevitable. You get way better at writing. I’m a much better writer now than I was when I started. But he did point out something that was absolutely true that when you look back at the stuff you wrote way, way back in the beginning you were probably – you meaning all of us – were freer. We were freer in our writing. We were less constrained by our fears or what we were trying to do. Ambitions. The market. Other movies. Insecurities. Whatever the hell it was, we were too stupid to know that you shouldn’t write some things. And in that we were wonderful.

And, after all, it’s that writer that got into Hollywood, right? So, they were doing something right. So in something like this the nice thing is you get to be completely free. There are no notes. There’s no rubric. There’s no syllabus. There’s nothing. You do whatever you want. It’s amazing. It’s free. And stick it in at the end of the day if you want. It could be a little side job for you.

Drew: Right.

**Craig:** And if it goes nowhere it goes nowhere. But what I would say is, and this is the meeting that I had with my agent way, way back. We sat down and I said, OK, so here’s the situation. I think that I’m a better writer than the opportunities I’m getting. And so I want to concentrate on that now. And we don’t have to worry about, if it’s OK with you, I don’t want to worry about money. I don’t want to worry about this or that.

Now, we can’t always not worry about money. But in that instance I said I just want to work with better material. I want to work on better material. Because I want to use what I have. I had been stuck in the same – working the same aisle in the same store for too long. I wanted a new position.

So it’s fair to sit down with that person and say, “I’m still doing the comedy. I’m still doing this. Let’s make some money. But also I want you to know I’m doing this and this is exciting because we can go out and make some fresh kills.” You know what I mean? We can open up a new front in this war.

**John:** Drew, how are you feeling right now?

Drew: I mean, my mind is just racing. This has all just been really interesting, really good stuff. I think this is really helpful and I feel energized to kind of open my mind to a different level of just being open and free to just explore some of this other stuff. That’s really exciting.

**Craig:** It’s crazy. Listening to you say that, it does strike me, because I’ve had the same feeling, that this business convinces you that you’re not free.

**John:** There’s a Stockholm syndrome that sort of kicks in.

**Craig:** Yeah. But we are. That’s the crazy part. We are. They just put blinders on us. And they’re very effective blinders. And of course, you know, we have obligations that we have to meet, and so we do have to work on things that we get paid for. But I guess what I’m saying is we’re giving you permission. And you don’t have to worry that you’re being self-indulgent. Because I’m guessing that you’re a lot like me in that you’ve always been the far opposite of self-indulgent. You’ve always been terrified as coming off as self-indulgent.

Drew: Bingo. Bingo.

**Craig:** Well then you know what? Indulge a little. You’ve earned it.

**John:** Cool. Drew, we are going to be looking for your credits. We’re going to be looking for the announcement of the project that you set up that you’re going to write now. And check back in with us and let us know what you do next, OK?

Drew: Yeah. You guys, this has been so helpful. Thank you so very much.

**Craig:** Our pleasure. Thank you for coming on.

Drew: Thanks for having me.

**Craig:** Sure.

**John:** Thank you, Drew. Suddenly we’re in a call-in advice show.

**Craig:** I like that.

**John:** [laughs]

**Craig:** Putting people’s lives back together. It’s lovely.

**John:** These call-in advice shows, they also sometimes have producers who come on who are reading questions. So let’s bring our producer on, Megana Rao.

Megana Rao: Hey guys.

**Craig:** Hey.

**John:** We are so excited to have you here with us. And you, how many questions do you get in at ask@johnaugust.com per week?

Megana: Oh lord. Probably like 20 to 30.

**John:** All right. And what is your criteria for sorting through the questions? And which ones make it on to the Workflowy?

Megana: So I think about questions that we have answered recently. Things that I think are unique and interesting and personally curious about. Yeah, and then I think things that are broadly applicable or if there’s a specific situation that seems, I don’t know, like you guys would have an interesting take on it. I kind of send all of that to you guys, get your feedback, and then the winners are in the Workflowy.

**Craig:** I mean, you know I don’t actually give any feedback. I accept what you guys do completely. Openly. Happily. I try and be as happy as I can. You do a great job.

Megana: But like cryptic puzzles from last week was definitely a Craig question.

**Craig:** I know. I know. And I was so – thank you for this.

**John:** Yeah, we kind of wedged that in at the end there.

**Craig:** I really appreciated it.

**John:** What do we have this week?

Megana: So Lisa wrote in about misdirection. And she asked, “I’ve noticed that mystery writers, particularly Agatha Christie, use confirmation bias to trick the reader into ignoring what’s actually happening. The reader gets a couple of clues that lead to a red herring, then happily ignores or downplays contrary evidence until the big denouement.

“Similarly, one of the meta clues in a mystery is the unnecessary-necessary character. The villain is introduced early on as a minor character who the reader ignores because their appearance seems normal to the plot. Then, when they are revealed, the audience doesn’t feel cheated that the villain came from left field. It feels fair.

“Any thoughts on how screenwriters can best use these techniques of misdirection?”

**John:** What a good question from Lisa.

**Craig:** An excellent question from Lisa.

**John:** Yeah, so what you’re doing with a misdirection is very classically like a magic trick. And magic tricks rely on expectation. What you expect is going to happen next and then defeating that expectation. Surpassing that expectation.

So in any misdirection, in a mystery, or whatever you’re trying to do, you’re leading the audience into making reasonable assumptions about what’s going to happen. So assuming that the protagonist isn’t actually the villain, that the movie is a reliable narrator, that the story is taking place on earth or in a specific decade. Basically that you’re not doing an M. Night Shyamalan on them. That things you are assuming are true are actually true. And I like that phrase the unnecessary-necessary character. Because that’s a thing I see a lot, Craig, is that the character who well naturally is going to be there because of sort of the situation and then they have a role beyond what you expect them to be doing in the story.

**Craig:** Yeah. I like the Shyamalaning – I mean, there’s a difference between a joke and a prank. Practical jokes, which are not jokes, are just things that rely on someone’s ignorance of something that they shouldn’t know anyway. And that’s Shyamalaning. Whereas a proper joke or a proper trick or misdirection it’s legitimately fooling you. Because you could see it if you were able to. It’s right there.

So what Agatha Christie does, and I study her so carefully, is she is in fact using things like confirmation bias. She is allowing you to make conclusions that you don’t even realize you’re making. And she uses all of the tricks that we’ve talked about before. The ways that we are irrational. And the study of Kahneman and Tversky who sort of established the science of human irrationality. Agatha Christie before the scientists ever got ahold of this concept was preying upon all of those things. Anchoring, for instance. We tend to be influenced by the first thing that we see. But we shouldn’t. It’s just the first. It doesn’t mean it’s the best or the most important. But she’ll use things like that all the time.

So, part of the trickery of it, Lisa, is actually studying how humans think wrongly about things. It is fair game to take advantage of that. Because whose fault is it for overemphasizing the first thing you read? Or for presuming that if a coin spins three heads in a row that it’s more likely that the next spin will be tails as opposed to heads. Well, it’s our fault. It’s not the writer’s fault.

So the writer is allowed to take advantage of that. It’s not just about our skill in being sneaky. It’s about our awareness of how our audience is broken.

**John:** And I would say there’s a difference between what writers can get away with in prose fiction versus screenwriting. And the central difference is that in a book characters can disappear. Basically unless the writer actually puts that character in front of your face they can disappear back into the woodwork. So a character can be mentioned and then sort of not mentioned for a while. And because you’re just getting information from the writer you don’t have a sense of like, oh, this character is important or not important. Versus in a screenplay and therefore in a movie there’s going to be a physical actor there in the frame, in the shot. And if you’re trying to do a misdirect where that person who doesn’t seem important is actually very important, or that waiter is actually secretly complicit in the whole thing, that person is going to physically be there.

So as a screenwriter you may have to put in a substitute reason for why that character is showing up there so much. So you might be thinking about this is the guy who won’t stop freaking out during the robbery. And so he’s panicked. And so we think that he’s just a guy who is in the bank during the robbery but he’s actually part of the villains. Or the hacker who can get you through into that secure zone. So the reason why that guy is always sitting there at the computer is because he’s on our side. He’s one of our hackers, but he’s actually that guy.

You’re going to need to think of some reason for why that character is around so much and it’s a bigger issue for a screenwriter than it would be for the novelist.

**Craig:** Yeah. There’s a great example. Are you guys Agatha Christie fans?

**John:** In high school I read through all the books and I’ve seen some of the movies but not in a while. So not nearly the fan you are.

**Craig:** What about you, Megana?

Megana: Yeah, I’d say so. I was like very much so a Nancy Drew person growing up. So I feel like that followed a similar sort of format.

**Craig:** No question. The example I like to cite is Agatha Christie’s, I think it’s her first novel, her first full mystery. It’s called The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. And so this is super early. I think we’re talking like 1915 or something like that. And here’s how it works. It’s a first person narrator, which is odd. It’s not typical for a murder mystery.

But this guy lives in a small town and Poirot rents a summer house next to him. And so he becomes sort of fascinated by Poirot, because Poirot is such an oddball. And lo and behold what happens? A murder. There’s like a big super rich family in town. And the rich guy is murdered. And so our narrator basically accompanies Poirot and sort of tails along as Poirot begins to take the mystery part and solve it.

And there was at the time a mystery writers club, I think, in London. And I believe either they did or almost kicked Agatha Christie out because of this. Because, sorry for spoilers for a book that’s about a hundred years old. What happens you find out is that the murderer is the narrator.

**John:** Yes.

**Craig:** And she’s brilliant. He never really lies. He just leaves a few things out. And it’s astonishing. In fact, and what’s so astonishing is that he was not unreliable as a narrator. He was reliable. He told you everything. But that’s the kind of thing that takes advantage of a natural bias that we are not even aware of. So as we’re reading and trying to figure out, or as we’re watching a movie like Knives Out, which is obviously a little different because you kind of know technically who did it early. But we know the audience is trying to figure it out. We know they’re doing the math. So, how do you beat them?

Well, somebody has got to be innocent. That’s probably the one who is not.

**John:** The only other thing I’d urge Lisa to think about is obviously misdirection in mystery is crucial to it, but misdirection is important for other genres of films as well. As an audience we are always approaching a movie with a set of expectations about the genre, about the world, the kinds of things we expect to happen in this movie. And most of the times as writers our goal is to meet and exceed those expectations. And so the audience feels smart. The audience is with you. I thought this was going to happen and it did happen and so I trust this movie.

But if you can build enough trust you can then also surprise people. And surprise relies on misdirects. This thing that you didn’t think could happen in this movie did happen. And it shakes you and it gets you really excited because you’re suddenly on a ride you didn’t expect.

So it’s the romantic comedy where they actually do break up and they never get back together again. That’s exciting. But you would need to lay in the possibilities for those misdirections early on.

Megana, another question for us, please.

Megana: OK, awesome. So I feel like this one is a great follow up. Brian asks, “How much should you reveal during a pitch meeting? If your script has a unique twist that you’ve never seen done would you reveal that twist or try to entice your audience by mentioning all the other things that make this script great without revealing the one thing that no one has ever done before? Because to do this would be giving away an idea for free. And I know how adamant you are about leaving no writing behind without payment. It seems there’s a tightrope you must walk by selling your script or idea without giving away ever single detail.”

**John:** Craig, do you reveal it all?

**Craig:** Yeah. It’s not writing. You’re talking about it. And these theoretically are professionals. So, they’re like, look, I’m going to read it before the audience sees it. I’m going to read it before we cast it, we shoot it, all that stuff. So what exactly are we waiting for? Because if I don’t like how it ends I’m not buying it. I need to know. And if the twist is unique and exciting and kind of mind-wobbling like, oh my god, he was a ghost the whole time. Well, that’s what they’re going to buy. They’re not buying set up, pretty much. I don’t think they are. Unless what makes your movie or your pitch unique the set up itself. In that case, sure.

But otherwise, no, go for it.

**John:** Yeah. Let me try to rephrase Brian’s question thusly. Hey, John and Craig, so I have a really unique idea but in the pitch meeting should I not actually make it sound unique or cool but make it sound like other things and hide what makes it unique and cool? Is that a good strategy?

**Craig:** Yes. [laughs]

**John:** The answer would be no. You should actually do what makes it unique and coo. And here’s the challenge is that obviously how you reveal that twist in the screenplay is going to be different than how you’d probably do it in a pitch. But you figure that out. And that’s the excitement of doing a pitch is figuring out where the listeners are at and how you get them to that moment. But, yes, you absolutely need to do it and so they have something to hang on. So they can really feel what’s going to be special about the project.

So, yes, leave it all on the field. You’ve got to give them what is special and unique about this, because otherwise you’re not going to sell it.

**Craig:** Word.

**John:** Word. Megana, thank you for these questions.

**Craig:** Thanks, Megana.

**John:** Now, when people write in to ask@johnaugust.com with their questions what are some helpful things you’d like them to do in terms of question length? Do you like the audio questions? Help us out?

Megana: Ooh, I love audio questions and I know you do, too. So audio, like if you can record and send me a transcript of the question that’s the ideal. Yeah, otherwise I think keeping it short and sweet and sort of getting to the point. Just like Brian is afraid to reveal too much, I feel like in a lot of questions the person asking is also afraid that I’m going to steal their story idea or that someone would if we read it on air.

**Craig:** Oh lord.

Megana: But that ends up making for a worse question if it’s really vague because you’re not telling me any details about your situation. So feel free to let me know you don’t want me to use your real name. But otherwise please send some more context and information. That’s always really helpful.

**John:** And we also love when you include your location because it’s just more fun to say Brian in Massachusetts than just Brian.

Megana: Totally.

**Craig:** Oh my god. Brian from Massachusetts.

**John:** Cool. Megana, thank you so much.

**Craig:** Thanks Megana.

Megana: Thank you guys.

**John:** All right. It’s time for our One Cool Things. So my One Cool Thing is actually three books that are all about money and I think I may have mentioned one of them before, which is Debt – The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber. It’s a great look at sort of how money came into existence based on just people owing each other stuff and it ultimately becomes money.

Two books I read recently, Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein, and The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View by Ellen Meiksins Wood are both really good and very different looks at sort of what it is that we’re doing when we think about money and economies and sort of how stuff works.

Craig, did you have economics in high school or college? When did you first learn about how the “economy” works?

**Craig:** I actually had a class in eighth grade. I went to an odd school. I was at Hunter College High School in Manhattan until we moved away. And so they kind of did their own funky curriculum. And in eighth grade I remember our social studies class did have a long section on how the economy worked, how the stock market worked, how money worked, loans, interest, compound interest, inflation, all that stuff. It was interesting. I mean, I never had any desire to take Econ in college or anything like that.

But, you know, I think everybody should understand the basics of how corporations function, for instance.

**John:** Absolutely. How corporations function. Just the idea of supply and demand. And it’s weird because I had micro and macroeconomics in college. And as a journalism major we were required to take both macro and micro and they were really illuminating, but they’re also basically like this is capitalism and it’s almost like a Darwinian theory of how stuff works. But it just happens to work but it’s not kind of the only way things could work. And so it’s fascinating to look at other ideas about sort of how money and economies function together.

We talked in a previous episode, actually one of our first bonus episodes, was about the gold standard and why the gold standard is stupid.

**Craig:** It is.

**John:** It’s just so, so dumb.

**Craig:** So dumb.

**John:** But it’s hard to explain why it’s dumb unless you have some background in sort of how money comes to be.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** If people are looking for any sort of starter books I think all three of these – actually the one that’s not about the origin capitalism which is just a little too obscure to start with, but either of these other two books are great ways to be thinking about what money is and how money actually functions in society. Because it never grew out of barter. This myth that people started trading, like I’ll give you two deer for a bushel of corn. That never happened. And it was always just IOUs for things.

**Craig:** Right.

**John:** Cool.

**Craig:** Excellent. My One Cool Thing is America, maybe. [laughs] That’s all I’m going to say. It may be America.

**John:** It would be great if America were very, very cool.

**Craig:** I will do a follow up One Cool Thing next week to confirm or deny that America is cool.

**John:** Yes. All right. Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao. It is edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro is by Peter Hoopes. If you have an outro you can send us a link to ask@johnaugust.com. That’s also the place where you send your longer questions, but for short questions on Twitter Craig is @clmazin. I am @johnaugust. We have t-shirts. They’re great. You can find them at Cotton Bureau.

You can find the show notes for this episode and all episodes at johnaugust.com.

You can sign up to become a Premium member at Scriptnotes.net were you get all the back episodes and bonus segments and a segment like this where we’re going to talk about dogs. So, stick around if you’re a Premium member because we are going to talk about dogs. Craig, thank you for a very calm episode.

[Bonus segment]

**John:** Craig, do screenwriters need to have dogs, or is it just highly recommended?

**Craig:** I’m going to go with need to. I’m going to actually make it mandatory. Of course, everyone needs to have a dog. Everyone.

**John:** I mean, basically you join the WGA and they give you the little card and they give you a dog. That’s just how it works. You got to have a dog.

**Craig:** Got to have a dog.

**John:** Talk to us about your dog situation right now.

**Craig:** Right now we have Cookie. She is a Labrador who we keep trying to sort of pretty up. We’ll put little ribbons in her hair sometimes when she gets groomed and then she keeps trying to make herself disgusting.

**John:** You said she’s a Labrador, but she’s a Labradoodle, right?

**Craig:** Labradoodle. Yes. Oh, did I say Labrador? Labradoodle. She’s a Labradoodle which is a wonderful breed of dog. Poodles are not my favorite. Labradors are wonderful. Labradors shed all over the place, Poodles don’t. Labradoodle, it’s like a Labrador that doesn’t shed. And they’re adorable. And very sweet and friendly. She’s very, very beta. She’s the most beta dog I think I’ve ever encountered in my life. And we’re actually going to be getting another puppy soon, pretty sure.

**John:** Oh, very exciting.

**Craig:** In part because as Cookie gets older I just keep in mind the line of succession.

**John:** Yes. You have to. You always need a dog. My first dog that was my own dog was my dog Jake who was a Pug who was fantastic and he was very classically a screenwriter’s first dog. I invested in him all of my paternal caring and it was an absolutely ideal dog for me to have. We had another Pug later who looked like a dog but actually had nothing in his brain. It was actually just some sort of weird alien. Who I still loved, but was just really a challenging dog.

But my current dog–

**Craig:** Ah, Lambert.

**John:** Lambert is just an absolute dream. You’ve met Lambert several times. And is some sort of Terrier-Poodle kind of mix thing. And has just been an absolute delight and a source of warmth and comfort at all moments.

**Craig:** Lambert and Cookie have met each other. They get along famously.

**John:** They have. And Megana brought them up to your house at some point. So I’ve never seen them meet, but I’m sure they were best friends.

**Craig:** It was too gentle dogs sort of looking at each other and seemingly fine with each other and then they both sort of went their separate ways. It was like, OK, yeah, you’re here, I’m here, great. And then Lambert sat down in his funny way where he just spreads his legs and puts his balls directly on the floor. Or where his balls would be.

**John:** Yeah. Now, what is – you’re a person who is interested in science and the evolution of things, what is your belief in terms of how dogs came to be and to what degree is it just us wishful thinking that they are so empathetic and they seem to understand us so well? What is your belief about dog evolution?

**Craig:** I mean, I’m just guessing, because I haven’t studied it or anything, but it seems to me like along the way certain wolves were taken in by groups of people and over time gentler wolves were bred with other gentler wolves and you started to get breeds of dogs that descended from wolves but were like the nice ones. And then it just kept happening. And obviously around the world there are different kinds of wolves that become different kinds of dogs. And then you crossbreed them.

And I think that initially was because they were incredibly useful. Because they domesticate so well. They were helpful for protection back in the day when there was no conceal carry. Your dog was your conceal carry. They protected the family. They helped you hunt. And they obviously also were there for comfort. They were loyal. So they have all of these properties that make them incredibly suitable to live with humans. And I think that is probably why we imprint our own beliefs on what’s happening in their minds.

My dog, for instance, she has a little routine. When I come home from wherever she runs frantically to me, sits down in front of me, gets kind of low, and then starts whimpering as if to say where have you been. She’s crying. And I could think, oh my god, this dog loves me more than anything. In fact, if I put my hand right on her chest I can feel her heart pounding. Like oh my god, this dog loves me more than anything.

But I know actually what she wants is one of those dried chicken strips. And she knows that when I get home and she does this and she starts whining and doing that she gets one. And the second she gets that chicken strip she’s gone. So, it’s mostly chicken, but it’s easy to see – of course, they do love us. I mean, there’s no question about that.

**John:** Yeah. I always find it fascinating when I look at my dog’s behavior and then I take a step back and look at, OK, in what ways am I behaving like a dog who is really just stimulus and response driven? I think I want a thing but it’s really that I want this other more basic thing. I really am just hungry. Or I really just need to be around somebody but it’s not – I’m creating these elaborate reasons for why I do certain things when really it’s just sort of stimulus-driven behavior.

And yet I look into my dog’s eyes and I see like, oh, well this dog clearly loves me. A strange thing about Lambert I’ve noticed is that Lambert, his favorite thing in the world is a visitor. And anybody who comes to the house he is so obsessed. And I think people come to the house and think like, oh, this dog must not like it here because this dog just seems to desperately like me very much, or want to get away from this house. And, no, it’s any new person who comes to the house, it’s just like come on in. Do you want to take the TV? Take the TV. It’s fine. It’s good.

He’s just so obsessed with that and it’s been one of the hardest things about the pandemic and the lockdown is that Lambert just doesn’t get to see new people. New people don’t get to come to the house. And so he’s stuck with the three of us.

**Craig:** Same with Cookie. She loves new people. She likes to bark when a new person arrives to let everybody know that a new person is here. And then she just melts.

**John:** Yeah. Aw, that’s nice. Melty dogs are nice.

**Craig:** It’s the greatest. Melty dogs.

**John:** And they’re very calming which is the reason why I thought we’d talk about them here.

**Craig:** Yes. If you have a dog definitely take moment now to just sit with your dog, turn off everything, sit with your dog and think to yourself how nice it is in their mind because they don’t know any of this.

**John:** They know nothing. And like when a water bowl gets filled with water, like you did magic. You were able to touch something and water came out of it and you put it there. You were able to do all of these things that a dog can’t do. They live in a world of magic and we are the magicians.

**Craig:** Right. So you might as well get a little something back and try to get your mind right in the same frequency as your dog’s mind where the rest of the world doesn’t matter. It’s just you and me. Eye contact. Scratches.

**John:** Great. We’ll end it there. Thanks Craig.

**Craig:** Thank you, John.

**John:** Bye.

 

Links:

* [YALL Write](https://www.yallwrite.org) John’s panel is on Friday, November 13th at 3pm ET/12pm PT
* [Drew Champion](https://twitter.com/drewchamps) and [Archibald’s Next Big Thing](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9165404/)
* [Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein](https://bookshop.org/books/money-the-true-story-of-a-made-up-thing/9780316417198)
* [The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View by Ellen Meiksins Wood](https://bookshop.org/books/the-origin-of-capitalism-a-longer-view/9781786630681)
* [Debt – The First 5,000 years by David Graeber](https://bookshop.org/books/debt-updated-and-expanded-the-first-5-000-years-revised/9781612194196)
* [Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!](https://cottonbureau.com/people/scriptnotes-podcast)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Peter Hoopes ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/474standard.mp3).