The original post for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2022/flashbacks).
**John August:** Hello and welcome. My name is John August.
**Craig Mazin:** My name is Craig Mazin.
**John:** This is Episode 557 of Scriptnotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Today on the show, what happened before this moment, and how do we take the audience there? We’ll be discussing flashbacks, or maybe we already did.
**Craig:** Whoa.
**John:** We’ll also be answering listener continues about managers, writing partners, and remote rooms. In our Bonus Segment for Premium Members, what makes a person an adult? We’ll discuss the markers and behaviors that indicate that someone is no longer a child.
**Craig:** That sounds lovely. Maybe I’ll find out if I’m a child finally, because I don’t know.
**John:** I don’t know either.
**Craig:** I feel like a child with a really poorly functioning spine.
**John:** I do feel like I’m the youngest person in the room a lot of times, which I’m generally not anymore.
**Craig:** No.
**John:** There’s a lot there.
**Craig:** You know what we are?
**John:** What?
**Craig:** You and I are ex-wunderkinds.
**John:** That’s what we are.
**Craig:** Now we’re just old people.
**John:** I think we should be up front and clear with our listeners that we are recording this on June 20th, but this episode will probably come out in July at some point. We are living in a world where we don’t even know what Break My Soul sounds like.
**Craig:** What?
**John:** That’s how far back we are, because Beyonce’s song is dropping at midnight tonight. We don’t know what it sounds like. We don’t know what the world looks like post Beyonce’s new song after so much time.
**Craig:** I want to reiterate again that I’m old. I had no idea. I didn’t know what you were talking about at all, even remotely.
**John:** There’s a new song by Beyonce. For all we know, the world could be completely transformed, and everything we’re saying in this podcast could be irrelevant, because she is a goddess who will transform everything.
**Craig:** No. It’s a song. It’s a song.
**John:** More likely, things will go on the same. My question is will her new single make it so that Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush does not achieve number one status.
**Craig:** Is it because of Stranger Things?
**John:** Yeah.
**Craig:** Is it on its way to number one again?
**John:** It’s on its way to number one again.
**Craig:** Was it number one the first time? Probably not.
**John:** Nope. It was top 40, but not number one.
**Craig:** (sings)
**John:** Exciting times.
**Craig:** It’s cool that now, speaking of flashbacks, these songs that were perfectly contemporary for us are these ancient things that can be unearthed for Megana.
**John:** Megana knew the song before Stranger Things.
**Craig:** Really?
**John:** Is that correct, Megana?
**Megana Rao:** I did.
**Craig:** Yay.
**Megana:** I feel like Kate Bush is a good rite of passage for young goth girls.
**Craig:** Or young not-goth girls.
**John:** How goth were you, Megana?
**Megana:** Goth on the inside, normal on the outside.
**John:** Fully see that.
**Craig:** My daughter has a nose ring now.
**John:** My daughter does too.
**Craig:** She does too?
**John:** Yeah.
**Craig:** Wow. How about that?
**John:** It’s been a while since you’ve seen her.
**Craig:** Just side note, since our podcast is about things that are interesting to screenwriters and people with nose piercings. When she asked, was there a difference between you and Mike in terms of acceptance?
**John:** Publicly, no. We present a completely united front to our daughter at all times.
**Craig:** Right, but privately-
**John:** Privately, a little bit.
**Craig:** Who was pro and who was con?
**John:** Neither of us were strongly pro. What I will say is, when it became clear that it was a piercing on the side rather than a piercing in the middle, a septum piercing, then we were better with that.
**Craig:** We were septum. We’re septum over here.
**John:** Team septum.
**Craig:** Team septum. I’m team septum. The way it goes over in my place is Jessica’s like, “Hey, can I pierce my septum?” I’m like, “Sure. What do I care?” Then Melissa’s like, “Um, but,” and then asks a thousand questions. Jessie generally asks me first on those things.
**John:** We save these things for holidays or birthday presents, basically. It’s a big thing she can do on one of the once-a-year gift situations. We go to the really expensive but really good place on Melrose that actually knows what they’re doing.
**Craig:** My feeling is that once my daughter turns 18, which is nigh, December, she’s going to do whatever she wants anyway. The tattoos are coming. More piercings are coming. Should I care? I don’t care. Am I a cool dad, or am I just an apathetic dad?
**John:** Or a checked-out dad?
**Craig:** No, I’m not checked out. I actually think I’m cool in the sense that I’m into it. I think it’s fun. Anyway, happy Father’s Day to me.
**John:** Happy Father’s Day, belatedly.
**Craig:** Thank you.
**John:** A month later for all the people listening to this episode. Let’s get into some screenwriter things. I’m going to start with a fun little thread that popped up in my timeline today from Twitter. This is by Jeremiah Lewis. The theme of this thread was ruin a screenwriter’s day in three words.
**Craig:** No.
**John:** He started the thread off with “really well told.”
**Craig:** Oh, “really well told,” that is a classic brushoff.
**John:** I’ve heard that a couple times. I’ve heard that after pitches. I genuinely think in most cases they were trying to sound positive but noncommittal because they hadn’t talked amongst themselves on Zoom, but I don’t know. Now I’m second guessing myself.
**Craig:** I don’t think it ever is a good sign. I don’t think I’ve ever once heard that and thought to myself, “Nailed it.” Really well told. That was really good. Terrific. Good for you. “Really well told” means I’m not buying that, but you did a good job trying to make that sound not bad. That’s basically what that means to me.
**John:** Oy.
**Craig:** Oy.
**John:** Let’s go through some of the other contenders here. Maybe we’ll just alternate turns here. I’m going to go with “really good start.”
**Craig:** That’s also rough. “Lots of potential.”
**John:** Basically, what you did shows us that there could potentially be a movie there, but you were not the one to deliver it. There’s still potential.
**Craig:** That’s not exciting. Jeez, this is depressing. Why did Jeremiah Lewis do this?
**John:** I’ll serve back with a “found it charming.”
**Craig:** I’ve never heard that one, maybe because I’ve never been charming.
**John:** Something feels diminutive about charming. It’s not good, but it’s charming.
**Craig:** This next one is really weird. “Congratulations, you finished.” What? That’s terrible.
**John:** I could tell it was a slog, but you got through it. That’s not so good.
**Craig:** I have one that isn’t on here.
**John:** What’s this?
**Craig:** “It’s a script.”
**John:** “It’s a script. Wow, it’s fully a script.”
**Craig:** You wrote all of a thing. It’s started and finished. It is script-sized. Congratulations on your script.
**John:** No one can say this is not a script.
**Craig:** That’s right. It’s a script.
**John:** “There’s something here.”
**Craig:** “There’s something here.” Wow. There’s so many layers to that one. There’s something here, but you’ve drowned it in nonsense, and you’re not the thing, clearly.
**John:** Here’s the thing. “There’s something here” is a useful note if it’s talking about a scene or a moment. It’s like, okay, this is not fully explored, but if it’s applied to in overall script, that’s not an encouraging sign.
**Craig:** No, not at all.
**John:** “Lots of fun.”
**Craig:** That’s right up there with “this is cute.” You don’t want that.
**John:** Cute and charming, no. “Some good stuff.”
**Craig:** There’s some good stuff. It’s not a complete zero. I feel like if they say, “There’s some good stuff,” what they’re really saying is there’s no good stuff.
**John:** Not enough stuff to string together to make a movie that they will actually want to make.
**Craig:** No. This one I think is not going to ruin your day. It’ll make you bummed out, but it’s honest. “Not for us.” I’d rather get “not for us” than “some good stuff.”
**John:** I agree with you. “Not for us” makes it clear we’re not even talking about the merits of the thing you’re discussing. It’s just really like, this is not a movie that we can make. I get that. “Promising first draft.”
**Craig:** That’s not terrible.
**John:** That’s not the worst. Not going to ruin your day, as opposed to “enjoyed the premise” would.
**Craig:** You didn’t need a script to enjoy the premise, did you?
**John:** No. You could’ve written this on a napkin, and I would’ve enjoyed it as much.
**Craig:** Exactly. This could’ve been a text.
**John:** “We like a lot of this,” Craig.
**Craig:** “We like a lot of this.” If you hear “we,” start running, because everybody’s going to try and hide as part of a group. Look, hundreds of us really had a problem, as opposed to like, okay, this is awesome. Good news I think is always very focused. Bad news is vague and comes from some hive mind. I don’t blame them. I don’t think that they’re being cowards. I think they’re being human. Nobody wants to be that guy. I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be the person who delivers bad news and says, “You submitted this with dreams that I would love it, and in fact, not only do I not love it, I hate it.” That’s upsetting to everybody. I don’t blame them.
**John:** I don’t blame them at all. Let’s try to pull some joy out of this. What is good things you would hear in one of these meetings? When I’m on one of these calls, it’s like, “Okay, let’s have business affairs get into this.” That’s the sign. Business affairs means it’s real.
**Craig:** Business affairs means you’re getting paid. That’s always a good sign. If they say something along the lines of, “You’re the right person for this,” that means it’s not even about what you’re saying. They are now auditioning for you. They want you to do it. It’s really up to you. They’re trying to convince you to do it at this point.
**John:** If they’re asking about your availability, that’s a good sign.
**Craig:** Availability is always a good sign. If they want you to get on the phone with an actor or a director, always a good sign.
**John:** Always a good sign. Previously on the show we talked about main character energy. We have a corollary to this. This is side character energy. This is Lola Okola on TikTok talking us through what side character energy is.
**Lola Okola:** Personally, I’m actually off main character energy. The vibe is beloved side character with great outfits and funny one-liners. No, I will not undergo any character development, nor will I grow as a person. I’m here to be funny and sexy.
**John:** I really support side character energy. I think also it gets back to this thing we talked about on the show before, why side characters often steal movies.
**Craig:** She does land on something important, which is that side characters are not here to change, which means theoretically that side characters aren’t beset by fatal flaws that they have to overcome. Side characters are loyal and they’re funny and they’re supportive. They’re there for you. In the end, when you finally change and succeed and win, they applaud you or hug you. They are very warm, loving, supportive people. I have to tip my hat to one of the great beloved side characters of all time, Jon Cryer, who did such a good job of it back in the day, although now that I think of it, that was a very tragic sort of thing.
**John:** What are you talking about, Sixteen Candles?
**Craig:** Pretty in Pink.
**John:** Pretty in Pink.
**Craig:** I was talking about Pretty in Pink.
**John:** [inaudible 00:11:15].
**Craig:** I take it back. He was actually tragic. You know who was a beloved side character back in the day? Robert Downey Jr. Robert Downey Jr back in the day was a fun, wacky… In Back to School, he was a wacky, beloved side character.
**John:** I always think of Donkey in Shrek as being a side character who’s just there to do Donkey things and not be… I guess Donkey’s worried about Shrek to some degree, but Donkey can do Donkey things. There’s an animated movie I’ve been working on that I really love my side character. She’s just tremendously fun throughout the whole range of it. She does actually protagonate at the end. Some of the fun of it is that I think she does not want to change at all. She has no desire. She does not identify any fatal flaw in herself, and yet she finds herself changing despite herself, which is a joy.
**Craig:** That’s the Dory evolution. Dory was a wonderful, beloved side character, and then Dory got to do her own thing, which is fun. Listen, Lola Okola, I’m with you. I feel like I’m a beloved side character. I don’t like being involved in drama. I don’t want my life to be swirling about in drama. I like to be next to people who are having drama and listen to them and then tell them it’s going to be okay. That’s what I prefer. I don’t always get it.
**John:** Hey Megana, can you help us out with our main topic here? I think we have a question that can set us up well.
**Megana:** Yes. We got an email in from Sky Jones, who asked, “I suppose the topic isn’t strictly a screenwriting topic, but instead relates to all types of fiction. Lately, I’ve been watching some shows on HBO, specifically The Staircase and Station Eleven. Both of them heavily use flashbacks. In fact, they jump around in time quite a lot. I think the use of flashbacks made the storytelling more compelling than if the story had been told completely linearly. I’m wondering if there are any tips and/or strategies for heavily using flashbacks in a script, especially a TV series, which is obviously longer than a feature script. For instance, are there obvious reasons for deciding to heavily use flashbacks? At what point in the writing process is that usually decided? Are there any specific strategies for keeping track of the story in the outlining and writing process when flashbacks are heavily used?”
**John:** Great. Sky, you really set us up well there. In volleyball, that would be the set getting ready for the spike, just like it’s putting it properly in position for us to answer.
**Craig:** Plus Sky Jones.
**John:** Is Sky Jones main character energy or beloved side character energy?
**Craig:** Sky Jones feels like main character energy.
**John:** It does.
**Craig:** Sky Jones.
**John:** Stormy is the sidekick who is also just a lot of fun.
**Craig:** We have a problem. Who can we bring in? Sky Jones.
**John:** Sky Jones is the only one who can do this.
**Craig:** Sky Jones is here to ask this question. Sky Jones has asked an excellent question, and very specific. Maybe the premise, Sky, is that there’s a more specific way of approaching this, and I think there is, because I think a lot of it is to taste. You have to feel your way through these things. If I know John, and I know him well, before we discuss what to do, he’s going to want to define flashbacks.
**John:** I think we’re going to want to define our terms, make sure we’re talking about the right same thing. A flashback in a general sense is any moment that is set in time earlier than the main story. Of course, that implies that there really is a main story and a main timeline and that you’re not hopping around freely between all these things. Station Eleven is an example of a show. I would say those aren’t really flashbacks, because it’s set in multiple simultaneous timelines. You can’t say that’s a flashback so much. They tend to be briefer.
Another thing I would distinguish is that yes, novels could have flashbacks, a comic book could have a flashback, but really it feels like mostly a cinematic and a TV invention, because in a novel, I can be halfway through a paragraph and talk about something that happened before and bring us back to that moment and bring us back to the present time. You’re not really at one place in a book the same way that you are in a movie. We really know as an audience if we’re in a flashback or not, whereas opposed to a novel, it’s just a constantly churning stew of information that’s surrounding us.
**Craig:** Flashbacks exist in connection with the present. They don’t exist on their own. You’re right to say that there are shows where the narrative exists in multiple timelines. Those aren’t flashbacks, because ideally they’re commenting on each other in some important way, but not specifically. To me, a lot of good flashbacks are there very specifically latched to either the thing that came right before them or the thing that’s coming right after them.
**John:** There’s a reason why we’re moving from this present time to that flashback thing. Either it’s to provide some piece of information, some piece of context, something that makes it clear why this is happening. That to me feels like a flashback as opposed to now this next 10 minutes is going to be set in this other time period for just storytelling reasons. Now, we’ve talked about flashbacks before. I did a Google search. We actually talked about them in Episode 10, way back in Episode 10.
**Craig:** I’m sure we did a great job of it.
**John:** We did a great job there. I’ve also talked about it on the blog. One thing I want to make sure we don’t get out of this thing without talking about is how you indicate flashbacks in this script, because it can just be like you cut to this thing, you say it’s a different time, but I find, and tell me if you’re doing the same thing, after the day or night, I will tend to write, in brackets, “flashback,” just to make it clear, super clear on the page that this is a flashback, this is not cutting to something else in the present day timeline. What do you do?
**Craig:** I don’t think I write the word “flashback,” because for me at least, it feels a bit artificial, meaning it’s defining it in a way that I may not want the feeling to have. Typically, I will say something and then what the time is, five years ago, eight months ago, yesterday, because the word “flashback” I think is maybe too loosey-goosey, and there is a vague whiff of cheese about the word. That’s not our fault. It’s just that there’s been a lot of cheesy flashbacks. When you and I were kids growing up, the sitcoms would flash back all the time. It would be like (mystical sound effects). It was really cheese ball. To avoid that and to help tie in some specificity to the timeline, I’ll usually just use the time.
**John:** That’s fair. I think I probably will do that in the script if I’m moving to something we’ve not seen before in the movie. I think I’m saying the brackets “flashback” is to a moment that happened before in the movie that we’ve actually been watching, to make it clear that it’s connected to this thing.
**Craig:** Like a repeat.
**John:** Yeah.
**Craig:** Ah. Then I would probably say “flash to.”
**John:** “Flash to” as a transition rather than as a-
**Craig:** I think so.
**John:** It’s whatever feels right on the page.
**Craig:** As you and I have made clear, hopefully. None of that stuff matters. I’m sure that other people will now dedicate hundreds of Reddit threads to the orthodoxy of flashing back.
**John:** Let’s get into some of the orthodoxy, because they have a stink to them. It’s not a blanket prohibition on them, but people have issues with flashbacks. We have a question here from Francoise. Megana, maybe that can set us up for this part.
**Megana:** Francoise says, “I recently received coverage on a feature script that noted a first flashback appearing on Page 26 was too late to be throwing this sort of device in the audience. The note went on to read that a flashback needs to happen much sooner so the audience isn’t thrown off or confused. I haven’t heard this before and would appreciate your thoughts to set me straight.”
**John:** We haven’t read Francoise’s script, but I kind of get what the reader might be saying, is that as an audience, we are approaching a movie, and we have a certain set of expectations about how the movie is going to work. If we’re 26 minutes into the movie and suddenly it’s doing a very different conceptual thing than we’ve seen before, that could be jarring in a bad way. I think you can absolutely have a movie that works really, really well, where the first flashback is on Page 26, but if it’s a thing you’re going to be doing a lot, it feels a little bit late to be introducing that as a device, to me.
**Craig:** It depends. I think where the reader goes awry, as they so often do, is by trying to create a general rule out of an individual reaction. The general rule is a flashback needs to happen much sooner so the audience isn’t thrown off or confused. Half the time you’re writing flashbacks to throw the audience off or to confuse them, disorient them. Audiences enjoy some disorientation as long as it pays off. What may be is that whatever the flashback contained was information that felt out of place there. That doesn’t mean the flashback is the problem. That means the stuff inside the flashback is the problem, if you get my drift. The mechanism, they say this sort of device, the device of a flashback, can work anywhere if the stuff you’re flashing back to feels correct in that spot.
**John:** I think that the problem with flashbacks is that often you’re flashing to things that don’t feel correct or they don’t feel like they are necessary or you’re illustrating something that you don’t need to illustrate. Here’s an example of something that Megana found that we’ll link to. It reads, “Flashbacks interrupt the narrative flow. Consequently, they should be used only when it is not possible to tell the story chronologically. Don’t use the flashback to merely illustrate what a character is relating verbally. It is often more effective to remain focused on that character who’s recalling them to the event, so as to gauge what the memory means to them.”
Here what I think they’re saying is a bad use of flashbacks is I am telling you a story and then we’re going to flash back to the events that I’m telling you there. That’s probably not a great use. What tends to be a more effective use is if we’re on a character, and then we flash back to the experience was meaningful for them and come back to them at the present time. Just having it be an illustration to go along with a person’s narration, that doesn’t feel great.
**Craig:** As is so often the case with what we discuss, there are all of these potential rules and pitfalls and ways to do these things, but if you write something well, then the mechanism will be just fine. No one will complain about a… Just as no one will complain about a Stuart Special. What was the Megana one?
**John:** What did we call that, the Raoveal?
**Craig:** The Raoveal? No one will complain about a Raoveal. Everything will be fine because they enjoy it. If they don’t enjoy it, then so much of what… I wonder if so much of the Sturm und Drang of screenwriting orthodoxy comes down to the fact that a lot of people will blame a misuse of technical things to avoid saying to somebody, “Your writing is bad,” especially when their job is to evaluate the writing and give a critique, because that’s a useless critique, but oftentimes it’s the only true, essential critique, “Your writing is bad. Sorry.” They can’t do that, so they say, “Oh, this flashback shouldn’t be here.” If the writing were good, then yeah, I think there wouldn’t be a problem.
**John:** I think there are also cases where something is not working in the script, and it could be that they are getting lost or confused about what it is they’re supposed to be following. I think sometimes poorly done flashbacks or nonlinear storytelling can be a contributing factor here. I’ve lost the thread. I don’t understand what it is I’m supposed to be following. I’m getting confused in a bad way. I don’t feel confident that you are going to be able to lure me there. Yes, maybe it’s bad writing, but it’s also there’s a thing you’re doing on the page that is confusing to them, something that is not working great for them about how you’re choosing to convey this information or get it out there.
A thing I will also say is that sometimes we have… I’m just thinking back to the whiteboard scenarios of complicated shows with complicated structures. There’s a real question about how many different timelines an audience can be expected to maintain. If you are in a two-timeline story and then you have a flashback within one of those timelines, how much can the audience put up with there. I think that’s a thing you’re only going to discover on the page, but maybe in the editing room as well.
**Craig:** Things have become far more complicated. The audience has become far more sophisticated when it comes to these things. That doesn’t mean that your job is to provide a timeline Olympics for them. Sometimes the story just wants to be simple and clean, and you should respect that. When you’re talking about whether or not to use a flashback, ask yourself, am I doing this simply because I’m bored with the way things are going in the current timeline or the current structure or the current narrative unfolding, or am I doing it because it would make this all much, much better? It has to be the latter. It can’t be the former. Don’t do it just because it’s something to do.
To answer the specific question from Sky Jones about at what point in the writing process is it decided to use a flashback, for me it’s in the outline process. I don’t capriciously go, “Oh, I’m going to fling myself backwards in time here.” It is as structured in and outlined in and prepared for as any other scene. In terms of keeping track of the story, you should be able to keep track of the story. If you’re having trouble keeping track of your timelines, the audience will have no chance. If you feel like you need multiple color-coded tabs to control multiple timelines, either you’re writing Inception and you’re aware that you’re basically creating a puzzle box for everybody or you’re getting too complicated.
**John:** I think it has to come from an overall Inception point of view. Am I writing the kind of movie or kind of show that will have flashbacks? If you are, great, but you’re going to be planning for those. If you’re not that kind of show, then how are you going to deliver the information you need to deliver to the audience about things that happened before. I don’t know if they explicitly said it, but it feels like the Game of Thrones guys said, “We are going to have no flashbacks on our show at all.” When they did need to go back in time to show a crucial point of family history, they had to do some Wargy time travel stuff to go back there, to make an excuse for why we were showing the audience this thing, because the show has no flashbacks otherwise.
**Craig:** That’s not quite true. For instance, they showed how the Night King was created.
**John:** That’s true.
**Craig:** This is a personal opinion of mine. For episodic television, getting in and out of flashbacks is easier than for movies because every time you start an episode, you have an opportunity to start in one timeline and then go ahead. I do that all the time. It helps to ground people, essentially. You could have a series where every single cold open is something that takes place in an earlier timeline to create an ironic context, hopefully, for what you’re about to see.
**John:** Absolutely true. Megana, you have a question.
**Megana:** Yeah, I have a question or maybe a theory. I think for newer writers, maybe what doesn’t work about flashbacks is the impulse to deliver exposition through flashbacks. I think what you guys are saying is that if you use a flashback to emotionally inform the story or complicate things, then it works, but if you are using it as a shortcut to explain something, there could be a better, more effective way of doing that.
**Craig:** Exposition, we’ve talked about quite a few times, is either a burden or an opportunity. We’ve talked about interesting ways to deliver exposition, for instance through a relationship or personal drama, or if there’s a flashback and there is exposition, but it is presented in that flashback in the context of something that is interesting or moving or startling, then I think it’s fine. It keeps coming back to a very simple thing. Do you do it well or not? This is why for all the episodes that we’ve done, we could probably just do one mega, meta Scriptnotes episode, and it is be a good writer. It really does solve just about everything.
**John:** I do wonder if there’s a certain kind of… We could give somebody the outline and say, okay, here’s all the things that need to happen. You go to seven different writers. If there are seven different really good writers, they could make something that seems impossible on the page actually work, because they know the tricks and know how to get through it and know how to arrange the stuff, whereas opposed to a new writer would really struggle to get that stuff to work, just because they don’t have the tools in their toolbox to make it possible.
**Craig:** That’s right. We can certainly say things like, hey, avoid doing this. Whatever it is that they move toward, if they’re not good at that, it doesn’t really matter that they avoided this. Similarly, there are times where it may be better for them to just follow their instincts. If there’s one takeaway, at least for me, it’s that you just make sure that the flashback is earned and is not simply something you’re doing as a trick. It’s got to be something you are compelled to do, because it’s going to make things richer.
**John:** Let’s get on to some other listener questions. Megana, start us off.
**Megana:** Great. To Ampersand or Not To Ampersand asks, “How should I tell my writing partner I want to write my own scripts? That’s a lie. How do I tell my writing partner I’ve secretly written multiple drafts of an original-”
**Craig:** Oh, damn.
**Megana:** “… feature behind their back and am about to start a new one? Neither of us are working writers yet, but we have written two decent, at least we think so, pilots together. We’re great friends outside of writing, but for the future I see myself enjoying being a solo writer more. What’s the best way to break up with my writing partner? What on earth do I do on the off-chance one of our pilots actually sells?”
**John:** Craig, how do I break up with my girlfriend? Tell me how to break up with my girlfriend. That’s the same kinds of stuff. It’s like, “I really want to see other people. I really want to not be in this-”
**Craig:** “I have been seeing other people.”
**John:** Serial monogamist here. Listen, Ampersand.
**Craig:** Ampersand knows what we’re going to say, right?
**John:** You don’t want to be in this relationship, and therefore you need to have a grownup sit-down adult talk with this person who’s also a friend and say, “Listen, I’ve enjoyed working on these things together, but I really want to write some stuff on my own. I’m sorry this may hurt. You may want to write stuff on your own too. I really think this is going to be what’s best for me. Let’s have a chat.”
**Craig:** Without question, that’s what has to happen. It doesn’t have to be tragic. The way I would put it… I had this conversation many years ago with a writing partner, who’s a wonderful guy. I told him the truth. The truth was, “I think I’m supposed to be writing on my own.” It had nothing to do with our writing process or whatever was going on with our career, because we were getting movies made. It was just, “I think I’m supposed to be writing on my own, and so I should probably be writing on my own. I think we’ll all be happier.” He is more of a writer partner guy. He has a new writing partner. They’ve been working together for many years. It’s fine.
That’s really what it comes down to is some of us are solo writers and some of us aren’t. We don’t know when we start out. I think it’s perfectly fair to sit your partner down and say, “Okay, you know what? This is how it is.” As far as the shared custody of the pilots, just say, “Look, if somebody is into those pilots, let’s cross that bridge when we get there. We’ll figure it out.”
**John:** I have friends who wrote stuff together. They were married, wrote stuff together, got divorced. Now some of the stuff’s getting produced, and they’re figuring it out. They have joint custody of stuff, and it’s fine. The other piece of advice I would give to Ampersand is I don’t think this first conversation is the time to say, “Oh, and I also already wrote this other script.” That’s irrelevant to hear. Basically, going forward, you want to work by yourself.
**Craig:** The whole “I’ve secretly written multiple drafts of an original feature behind their back,” was there some sort of arrangement or agreement or understanding that you could not write things on your own? Unless there was. Either way, I think that just doesn’t need to be an issue. I just think you can simply say, “Here’s the way it is,” and that’s it. Don’t get too caught up in how they’re going to feel. They will feel their feelings, and they will process it, and then they will move on as well.
**John:** Also, I’ll say if this person is a friend, you want to maintain them as a friend, make sure you make some plans in the upcoming couple of weeks to do things that are fun together, because you don’t want this person to just disappear out of your life.
**Craig:** Yeah, like writing a script.
**John:** Go see a movie together. Just do some stuff so you don’t lose this person.
**Craig:** I’m so glad Megana’s here, because usually I’ll say something like that and then there’s just silence and then John moves on.
**John:** [inaudible 00:31:41] silence.
**Craig:** Thank you, Megana. God.
**Megana:** Are you guys ready for a manager question?
**Craig:** So ready for a… I woke up this morning ready for a manager question.
**John:** Let’s do it.
**Megana:** Tim from DC asks, “I think my manager is pretty ineffectual, and I need to leave them.”
**Craig:** Yes.
**Megana:** “I’m questioning the time of when to leave.”
**Craig:** Right now.
**Megana:** “I’m working on two projects to which my rep already has a claim, one that my rep says they’re going to take out as soon as I send them the next draft, for which they’ve already set up several generals and supposedly have dozens of people waiting for, and another project that I’ve been working on for months that may soon be sent out to the town. I guess I’m wondering, since my current rep is going to get 10% regardless, if I solicit a new rep with other projects already in progress, will a new rep want to fight as hard for me, given the fact that my two most active projects are both tied to my old rep? Might my new rep resent having to push ahead with my current projects without being entitled to that 10%? How does one handle this kind of situation?”
**Craig:** Aha, Tim.
**John:** Aha.
**Craig:** These are good questions.
**John:** These are good questions. I think Tim may also be making some mis-assumptions about what that manager owns or controls.
**Craig:** Unquestionably, there is a premise issue here. Managers are not agents. Agents represent clients and procure employment for them, and in doing say, they are essentially attached to the deal and make 10%. Managers do not do that. They are not allowed to do it by law. They break the law all the time, but they’re not allowed to. Managers are service providers. They make 10% as long as they’re providing a service to you. If you fire them, they don’t get 10%. There is a concept called on the wheel, off the wheel. They are off the wheel when you fire them. The new manager can work it out with the old manager. That’s their problem. You let them figure that out. I assume you have an attorney. An attorney can also advise on this. You need to leave them? Leave them. You’re questioning the timing of when to leave? There’s no time like the present.
When you say, “I’m working on two projects to which my rep already has a claim,” this is where my hair goes on fire. These people have claims to nothing. Nothing. They convince you they do, but they do not. Considering that your manager is pretty ineffectual, I wouldn’t be worried about repercussions, since obviously they’re not good at stuff, including, I would imagine, repercussions.
**Megana:** What if the manager has been sending them notes and giving them creative feedback?
**Craig:** Great. Thanks. Look, here’s the thing. They paid them. Let’s say I write something, and my manager represents me, and then it gets sold somewhere, and my manager gets 10%. That 10% is the service fee that they have to continue to service me. It doesn’t matter if they give me notes or not. Everybody can give me notes. Why do we think that we owe these people anything for the notes that they give us, when we can get notes from friends or we can pay $100 for notes? Notes are nothing. Most manager notes are terrible. If the manager’s notes were great, this person wouldn’t be considering leaving. Tim would be thrilled, because the manager would be making the scripts better. That’s my point. Good managers who actually are able to give good comments and help connect you in rooms of good people and be effective, they don’t have this issue because their clients don’t leave.
**John:** I agree with most of what Craig has said here. I think that realistically, that first project which they are aware of, which they have been exposed to, which they have given notes on, they’re going to try to hold that over you like they control it or that you owe them something for the work they’ve done on it and they’ve meaningfully set up for it. I agree with Craig, it’s not your problem. It’s your new manager’s problem. That’ll be taken up by them. This thing that you’re writing right now that they don’t seem to be aware of, don’t worry about that. That doesn’t matter. Use that new thing to get you your next rep, because they would love to see something new and show what it is you’re working on right now. You do need to leave. This is a great time to leave. It’s a great time to be looking for a different manager, a better manager, one who gets it and gets what you want to do.
**Craig:** Tim, to specifically answer this question about how will the new rep feel… I’m guessing that you’re early on in your career. It sounds like it, at least. I don’t think a manager is concerned too much with the 10% right now. They’re playing a longer game where hopefully they forge a great relationship with you, your career advances, you start to become a big shot, and then that 10% means a lot. Right now I don’t think their motivation is going to be particularly tied to any single instance of a commission of what you’re going.
**John:** Agreed. Megana, another question we can answer?
**Megana:** Moe asks, “I’m a mid-level TV writer, and I’m curious about the WGA stance on remote writers’ rooms. The union and many studios/production companies have publicly stated a need for diversity and inclusion in writers’ rooms. I love the big speeches, but in regards to action, the best way to bring more diverse voices into a writers’ room is not to force them to move to one of the most economically inaccessible cities in the country. I’m a writer of color and do not live in Los Angeles for this reason. I know several others who are in the same boat. They either cannot afford to move to LA or are responsible for a larger, sometimes multi-generational family unit, not to mention people who are pregnant and parents with young kids benefit greatly from the flexibility of remote rooms. My personal experience has been that older writers higher up the food chain are now pushing to be in person. Almost all of the writers I know are very happy staying remote. We’re at a point in the pandemic where remote rooms have become incredibly normalized. The kinks have been worked out. If the WGA is truly interested in supporting its nonwhite, economically diverse writers, shouldn’t they push to standardize remote and hybrid writers’ rooms?”
**John:** Great. We can talk about whether this is a WGA issue or not. Let’s just talk about remote rooms and hybrid rooms versus the standard where everyone just is around one big table and there’s a lunch order every day. Over the past couple of months, I’ve had a bunch of showrunners on Scriptnotes, and we’ve talked about how they were working, how they’re working in person, how they’re working remotely, hybrid stuff. A lot of them do miss being in the rooms with their writers. They feel like there’s things that happen when people are together that just don’t happen in the Zoom rooms. That said, a lot of really good shows have been made with Zoom rooms over the course of the pandemic. It is possible.
I definitely hear what Moe is saying though about having to be there in person is really challenging for some people just because of the cost of Los Angeles, and being fully remote is a good choice for some writers. I think you’re going to see both of these things moving forward. I think you’re going to see fully remote rooms moving forward. I think you’re going to see more hybrid rooms. I think there will be some fully in-person rooms. I think they could be less and less common, just because it’s better for people’s quality of life to not always be trucking into the office. Craig, you’ve not worked in a writers’ room, but what’s your instinct and what are you hearing from other people?
**Craig:** I spent some time briefly in the Mythic Quest room.
**John:** Oh, that’s right.
**Craig:** I don’t use a writers’ room myself. Personally, I am okay with certain kinds of remote collaboration. As Moe says, some of the older people, that would be me, “Some of the older writers higher up on the food chain are now pushing to be in person.” There’s a reason for that, Moe. It’s not capricious. It’s not because they can’t work the newfangled Zoom. Of course they can. There is a kind of magic that happens when people are together. It’s different. The question of how to balance that against access is a good one.
As far as the Writers Guild is concerned, the thing that the Writers Guild can do to help this is to get writers paid more, so that they can afford to live in Los Angeles. The Writers Guild is almost certainly not capable of dictating how writers’ rooms should be structured, be it in person or hybrid. It’s just not something that their own members would want. I don’t think their members would all agree with you. Sometimes when people write these things, I think they think that they are standing on firmer ground than they are. I get the premise of what you’re saying, Moe. I don’t disagree, but others will. Even if the Guild did agree, the studios would have zero interest in mandating that there could never be an in-person room. It’s just not something they would do. It is a weird limitation of our creative freedom to collaborate as we wish.
As far as I’m concerned, the answer here is get writers paid more, particularly writers on the lower end of the spectrum, the income spectrum, or as you put it, on the food chain, lower down on the food chain. Then they can afford to live somewhere in LA. By the way, it’s never easy. These are jobs that a lot of people want. Maybe you’ll have to drive in 30 or 40 minutes each day, which means that you live about a mile away from the office. In all seriousness, there will be some hardships and there will be some difficulties. The way we get around some of the structural inequities, I think, the fastest is through money.
**John:** I agree with you. I think the WGA was in a position to force remote writers’ rooms when it was an actual matter of safety. That made sense. There were a lot of studios that basically refused to allow any in-person writers’ rooms because of safety and because they didn’t want the liability of having a bunch of writers sitting around who didn’t absolutely have to be sitting around, but they could do their job remotely, made it possible.
It’s easy to think about writers together in a room, because we see it and they’re all ganged together and there’s a lunch order. We know what that is. There’s a lot of other jobs in the industry that have been remote, that are now going back to in-person, but it’s a real question job by job, person by person, how you’re going to do it. I think about editors. I think about color correction. I think about a lot of the other… Craig, you’re recording this right now at your post facility. During the pandemic, that post facility was not open. They were figuring out other ways to do it other places. I’m guessing now most of the post is happening kind of in person and kind of in a place. Is that true?
**Craig:** Certainly for us it is. We follow the ever-evolving rules that come down from the corporation. The rules from the corporation are rules that take into account the union rules. We are cross-sectioning with the Writers Guild, the Directors Guild, and IATSE. All of those unions have their own positions on what they mandate. Basically, we follow the most strict set of rules. Boy, am I tested a lot. Oh, am I tested.
**John:** It’s a thing I think people outside the industry don’t have a sense of just how often folks in the industry are tested, as opposed to any other industry, probably even more than professional sports. You’re just constantly tested here, because it’s worthwhile to keep sets healthy.
**Craig:** First of all, it’s a union mandate thing. You have to. A lot of it was driven primarily by the Screen Actors Guild or SAG-AFTRA because they had the only employees that could not wear masks all the time. Because actors must take their masks off, everybody around them then had to follow a bunch of procedures for SAG-AFTRA to essentially say, “Yes, our members can work for you.” We’ve been very careful about all that stuff. As far as writers’ rooms go, Moe, there’s no chance that the Writers Guild is going to be taking this up as a cri de couer. I think the best we can do is try and get people paid more so that they can afford to live in the city where these things happen.
**John:** Agreed. I think over the next several weeks, Craig and I will informally ask a bunch of our showrunner friends about what they’re doing on their shows and where things are headed and get a sense of what’s really happening out there.
**Craig:** Great.
**John:** I bet if we did survey all working members, the split would not be what you would think it would be. I think it’s going to be widely divergent about who wants to be in person and who wants to be fully remote.
**Craig:** Then the question is who are you asking, because ultimately the showrunners are the ones deciding. One of the weird things about our union is that it includes a lot of management in it, which I think we’ll maintain as massively problematic.
**John:** Let’s do our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing… Craig, click through that link. I think this is right up your alley. It’s a subreddit called cutaway porn. It’s all the images you remember from books growing up, but where you have an image and then it cuts away a piece of it, and so you can look inside.
**Craig:** This is David Macaulay stuff.
**John:** Yes. Let’s look inside a Bronze Age roundhouse. It cuts away the roof or shows how parts of a castle function and how things go together. I just found it delightful, nostalgic, really informative, just how stuff actually works. I don’t know who was the first person to… I guess da Vinci probably had cutaway stuff like this. It’s really showing the inner workings of buildings and systems and machines. I think it’s delightful.
**Craig:** There was a big book I had called Castle. I believe it was Castle.
**John:** Oh yeah, I remember Castle. Castle’s great.
**Craig:** It was just medieval castles, cutaways. Spectacular. Learned so much. Still think about those things occasionally from time to time as we’re playing D and D.
**John:** Love it.
**Craig:** That brings me to my one cool thing.
**John:** Segue man.
**Craig:** Segue man. This is fairly narrow, but if you are playing D and D or any role-playing game on Roll20 the way that we are… We had a nice in-person session.
**John:** We did. We did. Our first in-person session since the pandemic.
**Craig:** Lovely. You know what? I have to say, side note, a little worried that going from a bunch of guys sitting around a table with pen and paper and dice and maps and dry erase markers, it would just feel too clinical and sterile if we showed up with our laptops instead. Nope, it was great.
**John:** It was fine.
**Craig:** Perfectly fine. Turns out we are what we needed. We.
**John:** That’s what it is.
**Megana:** Aw.
**Craig:** I know, right? Every now and then, I will plug a plugin, which on Roll20 they’re called APIs. There’s one called SmartAoE that has been written by a fellow named David M. I don’t know his full name, because that’s how he goes on the forum. AoE stands for area of effect. Megana, why would you need an area of effect spell?
**Megana:** To affect a certain area?
**Craig:** Exactly.
**John:** Well discerned there.
**Craig:** In fantasy warfare, there are lots of things that target an individual person, and then there are spells and things that target an area, that could hit lots of people at once. It’s annoying figuring out like, okay, I cast fireball, and it’s going to cover this much space. Then you got to draw the shape out, drag it over, make it resized, move it around. SmartAoE makes it so much simpler to do. It’s more fun. I got to say, these people are brilliant. These men and women who write these things… Is it Java, I guess?
**John:** It’s good stuff. It’s all the stuff of geometry and math, but applied to… It’s trying to apply cones and circles to a grid. You can look [inaudible 00:47:39] supposed to do it, but it’s inevitably an argument between Craig and Kevin about who’s covered and who’s not covered. This just does it so much better.
**Craig:** It just does it better and saves me from arguing with Kevin, which is really why I install everything.
**John:** A very good plugin. Thank you for doing that. It was also really nice to see everyone in person again playing D and D. That was in person, and also I took a Peloton class that had other riders in the studio with the instructor for the first time. It felt like, oh, the pandemic’s over.
**Craig:** We’re back.
**John:** We’re back.
**Craig:** We’re back.
**John:** That is our show for this week.
**Craig:** Yay.
**John:** Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao. It’s edited by Matthew Chilelli. Our outro this week is by Sam Brady. 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’m @johnaugust. We have T-shirts and hoodies. 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’ll find transcripts and sign up for our weeklyish 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 adulting. Craig, Megana, thanks for a fun show.
**Craig:** Thank you, John.
**Megana:** Thank you.
[Bonus Segment]
**John:** Hey, Craig, when did you become an adult?
**Craig:** Oh, me, probably around seven.
**John:** Same with Mike. Mike became an adult very, very young. I did not become an adult very young. Megana, how about you? When did you become an adult?
**Megana:** Today.
**John:** Today. Now you’re an adult.
**Craig:** Today I learned I’m an adult.
**Megana:** I don’t think I’m an adult quite yet, because I’m bad at putting myself to sleep.
**Craig:** Who puts you to sleep?
**Megana:** Me, but I feel like to me, that is the definition of adulthood, being able to go to bed at a reasonable hour.
**Craig:** Then no, I’m not an adult either.
**John:** It’s not a matter of literally rocking yourself to sleep. It’s a matter of telling Megana, “Hey, Megana, go to bed.”
**Craig:** It’s not like somebody needs to read you a story.
**Megana:** No one’s patting my back as I go to bed.
**Craig:** Aw.
**John:** Aw.
**Craig:** Somebody should be.
**John:** Somebody should be.
**Craig:** We’ll get Bo over there.
**John:** Here’s what I’ll say. I think Megana’s bringing up a general case that’s a good marker for adulthood is recognition of consequences and avoiding consequences. If I don’t go to sleep at this time, I’m going to be a zombie tomorrow, or if I have an extra beer, I will suffer for it. That’s a thing which as you rise up through your teenagehood and into your 20s, eventually at some point you realize, okay, the consequence of this is not worth it for me, and therefore I will do a responsible, mature thing and not do that dumb thing.
**Craig:** I think a lot of maturity and adulting comes down to self-denial of basic pleasure, in part because you’ve enjoyed it before and you don’t need to feel it all the time, and also because you and your pleasure are not necessarily the most important thing. You may have a partner. You may a child. You may have employees. You may have work that you’re doing, your vocation, customers, clients. There are people for whom you are accountable. You begin to put other people ahead of your own base interests. That feels like a very adulty thing to me.
**John:** It’s accountability, but it’s also just responsibility. I remember when I first got my pug, Jake, I was responsible for it. This little being would not stay alive if I didn’t feed and care for him every day. That was a maturity thing. It was my mid-20s that I finally had my own dog. It was a form of growing up, because now this thing was fully my responsibility in a way that nothing else in my life had been. Paying rent is a responsibility. Just making sure the bills get paid every month was responsibility.
**Craig:** God, I remember paying off my student loans, getting a credit card, making those payments, making sure I made the payment every month, making sure I had enough money for rent, doing a budget, a lot of money stuff, simple, basic money stuff. I think also what helped me adult maybe faster than other people is that when I came to Los Angeles, I was 3,000 miles away from my parents. I had zero interest in relying on them for anything. When I say anything, I mean anything. No kind of support whatsoever, neither emotional nor financial. Nothing. There’s no net. There’s very real consequences for failure. That urgency definitely led to a fast adulting, because the alternative to fast adulting was a pretty dismal kind of failure.
**John:** The thing about moving out here without the safety net is it could lead to more ambitious choices, it could lead to many things, but it could also lead a person to be cautious and paralyzed. It wasn’t for you. You were always probably cautious, but you were still pursuing what you wanted to pursue. Recently, people were talking about how whenever they do a profile of 30 under 30, super successful people in their 30s, it should also show what do their parents do and what was their background that let them do those things. People who have these billion dollar valuations, there’s something about the history that got them there that’s probably a common thread behind them and what allowed them to take the chances that they took.
**Craig:** No, I think sometimes it’s just some people are like that, and some people aren’t.
**John:** Now Megana, are you an adult? Do you consider yourself fully adult or are you still a kid in many ways?
**Megana:** Aside from the sleep thing?
**John:** The sleep thing.
**Megana:** I think I’m an adult. I think another big part of being an adult is taking responsibility for yourself, being able to apologize and have self-awareness. I hope that I have those things. I think that qualifies me as an adult.
**John:** Apologizing, standing up on your principles, and not always doing what situationally is the easiest, recognizing the shades of gray and that things aren’t perfect. I remember my daughter and I have this argument about… She was saying there’s never been a truly communist system, but a truly communist system would be fantastic. I’m like, sigh. I fully get that that’s where she’s at in the understanding of it all, but also recognizing the world doesn’t match up to our utopian expectations and that you have to adapt with the world you actually have.
**Craig:** That’s a pretty adult thing to say.
**Megana:** I do think also, just to tie it back to side character energy, I think that not thinking of yourself as the main character to me feels like it signifies adulthood.
**Craig:** I agree.
**John:** I like that.
**Craig:** It’s a version I think of what I was saying earlier, which is you’re not the most important thing anymore. Other things are the most important thing. You becoming whatever it is that you’re aiming for… You have things or people or friends or stuff that you’re trying to get done, and it’s no longer about… Children are narcissistic, as well they should be. They’re trying to figure out who they are. At some point, you’re you, let’s get on with it.
**John:** Becoming an adult doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily old, that you’re suddenly giving up all your youth. One of the things I’ve done over the course of my career is always trying some new things, because I feel really young in those new things, because I’m inexperienced. I’m doing all the first-timer mistakes and figuring stuff out. Whether it’s doing the Broadway musical or doing the book series, there are chances to feel young again, even though I’m a full-grown adult. I’m young in doing those things. That is an opportunity not to feel put out to pasture, a sense that you are newly exploring some things with the same enthusiasm I did in my 20s for screenwriting.
**Craig:** I always say I really do feel like I’m just maybe 10 or 11 but in an older body. I mean that in that I’m still that person. Everything that I do that’s new is scary and exciting. All the fears that I had then, I probably still have quite a few of them now, despite all the therapy. I think I’m just better at managing it. Part of I guess being an adult is realizing you’re not really an adult. What you are is a child who is capable of doing more and who has different values I guess is what it comes down to.
**Megana:** I would say though that although the two of you are very much so adults, you’re both very curious, and you have a lot of optimism and excitement about new things.
**John:** I hope so. The other thing that I would say is a marker is that when people start coming to you for advice, that is some sign of being an adult. When people come to you as being the wise person who knows some things, it’s one marker. When hopefully, you’re still going out to get advice, but people come to you for advice, it’s the rest of the world recognizing, oh, you seem mature and like you know what you’re doing.
**Craig:** I feel that way. It’s not an age thing, because I meet people from time to time who are much older than I am, and they feel like the least wise people.
**John:** That’s a thing. I don’t think it’s necessarily a function of age, but it’s a function of adulting.
**Craig:** It’s weird. Then there are these people. Bella Ramsey is 18, and she has this weird, Yoda-like wisdom. I’ve never encountered it quite like the way it is in her. So wise, like when they say old soul. I don’t think old soul is the right term. It’s an adult soul. She has adult soul.
**John:** Megana, Craig, you’re some of my favorite adults.
**Craig:** Aw.
**Megana:** Aw.
**Craig:** Thank you, John.
**John:** Enjoy. Have a great week.
**Craig:** You too, guys.
**Megana:** Bye.
**Craig:** Bye.
**John:** Bye.
Links:
* [Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp43OdtAAkM) reaching [number one on the pop charts](https://www.billboard.com/music/chart-beat/kate-bush-reclaims-uk-chart-running-up-that-hill-1235104046/)
* Beyonce’s [Break My Soul](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjki-9Pthh0)
* [Side Character Summer](https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ce6zOHKqxgW/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) by Lolaokola on IG
* Jeremiah Lewis’s tweet @fringeblog [Ruin A Screenwriter’s Day in Three Words](https://twitter.com/fringeblog/status/1538582676076220419?s=21&t=sJtLfzZYwV9-3UIB4DF_IA)
* [Scriptnotes Ep. 10: Good Actors and Bad Writing Partners](https://johnaugust.com/2011/scriptnotes-ep-10-good-actors-and-bad-writing-partners-transcript)
* [Flashbacks and dreams](https://johnaugust.com/2003/flashbacks-and-dreams) on the blog
* [Reddit’s Cutaway Porn](https://www.reddit.com/r/Cutawayporn/)
* [Smart AoE](https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/10485883/script-smartaoe-graphical-interface-for-implementing-aoes-on-gridded-maps/?pagenum=1)
* [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/)
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Sam Brady ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by [Megana Rao](https://twitter.com/MeganaRao) and edited by [Matthew Chilelli](https://twitter.com/machelli).
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/557standard.mp3).