192 | Ten Common Traps That Will Kill Your Script (Pt. 1)

Whether you're a pro or a beginner, there are certain traps as screenwriters that will almost ALWAYS kill our writing. On today's show, we cover the first five...(stay tuned for the rest!)

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Meg: Hey everyone, welcome back to the show, I'm Meg LeFauve.

Lorien: I'm Lorien McKenna, and today we're going to be talking about common traps we fall into as writers. Or as we're putting it, “Ways to kill a great script”. On today's episode, we're focusing on the first five, and then we're going to do a second episode in the series where we talk about the next five.

Meg: But before we do that, we're going to talk about our weeks, or what we like to call “Adventures in Screenwriting”. Lorien, how was your week?

Lorien: My week was good. I am working on a couple of projects, all development for myself, some with a producer, some on spec, but one really cool thing that happened last week is I got to get together with some of the writers that I worked with at the Nostos screenwriting retreat in Italy.

Not all of us. One of the writers is, on set on her TV show in another country. But it was really nice to see them and just be reconnected to what that was like to have those three weeks, and it's always nice to get together with people that you really admire and respect.

And it was just really nice. And it reminded me how much I need people, right? The pandemic did this weird thing where I was like, “Did I turn into an introvert?” And absolutely not. The way for me to combat cynicism and all those yucky feelings I have is that I have to go be around people in order to feel hope.

I just can't sit alone in my house all the time, whether it's Zoom or in person, I just need to make a much more dedicated effort to get around people that I have fun with and feel good with. And I'm because otherwise I'm just going to turn into I don't know. Something not good. Something not me.

So it's, it was a good reminder. And all of us are doing varying degrees of success and not success and in the process. So it wasn't like, “wow, everyone's doing so great”. That's, what's giving me hope. It was more like, “we're all working” and I just, I'm an energy vampire. I just need other people's energy.

Jeff, how was your week?

Jeff: So I was in Barcelona last week, and I bring it up because I was lucky enough to see a lot of the work of this incredible Spanish architect named Antoni Gaudi. I have not, I've never been to Barcelona, I didn't know anything about Gaudi, but the reason I bring him up is because I was lucky enough to see two of his masterworks.

One of them was the Casa Mila and the other was the Sagrada Familia, which are like considered two of the most important pieces of Spanish architecture ever. But what I was so moved by was that all of Gaudi's aesthetic philosophy has a very specific intention and meaning behind it. So I've been seeing a lot of like European churches and basilicas and most of them just have these big, beautiful gold ornate mosaics because that was a way for the Catholic Church to assert power.

And instead, Anthony Gaudi, all of his work is motivated by the idea of nature And yeah. By these specific aesthetic choices. And so when he infuses that into his architecture, there's a reason he's tying these thematic ideas and this deep belief in his own work, that's very specific and it creates this beauty.

And so when we saw the Sagrada Familia, I was so moved by the fact that he's using these curved lines and asymmetry to reflect God in the way that nature does the same thing. The reason I bring all this up is because I think you two might be able to relate that as a writer, whenever I'm experiencing art that's not in my medium, I'm reminded and inspired about the things that should create good writing.

And to me, the like, thematically rich commitment to his own aesthetic to tell a story, I was like, “oh, that's what makes him such a unique artist and celebrated architect”, as he had these, he wasn't just doing things to make them beautiful. Of course he is, but there's this really specific reason that he's telling a story through the specific choices that he's making.

So I don't think I'm articulating this super well, but

Meg: I think you are.

Jeff: It was interesting and reminded me that it's specific choices and inspired choices that turn something from being just beautiful or interesting to great and moving and meaningful. So I'm on this big Gaudi kick right now. I'm reading all about his work and his ideas, and I've just been a nerd.

It's been really fun.

Lorien: Oh, it's so great. It's why I love Bernini and Degas and Renoir, because you can take even just the teeny piece of those works and it still tells a story. So there's a micro and a macro, depending on how close you are to the work, which is, I'm always looking for that. Okay, why is she leaning like that?

Why is the hand like that? So that's what I respond to mostly is like human story and things. So it sounds like the same thing.

Meg: Yeah. What's interesting and how that relates to feature film writing, and I'm not gonna say television 'cause in television, I think if you are the showrunner, you're the showrunner.

You might work through a director, i. e. the director works for you; I shouldn't say through the director, the TV directors wouldn't like that, but you're working with a TV director, I should say, to create that aesthetic that has been created first on the page, right? So you're in conversation, hopefully in a more equal way, with the director in television about the aesthetic you're trying to create with your show, and then they're helping find that and, take it even further creatively.

But as a feature writer, you have to do that on the page to serve the story, but ultimately it's not yours, and ultimately it's the director who's going to come in and create that specificity and aesthetic visually and with the actors. And I think there is a process of acceptance that has to happen for you as a writer when you hit a pro level of handing your script over.

Now that can happen very early, let's say even the producer stage, or the studio stage where they get the specific personal aesthetic, but it wasn't what they bought or were looking for or like they really wanted something maybe broader or, I've gotten the note: It's too subtle. It's too subtle.

That is my aesthetic. I love such subtlety and behavior and that the smallest action can create something so big, right? So that is a process that I think if you're going to write for features, that your job ultimately is to find the aesthetic and specificity of the director and get that, and they're working with you to get that into the pages in a very specific way in terms of what they need to shoot it.

That could be the structure of a scene, or eliminating a scene, or it could be bigger. It could be they really don't understand that subtle thing you were trying to do at all. And they want to do something to the right of that and that's now your job, and you don't, obviously don't have to keep doing it if you don't agree or want to, but that is part of the process.

Lorien: And I will say, I was just gonna say, in TV, the best case scenario is that as the showrunner, working with the director, it's the same relationship. That they come to you and say: “I don't understand this moment”, and you can articulate that or the supervising writer on set. That's why we have that role and why we fought so hard for that role during the strike so that it is all of the, it goes from the page into the screen.

It's the same relationship. Yeah, TV directors are amazing.

Jeff: I was going to ask Meg quickly, for our writers who are writing on spec, obviously once a director is brought in, it becomes the job to rework the material to fit the aesthetic of the director. But I remember like when we had Cole Haddon on, he was talking about how like knowing your genre and knowing how to use the page to communicate these ideas or, you would make specific choices if you're writing a horror movie versus writing a, flowery drama.

Meg: That's just, on some level, that's craft. Like you have to know the genre you're working in and how it lays out and the tropes and how not to trope. And we can talk about that in terms of our traps. But when you're talking about the aesthetic of an architect, who's using nature in a way that no one has before, because even in his time, he might've been going against the Catholic church at that point.

Who knows what political, and social things that he was still going to butt up against in order to get his vision of how to celebrate nature and God through nature. That is such a specific voice of artistry. And, just being a feature writer. You have to be an artist on the page.

You have to be specific and have your voice. But know that when the director comes on, who has been brought in and attracted by your voice, right? That is why they want to do it, probably. One of the reasons they want to do it. It now has to translate into their voice. I even know in working with film students that is a big bump for student writers, because they're writing something for directors at school, and they want it, they see it a certain way, their voice is a certain way, why aren't… but that's not their job and it's a really interesting part of the job, that you have to learn, is how to maintain specificity in voice, and emotional meaning and subtext, while still working for this director who has a very specific voice.

And ultimately, if they're a great director, they will lead you to do that naturally. Because they know how to talk to you, and they know what they want. They're very, they are very specific, right? It's not just “It's not funny, I don't like it”. What are you gonna do with that? As a writer, what do you do with that?

But they're really specific about what works for them and what doesn't, and what they're trying to do. So it's just an interesting, different thing that a lot of writers and features, especially younger ones, who are just going to work with a director, even on a little short for the first time, have to understand, and that's a process.

It's just a process.

Lorien: It's similar as a TV staff writer in a way, right? There are opportunities to bring a sparkle to it that's just yours, right? You're working with the showrunner, you're working with the room, you're like breaking the episodes and writing what's in the room.

But there is an opportunity.

To tell a joke or craft a moment in such a way that it is your vision and that the showrunner will be like, Yes, we agree on this. And then it gets translated through the director to the screen. So it's, there's a, might be a misconception with staff writers or working in a room where you're like only writing in the showrunner's voice.

And then it gets through all these iterations. But there is a way. You're bringing yourself to the room in a way so you are a part of the show, right? You are in it because these things get broken in the room, like sometimes they're even written in the room, like Final Draft is open and you're going line by line in the room, but that it's not dissimilar.

It's just different roles in different ways. So as a TV writer, you're in the room, you're bringing that to the shows in that way.

Meg: And that showrunner wants you to do that, and wants that. And I think a lot of feature directors get confused that they think you're there because it's great dialogue.

It's the snappy dialogue. And I'm like, yes, and The very fact that she's choosing this right here, while he's standing there, and her daughter's hiding under the bed, is also, the specificity of the voice and the art in storytelling, right? And I think people forget that sometimes, that they think, writers write great dialogue, you're a punch up artist, aren't you?

And you're like, “no, actually, we actually create dialogue. The story and how it lays out”, which is what we're going to talk about today.

I'll just say really quickly for my week, so we can get to how to lay out and how to write that great script. I, as I said, in our last episode, I've been loving writing, which is terrifying and my husband, who's my co-writer came out yesterday and he was reading the script.

We're getting ready to send it to our manager. And I'm a little worried about the last five pages. Worried is even too big of a word. I just have a gut instinct going off and I can't even put my finger on it, but something... I don't know if it's misaligned, or maybe sometimes when you work on something too long, you can't see the forest for the trees anymore.

So I was, he was reading through it and I was, and he doesn't see the problem with the last five pages. So we're just going to let it move forward and go to our manager and see who I know doesn't, is probably not listening to this show. So he can't, we aren't cheating by telling him that because we can't tell him that because he has to tell us if he sees it and we're going to give it to our friend Pat Verducci who we talk about sometimes on this show, who's a consultant, who is quite good in this genre, specifically, too. See if she, because I wonder if it's a genre thing that, that I'm not paying off the genre in a way. And I like that, of course, because I am a subtle subverter, but, am I doing… is it okay that it… you know what I'm saying I'm not quite sure if it will be completely satisfying if we're not paying off the genre the way you expect us to pay off the genre.

Lorien: It's so hard to do what you're doing, which is, there's something in my gut. But is it self-doubt? Is it my gut reaction to something else I wrote three months ago? Is it really in this moment?

Meg: Is it just how I saw it in my head versus how we're able to articulate it on the page? And when I thought about it or talked about it, it was a certain way, but now it's not quite the same.

And why is that? Or do I just not care about the character and the relationship enough? Have I got the wrong character? Is she not going far enough? Or I'm just literally tired because we've been writing this every day for freaking too many weeks, like even on the weekend, that I can't even see it anymore and my… that's my husband's point of view my co-writer like it's: “just no, you can't see it. I just read it. I was fresh. I haven't seen it in a week. it's good”, and then you know he also said which I agree with, sometimes you do need to start bringing your producer in so that they can... you go ahead and say “I'm okay, let's just get that note” like, because they're the experts, right?

They're the experts of this genre, and let's just let them, if they say it. But, it's going back to that worry about being perfect. I want to hand the script in, and it's just perfect, and every, there are no notes, and everything's great.

Lorien: But this is how you kill a great script, is that you don't allow anyone else to look at it. 

Meg: And then it's not even just craft wise. You kill it politically because as we know from working together, Lorien. If you build the Lego palace completely, the people you're working with are like, “oh I'm just gonna take off this whole house aside because I'm gonna, I'm gonna help build the Lego palace”. 

I want to be a builder of the palace. And then you're like, all right, we've seen that happen, right? Where you're like.. oh, my God, what you just have to like…  no, there are certain…  if we have this issue, then we're just gonna have to get that note, let them participate in where…  is it out of alignment? Or what is actually happening?

So that, and yeah, so of course this morning my husband comes out and he's been reading it, or this was yesterday, I can't remember, I'm in a time warp from working on it too much, and he just wasn't saying anything and he was walking around the kitchen and I was like, “okay what”, and he's. “I just, I gotta tell you something, it's just not feeling good”. 

And I was like: “The whole script?” and he was like: “yeah”, and you literally, your heart just goes.

Lorien: Yeah.

Meg: It's first of all, we don't have time for it not to feel good. And he goes: “It feels great!”

Lorien: Oh no. He did the reality TV show thing. Oh no. I'm sorry… “You guys are going to the next round!”

Meg: Exactly. That is exactly what he did. He was so delighted. I can't say how relieved I was. I was so relieved.

Lorien: Oh, God.

Meg: Alright. Topic. Script killers. The things that we're doing as writers. And we could say emerging writers do this, but I think we all do it, depends on the draft you're in. Pro writers do this on their early drafts, I promise you. Okay what kills a good script? What prevents it from being a script people want to read and get excited about?

Lorien: Let's talk about exposition. Let's talk about exposition.

Meg: Alright, let's talk about exposition.

Lorien: Because Let's define exposition, right? Cause I think that too much exposition might be a note you get, but what does that actually mean? I always used to think that was dialogue where you'd be like, “the last time I saw you was when we were at our fifth college reunion”, like that kind of clunky stuff that you're trying to establish a past relationship, but it can be so many things, right?

Like one of my things is don't show traveling scenes. Character takes a shower, they have wet hair, they go down the stairs, they go to the sidewalk, they get their keys, they get in the car, they go to the office. No. Show them getting into the shower and then showing up to the office with wet hair.

Let's see that… cause that's character, right? They didn't dry their hair, they're late, they're in a rush. What do they value? So that's one of my things when I'm reading a script and what I'm… But I will say, I write that stuff out when I'm writing my script, right? I'll be like, “here's where they go and here's how they get there”.

And then sometimes I just go in there and just cut those pages.

Meg: No, I love jumping that right away.

Lorien: Do you?

Meg: I guess because I work for, I worked as a producer and you're… and I can't even tell you how many times people were like, shoe leather, we're never shooting this. You got to think about it.

Are you going to get an entire crew out and hook up a rig on a car? To have a shot, a traveling shot with policemen on the road. So you can show her driving to her work,

Lorien: Right

Meg: Only if something really important is going to happen. And you got to spend all that money. Sometimes you can just think about it that way.

Are we going to shoot this? They're not going to shoot it. And I also love storytelling that jumps.

Lorien: I like writing them because something might happen. As an exploratory in a very early draft, the thing that I'm looking for might actually be happening on the sidewalk, right? So then I, but then when I get her to where she needs to go, or she takes me where she needs to go, then I'm like, “oh, I don't need any of that”. 

Cause I'm in that early barf draft, I'm still like, “okay, where can I go here, right?” And then I like to go in and just, half the shit out of it, right? There's nothing more satisfying for me than cutting off the first third of a scene and the last third of a scene and like a whole scene because it is just like tracking where it goes.

That's why I write them. I would like to be in a place where I like, I guess that's where outlining comes in, which is something new. I'm working with where you just know here,here, here.

Meg: And I get there, everybody in. Sometimes if those bar shafts, you're going to write tons of scenes that you're going to cut later.

The more traditional version of exposition that people think of, I think is all the backstory that you need, or it's relating to the plot and the, and the audience needs to know about how time travel works and the rules of the world, the rules of that you're setting up for your genre.

For your entity, for your whatever. There's millions of, what is the arc, all that stuff in the Indiana Jones, all that has to be set up somehow. And I think that, first you have to, and you can do this in multiple drafts. I don't think you're doing this in early drafts, by the way.

Just write expositionally in your first draft, just get it out. Don't let it slow you down. But eventually you're going to have to go back and be like, okay this is really expositional. My first thought is, do you need all of it right there? Do you need all of that? Because sometimes you don't need all of that.

You think you do, but you actually don't need all of that. I don't know if you remember, Lorien, that Andrew Stanton always says, “put it into action”. So he always jokes that finding out the exposition while you're being chased by sharks it's fun, right? It's fun that somebody's trying to get out the important information you have to know, but you're being chased by sharks.

And that's just a fun exercise, even if it doesn't work in your script, just do it for fun, I think. I do think what he's also saying there is to make it visual. Now, it's to the medium, but also is there a way that you don't, they don't have to say it, they can show it. There's a visual way to understand this.

They're demonstrating it or something happens that we understand, oh my God, that's a rule or oh my God, that's her backstory because something actually happened to help us understand that. That I think is some of the best ways because that is what storytelling does so well is putting it into action and behavior that we experience it with the main character.

And then, there's stakes, if you put stakes around it. If you don't get this out in time, the world ends in ten minutes. Or, like, how can you put some energy into that scene? Sometimes it's just the character is so fun, the way they say it, that it doesn't even feel like exposition.

Because the clock is ticking and they are getting distracted and you're like, don't get distracted, please. You've got to tell me like, and, but there, so that kind of can be a fun thing to do. You can gradually lay it out. Do you, like that kind of goes back to, do you need it all right where it is?

Is it something that the main character is learning along the way and it's Part of the uncovering of the mystery, because I do that a lot in my early drafts. I front load everything. And then I'm like, wait a minute, whether it's a pilot. And I'm like, wait a minute, this is like 10 episodes in this pilot, or it's a feature and everything's shoved in the first act.

And you're like, I got nowhere to go now. So sometimes you're actually front loading too much. And it needs to be something they uncover. If the character gets that exposition, and we felt like they earned it wow, only this character, because of their, who they are, and their skill, figured it out.

They figured it out. Then the exposition becomes the prize. Versus, we have to stop the movie and explain it. It's, they had to go through all of this hard stuff, plot stuff, to even know that. Then it won't feel like exposition so much, I don't think.

Jeff: Is that kind of the “Chosen One” idea?

You've been, you're special, you've been chosen, now you get this information. That's a really interesting point, Meg.

Meg: That's true, but being chosen, again, they're not doing anything, they're just existing. But so let's say…

Lorien: Joy, in Inside Out, right? The prize is figuring out the information.

Meg: Inside Out, we had such a hard time with this question that eventually I was like, you know what, because we did many versions where we didn't just lay it out. And eventually I literally said to Pete, it's Amy Poehler. If we do it in a fun way, no, it'll be just, we just have to lay it out right in the beginning.

So we did the version of such a fun person's taking you through it. That it's fun and a discovery with her of how, let me tell you how my world works. I'm talking more about you had to break into the bank and get in the vault and get into the one drawer and then decode the thing to find out it's every ten years.

And, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The character has to actually do something, and it tells us who they are. The skills they have, their tenacity, they see things that other people don't see, right? They, because of who they are, ten people have walked by this, and they're the ones. They're the ones, of all these, everybody's walked by, that sees it in a different way.

Because they will ask you, why, if you have a puzzle in your movie, they will say, why is your character the one who figured it out? And it can't be because their grandfather gave them the special… that's not them then. It can be that, but it still has to have some character specificity in terms of why this person is the one who figured out the exposition.

And it can just be, you can give it specific context, like a teacher giving a lecture or, That'll work, again, if the, if you really feel the plot is turning right now, right? The fact that he was here, at this moment, to hear that information, A, that he got there as a character, made that choices and made choices to get his butt there, but the very fact that there, that, and then something's probably relation, you hope that something in the relationship is shifting too, the teacher doesn't know they're there, or the teacher realizes they're there right in the middle, and now you're like, can you trust the rest of the exposition, or, so there still has to be some narrative dynamic going on, hopefully, in relationship, have to, doesn't have to, just as an example, so you can give it a context that let the audience know, okay, we're just going to get some exposition out of the way now with a teacher or a philosopher, but the more character and how they deliver it, the better, right?

So everything that I'm talking about right now comes down to, you make it part of the narrative drive, right? It's not gonna stop the movie. It's gonna keep the movie moving forward. It's going to rev up the movie. It's going to intensify the stakes. It's going to shift the plot in a different direction.

Everything we're talking about is about the character and that unfolding plot and relationship. So think about your exposition in terms of the characters, either giving it or getting it, the relationships that are going on, and what's the unfold unfolding plot. That's, how are you keeping some sort of tension in it right there.

Lorien: Ratatouille does a really great job at the beginning, right? It's so visual. And then he gets that information through that TV show that the woman is watching, but everything he's doing in all of act one is about his passion. And we find out what he finds important and what risks he's willing to take.

And and then he finds out this vital piece of information and it changes the plot.

Meg: But it's so great that they started with him coming through the window, right? If you just started with a little mouse and let me tell you a story, you'd be like snooze, but you start with. There's a narrative question embedded in the opening image, which is how, what is happening?

Why is this little mouse jumping out a window with a book? And right? And then you go back, and he's… Okay, let me tell you about what, this is crazy, what happened, right?

Lorien: And these are tropes, right? Voiceover TV show, like this is an elegant way to use those things that, flashback that we're told use these sparingly, use these carefully, which is true, but Brad Bird really employed these in a great narrative driveway, like you're talking about.

Meg: And he didn't just employ them and leave them like the TV show is a very important part of the whole movie because that the ghost of that little chef. He's talking to the rat. He's going to be talking to the rat for the rest of the time, right? So he's not cheating by hey, let's just put a TV show in there.

It's there's such a wonderful understanding of narrative and character and relationship all woven into those beginnings. And you guys, the other thing to remember is sometimes this is the last stuff you figure out, right? Because, it is some of the hardest stuff to figure out.

Jeff: One more great example.

I don't know if y'all watch The Flight Attendant, but you find this out very quickly. The very first scene she kills someone and then he becomes her mentor. Like he appears in this mind palace. So like you're saying Meg, every time he shows up, you're like thrilled. He's about to just dump all this story and information, but it's wrapped up in this murder.

So there's just something inherently devious and mischievous and sexy about it and the fact that you're excited for Exposition Dumps in that show shows what an achievement.

Meg: It's true.

Jeff: Yeah.

Meg: Because it's plot because she killed him and it's relationship because she killed him.

And it is sexy and weird because she killed him in bed when she was naked. And she doesn't know what's going on. And he, those are also like parts of them talking to them, right? Yes. The chef and him they're parts of them talking to them, back to them. So that's the other thing I find so, you gotta find somebody for people to talk to.

Because we don't know what your character's thinking. If they're just alone walking around, right? That could be a great challenge as a writer to figure that out. How are you going to tell me what they're thinking, but sometimes there's nothing more annoying in a show or a movie where the character just stops and peers and clearly makes a very important decision.

You're like, I have no idea what's going on right now. Am I supposed to know what that is? And you're really depending on your actors there to communicate a lot. But all right, so let's go on to number two. Yes. Okay. Lack of conflict or stakes. Lack of conflict or stakes. Of course, this could be. In the whole dang script, or it could be in a scene, right?

It's, it works both ways. Ultimately to me, it means you're not earning things. You're just laying them out.

Lorien: You'll hear the note in a TV show pilot. What's the engine? When you don't have a clear narrative want, your character doesn't want something, and there's nothing in their way, that you're just showing scenes of them living in their life.

Here's a scene, here's a scene, here's a scene, which is great, fun, character wise, and maybe you're an amazing writer and it's fun dialogue, but unless there's clear I want this thing in this scene, but in the whole, but in the bigger arc, you'll hear it.

Meg: Yeah, and sometimes I think about it what's the game?

Like in a game you have competitors and you have competition or conflict in a game and you also have stakes to the game. What is the losing look like? And how is that being set up pretty quickly in act one of what this is the game that's going to be played. And you're right, Lorien, conflict and stakes all go back to want because if you don't have a clear plot want we have to keep, we have to keep saying this over and over.

We are not right now talking about interior want need emotionality. We're talking about Plot, want, the plot want, why they can't have it, and what are the stakes if they don't get it, is the entire ballgame. It's the entire ballgame. And it's so funny how we can say this a million times and people still don't do it.

And I don't do it. Like it's weird. It's just part of your self defense.

Lorien: I have another pet peeve. Like when I was studying writing, it was all about plot want versus need. And this idea that you had to balance them. I have stopped using need. Because I think it's too confusing because a lot of writers will be like, but I need to get the need in there.

I need, we need to see what she needs so that when we get to the end and she gets what she needs instead of she wants. And it's no, that's a distraction, right? You got, cause then I have too much exposition. I already know what the movie, how the movie is going to end. So I don't use need, right?

It's what does she learn? What's the arc, and then what is the plot want? But that's how I was brought up as a playwright. Want versus need. And it's and then everything is just emotional need. And there's no narrative drive, and there's no plot, and that was a big stumbling block for me because I got very distracted by, quote, need.

So I don't talk about that. And I think that's a little bit of what you're talking about, right? Because you want them to figure out what they need. Through this arc of the plot.

Meg: Through Act 2. Yes. Through Act 2. They knew what they needed in Act 1. The movie's over, right? Yes. Sometimes not. Sometimes they can need this and that's what they get at the end.

But how they got it is actually what it is. But yes, I agree. And, our, the friend of the show, Sheila Hanahan Taylor, likes to say, little stakes, little movie. I don't think that's always true, but as a general rule, if the stakes are you are not going to be nominated for class president, that's probably a little indie film. Unless somebody's going to kill you and your entire family if you're not nominated for class president, right? Like where's the life and death stakes? And if you don't have life and death stakes and you're doing a small movie, then those emotional stakes that you have to make clear in act one have to be super clear.

And I feel them. I feel that. And this is really hard, right? Because, you'll say, talking about need, like a lot of women writers will say to me she needs to be seen. And I'm like that's not in her power.

Lorien: And how is that a plot?

Meg: And it's not a plot.

Lorien: How do you set a plan in place to be seen?

Meg: And I think that, this is a diversion, but it isn't. In a way our emotional needs, right? Some, I would suggest, go ahead and have fun and think of a character as a writing exercise who's the opposite. Who does not give a shit if you see her or not. Who's literally just going to go for it.

I'm listening to Barbra Streisand's book, Autobiography, and she's talking. I like it because she's talking. And boy, she was a spitfire of a kid. And she's very I'm sure was totally annoying. Because she would ask questions constantly. Just constantly. And drive everybody bonkers. But I love her as a character.

I just love her. Because she's just right flat out there. And she's the opposite of me as a kid. I would have never asked a question. Because to me, there were stakes and conflict in being annoying or asking questions. Or thinking too much of myself. And she just didn't have that. So for me, I've spent many years writing the character who's quiet and shy and, doesn't have that power and doesn't have that want, won't go into conflict.

But you know what? It's a lot more fun to write the character who's conflict be damned! I want it. I, these people are dopes. I'm, I know what I'm talking about. Just give me the information so I can go get it. You, there's something that we love about that stance. It's leaning, it, you have to give them conflict to create the story, and the stakes create that ticking clock or they create the, we're holding our breath because if she doesn't get it, then what does that mean?

You're gonna make it The trap that you're falling into if you're not doing conflict and stakes is because you don't like conflict and you don't want to think about the stakes if you don't get what you want, right? So just find a character that you can step to the side and have fun with and don't, they have to earn things, that you have to put them into conflict to earn things.

I, I say this in my seminar think, who creates the conflict? The antagonist, right? Jodi used to say, why this antagonist for my protagonist? If I'm going to be the lead of this movie, why is this the person I was going to meet? And that was going to put me into such a conflict and really test me that this is the only person that could have tested me that way.

And the other thing in terms of conflict, in terms of the antagonist is somebody told me once that in the ancient Aramaic, which I don't, I don't know if this is true. You can send us letters, but I like it. So I'm going to still say it's true. In the ancient Aramaic the word for devil translated is bringer of light.

Conflict illuminates. Conflict shows your character and your audience who they are. So that they have to reach deep into themselves and do things they would have never imagined in Act 1. They could have ever done. In a million years, if you would ask them in Act 1. But because of the stakes and what's at stake, because of what's at stake, they will.

They will. And they'll find out who they are and how far they can go, and they'll make really dumb mistakes, and they'll fall down, and then they'll go forward again. Somebody just told me today, there's an ancient saying, which is, Ten, a hundred steps back is the same as a thousand steps forward, which you should all think about for our writing too.

You're gonna go back to go forward. Conflict is gonna push them back so they can move forward. So really just try to amp up your conflict and stakes as much as you can, as much as you can. Push it as hard as you can.

Lorien: And how these two things will disrupt a great script is if it's front loaded with exposition, then I'm immediately pulled out of the character and processing information in an intellectual way.

I'm like tracking rules or past relationships and I get distracted in a way that like I'm pulled out into a different story. I'm like, Oh I wonder what happened back then. Or, Oh, the rules of the world are interesting. What are the mechanics of it instead of staying with the character and how lack of conflict is.

I'm not gonna turn the page. I don't care. At a certain point you get fatigued. Oh, okay, it's another scene.

Meg: Because you're not setting up what happens next. You're not setting up tight narrative, oh my gosh, what happens next. And I promise you, when they go to shoot your movie, if you can't, say, get into that tight narrative thing, they're just gonna cut it out.

Because why would they spend all that money on it? They are not going to spend money on just establishing a character point. They're not. You have to find a way to establish the character point, establish the relationship, and move the plot narratively, that those stakes and those conflict, that is, it's just going to get cut.

And the other thing to remember about what both things we're talking about is, conflict and stakes also, how, think about it, how it's, how it is involved in the relationships. Remember, we go to the movies to watch relationships, right? And yes, if it's a person alone on an island, it's a relationship with a volleyball, which is themselves.

But, we all love that volleyball as it floated away into the sea with Tom Hanks, right? What are the stakes to the relationship? What are, what is in conflict in relationship? That is also going to give you a lot more juice and a lot more emotional juice. Which means I have to love the relationship.

Which is a whole other point.

Lorien: And I wanted to say, Meg, you were saying as an exercise, write a character who like just goes for it. So I write characters that just go for it. They're big and loud and they take big risks. The struggle then is how to sink them back into what they really need to do, which is to be vulnerable in order to ask for what they need, right?

Because of how I grew up, right? So I'm having to balance being an ass kicking warrior into Oh wait, I do have to sink in so that my audience can actually feel along with her. Because it's exciting at first Oh, she set a fire! She stabbed somebody! She told that person off! But then you do get fatigued with that after a while.

In the same way that like, Why is this character so passive? This character is active, but it's not going anywhere.

Meg: What's interesting about that character is the biggest stakes might be being vulnerable.

Lorien: It's personal, right? It's allowing yourself to be vulnerable. Cause if you're a warrior, you got all the armor, right?

So it just, there's both sides and it, that's the fun. So if you're always writing a character, who's like me, like setting shit on fire, then get into the why and how is that a protective. thing and what is she protecting herself from and being able then to those stakes in every scene.

There's a little wobble, right? Oh, this is the moment. Am I, of course, you're running.

Meg: Absolutely. Absolutely. And then number three kind of goes. Dovetails into this.. So the number three way you can really kill your script is a reactive main character. So that's a person who's watching the, what everybody else is doing.

They're witnessing, here's the thing, people, witnessing doesn't transform your brain as like the way action and behavior does. And I think we all know that intuitively in our story hearts, right? What is your character doing in every scene that's making the story change? Period end of story.

Lorien: You cannot wait until the middle of the second act to have that.

Meg: No!

Lorien: You cannot have them witness something for 50 pages and then be like, okay, this is my moment They have to be doing those things along the way so that when you get to that midpoint, it's inevitable That they are forced, then, to make the bigger stake, to even ratchet the stakes up higher.

Meg: Listen, they can make a choice trying to avoid the plot, and by making that choice, they run face first into the plot. Choice is choice, whether away or towards, but they, the fact that they, Don't go into the store and instead they get on their bike and go home is changing the plot because if they would have gone into the store the movie would have been over, but they didn't.

They tried to run away and the fact that they tried to run away meant they met the alien, holy shit, now, and suddenly it just starts moving, right? Literally, actors will want to know this, because they understand narrative drive, and they understand creating plot, and they want, as their, they want their part to create the plot.

I'm the lead of the movie. Why is he getting all the good scenes? Because those are the good scenes. First of all, it's really hard to act and witness constantly. Like how much act, that's hard. And, that's not fun. That's not fun for the actor to do.

Lorien: I want to have this journey with them. What if I want to imagine, like in my regular life, in our regular lives, Not much happens sometimes around choices we make, right?

I'm gonna go to the store, or I'm gonna go home. Okay? Not much what's gonna happen at the store, and not much happens at home in real life. But but what if my life was that kind of exciting and thrilling? That I would get to meet an alien, or that I would, The capture by the FBI, right?

These are my two choices, right? That's exciting. I want to, that's why we go to the movies. That's why we watch TV.

Meg: And, but we were also watching TV or going to the movies because I want to know when this specific character meets the alien, what they do, it's not just anybody you chose this character to meet the alien. You chose this character their response, not reaction, their response to it, right? I'm going to hide it. I'm going to beat it up. I'm going to, I'm going to do it. Nobody in the movies does. I'm taking it right to the government, right? Because they, whatever.

Lorien: Instead of Reactive and inactive, let's say responsive and unresponsive. I feel like that's way more powerful, Meg, what you just said, right? I'm responding to this. Rather than.

Meg: By taking an action. Yes. By doing something that creates the narrative shift in the plot. And here's the thing, I will tell you, usually my first drafts, my puke drafts, it's a lot of reactive, unresponsive people.

Because it's just, I don't know, it's just how it comes out. But that is the job in every scene to say wait. Who's creating this scene? Why are they in this scene? What did they do to get themselves here? And now what are they gonna do to get out of it? Which, again, is why you need conflict.

Because conflict illuminates. Conflict forces them into choice. And forces me to lean forward narratively and go, I don't know what I would choose. I want you to make a scene that is so tough on the main character, and that forces them into a behavior and a choice, that I don't know what they would choose, but I can't wait to see what they do.

Because then the whole plot's gonna spin a different way. Choose your own adventure, right? Is choosing. It isn't watching. Cause that's somebody you want to follow because that's why they're the hero, right? Because I would see an alien and run away screaming and call up somebody and say, Oh my God, I think I saw an alien or I was crazy.

I didn't do anything. That's all I would do.

Lorien: I wish that if we saw that alien, we would do something ballsy and cool and take a risk. I do.

Meg: Let's say you're like, but my whole point is that she is that character. She won't engage. Cause I get this all the time, right? Then, boy, you better show me in the most unique ways how active they are at not engaging.

I don't just run away from the alien. I knock it, I hit it on the head, and I go home and I barricade myself in. And I call the news to come and get their cameras because it's following me. And you have to be super active. And they're trying to not be active, and they're trying to not be seen, right?

And I think that this goes to what we talk about sometimes, Lorien. That, I think that, I think we get attached, we think we get attached to victim power.

Lorien: I was just going to bring that up. Yeah.

Meg: And that we really want, we feel our character is a victim of their life and a victim of what's happening to them.

Now, I'm not talking about victimization because that does happen in real life and it's going to happen in your script and it's very powerful. So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking...

Lorien: Things do happen to us and things do happen to our characters that we have no control over.

Meg: And things do happen that are completely unfair.

Lorien: Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Meg: For many reasons, social reasons, political reasons, family reasons, all kinds of reasons, psychopathic reasons, all kinds of reasons, right? But what you're watching for is why this character of all the people who could be victimized by this, what do they do?

That's why they're the ones. 

Lorien: Deadpool. Deadpool is a victim, right? But we love to watch him take that and what he does and how he does it.

Meg: And too many of you are staying at just the level of they were victimized, and that's it. But that's not a character, that's a situation. The, it's, Deadpool is of such a specific character and how he responds, and how far he's gonna take it, and how he's gonna do it, and how, that is character, that's character creating plot.

And, I think because we feel victimized in our life, we want to be heard. that this happened to us. And that is a valid thing. It's a very valid thing. But is it a story? Is my question.

Lorien: There's Long Kiss Goodnight is a good example of a female character. People, she was betrayed, people she thought she loved and loved her tried to kill her, and then she turned into a different person.

She's literally hiding out in her in the fake identity, right? And then what she does, right? And we, I love that movie. And then there's also the one with Julia Roberts where she's what's that one where she's being abused by her husband and she fakes her death?

Meg: Sleeping with the enemy.

Lorien: Sleeping with the enemy. This is an actual victim. It's a very real story. But it's what she does with it.

Meg: But that plot would not happen except of her response to it. Which leads us into the fourth trap that we see. Which is, you're not really beating up your main character.

And you're not doing it effectively. And I think this is because let's just define that. Your job as a writer. We unconsciously take our characters and we wrap them in bubble wrap and we don't let them do anything. And we let all the other characters take the risks of the story because they're our main character.

And they're us, right? Unconsciously, they're us. But, and actually, your job is to take a big baseball bat and beat the shit out of them with conflict. Because that is how people change, right? If you think about it, what transformed you, I bet it wasn't easy to go through. But I think because Number one, we are our main characters, so we don't want bad things to happen to them.

But that is your job, to have it over and over. Make it harder and harder. And I think because the other reason we do that is because, and this goes back to the reaction versus response, I think being victimized, I think we really believe in our hearts and our heads that the world is happening to us.

And we're just reacting to it. Now, yes, when you're a child, a lot of that is a lot of your life. But like I said, at seven, Barbara Streisand was not having it. She was just like, I am not gonna be reacting to all of this. I'm in life. Let's go. So not, that's not every person. But we believe, but even if, the very fact that you turn on this podcast, you're listening to it, you're thinking about your script, It's your choice to get off and go to your script and look at these pieces and address them, try things, go again.

Those are all choices. These are all choices that you're making. You are creating your life.

Lorien: It's also a choice not to write your script and to go do something else.

Meg: Yes. Then you're creating your life.

Lorien: Ask yourself, how is that getting you closer to the want, to the goal?

Meg: And sometimes we don't want to go get beaten up, right?

Because we know that these mountains that we climb, you're going to go into conflict, either because you were supposed to do something and you didn't because you went to write. You're going to go into conflict. You're going to go into stakes. Because what if. In my, I don't get to be a writer. If I just think about it all the time, I still oddly can have it.

But if I actually start doing it, and see how far my idea is from my execution, which we all have to do, people, it's not the most fun thing. It does feel like getting beat up. I have to get notes! Talk about feeling like you're gonna get beat up! That is life trying to oddly help you because it's evolving you.

As DeLorean says, please stop evolving me. I'm done. I'm done being evolved. I'm done. I'm maxed out. I'm evolved. I did it. So you've got to beat up your main character even if that scares you and hurts you. Trust me. Here's what I say to people. It's so condescending not to. It's so condescending to not beat up your main character.

Do you think they can't take it? Really? You think that they don't deserve it? Do they deserve to evolve? They don't deserve to transform? They don't deserve to be illuminated about themselves and what they can do? You don't think they're going to rise to the occasion? You're not going to let them fail? If they don't fail, they can't experience life.

So it's very condescending.

Lorien: It's the same way we treat ourselves, right? Okay, I'm in the same way we treat ourselves, right? I'm going to go write my script, or I'm going to deliver it for notes, or I'm going to go garden. Both things you get certain reward for, but what is your goal? I want to be a successful writer.

I want to sell this script, right? Which one gets you closer to that goal? Now, if I keep gardening instead of writing and I'm keep repeating the same thing over and over again, I am treating myself like I'm this fragile little thing that doesn't even deserve to even try to get what I want. So if you see, if you're doing that to your characters, but then in your scripts, you're just repeating the same beat over and over.

We get it. She's avoiding the thing. She's gardening. She's gardening.

Meg: Yeah, but you get like one, you get like one, one scene where she avoids and then what happens? Yes. That's what happens.

Lorien: And then she's out gardening and she misses the phone call from the producer saying, Hey, I had a big meeting. They want your script today at four, but you're gardening. I learned something. Fucking right.

Meg: Or you didn't finish that script. That could have been a great sample for that job. Yeah. Happened to me where I was like, God dammit, if I'd been working on this sample for the past six months, I would have it right now.

And I don't have it.

Lorien: So that's how you show the stakes and the conflict, right? That you're, and you get one, like you said, Meg. I'm gonna choose to write, or I'm gonna garden. And then bad shit happens, and then your character's oh, I gotta get my shit together. You can't keep showing us that over and over, because we got it.

Meg: Which goes to our fifth one, which goes to our fifth trap, which is repeating beats. Having the character do something over and over again. Yeah, that, you, as an actor, I literally have had Jodie say to me “I already did this”. She already did this. What's different? I'm playing the same thing. That is just And often in early drafts you do that because you're trying to figure it out. Like you don't even realize you're doing the same thing because you're trying to get to know your character. You're trying to get to know the relationship. You're trying to get to know the world.

You're trying to get to know who are the supporting characters. Where are we going?

Lorien: And what's the best way to show that choice? That it's not working, right? Is it the gardening? Is it something else? What is it thematically, that really resonates with that? The specificity of it.

Meg: What I did when we were on Inside Out is, because I was very aware of this, and trust me, you don't want to ask storyboard artists to draw 150 drawings of the same thing.

I made a chart, and on one column was what happened, and the second column was, okay, in this scene, this is what's happening to Joy. And the next column is what's happening to Sadness, and what's happening to the relationship. Now, Sadness isn't in the scene, she doesn't get anything in that box.

But, then, if it repeats, Joy is feeling this and does this, and then wait, this is the exact same beat for Joy, you have to figure that out. Because She's not, it's the same beat. So repeating character, repeating plot, repeating relationship, everything is constantly moving and evolving because of your main character and what they choose.

So repeating things over and over again. Don't worry about it in early drafts. If you're like in draft one, two, three, yeah, you're gonna repeat shit. But eventually you have to have had the discipline to go back. And it will help your story get better. It will help your story get better. Okay, so that's that.

We're gonna stop it here, and we're gonna do a good kind of repeating, which is we're gonna have a second part, and we're gonna do five other traps that you're falling into that's screwing up your good script. I think we're gonna talk about things like subtext and dialogue so we can't wait for that.

But in the meantime, Jeff, did you want to read some reviews?

Jeff: Yes. Before you guys hop off, we're about to talk directly to you. So stick around. One of our favorite things that we do on this show is of course, connecting with you all. It's the reason we do the show. And part of the way that you all can give back to us is by writing us an Apple podcast review.

It's a really fun way for us to feel like we're connecting with you. And what's great is if you write us a five star review on Apple podcasts. Actually bumps up our show in the algorithm, helps more people find the show. So I'm going to quickly read a beautifully written review by C. Skull, who says that our show is incredibly insightful and empowering and a must listen for all emerging writers.

C. Skull says, thank you, Meg, Loraine, and Jeff. for your wisdom, generosity, and devotion to the craft. I discovered the podcast about six weeks ago, and I've listened to it constantly since I'm a 30 year old attorney by trade. And my only education in filmmaking comes by way of my lifelong obsession with movies and cinematic television.

Welcome to the club. I learned how to write in the context of academia, where I developed a voice and perspective, but learned very little about the elements of storytelling with respect to plot and structure and character development, and learned even less about the more basic components of screenwriting, like how much detail to get into in a scene description or character introduction.

As a result, I kept getting stuck in the middle of various screenplays I started. Listening to this podcast helped me get unstuck, so to speak, and that has provided me with, among other things, a general blueprint for proper story structure and character development, and a different perspective as to the emotional components of storytelling.

This podcast has been my film school, and it's empowered me to into my lava and get past my mental blocks to continue writing a story that's quite personal to me. This is a must listen for all aspiring and emerging writers and filmmakers in general.

Lorien: Thank you. Okay. Awesome. Here's what I love about this review.

Besides everything, C. Skull sounds like Siskel, so now I'm waiting for the review from Ebert.

Jeff: Yeah. Exactly. Siskel and Ebert.

Lorien: Ebert. Yeah. That's amazing. review? Thumbs up for us. Yeah. What a lovely review.

Thank you so much.

Meg: So jump on, give us a review so we can read it. And Seeing your praises too.

And thank you so much.

Jeff: And welcome to our community. It's founded six weeks ago. It's great that we love our old listeners, but our new listeners are just as meaningful. So thanks for hopping out.

Meg: Thanks for tuning in to the screenwriting live.

Lorien: And remember, you are not alone and keep writing.