155 | 6 Essential Strategies To Tackle a Rewrite

There is nothing worse than writer's block when facing a rewrite, but there's hope! Today we discuss 6 Essential Strategies To Tackle a Rewrite.

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TRANSCRIPT EPISODE:

Meg: Hey everyone, welcome back to The Screenwriting Life, I'm Meg LeFauve.

Lorien: I'm Lorien McKenna,

Meg: And we just first want to start the show by saying thank you to all of our Patreon members. Something really special is happening with our members over there. I know there is a deep learning and writer evolutions happening because I can feel myself growing too.

And our last story workshop really got me thinking and inspired for our audience. My own work and thank you to our Facebook group because we really love the supportive community that's happening over there for both emerging and pro writers. Lots of questions are being answered. Writers groups are forming and Lorien and I are popping in and out to post and comment too.

We love interacting with you guys and the one thing that has come up a lot. Over on the Facebook group.

Lorien: Because all of us have faced that awful feeling of approaching your script after a tough round of notes and feeling stuck.

Meg: So to help, we're going to be discussing six things to remember as you approach a rewrite.

But first, we're going to be talking with, about our weeks or what we like to call adventures in screenwriting. Lorien, how was your week?

Lorien: My week has been productive and not productive at the same time. I finished up two workshops I was doing in August and, you know, I always learned so much from those so much from the writers that I'm working with.

They always have such great perspective and challenge me and my views to, to think, Oh, well, then I. ask myself more questions. And I also verbally process when I lead workshops. So I'm also sort of discovering what I think along the way, which is really helpful because it gives me an opportunity to get out of my head and off the page sometimes, and reminds me that I do need to write it out.

I do need to talk it out. If it stays in my head, it just, it doesn't really go anywhere. So it's a good reminder for me that I have to write things down if I don't have anyone to talk to. And then the other thing that I'm realizing is that I've been stuck in this place around my work and probably my life, especially my career of, I have to, and I should, like, I have to write, I should write, I have to do this, I have to do this.

And, Someone, a writer I was working with, asked me recently why, you know, why am I writing when there's already such great work out there? And I had all kinds of answers to that. But the one that just came up with for me was because I want to. I shouldn't have to justify Why I write in order to satisfy someone else's expectations of what that answer might be like expecting it to be inspirational in some way, you know, I write to tell the truth.

I write to figure out the truth. I write to inspire an audience or maybe it's just I write because I want to. Maybe that's enough. And by saying I want to. makes me the main character in the story again, instead of reacting like I have to, I should I'm behind that sort of desperate urgency of like, I'm running out of time.

And so saying like, Oh, I want to write. And then I have to think, well, what do I want to write?

Meg: Right.

Lorien: I know what I have to write. I know what I should write. Like, I know what the expectations are of me. And in my career, I But what do I want to write? And I've really had to think about that. And I've come up with some surprising answers for myself.

And I'm working through if it's, to make sure that it's not based on fear. That it is always very clear in the, I want to. And yes the industry is always telling us what we should write. And there are these, what are those called? The. The mandates that come out from networks that are passed around, and there's all this message of this is what it is, and in order for me to be the main character in the story, to have agency, to be the narrative driver here, I have to write what I want to, and hopefully that collides at some point with what someone else wants to see, but you know, I often think about Fleabag, no one was asking for that, but that's what Phoebe Waller Bridge wanted to write, You know, no one was like, you know what we need on TV?

A self description.

Meg: Think about any of the great shows. Yeah. Yes. The Great. The Bear. The Great. I mean, most of them are just so unique and original to the people.

Lorien: It had to start with I want to tell this story. I want to write the story. I want to write. And I'm really struggling hard in that space because it means I am a writer and it means I have to accept that what I write isn't going to be perfect, right?

I have to and I should sort of put some restraints on me in terms of the expectation is that you have to or you should and it's got to be good, and it has to be do and it has to get into these hands and it has to be read and made, whereas I want to, it allows me some space to play and have fun. And. You know, enjoy myself just a little bit.

It's the I want, right? Like I want to read a book that I want to read rather than I have to do the dishes. Now I'm never going to get to the point where I say I want to do the dishes. That's just not within the realm of possibility. And there are lots of shoulds and haves, but I want to write. And I have to remember that so that I don't feel trapped in some cage.

And you know I write about people who are in traps of their own making. So this is really important, and I struggle with it from like, hour to hour but it's what I'm trying to hold on to in my process as a writer right now, especially with everything that's going on in the world in the industry. I have to be able to do what I want to be able to do, a little bit.

So Meg, how was your week?

Meg: Well, it's interesting because you're really I, what I hear in terms of my brain is like, you have to trust the calling. You have the calling is the want. I get that feeling when I walk into bookstores, like, I just really want to write a book someday, but look at all these great books and, no way.

And I also get that with screenplays or anything I'm writing. And I guess right now I'm feeling so much resistance to write to what I'm writing. And I know it's cause it's so much lava. And I'm finding every excuse in the book and the world is throwing me a lot of things to just not write because, you know, I have to do these things.

So there's a lot of resistance going on, but I'm thinking about the lava that I'm in and I know that it's rich and it's kind of trying to bring it into consciousness. And it made me think about something that I did post on the Facebook group, which I wanted to share, which is, I think when we think about theme, you know, even when we're on the Patreon and we're asking people, okay, what is this about for you, then the habit, which we all have, is to pitch the intellectual idea.

Or If we try to dig down into the emotion of it, what is it for the character, what's their transformation, what are they learning, we can get and give, and I'll give you my own, not something from the Patreon kind of these broad ideas, like, well, she's learning to find her voice, right, which, by the way, is a great place to start.

Right, but that's not a theme yet because it's not specific enough because there's a thousand people, men and women, who have to find their voice, right? But also, so there's a thousand characters or there's a thousand situations, it's not quite yet. But the other thing I've been realizing, dealing with my own lava, is if you really look at great films that have emotionally moved you, The emotional thematic, the emotional journey of the character is not black and white.

Like, there's no place that I would ever say, well, you shouldn't find your voice. Like, you know what I mean? Like, that's just, yeah, you should. That when you're really getting close to something powerful, it's great. And if you can, and I was been thinking about movies. And like, even some of the broadest, most big studio movies, there is a complexity to their emotional thematic.

Like, even if you think of Toy Story, right? It's not like he's going to get all the attention he wants by the end. He's accepted the situation. He has realized that friendship with Buzz is important because, and there's so many things he's realized about his own, but he will someday be discarded. And he is going to have to be, this situation is gray.

He has still got things to deal with, right? It's not fixed. Once he comes to his new realization, you can think about Ratatouille. He's still a rat, still trying to cook. He's found a place. He's made himself a safe space. He's learned, et cetera. He's claimed his power, but you don't have a sense that, well, you know, he's going to be the toast of Paris.

He's still kind of hiding, right? You can think about Tony Stark and Captain America. Right. They have to figure out friendship because they disagree so wholeheartedly about values at one in one of the movies. And it's not like that goes away, right? That disagreement, that difference in values, it's a hard question.

What do you do if one of your most best friends, one of the people you connect to deeply, suddenly you have opposite values? How do you negotiate that? How, do you change? Do you ask them to change? And the answer is yes, and both, and everything, and nothing. Because it's just one answer in, in that movie, or in any movie, to a very complex human question.

Right, because if I just say finding your voice, well, that could be blue, the French movie blue. That could be Amadeus. That could be Good Luck to you, leo Grande. That could be The Piano . That could be the King's Speech , which is literally about finding your voice. I mean, it just goes on and on that there's deeper, more complex human condition thematics that you should be.

That's the lava. That's why we keep talking about the lava, because that's the specificity of that gray zone. That there isn't an easy answer and it's not going to get better. It's all done now. It's all done now. No, we have a sense that it's an ongoing thing and how they're, that they've had, they've been transformed to handle it, right?

Or to see it in a new way. Unless they're changing the world and that's the whole thing. So that's just what I've been pondering as a way not to write my lava.

Lorien: I think too, what you're talking about, like, I always have a problem with the phrase, finding your voice and like to say, using your voice because.

You know, that feels more gray to me. Is this the right time to use your voice? It's usually the wrong time or you use it in a disruptive.

Meg: Or how you use it. What is it, you know? What will you sacrifice for it? What should you not sacrifice for it? Like, and I think for a lot of female writers because our lives are often culturally put into tiny boxes and what we're allowed to do.

We still have to push into those harder questions about what it's like to be a human being, right? So, and I find that I really have enjoyed the patron as pushing people to this and watching, you know, it's not the easiest thing in the world for these brave souls, but I love watching them start to understand what we're asking.

Right, and how the, how much more potential is inside of what they're doing. That they're kind of at this very kind of thin layer at the top, which is good and it's a great place to start, but we can feel and tone. Oh my God, there's something so much more compelling down in here. Push. Push, right?

Lorien: And I think it's like where I am at a project, like I wanna write about this.

I wanna write about a woman discovering her voice and having fun and playing with that and what that could look like, and then being challenged in rewrite. What is it really about? What is this character really? Going on like that journey and then pushing deeper into the lava to start with the lava for me can feel I don't know how to do that.

Right. I'm just like, I want to do this. And then as...

Meg: often you're, yeah, it's drafts and drafts of the dreamers dealing with the lava unconsciously until you're ready. They get the bang, which is what I've gotten. And then I'm like, Oh my God, the llama. And by the way, this finding your voice is my thematic. I had to do something for somebody named the three films.

And it was like, I didn't even realize it until I was like Amadeus blue and the piano. And I'm like, okay, well, geez, that is a big freaking topic and all of them, but they're all so different. Right. And they're all about something else underneath there. And not that isn't in the movies, it is in the movies.

There's a deeper question happening underneath that, that you're using the container of finding your voice for. Right. That makes sense. Like it's in there, but it's the container, it's the root, it's the track, so that you can talk about something that's, you know, you get as a human being, or a question that you have.

Lorien: Just why a rewrite is hard because it's challenging that, right? Just watching people on the Patreon, you know, we got a little excited. We may have shouted a little bit like no, but in a good way, but like in an encouraging, like you could do it, you could do it. But because it, we're so excited that we know something else is under there, like you said.

And so a rewrite can feel like you're losing the joy, the dreamer piece of it when you have to get in and face the lava and potentially change. project, right? Discover a different question you were asking. And or, you know, like...

Meg: well, you're not even aware that you're asking that question until through notes or hopefully through people who are just asking you questions.

You have to answer some questions and realize, oh wait. I didn't even know I was thinking about that. Like, that's a more complex, I don't know the answer to that. And then I'm like, great. You don't know the answer. Fantastic. Which is terrifying. It's terrifying, but it's going to be such more rich.

Much, much more rich writing and storytelling.

Lorien: So, what do we do between the I want and the I want? I'm doing a rewrite.

Meg: All right. So, Where are we?

Lorien: Six things to remember when approaching a rewrite.

Meg: All right. So just know that we're done. Lorien,

six things to remember. What would number one be?

Lorien: I think number one is Set clear goals and deadlines for yourself so you set yourself up for success, not failure. So this means setting realistic and attainable goals. So if you're like, I'm going to rewrite this whole script by the end of the week, look at your week.

How many hours do you have in your week to write? What sort of things come up normally during your week? Is your kid not feeling well? Are they going to come home from school sick on Tuesday and blow out your writing time? Or, you know, just allow for the possibility that things will shh. Throw off your time.

And so make sure that you are setting realistic goals. Make a plan, right, which is, am I gonna card this? Am I gonna outline this? How am I going to approach this so that I feel confident and in control? And another thing I suggest that you can do or not, is when you set that deadline, have someone you're gonna send it to, whether that's, Hey, you know.

Is this working in terms of, are the main characters emotionally earned, does this character have agency, or you can just send it to someone and say I'm sending this to you, I'm meeting my deadline, don't read it, which I've done before, because it helps me feel accountable. One thing a writer I talked to recently does is, she sends someone 100 in Venmo, and she says if I don't send you the script by X date, you keep that money. Which is negative.

Meg: That would do it. That would do it.

Lorien: Yeah, it's negative reinforcement, but it is a way to get yourself motivated to meet that deadline. Cause when we're writing for ourselves, we often, Oh, I'll just do another week. I'll do another week. Things come up. So being clear and focused about what your plan is upfront and realistic about it, because what can happen as we all know, we're like, I'm going to do that in a week.

And then something happens and you don't get as far as you want to on the first or second day. And then you think, ah, fuck it. This is ruined now. I'm never going to meet that deadline.

Meg: We also, I also always, I cannot stop doing this. I always underestimate the amount of time it takes to actually write it.

Yes. I, every time. Every time. I'm like, I can do that in a week. And then I'm like, Oh my God, just to physically type this is, you know, I mean, it's just like, I don't know what I'm thinking. Every time.

Lorien: I just ran these accountability workshops. You know, we met once a week and at the beginning I said this, that realistic accountable goals and everybody set a goal and they all sounded great.

In a month. Sure. You could do this. And then shit happens. It takes longer to write, or your character's not paying attention, or something happens in your life, and so it really is like, okay, I can write 20 minutes a day, I can write an hour a day, I'm going to work on three scenes a day. Make sure that it is very specific, because just, I'm going to start the rewrite.

makes it feel like you're diving into an ocean at night with no gear or swimsuit on, right? So make sure you're going to set very clear, realistic, attainable goals for yourself and think practically about the time you have in the life you live. End of lecture.

Meg: I love that. And I will do that. I'm committing to doing that because I need to do that.

Lorien: It's really hard. But when you look at it, you're like, Oh, I have two hours a day. Okay. That's One to two scenes a day. I think I can really dig into maybe three if I get a little bit more done. Yes, I got a little bit more done yesterday.

Meg: And then it's going to blow up. So just get ready. And so just put in blow up time.

Just schedule it right in there. I, number two, when you're approaching a rewrite. So hopefully you've gotten notes from people. Writer's group, friend. And you've probably got a pile of them. What I like to do is I like to go through the notes and I did this when I was at UCLA and just really start writing them down in categories or clumps or, and then really look for the biggest notes.

The biggest one because the tendency is to say, I just have to get started with the rewrite. I'm totally panicking. I just need to get something done. I need to accomplish something. So this terrible feeling of having dust in my hands goes away. So I'm just going to start writing. And you start to, you open up your document and you start noodling around with page notes, which I, by the way, when I give notes now, I don't even give page notes because you know, unless you're going to shoot in production, you don't need page notes.

So what you're doing is you're fixing the symptoms. And meanwhile, the disease is still down there. And all I'm going to tell you is you're going to be right back here. Cause you're just going to get the, you're just going to get new symptoms. The next set of notes are just going to be new symptoms. You didn't fix the disease.

So what I do is I start looking for engine core and story engine problems. And I'm going to just maybe do this rewrite is just to figure out that. Problem, because often a lot of the other problems go away because they were symptoms of this problem. So, you know, it can be deceiving a little like when people said when I came on inside out and people were like, we don't like joy.

I'm like, that's a really big note. It's a really Jay. It sounds simple, like just. Make her funnier. No, it's a giant note, right? So it can be deceiving what is the big notes, but go look at your story. Go look at thematically, emotionally. What is this about? Do you understand? Do you have something that is about emotionally?

Or is it one of those kind of broader things and you aren't really digging down into that? That's the core base engine is your tone, right? Do you know what genre you're doing? Can you really nail the tone? Do you have a clean, a clear main character who has an emotionally relatable goal that the audience wants to, is it the problem?

The goal isn't clear that they're actively, you've set them up now in this engine to actively go for it. Then they are going to create. The story and are there stakes in conflict to that are high enough that I'm kind of holding my breath, right? That I'm wow, what's going to happen because they want this, but there's so much in how are they ever going to do it?

That's what you get the Andrew Stanton lean in, right, because you're setting up expectations and the other way you set up expectation is there a plan in act one so that the audience has a sense of what they want to happen or should happen or could happen. And then of course, none of it's going to happen, right?

Or it's going to happen in a way that we didn't see coming. We didn't expect it to happen that way. And so that, and the conflict to that, right? So that you're forcing an act two, maybe you don't have a big enough conflict. So it's not really giving you the juice that you need, and people are making all these comments in act two, but you have to really look at the conflict.

And once you kind of get down, and then you can also look at the main relationship. I always go back to, okay, is my main relationship clear emotionally that's tracking the main character through this relationship. So I, personally, when I rewrite, will always go back to those questions. And sometimes I'll even call my manager and be like, Is it the tone?

Is it that the genre isn't clear to you? And the other thing that's a part of this is world. Of course, I should not forget one of the really important ones is world. Is the world clear? You know, a lot of people creating these TV pilots are not really understanding world. When we say world, I'm not talking about because you've got a sci fi And you have to create world rules.

I'm talking about you have to create a world, especially for television. That is what TV is. It's going into worlds. And sometimes you're getting all these notes because people don't understand. What is this? What is this world? Right? And that's the clarity you need. I mean, that might be gathering photos.

It might be. Be just really mulching around in terms of, well, what would be interesting and where do I want to be each week, even though it might be uncomfortable, but I'm kind of dying to be there to see what happens. So, those, I always say, go, when you start your rewrite, instead of just panic writing into, I mean, if you have to do it, but better to be brave, look at the notes and really dive down with you or a friend helping you into this is the, and once you have that big note, everything starts rearranging.

Like dominoes start shifting, and I start, what I will then is go back to outline. But before we get there Of course, the really big one, which is number three which Lauren, you and I will talk about together is, you know, part of that engine, honestly, is why do you want to tell this story? I think when you get notes, you can get really overwhelmed because everybody else's whys are starting to unconsciously come in because maybe yours wasn't clear.

So they're just giving you a note and trying to figure out what it is. But that may not be the rudder for your movie. So if you're going to start a rewrite, you have to really sit down and think again why you're writing this from that deep emotional question that we talked about.

Lorien: So I agree. I think that it, and you know, when you're writing something that is even remotely personal, which should be most of the things that we write, when you are challenged, it can feel like a challenge and then you can start to doubt what you were trying to say and that need for Validation can knock you back a little bit, and then you lose confidence in what is the story I'm trying to tell and why do I want to tell it, what's important to you, and this is why you go through so many rewrites to get to this.

Because sometimes you go off in the wrong direction.

Meg: And don't stay up in your intellect when you answer that question of why. We're asking, like, what is your favorite scene? That if we were to take it out of this movie or this TV show, it wouldn't be yours anymore. Right. It's sitting right in there, right?

Something very specific. And usually we're asking you to go deeper. Don't, you might be doubting, but we're actually asking you to do more with the character you have. Go deeper with this character. Make it harder on them emotionally.

Lorien: Yeah, I have a script where I got lost. I've talked about this on the show.

I got so many notes. I sent it to too many people and I totally lost the script. I had to go all the way back to the beginning and I'd look at those two scenes and the one, they were both in extreme emotional distress. well, extreme emotional states of being, but with complications under it, right? One is her yelling and having a fit and embarrassing herself and her friends, but under it is a desperate want to have what she had, right?

And then the end scene is she has, captured a tiny bit of what she had before, but it is not the same. And there's a sadness under the her pretending to be happy in this moment. So for me, those two things anchor the pilot and they anchor the show that she's always masking one or the either. And that's what I want to talk about.

But it took me a long time. I took them both out. I put them both back in. I removed, you know, I moved them around trying to figure out where those two scenes went. And I don't know if I accomplished it or not, but That was a really good exercise for me. It was looking at those two scenes I love, what connects them and what separates them.

And in that was the conversation I was trying to have in my script.

Meg: All right, so number four, you have made yourself a schedule. You've gone down deep, looked at the engine really gone under the hood, found the big problems, been brave, thought of some solutions, maybe even re outlined based on that new thing.

You, you're remembering why you want to do this. You're digging into that emotional why of it. And then we want you, as number four, to still have fun and still experiment. So I think you can really lock down, like, I have to write this, and now you can just go all the way back, right? You should still be experimenting here.

You should still, okay, before you start writing, maybe do some experimental what ifs. Because on the, based on the ideas that you think you need to rewrite and the new idea you have for her goal or the new world definition you have, well, do some writing exercises, let yourself go and just don't put so much pressure on, I have to write the script.

Well, no, you don't. Take your two hours today of writing and say you're going to do a writing exercise based on the things you think you need to fix. You could be a, you could just write a scene, right? You could, I, you need to keep that spontaneity and fun inside of the rewrite or it's going to get deadened.

And it's hard to do, but I do find it helps give me motive to keep writing because I like this scene so much and I don't know where it came from and it's not even going to be in there, but it just fills me with, okay, I should keep going because I don't know where this came from.

Lorien: Yeah, and there's all kinds of exercises you can do in classes you can take and people you can talk to and calling a friend and they can challenge you and come up with prompts for you because sometimes it's hard to come up with those exercises on your own.

You could just say, give me an object, give me a location, and give me a cup, you know, a conflict of some kind and another character and then you have to write that scene with your character at the center of it like she wants a wine opener. She's stuck in an outhouse. And, you know, there's a big storm. And, no, your character would never be in that situation in the world you've created, but it might help you uncover, how is she going to get out of that situation?

It might help you discover how she's resourceful. Or not. Does she give up easily? Or not. So, those kinds of things can be fun in terms of discovering character moments outside of whatever you've outlined or a note you've gotten.

Meg: Well, when I figured out, wait, I don't actually know the world I'm in for this TV show, or I thought I did, but I think it's not right anymore.

I just went and started looking at photographs and pulling photographs. And I was like, okay, here's her world. Here's his world. Here's the problem. Here's when they confluence. And then I found pictures of them and their different moods and just to try to get a sense of the show. Right. And that helped me.

It helped calm me down in order to be able to go back and write. So I don't know if I'll ever show anybody that stuff other than my writing partner, but you know, it's, I don't know if I, it's not a presentation. It's just a keynote for myself. And especially when you have a writing partner, so that you make sure you're actually writing the same show, because part of it was, we figured out, wait a minute, he's writing for a totally different world.

Like you don't realize it, but once you get visuals going, you know, He was like, Oh, they're living in what? Like, I was like okay, this is very helpful to get this kind of clarity.

Lorien: That's fun. I like doing stuff like that because it's work, but it's also a little bit of a break and a little bit fun, but you got to have the discipline to go back.

You got to give yourself a time limit. I'm going to do this for a little bit and then use what I have because we all get sucked into those wormholes so easily. I know things about the world from getting lost in Wikipedia. That would boggle. Now, if I could remember them, but I've gotten lost in the Wikipedia, whatever that zone is so much write a movie about that getting lost in the Wikipedia, all the world's colliding.

Number five is judgment. It's really easy to judge yourself while you're doing this. That's not good enough. This is broken. I broke it. I'm running out of time, all those negative voices. So a way to shift that is to put your brain into a more of a noticing place rather than a judgment or an assessment and just noticing your process, noticing how you work.

Best noticing what you write that works well and noticing what the distractions are around you without judgment. So I write best in the afternoon from about three to eight. My daughter gets home from school at three 30 and goes to bed at eight 30. So it's not ideal for my family life. So I have to figure out different solutions.

Which means I need a chunk of time somewhere else in the day that I'm not going to get distracted. It's about noticing what works and noticing what doesn't work and making adjustments to those small things if you need to, rather than thinking it's a systemic issue because that will shut you down.

This is broken. I need to approach this in a whole new way. Maybe a rewrite isn't the time to reevaluate your entire process and how you approach your process and your identity as a writer. So, notice what works, and notice what might be distracting you and getting in the way, and then make small adjustments.

Meg: Awesome. I'm gonna go do that, too. Okay, and number six is, just do it, keep going. Honest to God. Like, I can't even tell you. That is mostly what it is. Mostly what it is. It's sitting your butt down and writing and trying stuff and hitting your head against the wall till it's a bloody pulp and saying, I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. And I hate that myself. That's my scary places. I don't know the answer. This didn't work. I just spent all this time. Guess what? Go again and just sit and do it. And that is it. You have to just keep trying things, rewriting it again. If you rewrote it and it fell into dust again, okay, that happens.

I've watched geniuses at Pixar have dust in their hands. Guess what? Go again. So it's just literally about, you have to keep going. You have to keep, and it will form, it will. And it's good to have your support group around you telling you to keep going. But. It's really about doing it, and I need to take my own advice.

Ta da!

Lorien: I think number six is probably the core of it, the real answer. You could do one through five in any order, in any version, or different versions of them, but number six is the most important one. Even if you don't do one through five, don't make a schedule.

Meg: Open a document. Open a blank document.

Name it. And write it anything save it and write anything. And see what comes out. I personally like doing that prep work before one through five, because it helps me get in. And, but you know what, if that doesn't work for you, you just got to open a document. I swear to God, especially I was working on Pixar.

Half my day was just about, okay, just open the document, Meg. Just open the document. Because I was so scared that what I was going to write was going to be shitty. And it's due! Like, we're going so fast, and I was just like, all I gotta do is open a document and name it, and just, Okay, what do I know? I know this.

Okay, write that down. Okay, that doesn't work, it doesn't matter. Okay, just write it down. And it does, it starts to, the story starts to take over, and You know, so sorry, you're not special. You have to just do like, the rest of us.

Lorien: One, one exercise you can do, Meg, I know you're a proponent of this, and I have yet to do it, but I'm kind of excited to try it, is you have a scene, and you've got lots of notes on it, or you know it's the scene, right, this is a scene you love, but people don't get it, put that scene somewhere else, open a new document, and rewrite the scene, so that you're not stuck in the world of that, those action lines and that dialogue and that you just starting it's just you have the old one.

Meg: It's right there.

Lorien: Rewrite might give you some freedom like i'm going to change the genre i'm going to write this as a western and see what comes up even if you need more freedom to do whatever with it.

Meg: And push it, man.

Take that scene, or take a scene that doesn't work, push it. And I mean, push the character, push the tone, push how their reaction, how big it is. Like, you might have them saying, You know what, Dad? That hurt me, and walking out the door. I want you to have them punch him in the face, and run over and grab scissors and decide, I'm not gonna stab you.

Let me just you're welcome, like push it. You're not. It doesn't have to go in your script.

Lorien: First versions are so violent. I'm like, stab him, set him on fire. You're like, punch him in the face. We have some issues in our lava.

Meg: We have some issues going on.

Lorien: But I'm just saying, keep asking yourself, how can I make this worse for my main character?

How can I make this even worse? How can I make this even worse? And then how do they get out of that?

Meg: Yeah, and I just really love the idea of, you know, I don't know that main characters are neurotypical. I just don't know that they are. There's a reason that they are the hero, because they're going to do some crazy shit, or think of things a crazy way.

And that's what we are delighted. We're just delighted by the way they think and behave and act. And especially for female writers we get a little bit wrapped up in being good and nice. And, oh my God, we're so afraid of that power of being big. And again, if your character's not big, that's fine, but even if you watch stories of very quiet, shy people, there's always a scene in the beginning that shows you what is underneath there.

So the audience knows, oh, this is a volcano that is tapped. It's not just a shy person walking around doing nothing. Like I see what they could do if they ever weren't shy, or whatever, you know what I mean? Even these quiet characters, they're bubbling, man, and I need to see the bubble. So those are some things that all that is just keep going.

You gotta, yes. You know. You're not going to get there thinking about it, you're not going to get there talking about it. Eventually, you're going to just have to sit down and open the document and keep going.

Lorien: Yeah, you can write lists, right? What is the grocery list my character would have? What would my character take on a camping trip, right?

Even just to get into who your character is, what they think is important.

Meg: But I want that list to have some uniqueness, right? I don't want my grocery list.

Lorien: It's wish fulfillment. We're writing wish fulfillment, right? What do I wish I could put on my grocery list? Right. I would never go camping.

But if I did, I would bring a duvet. I would bring a bed. I wouldn't go. I would move a whole house...

Meg: I love her. I already love her that she's already brought like basically like. You know, a camp pillows and duvets. And, you know, I already am like, who's that? But, and why is she, how is she out camping anyways?

Lorien: Forced to, so I like. Just, even if you can't think of anything to write, just start writing, right? That's what we, that's what I was talking about at the beginning of the show, right? I have to write, I have to process in words, no matter what those words are, where they come from, but that might, I'm going to write the camping scene, I'm going to write a hotel scene, I'm going to write, you know, an airplane scene, and it gets you back into connecting to the writing and the process of that, or write by hand, but it really is keep going, writing.

And that's why we get so many questions about rewriting. Because it's so hard.

Meg: Because it's hard. Lorien, it also can be fun. It can be super fun as things start to bubble and show themselves. So, Lorien, what happens when you know all these six things, you maybe even tried them for a little bit, but you're just paralyzed?

You're just completely shut down and nothing's happening. Maybe that's because...

Lorien: anything else?

Meg: Well, yeah, you're doing everything else You've cleaned out all your closets and maybe that's because the notes were so big You've taken a big hit emotionally about your sense of self has taken as a writer I think that can paralyze people in terms of their dreams and expectations of who they were and the notes have started to fade Make you feel maybe that's not true.

I think that can be a paralyzing thing. I think sometimes we can get paralyzed. And this is by the way, I'm not just talking about emerging writers. I'm talking about pro writers too. That the idea you have is just still a little bit beyond your craft level. It's so complex. It's such high story math, by the way, I'm not telling you not to do it.

You should do it. That's how your craft level is going to go up. But it can be intimidating, right? Like, how the hell do I do this? This great what are some things we can do when we're paralyzed for whatever reason, and if I. I think that you too want to jump in here on this. So, sorry, go ahead, Lorien.

Lorien: I am have actively in this conversation with myself. I wrote a feature script in 2017 and I thought it was pretty good. And I brought it to a group of very good writers in 2020, I think. And I got notes on it and the notes were generous. and thoughtful and I cried for two hours after I got off the note session call because I realized it was beyond my craft at that moment to figure out that story and I left it alone for a really long time.

Recently I reread it and I thought I'm a much better writer now. I know how to fix this that my craft has developed in a way to catch up with the story I wanted to tell. So I'm going to rewrite it and I'm not afraid anymore. And I think part of it was assigning my value as a person, as a writer to the feedback I got, and now sort of rereading it and like, Oh, it was just that disconnect between what I was trying to do and my craft.

And it was because the story was so personal to me too, right? It's not personal, but it's yeah, my lava. And I didn't know how to Tell as sophisticated a story as I wanted to tell. So for me, the right thing to do was get more skills. Unfortunately, it was put it away and let it sit.

Meg: By writing, not necessarily by going to more classes or you have to write.

I just want to make everybody clear. Quantity gets your craft level up. Quantity people.

Lorien: Working on other stuff. I've been reading scripts. I've been. You know, working on my craft as a storyteller and as a person and learning that script doesn't define me as a writer. And I think it, it was really hard for me to go through that process and it felt scary.

And anytime anyone would read it, I'd be like I'm gonna rewrite it, right? It was a sort of constant apology around it. And what that, it felt like shame to me. It felt like shame, and now I feel like I'm out of the shame of it.

Meg: And let me just say to you, thank goodness that you felt that and you kept writing other things.

Right? Cause that's the worst thing that could happen is you feel that and then you don't write something else. You put it away and don't write something else. So I want to say to all of you who've been there, and I've been there too, boy, was I there when I, especially as an emerging writer, Oh my God, I was there.

And you just have to have a little bit of grit and say, Okay, maybe this is, I'm gonna put this away right now and I'm gonna start a new thing. And go again. And it is just quantity, people. It is not magic. They're not special beings who get to be writers. It is quantity. Go again. Go again. I'm telling you.

Ray Bradbury agrees with me we found a quote.

Lorien: Yes, I but for me that paralysis comes from shame and fear that is attached to my identity as a writer and as a person and which sort of goes into the script so if I can create a space where I am not looking for external validation so aggressively in terms of the work, then I can separate myself from the feedback and producing something perfect.

So for me, that means shifting to, I want to write this. That gives me permission to write it any way I want it, right? I want to do the rewrite of that feature. So I'm going to, I don't have to, and I shouldn't. For me, it's about that. And I know there are other, you know, I know there are bigger answers, and Jeff, I know you had some things to contribute here, which I really want to hear, but for me, like, the deeper issues are shame and fear, and not being perfect, and that even if I rewrite this, my hope is, yeah, it's going to be amazing, and I'm going to get an actress attached, and it's going to be this huge thing, but I might still need to do more rewrites on it, and I might still have more craft to learn to develop that particular script yeah, I don't know, does that answer the question?

Is that what you asked me? I don't remember. It's on my mind right now.

Meg: That's one great answer that's paralysis from shame or, and or craft level.

Lorien: Thank you for validating me.

Meg: You're welcome.

Lorien: Turns out I did need it. No, I need confirmation from adults.

Meg: I was gonna say not validation, confirming, confirm.

You heard, and I agree that I'm confirming it.

Lorien: Adults need confirmation. Children need, no. Adults want confirmation. Children need validation. There you go.

Meg: Okay, Jeff, what do you think about it?

Jeff: You know, I mostly just want to, like, echo, I think, honestly, what Lorien just said. I'm really connected with what you just shared, so thank you for sharing it.

I think, like, I need to just, I'm rewriting something right now, and just constantly try to be a little nicer to myself than my brain wants to be. Because it's, writing's just really hard, and, You have to remind yourself that a rewrite is by nature gonna, it's gonna be shitty. You know, and it's a, it can feel like a ping pong game of one half of like, even within the same scene, there's good stuff happening, but then there's stuff showing up that needs to show up for the rewrite to teach you something that is not going to.

is just doesn't represent the height of your powers as a creative. And I just think that's like a very hard place to sit. So just like telling myself, like, it's okay that this is bad. Like, just keep writing. This is one rewrite. You're going to go back and rewrite this again. But that could just, it, so for me, it's less shame and more panic that everything I thought I was good at as a writer disappeared.

Lorien: I'm like, where does that panic come from, Jeff?

Jeff: Yeah.

Lorien: Now we're going to do the same.

Jeff: Yeah. This is the lava.

Lorien: Why? This is it.

Jeff: Yeah. Right.

Lorien: Yes. No

Jeff: Because no one will like me because my mom will be ashamed, because Laura will divorce me and I'll be alone in a gutter in New York City . That's why.

Lorien: Oh my gosh. Is it shame and abandonment, Jeff?

Meg: Oh my goodness. Yes. And meanwhile, the poor story and the muse in charge of this story is like, Oh, Jeff, please don't put the weight of that on us. We just want to tell the story. And you, we've chosen you for a reason. There's a reason we chose you, Jeff, because clearly we believe in you. This muse has come and given you the story.

So, you know, That muse believes in you. It doesn't want the weight of all of that. So for that muse, Jeff. For that muse.

Jeff: Exactly. Go ahead, keep I'll let them keep going. I'll let the muse be the motivation.

Lorien: Do other things too, keep writing or creating other things like we can put so much weight. I have, I'm writing this one feature.

This is it. This will be my calling card. Maybe on the side you're writing poetry or a song or a short, that's all just fun and abstract and full. You know, it's not about. structure or, you know, it's just the beginnings of something. It's fun. So making sure that you're still doing things that make you feel good as a writer, as a creative, is really important and something I often forget.

It's hard for me, for my brain, to shift from one project to the other. I like to do one thing, get it done, do it well, and move on, which, when we're writers, is a little bit of a challenge. So, it's about having some little thing. And it has to be writing. I have been using a crutch in terms of coaching other writers, working on them with their creative projects, and getting very into them and satisfied by the work we're doing together.

But it's not me writing.

Meg: So just for another exercise, I was a guest on a podcast that Stuart Wright does that I'll put on the Facebook page and stuff when it's going to drop. But he, you know what he does, which I thought was so great is he takes a book, maybe it's a picture book. It could be like one book he has right now is weird places in London to visit.

And it's just pictures of weird. Crazy, weird spots in London. And every morning he picks a picture in the book. He starts on page one and he goes through and he handwrites three pages of a character in that space and what's happening. And he does it every morning. I love that. And it's so great. He, there was one something like, there was another book he said he uses called like, it's like very Wes Anderson looking, meaning it's not Wes Anderson shots, but they just feel like they should be in a Wes Anderson movie.

And that might have people in it, or it might have, so you can take a book of pictures and then every morning, just write, handwrite, or whatever you want to do, a character in that space, just to get it flowing, just to get the water in the dry riverbed, especially if you're paralyzed, put your script aside, Take one of Lorien's character workshops, we'll get you going.

Do this work, this thing every morning. Just because he said morning pages don't work for him in terms of very autobiographical. And that's fair. Then don't do that. But the characters will talk, right? So I really loved that. Thank you, Stuart. Right. I loved, I thought that was amazing. I think right now I'm paralyzed because of two reasons.

One is. I really don't want it to all fall apart. I really don't. Why? What's under that Meg? Why? No, because I've been rewriting and now I'm stuck because I'm like, oh my God, if I Do this. Oh, go through this door. I have enough experience to know this door. The whole thing could fall apart But I know intellectually it's if it falls apart It's supposed to and I better do it quick because there's something bigger and better underneath.

I do know that

Lorien: It's that I hate that feeling when you're like, okay I'm like...

Meg: I don't have time to for it to fall apart I don't have time, but you know what? Fuck, that's artistry. So, and I'm working with my husband as a writer who loves to play, right? So, he's always like, Oh, I know, what if this?

And I'm like, wait a minute, it'll break that, it'll break that. And he's like, just who cares, break it. And I'm like, oh my God. You know, sometimes I need to be the one to play too. And he's he'll do that. We'll switch roles, but oh my God, I just don't want it to fall apart. And I think the other reason is I'm paralyzed, you guys, is So usually I don't get paralyzed because I'm fighting for my characters because I want them to live.

So like I was saying to you, Jeff, the muse, do it for her, do it for them. But I also do it for my characters, because if I don't sit down and just dump into that lava and that rewrite, they're gonna ffffew into the ether they go. They're never gonna exist. No one's ever gonna know all that work. No one's gonna ever know my characters.

Except I'm realizing some part of me is afraid for them to live.

Lorien: What do you mean?

Meg: Well, because it's so much lava, man. It's so much lava, and my unconscious brain...

Lorien: You have to walk with them as they live.

Meg: Well, if I actually sold this and it went out into the world, some part of me is terrified. It's not autobiographical at all.

I'm not, like, worried about people being mad at me. Nothing. There's nothing autobiographical. But there is something in it that's so lava, that some part of my brain is, shouldn't lose, really. Should it? Do you really want to put that in the world if you're going to go that deep in the And of course I do, and is my highest self and my self right now, but I think some unconscious thing is like, no.

Apps don't. We've been working for 50 years to not go here. Do not go here. But this I'm just going to I'm just going to have to do it. And when you work at Pixar, you're going so fast. There's so much pressure. You hit those walls of like, oh, my God, don't go there too bad. It's due at 11 o'clock and it's eight o'clock in the morning.

So just go. So like I wrote that scene where she comes home to her parents and says, which was it was broken. You know, we broke it out in scenes, but I don't even know what's going to happen in this scene. And I just wrote, you want me to be happy, but I'm not. And I was like, Oh my God. That's what I wanted to say when I was 11 years old to my parents and I wasn't brave enough, but she is.

But it was partly the speed. that allowed thing to come up and not get the top on it. And so I think I just have to that's why I'm paralyzed, because I'm afraid of the...

Lorien: You need to put some pressure on yourself.

Meg: I need to give you a hundred dollars, Lorien.

Lorien: Yeah, you need to Venmo me a hundred dollars. And if I don't get that script mailed to me and I won't read it right, I'm not going to give you notes or anything.

But it's like I'll be expecting it. And I'm be a jerk about it, too.

Meg: No, I don't. I'll tell you why. Because I'm writing this with my husband and he is having a great time and he is. He's moving, man, because it's it is his lava, because, of course, you have to dig to something deep enough. But he's also very aware.

It's very my personal stuff. So it's going to help. You know, he's away right now. So I get to pretend I'm not working.

Lorien: So funny. I desperately want my stuff out there for people to see. My fear is that I don't have the craft to be able to execute it in the way that it needs to be up there. That's what's getting in my way.

And that is because I'm not. my paralyzing whatever I'm paralyzed because I am so afraid of showing that I'm not some professional writer that living up to the expectations of what people think and expect of me that I'll they'll see they'll know the truth right.

Meg: It's so funny I think that's why artists do have to have a tiny touch of narcissistic arrogance because you have to somehow believe it's valuable enough and that your craft will be out there enough it's I think it's why it exists

Lorien: So, it's a balance, right?

I know I'm really good at this, but not so great at this? Or is that a lie? Have I reversed them, right? So then all those self doubting stuff, so then I have to just be like, you know what? I want to write this, so I'm writing it. Then I'm going to rewrite it, and then I'm going to rewrite it again, and I will go on the journey of this thing because I do want my shit to be out there.

The world deserves to see the truth about my nonsense.

Meg: I think the other reason you can get paralyzed when you're saying, I'm going to write it again and rewrite it again, I think that you can get fatigued considering. Oh, yeah. How many times, how many projects can I rewrite and I'm still not quote unquote there.

Lorien: And I think too, right. And I think that's legit. When we I think that's like, Oh my God, I'm only on the second rewrite. I thought I was going to fix it in this one. Now you're telling me I have 28 more? Like, that feels like some unachievable climbing one little hill and then looking up and seeing this giant mountain in front of you.

So, you have to just tackle one little hill at a time. Bird by bird, man.

Meg: As our friend Annie Lamott says, bird by bird. Take the first bird and do it. And let's go to the next.

Lorien: But mostly just do it.

Meg: But mostly just do it.

Lorien: Jump around in it and see what happens.

Meg: And pay your friend 100.

Lorien: And pay your friend 100. Well, I don't know if that one's healthy or not.

Like the negative endorsement. I don't know either.

Meg: I might try it. Try it. All right. I think that those are our best pieces of advice if you're staring down the rewrite shoot as I am as well. So thanks so much for tuning in today.

Lorien: Good luck on your rewrites and remember you are not alone and keep writing.