Film Courage: How do you define story? How do you teach it to clients and students? Glenn Gers, Screenwriter: I think the basic
idea of a story is that you’re going to be following a character or characters. It’s entirely possible to tell the story
of multiple characters. You don’t only have to tell one person’s
story. It’s nice, you can do it, but it is also
possible to tell a story with 11 main characters. It takes a lot of work. You have to follow each main character and
follow their story all the way through the narrative but in fact I believe any story
is really about how a character trying to accomplish something runs into other people
who will help or harm their intention. It’s sort of like Isaac Newton’s theory
of billiard balls that once they get set in motion they will role in that same direction
because they are being pushed by a physical force like a character is also doing that. They are trying to get somewhere and they
are rolling in a certain direction until either they hit something or something comes in and
knocks into them then that changes their direction but they are still trying to get to that one
place. The physics kind of falls apart there because
billiard balls are not trying to get anywhere but the idea that things are moving until
they run into something else which is also moving is sort of how characters work. Every character thinks they’re the main
character. If you have your hero walk into a hotel and
try to get a hotel room that hotel clerk they think they’re the center of the movie because
they are the center of their story and this person coming up to them is with getting in
their way or trying to charm them or whatever it is that they’re doing, they are trying
to do something and that interchange is the basic building blocks of story. That’s what you cal dramatic action trying
to accomplish something which mostly involves interacting with other people. Sometimes the action can be I have to take
this suitcase and put in on a train, whatever. But if will still be I have a thing I am trying
to accomplish and that’s what story is. I have a thing I am trying to accomplish. I am a character and I need to get this thing
and it will be a more interesting story if there is something in the way. If I am a character and I am trying to put
a suitcase on a train and I go and put it on the train and nothing happens it’s a
very short, boring story. If they are carrying the suitcase and another
person comes and they steal the suitcase, it’s more of an interesting story and it’s
a more interesting story if that person’s got something important in the suitcase. If it’s just a suitcase and they say Oh? Something stole it, I’ll go get another
one - not that strong a story. Every story is about a character trying to
accomplish something and having an obstacle and what they do and the action they take
in the face of obstacles is your story. The obstacles don’t have to be external. The obstacles can be I am really afraid of
the train station. I need to get this suitcase to my uncle and
he’s going to be at the other end of the train so I’ve got to get the suitcase onto
the train but I’m terrified of loud noises, that’s a story. The only obstacle is in there but it’s real. So every character is facing obstacles, the
obstacles don’t have to be physical, they don’t have to be another character. They just have to be something that is getting
in the way of trying to accomplish something important to them. Film Courage: Can you explain how questions
and choices inform the writing process? Glenn: Writing is a process of questions. There are a couple of things that I wish I
could get tattooed inside peoples’ eyelids if they knew - think in scenes and writing
is a process of questions. It’s not a thing you need to fill out, it’s
not a form you have to fit into. Writing is a question of having something…it
could just be I want to write a Western or I want to talk about how love hurts or I want
to talk about how love saved my life. Whatever it is you start with then you start
to ask questions. How am I going to tell this story? Am I going to tell it through a character
who gets it or who doesn’t get it. Every thing is going to be a choice. Every question that you ask if you write down
that question how am I going to tell this story? Who is the main character? Everything is a question and those questions
are: Who is it about? What do they want? Why can’t they get it? What do they do about that? And how does it end? I guess I skipped one…oh…why doesn’t
that work, right. Who is it about? What do they want? Why can’t they get it? What do they do about that? Why doesn’t that work? How does it end? I did a whole video on this called the 6 Essential
Questions [on Glenn’s Youtube channel Writing For Screens]. I explained it better there but those 6 questions
practically will help you write anything. They will help you write a movie, they will
help you write a video game, they will help you write a series because that’s the essential
thing you get of how am I going to turn in whatever feeling or idea I have into a story? Is a person who is trying to do something
to get something and there is something in the way and then eventually something will
end it either the end will be I don’t get it or I do get it and whatever they do that
they had never tried before is how it ends because if they tried before it would have
ended before. So who is it about? What do they want? What do they do? Why doesn’t that work? What do they finally do? What is the end? That is storytelling and it can work for three
acts or twenty-seven acts or one act. It always works. It’s my go to set of questions. And then keep asking questions. Who is it about? It’s about a plumber? Where is he from? Just ask - who, what, why, where? Keep asking why. Why is he afraid of heights? Why does he love this particular person? Every time that you ask a question you get
a specific answer and you are moving closer to writing a scene. Film Courage: What is the easiest way for
someone to figure out an enjoyable writing process for themselves? Glenn: The first important thing about this
process is recognizing that it’s yours. There is not a right or wrong way. Some people write at night, some people write
in the day, some people write in short bursts, some people write in long extended bursts. There is no particular better or worse process. An important thing about a process is that
it’s something that you can do relatively easily for whatever reason it works for you
and that means you have to spend time paying attention to yourself, trying different things,
seeing which ones work and which ones don’t work and being really honest. I personally (I keep doing that, sorry) I
turn out to write well in very short bursts. I thought I should do more because when writing
in short bursts it’s like Holy Crap! If I can keep doing this for eight hours I’d
be a miracle! But I can’t and I would sit there and grind
after the burst was running down…grind and not only would that be unproductive and disheartening
but I would then start to undo my good work because when you start to grind in a bad way,
you start to doubt, you start to feel bad and say Well I must be feeling bad because
this work is bad which is not necessarily the case. It could be that your process is bad. And so what I would do is I would write something
that was really good and then I would grind until I was unhappy and then I would say Oh
that’s sucks and then I would write something over it and destroy my good work and it took
me a long time to pay attention to the fact that I do really well in short bursts and
if I stop when I feel myself starting to lose it and take a break, take a walk, do exercises
(whatever) I can then come back and do another short burst. Getting myself to sit down again is rough
but that is the thing I had to teach myself in paying attention to what worked. I’ve gotten much more productive since I’ve
learned my process. It’s not for everyone. Everyone will have a process that is dependent
on their own inner mechanisms and on their own reality. Some people only have free time on weekends. Some people only get a little free time in
the evening and so they have to find a way to work at the time that they are allowed
by their life. You have to pay attention to reality and pay
attention to your own inner working and the best to find out is to do it and see how it
goes. It’s always better to try and do some work
and see how it goes. You will never get to the place where you
absolutely know that you can write and then you start writing. There is always the question of let me try
this and see what comes out. That’s the best test of a process. Film Courage: And working these temp jobs
for many other reasons aside from income and the study of people helped you realize that
was your preferred style? Glenn: Forced me because I was stubborn and
I would just keep doing the wrong thing over and over again until circumstances forced
me to work in short bursts and then I was like Wow, that actually is better! Trying to be open to your process, trying
to pay attention to what actually makes the work good and feels good. Feeling good is underrated. You have to learn to write when you don’t
feel good. For me having a process where I can say I
have five basic documents that I open like an outline, a place where I write notes, and
the text itself and a kind of overview (I’m going to be doing a video on this soon - Writing
For Screens Youtube channel), that’s my personal set up. Everyone has their own but what you need to
do is so when you open that notebook you are not thinking about anything but the contents
of the work. You know Ah, this is the outline. The outline is going to be broken into scenes
and the scene lines are going to look like this and I don’t have to think about that,
I have to think about what is in the scene. That is the best way to find a process is
to get something that works for you. Some people will do it on their phone. I would advise doing it in some way that is
written down in some form, digitally, on paper, on notecards. It doesn’t matter, what matters is you get
it out of your head and into the world in some way that you can set it aside and come
back to it, set it aside and come back to it because with almost anything you are going
to have to, you can’t do it all at once. Film Courage: When did you have that aha moment
that I don’t have writer’s block and my anxiety was that wasn’t my style to sit
at my desk in my parents’ basement or wherever and with the perfect music and the iced tea,
that actually wasn’t working for me. Glenn: It was unfortunately not an aha moment,
it was an aha couple of years. And I think that is sort of a misleading thing
that our culture has developed from movies that there is a decisive moment and after
it you are always changed. In story that is a very important. You need decisive moments when people are
changed but it truth it’s more like a series and I have a couple seasons where I get a
little bit of it and then I fall back into my own ways and then I have some rewards and
then I do something new. It’s a process in which you try to do two
steps forward, one step back not the other way around because you’re trying to head
forward. You do a little forward, you fall back, a
little forward, you fall back, and then the main way it always is the doing of it. Just throw something on the paper even if
it’s just (and I done this) I have a scene where I say this is the scene where he comes
home and is miserable and I just took it out of the outline and wrote it into the script
because next time I look at it I am now familiar with this process. I now say I created a scene, the scene is
a description, this is where he comes home and is miserable. Okay, how do we see that he is miserable? Good question. He seems miserable because he takes his dinner
out of the refrigerator and throws it on the wall. Each thing that you get when you ask a question
to me it’s always a process of questions and a process of writing down the answer. Now I have a scene where he comes in, opens
his fridge, throws the dinner against the wall. Okay, we know he’s miserable. Now I can add a couple of lines and move onto
the next scene. Everything you can do to put a little something
down to create a bit of something for your creativity to hang onto that is (for me) the
essence of the writing process. Film Courage: So if this were a movie, it
would show Glenn as a temp and then “Alright, Charlie…have a good weekend!” And then the music plays and you have a half
hour and this is it, here I am writing it. Glenn: I actually think what we would do is
we would show…we would cut to the imaginary scene where we’d play it out and so we’d
get to catch the thrill of the creation by seeing the creative magic of this character…sorry
I’m writing now. Film Courage: Now I love it. So Glenn as the writer. Glenn: I’m sitting there writing the movie
and we cut to or dissolve to…by the way…that’s another thing. Most of the time a) don’t write ‘CUT TO.’
William Goldman started it, it’s a delightful thing in his scripts, obviously they are going
to cut to. How else are they going to get there. You are wasting page space, don’t say CUT
TO. And most of the time don’t say DISSOLVE
TO or FADE OUT because that’s their decision unless it’s really important that you dissolve,
just write the next scene and they will figure out how to get there. Anyway, get to Glenn writing and then show
that scene where the character is running to the phone booth in the rain and it’s
a great scene and people will get so excited as my creativity as a character that they
will want to know what happens next. Question For The Viewers: What are your best
writing questions?
