The Story Solution - 23 Actions All Great Heroes Must Take - Eric Edson [FULL INTERVIEW]

Eric can you tell us about the first screenplay you sold what was happening in your life at that moment in time and how many had you written previously wow that takes me back I was still at UCLA as a grad student and I was in work in my first year working on my PhD I mean I always knew I wanted to teach at the college level sometimes so I wanted to get those required degrees in early and I just love college and I wouldn't let anybody tear me out of there so I was still working on the PhD but there was another student there doctoral student there whose stepfather was a director and he asked do you have anything do you have any stories and I was working on something I was a head of Novell I was working on at the time it was kind of for the time kind of an uppity romantic comedy so I gave it to de David E Miller was the director if anybody wants to look that one up in film history he was a great studio a mainstream studio director and did some really good work but David really liked it and he wanted to option it and work on it with me and I said that sounds pretty good and I was what 20 23 24 I think I was 24 at the time and that's what that's why I never went back for the second year and and Beyond and I never did my dissertation for the for the doctoral degree because I wasn't bought out of there and paid to write a screenplay and I was 24 and maybe a little more cocky than I should have been I figured I got this knocked you know I'm I'm I'm off and running and well the first life lesson it was to be another eight years before I got my next assignment my second assignment but I was doing PhD in theater so I had been writing stage plays for a number of years but that's what it was it was called the menopause of Henrietta luck and it was I was a romantic comedy what sparked the idea for the novella good question where do these I don't know I don't know I'm not sure I could tell you it was it was a woman a rather reserved woman in her late 30s was that was the the main character the heroine and she had a father who was crotchety and uppity and mentally not quite all there and I just kind of came I think from family history we have a lot of eccentrics in our family so you know I was working the old your own family sort of material so then what did your own family think of you leaving this ph.d program right at UCLA to quote-unquote go to Hollywood I mean you're still in LA but you're you're crossing the line into town another part of town and then become an adult and not as a perpetual student mm-hmm it was fine what's hot you know I said I was I'm a very lucky person when it comes to prayer to parents really truly I mean we were what would you call it middle class lower middle class basically as a family but I had to loving caring wonderful people for prayer for parents and I learned to value that more and more as life goes on truly truly that was a blessing and my dad was the scientist and my mom was not an artist in and of herself but she's the one who understood it you know go do what you're good at so no no they understood and the plan was always that I would go back well one thing led to another and I never did go back to the ph.d program so that you had their blessing you you sell this script is that right yes it made no no it's not me hating okay and what are you doing in that eight years what's your progression of mood output during that eight years well after that basically up to that point I had never even been in a room with a motion picture camera in the same room so my girlfriend at the time Diane she had applied and gotten into the American Film Institute and I said oh I sounds pretty good and that's better than going out into the world and going to work so I applied to and we both got in the American Film Institute and we both already had a master fine arts terminal degree in theater from UCLA and then we went into the master Fine Arts program at the AFI myself as a screenwriter and Diane is a director she's a wonderful director and so we got to hide out for another three years but after that then I focused on writing and so did you think that it would just be a matter of a few years until you churn out the next script and sell it again and you could sort of capture lightning in a bottle again I wasn't that optimistic optimistic yes you have to be to a certain extent but I'm also a realist I just knew I had to do it and it was another speaking of luck Diane was another major major part of my luck because this lady took a chance you know that very very few young beautiful women I think would be willing to take on a guy from nowhere who said he was going to be a writer fat chance right you know put all her marbles on that and she did and I just it was an amazing journey and that she took that chance was something and I just kept working and I started to get work okay if you're a writer in any form in any genre if you're a writer you're going to get kicked in the teeth I mean that's that goes with that goes with the territory it's just that's the way it happens so you got to get used to certain things you have to find that self that peace within yourself and toughen your skin get alligator hide because it's coming and it is going to come and then you just try every the best way possible that you know how to do to learn from it all learn from it all and I was not my now I was pretty shy kid basically is what it comes down to I was not a tremendously outgoing person at that time I didn't hadn't mastered mastered that skill yet but I felt I had a plan I knew I couldn't do it by bashing on bashing on doors kicking doors down pounding on tables like you to exaggerate to make a point I wasn't one of those people but what I could do is make myself inevitable by continuing to crank out original material and that is exactly what happened I just kept writing and I just kept rewriting and rewriting until they were pretty darn good so when opportunities came as eventually they did I was ready I had scripts different genres you know what do you want what do you want to see and ultimately I ended up with a top well I'm not gonna bandy names about at this point but a top agent literary agent in Hollywood which kind of changed everything and you know made other things possible and it was just because I had a drawer full of scripts but I would I would like to say this before we move on I've written 17 feature screenplays for remuneration you know on assignment shall we say of those seventeen six got made of those six I get screen credit on five of the five I get shared screen credit on three and sole screen credit on two and the reason I like to run that down for people is that is a pretty typical career career arc for a working screenwriter it's not what a lot of people coming into the field think it's going to be no basically you end up making your living and it can be at times a very good living off of stuff that is never going to get made because whether it's made or not those are financial decisions those are business decisions and your original material you crank out can be very very good and be a good work sample but I have a number of scripts that were never made never never optioned yes but never made because they were wrong in their timing for the business at that at that moment so that's truly I think kind of a glimpse of the true nature of this business I don't think it's changed too much since then people need to know that who are genuinely interested in and fantasize or see the possibility of them becoming screenwriters they need to buckle down for the long haul because that's what it is and then the notoriety you said that even though these were your works you you know these were your scripts but your name was either taken out or and and knowing that that's part of you know that you're not going to be blasted all over the trades yeah and being okay with that yeah that's that's a part of the life yeah yes as a working screenwriter this is this is the thing people who want to pursue this and I definitely understand it because it I got the bug early and I want I mean no I knew I was a writer in the fourth grade and I say you know it didn't I didn't choose it it choose it chose me and okay so that fate question is decided and we move forward and see where it takes you but every writer who does not come from money who does not come from great resources as most of us do not there are two tracks to your life and the woman the first is doing everything you can with who you are and your personality toward fulfilling that the desire then the creative need to do these things and write these scripts and maybe some of them will get made and that's a separate discussion maybe like them but also the second track being you have to find a way you have to build for yourself because nobody else is gonna do it for you an ongoing source of life sustenance separate from your creative career you have to build the I think build that into your plan from the beginning because even when you do get start getting hunks of money it comes in hunks and at times it can be wonderful that can be very big hunks but when that happens you have to really know how to how to turn that money into income in indefinite income I mean I have so many friends of course it's so hard and you struggle and all of a sudden you're making the big bucks and and your name is in variety it for a few times and all that and so they run and says you know I work so hard I really deserve this and they go up and buy the big house on the hill which is certainly understandable and five or six years lady you know they're selling it they're desperate and selling it and they lose it because every year is not like that it doesn't always rain gold coins in this business it's going to be very sporadic take what you make turn it into income and that's what I did what we did I advised income real estate but something so that you can have a life separate and and assured I made it depends I mean Diana and I we wanted kids we had I mean when we had kids pretty pretty soon pretty early on and the responsibilities mountains you know and you got to do both you got to do both and it can be done that way Araki you were director of a top university Masters of Fine Arts screenwriting program can we talk about how did you become qualified for the position what's your background what would your daily activities well as as we were talking about earlier I had a background rather extensive background in surviving at least surviving for 23 years as a screenwriters and occasionally TV writer as well and so they came to me with this offer of the possibility of tenure-track teaching screenwriting I mean this was 18 years ago so this was at a time when screenwriting at the university level was becoming more and more in demand more and more important all the major universities you know one by one we're creating these departments in these courses specifically in grad programs for the MFA which is the terminal degree but you need to teach it and so forth and I suffered over the decision because I was you know making a living and so forth but I decided to go ahead and because I'd always wanted to go back to a khadeem and I loved it and I loved the the Edit of this the atmosphere of it and the working with people a writer spends 90% of their working life you understand in a room alone it's not always good for the head and the emotional structure within but that's just you know part of the job so you kind of find other ways it getting out there and this seemed like a good one and in the beginning I thought I've made a horrible mistake because it's a bureaucracy it is you know it's something that I was not familiar with in terms of participating in and all that but as time went on very quickly I met wonderful people in the faculty and the tenure track the tenure track climbed to a full professor is not an easy one I don't know people realize that stuff people throw you know they say I'm professor of this and that there are very few of those around it is a it is a process that can test and try ones in Duras endurance and and and other abilities intellectual capabilities and all this other stuff but one of the main reasons I did it was because I wanted to write a book about screenwriting and I knew if I took the professorship I would have to because that would be part of the package deal in order to get to full professor right so what I found was what I didn't expect which was a career that is in many many ways so much more fulfilling than being a screenwriter her screenwriter alone and we started working together and I mean not just me but there are a number of very good people in this department that wanted this MFA and screenwriting program to to be born and to flourish and we worked on it and over the years it grew and into something that were all well yes I'll admit it were proud of it just in the last year and a half by the way relative to the program again forgive me for this but let's see it was it was first Hollywood Reporter included us as one of the top 25 film schools in America and and then shortly after that Daily Variety put us in the top 40 film schools in the world Wow and it was a lot of work but we were really pleased with the result how far we've come so it was a chance at a total second career and a very one in its own way and and fulfilling fulfilling and rewarding so within those 18 years how have you seen the way students approach screenwriting or their view of it change and I know we're in Los Angeles so it's totally skewed I'm sure it's the same in New York but do you think first of all in other parts of the country this would be as successful this program I don't I don't know and I'm I don't know but my guess is and my best guess is that I it depends on the people running the department and the program and how often they can get there grad students out to LA but I don't know I would guess it would be harder to be successful out beyond a certain radius beyond Los Angeles because this is it this is the movie TV making center of the universe so to speak is right here and one of the things we can do is the people we bring in to teach I mean me for instance but even the part-timers and the lecturers and so forth these are working people in the industry on a regular basis they know they know the truth and when you find one of those who is also a really good teacher and that's interestingly that's kind of like two separate skills but when you get that combo you've got a really great great faculty and you know you can you can oh and also in in LA what's we require this we I don't know how many MFA programs in screenwriting have this I know a number of them do but I don't know if it's limited or not we have an internship program that is required in the last semester so we send our people out to we work we have we have a great relationship with a great number of production companies and development companies of material where our grads in screenwriting go out and intern and it connects them with the business and this is important and it helps make it a stronger program it really does and a lot of our people you know one of the things you can possibly learn when you come to an MFA screenwriting program may be that long term as a career screenwriting or television writing alone for you may not be the right way to go for any individual but there is so much to be learned in the program so many tools to be acquired and mastered when they go out in their internships and meet the people doing this and producing this and the creative directors of companies and stuff like that one of the first things that happens when anybody gets hired I mean in any level in in Hollywood it's an agency it's it's a production company usually in the first week or two somebody drops by you're juggling the coffee or whatever it is if your task is and they drop a script in front of you and they say you know I've read this over the weekend we tell me what you think of it on Monday and it's all very casual and low-key but the truth is this is one of the most important moments of your professional life because how you respond to reading that script and how you speak of it afterwards will tell them a great deal about how useful or not you will be to a company going forward that is in the creative business and our people do that very very well and so a number of I mean they can take a script by the time they finish here we we beaten it into them and they can take a screenplay and they'll tell you exactly what's right with it what's wrong with it and precisely how to fix it yeah its strengths its weaknesses what it needs to be changed and and they do that well out there in their internships and now we have a half a dozen or so bar var people climbing the the kind of the more business and creative business and of the latter and doing very very well out there are you able to talk about some of the scripts that you go through as examples for part of the curriculum are you some certain movies that you tend to focus on or directors sure sure I use I use a lot of scripts because I'm encouraging people to read I'm forcing them to read as a matter of fact it's hard these days by the way I must say even though I'm Generation X I'm seeing myself being you know torn away from reading more and more how is that in this digital age where you know 140 characters is considered reading yes it's problematic it's very problematic but you're getting people used to the idea just great yes and I'm with a great a sense of personal urgency also if I may throw a statistic at you in 1946 just after World War Two at a time when only about 10% of the population nation's population went to college or could afford to go to college the GI Bill hadn't kicked in yet you know it started to change us but in 1946 the America the general American population had a reading vocabulary of 25,000 words that's not recognition that is used in you know in everyday conversation a reading vocabulary 25,000 words by 1990 the average American had a reading vocab speaking excuse me speaking vocabulary of 10,000 words and since then I am sure it has declined precipitously since then that is what happened you read less you just see images you live through images you you know you use emojis to express emotion and you don't need words you don't have the subtlety of words or the variety vocabulary and it limits I believe truly limits how people can think even intelligent people how completely they can think and that's why reading actual words on actual paper is incredibly important for young writers and so you're encouraging them to read novels as well or mostly just in the screenplay format well I would say I would hope I would hope novels as well I mean that's one of the things I say look guys if you were setting out to become a novelist couldn't we take it for granted that in your life you had read thousands perhaps multiple thousands of novels before you actually sit down to write one what should the difference be if you say you want to be a screenwriter can't we assume that you have written hundreds upon written read hundreds of hundred on hundreds of screenplays it seems to me we can and then we do the hand thing you know how many of you have read five screenplays how many of ten it tapers off at about twenty twenty-five you know there's no more hands going up and then I slay up the task you must be reading constantly you you cannot write what you do not read you just cannot and so that's one of the things one of the hurdles we have to face and draw them into I mean they see if there's these are smart people and they recognize it bless their hearts but that's one of the avenues where we have to travel now yes I would encourage them also to be writing novels I mean to be reading novels because I think ultimately they should also be writing novels but that's a separate discussion but to to they don't have enough time they're reading all the other stuff for here and books about screenwriting and filmmaking and and then of course all the all the screenplays Erin Brockovich is one of my favorites Susannah grant screenplay for Erin Brockovich I think that's one of the better screenplays I've ever read certainly in there you know with the group there's so much to be learned in that screenplay we were recently in one of the classes they had have done that and we spend an evening talking about it the things that Susannah Graham does to make it work to give it a style a narrative style as well as just exposition as as it goes forward stuff like that how she creates characters that live and each one with their own voice there's a lot to learn there a lot but of course it's not the only one we have bunch of scripts yeah but Erin Brockovich just one of your favorite do you think it's because there's also she was a real person it's it's there it's she's still around she's still doing her thing and that's very active that's right see her on Twitter and yeah do you think that that helps because it's a it's a real person that they're basing this story off of versus oh oh yeah yeah most definitely in terms of you know that single issue of character absolutely the reason they made the movie was because of the character and what the character did but Susannah grant as a screenwriter was in a difficult position there because I'm I'm guessing I do not know for certain but I am guessing that from the beginning when they got the right Taryn Brockovich is story Miz Brockovich had in there some sort of control over who the screenwriter was going to be frequently that's the way it's done so she interviewed people and they kind of clicked with she's clicked with Susannah grant and Senator grants probably spent a lot of time with her getting to know her hearing is hearing her speech patterns hearing her use of vocabulary and an emotional tempos and rhythms and stuff like that and so yes I would say absolutely it was a powerful influence but that's only where it began you know it's Susannah Grant who picked the scenes and the ordering of the scenes it's Susannah grant who the story forward had her character the main character driving the story forward every step of the way what she did with that was masterful and there's something else about that one too love to burn loved to burn up film here tape there is a major problem in the third act I mean this is getting pretty esoteric but there's no there's a major problem in the third act of of Erin Brockovich which there is a point a dramaturgical point that must happen must happen ends in films that are going to connect with large audiences and because of the circumstances this is a Erin Brockovich is a courtroom drama really it's about somebody suing somebody so the big payoff moment what's called the obligatory scene would happen which should happen in a courtroom but Erin Brockovich is not an attorney so if it happened in a courtroom the entire big moment would take place with Erin Brockovich just sitting there silently watching and Susannah grant recognized this quite correctly so that this was a dramatic big dramatic problem so like a really good screenwriter does she found a way around that that gave it the emotional punch kept the focus on Erin and gave it the the sense of victory and emotion for the audience at the ending instead of the courtroom we'd never go to the courtroom do you remember yeah I'm remembering certain scenes right now definitely yeah yeah accord the end she was running around getting everybody to sign right up for it because they had X percent 90 percent or something like that as all the people in the town and had they had to sign this affidavit or something like that and she comes back and there's these two uptown uppity lawyers and there's this funny scene where she basically lays out that she saved the day you know she's found the The Smoking Gun she's got got the evidence and and it's turned into a moment of emotional victory for the hero with a substitute adversary it's not I mean they're not the real adversary PG&E is the real adversary right I know this is kind of a subtle thing but it is a remarkable piece of screenwriting to know that and to write it in such a way that it works plus she had been fighting that stereotypical Uptown person throughout her working with Albert Finney the looks that she would get whether it was her fault for the way she was dressed and some of the comments but she was fighting that same stereotype so it was like a culmination of that at that moment yeah they are a brilliant writers substitute for to provide the emotion that cannot endure these circumstances because it's a courtroom drama and she's not a lawyer but that can provide the substitution of an emotional payoff for an audience and it works it works how does Erin Brockovich grow how was her character evolving and and changing for the better in that film - trace - trace character growth you have to the writer doing it and anybody who wants to understand it you know when it works with other you know with other writers doing it well in other films you have to go back to certain basic questions and the one in Erin Brockovich is what does Erin want there is one thing and that's what you have to get you know condense it down - unless she wants this she wants happy kids she wants money she wants what does Erin inside what does she want and need and you boil that down that's question number one this is good in general kind of stuff when you're when you're when you're writing a character a lead character heroine or or hero right you've got to know certain things about what makes them tick I would offer that what Aaron Brock Erin Brockovich wants is to be taken seriously everything she does everything she says everything she goes back to it is about being taken seriously and but then she finds out as she goes along and her story she's getting closer and closer to actually being taken seriously it's costing her her family she's losing her children and her children's connection to her because she doesn't have any time for them anymore remember her son she's really getting kind of twisted out of shape and you know he's not happy with mom at all because she's not around anymore so the hero's journey emotionally the inner journey it has to be it always has to be hard that always has to be difficult and you have to be able to demonstrate it physically visibly to demonstrate it and so you have to know what they want and that has to come out I mean really want their primary defining want as a human being right and you have to know their wound every character that works and every character who has character growth ultimately has this deep inner wound it usually takes place in the past before the film begins but not always sometimes in in Finding Nemo Merlin who is the hero of that movie the wound happens right at the beginning when he loses his wife and 999 out of his thousand eggs to this Barracuda or whatever fish nasty fish eats them all up and it's this is his tragedy but the wound then defines that character for the rest of the movie until they are able to move beyond it the wound the wound is when a person has a wound going that deep even you know in reality let alone you know in fiction they tend to insulate themselves and defend themselves by creating this shield between themselves in the world so nothing that horrible or that painful can ever happen to them again that's usually when we meet them toward the beginning of the story this person who is isolated emotionally isolated behind a shield and the journey toward character growth is them figuring out that they have to get away from the shield they have to lay down the shield and face the potential hurt and pain in the world in order to connect with humanity and and lead a full life you know to connect with earth again can people and and really live a complete life rather than just be caged up and you know and be gone and and never have connected with anybody else and that is what has happened to Erin she is behind remember they have you have the scene this is still in act one I think it is and she's got the tiara and she's doing her speech because she was Miss somebody he's a Miss Wichita or something like that right once I'm point and and she said that I thought I was gonna be somebody I thought I was gonna be able to do something and then she found out that she was just treated like a dumb broad opening chain stores department stores and they didn't expect anything of her and they didn't want anything of her they just wanted her to stand there and look pretty and that was her wound she she didn't see that I mean she originally saw that as her opportunity to to break free and you know be who she knew she could be but didn't work so now in her life while she's desperately trying to put food on the table for her kids she is also desperately seeking away to get people to take her seriously and that's a wonderful place to start character growth it really is and you see the other co-workers and the different people that she has to deal with and probably one of the toughest environments in terms of being accepted in terms of she had lack you know no education and sort of was seen again as sort of a dumb whatever and and she's coming against probably the worst scrutiny and she feels it and she strikes back and that's where we start to see an interesting smart-mouth person emerging yes exactly do you think a lot of people related to her character ok heck yes that was an international smash you know yes and that's what I tell the students - all the time my approach to - screenwriting to teaching screenwriting is mainstream commercial Hollywood screenwriting that's what I'm going for and that's I give them the tools for that and there are many many tools necessary really that most of the people don't even realize exists when they first come into the program but it sounds like her story arc was relatable yes yes is that is that not universal right isn't is her circumstance not universally relatable sure to women all over the world and then it was a hit and it was a hit and many many men and it was a hit all over the world and that that's as some of the students are a bit cynical about my lack of cynicism about Hollywood and movies that make a great deal of money but I mean I just point out that what money means is this film touched untold millions of people where they live it gave them a some form of a rewarding emotional experience they got what they came for a storytelling here is an instance of storytelling worked and that's what we need to learn how to do because that's a language that's a language and a craft and a ritual that can be mastered many of the students seen Erin Brokovich yes I make them but most of them in its old enough movie it was you know Asher yes and so people let's say that are under 30 what's their reaction to the film versus over 30 interesting interesting because it seems like cynicism is in these days oh it is it's it's it's you know that's and it's an innocent it's affecting the themes of contemporary movies and spend hundreds of millions of dollars making a movie whose theme is life sucks and then you die mmm this is a very disturbing time yes in Hollywood it is in many many ways and that is comes out of the cynicism of the young and this is true I don't know I'd have a hard time saying that they all read it and see it and they they are they all speak well of it it wasn't interesting either just the other night we were talking about this one of the students said she really didn't like Erin Brockovich not the movie the person I don't like that character she's an awful human being and I said well you know characters he leads who work in movies they can't be perfect because we don't like perfect people huh we wanted to know and love and care about flawed people but and then you got a list got a list the reasons we have been given that the storyteller gave us to allow us to identify with this hero the Erin Brockovich and liked her anyway even for her brashness and her outfits and her outfits you taste you know no accounting for Eric we're in this age of everybody's trying to hack this and how do we how do we do this faster so most people probably would turn to education as another form of hacking how do we get past a certain timeframe of putting energy into something it's formal education totally necessary when it comes to writing can't someone still be a brilliant screenwriter without having to be part of an MFA program or even get a bachelor's in writing the answer is simple and the answer is absolutely yes of course they can they can but mmm that for most of us is choosing a very difficult and lonely road and here is why see this any art form before anything can be art and appreciated as something that has reached to the level of art it is a craft first art is created by craftspeople who have some inspiration at one moment in their lives or 50 moments in their lives when the craft that they do so well rises to the level of art but you cannot cut to art without swimming through crafts without creating an understanding the craft of anything Georgiana Keefe I don't know why she came to mind but then and Pablo Picasso okay graphic artists who take it to the level of true and pure art both of them in their early years learned their craft they learn perception they learned color they're there you know composition there are things you have to learn tools that these artists have and when they are mastered then they can take it in to some very interesting please and unexpected places but you've still got the tools chess chess is a rather interesting game and there are untold millions of possibilities maybe infinite possibilities there are six pieces in a chess game but how to use those pieces and multiple combinations and so I'd create probably the most fascinating intricate and mind twisting game ever invented there are tools in screenwriting and I would take the position that if this is what somebody really wants if this is what they're going for if this if all their gifts lead them in this direction then they need to get educated about the tools you can do that on your own but it you know but you'll need to read a lot of books and sometimes I mean there's a lot of great books on screen hiding out of it you know don't get me wrong there's a lot of great books and there are tons and tons of garbage books on screenwriting - and if you haven't got you know some guidance you may be wasting a lot of time on some of those books but if you come to an MFA program you are pursuing a couple of things really you know what you what do you get for your money in all guys death well first of all you're going towards a terminal degree a graduate terminal degree that qualifies you to teach tenure-track as a professor at the college or and/or university level and that's a major certificate that's a major thing to have like me I had two of them stashed away in the closet somewhere when the opportunity came up decades later okay I'm qualified I'm prepared you know let's go so that as a writer it gives you another door to open another avenue to pursue in life you are less hindered remember I said you got to have two two pathways to be pursued at the same time your craft and art yes but at the same time how to regularize an income well you're a big step toward the second path when you have an MFA just the practicality of the degree but on the other set a set of accomplishments it's about the tools the tools you will learn who that never you never knew existed so many people who don't get a formal education in it or read they still talk of screenwriting as something that falls from the sky that I don't want that stuff you know I don't do plot you know I'll I look I just read this someplace and it just made me shake my head somebody's these comments that flow into things I think it was it was actually was one of your clips and somebody somebody down there was saying I hate plot you know I want story and that poor person obviously is not educated about these things because plot and story are the same bloody thing they are you a story is plot plot is story maybe we can get there in a minute or two but make those mistakes and that's just that's just ignorance you know and you can get educated and you can learn the tools and how to use them it is to be out there so I'm going to create this beautiful big intricate thing and not know the pieces of it it's like going to say I'm going to create this big beautiful house and I know absolutely nothing about cement electrical cabling roofing shingles glass or you got to know all these things before you can build a house and I believe the same is true for really good screenwriting for in falmouth I'll throw out some some of the silly stuff but useful useful stuff did you know for instance that there are only four viable goals in all of narrative screenwriting yeah when stopped escape or retrieve so oK you've got an idea for a character your hero or heroine great you got an idea and they have okay now what is it they want what they've got to have a goal to pursue right well it has to fall into the category of wind stop escape or retrieve now these are big categories and there are many versions of each woman many permutations of each one so it's not like it's that cut and dried but it will appear to a lot of people like it's that's too dried for me but the point is this there's only those four because those four share something in common they all provide a visible physical 3-dimensional goal for a motion picture that will result in a physical climax and obligatory scene it precludes the use of internal goals and that's one of the things people have to get over an internal goal that's great and it is separate from what drives the movie you need a physical visible goal each one of those four goals has a finish line a visible finish line and a goal like well they want to feel better about themselves that doesn't work on film it just doesn't work and that there are only four emotions mad sad glad and scared you haven't heard that one yeah again there are they they are you know there's a lot of variations with demands meds ed glad and scared there's many permutations and and and dimensions there but the way they are useful is like this if you are building if you're outlining something a section a particular section here a goal sequence or a particular scene the thing is the way you guarantee that it's going to have conflict and change in it and change is one of the single most important we could talk about that in a minute to change is the power that makes screenplays either work or not work you got to quantify it but it can be done wonderfully that if if the hero lead character walks stomps jumps falls into a scene and they are either mad sad glad or scared by the end of the scene they have to be one of the others if they're mad when they show up they have to be scared when they walk away or if they're scared when they show up they have to be glad when they walk away because that guarantees dramatic change within the scene and it's a way of checking yourself because we read a whole lot of scenes which are just talk and they're the same everything is the same at the end as as it was at the beginning and that is not a viable scene for visual storytelling things like that they do you know there are only 14 character categories in all of dramatic writing and all of narrative writing you have to know the 14 categories and you have to know how they work and how they interrelate the puzzle pieces to create plot how they advance how they can advance a story I'm just curious what sorry to interrupt but what are the what are a few of the 14 just for instance their words let me qualify there are 14 character Gadar character categories that advance and serve story story is a central character hero or heroine who undertakes to do something physically do something in order to achieve a visible physical goal by the end kind of stuff right and in that pursuit there are 14 other character categories who serve as either helpers or hinder vers toward that hero and they are mean like first of all I mean the main categories are our hero and adversary who adversary is much unsung and under underappreciated the adversary is critical and and and and the point I mean without without conflict you don't have a story there is no story without conflict that's just it you know so that adversary is key to the creating of conflict and so it puts a lot of weight on who the adversary is so you got hero adversary then there is a mentor a very wide and delicious category you know goes back to Joe Campbell and and the assessment of the mythological approach stuff that there's some of those characters I mean he called the adversary the shapeshifter that's some more specific usage yes its adversary shapeshifter is is somebody who appears one thing on the outside and become something else that is one kind of adversary but not the only kind so and then there's mentor there's the love interest character this is interesting the love interest character I really go into this in detail for folks for some I mean the love interest character brings depth and humanity and and and helps augments and eases character growth forward for the central character and it is the least-used character category of all the grad students who pass through here yeah it really is I think it's the character it gets too close to home maybe their experience you know in these things emotional sensual experience is highly limited or something what it is something about it but that is a key character and stories that work and you have a romance subplot that love interest character well when it's done well it's one of the most powerful things you can add to a story and then there are helper follower allies and and a sidekick sidekick is another category very specific function is played by the sidekick and and there's there is the adversary agent see there is one adversary adversary can only be one one person human being or a personified thing a monster that behaves like a human being and thinks like a human being but but one thing one human being but they can also have all kinds of adversary agents running around doing the bidding of the adversary so in and let's say Erin Brockovich they're fighting this like toxic tort or whatever anything and and so the the workers of the plant or of the you know are sort of the adversary agent because they're maybe not the ones totally calling the shots but they're working for the people that are calling the shots yes okay except for the ones that turn to the good side you know who jump over to the good people and and then there's a group of characters called gate Guardians and that's I would put those people in the gate Guardian category gate Guardian is a character who this is this is from Campbell and the mythological structure to gate Guardian is a character who when first met by the hero when first confronted by the hero stops them says no you cannot enter here but once the hero finds a way to outsmart that gate Guardian it's never brute force it's but when they outsmart them and find a way to get around them and continue their journey after that the gate guardian becomes an ally at first opposes and then assists and I and a few more few more in there too but see but the point is all of these characters there's only fourteen that that help you create a plot that help move a story forward and any other character that a particular writer wants to plot you know I really like this character you know they're kind of interesting and peppy and zippy and they talk funny and I like it if they do not serve the story if they do not help drive the plot forward axel cut them lose them because they have to serve a function Erik something you just said to us off-camera was that when you do see students again sometimes out in the the public arena that they'll say you know I always remember you encouraged me to write badly with pride and how it worked for them can we talk about that yeah sure every time I walk into the class the first evening all our classes are evening evening classes and in the new class the first year people there for the first semester and I walk in they're chattering away and trying to get to know each other and so forth but they haven't you know really had any anything to do with me yet and I walk in it was always weird and creepy because as soon as I walk in deathly silence falls everybody's waiting so I look very austere and serious and I walk to the whiteboard and I write on the whiteboard and very very large letters write badly with pride and then they laugh you know everybody everybody laughs and it cuts the ice and you know it works that way and I turn around and I smile and I say yes but I'm not kidding for it is a critical importance for writers to permanently give themselves permission to write badly if writer's block is all about expecting and demanding of oneself perfection anything any word any sentence it's gotta be great it's got to be great no that way lies right early death you do that you'll end up freezing so solid you'll never write again it is exactly the opposite writing is a craft it's a craft and how do you how do you participate in a craft it's a craft that it's you that exercised with words and it is like in in I don't know statuary or something you start out with a big gooey pile of wet clay and you started mush it you get your hands dirty you know you get down in the mud and you're mush it and squish it and then you start making choices about as you shape it the pieces you're not gonna need and so forth and you go from there but you start out with mess that's what we do as writers we start with mess and then we make choices first hundreds of choices and then thousands of choices and before we're done tens of thousands of individual choices have been made but you cannot make choices and you cannot see what or choose what direction you want your story to go in or have you wanted to develop unless you have a pile of words on the page so we have exercises sometimes just let's try it let's write as badly as we know how and it's funny you read them aloud everybody gets a laugh it's guy stuff and what they find out is even when they are trying to write badly because that's what we're doing it's this little exercise it still comes out funny it's still it's it's not bad in other words they're they're funny they're cute they're weird they're quippy but even writing badly they're not really writing that badly at all if you write badly for instance I'm trying to think of a good example how about when I when I wrote my book when I had trimmed it down nice and tight and I thought I really had it ready to go I had a hundred and a hundred and twenty hundred and thirty thousand words in the manuscript and I called him up and said okay I'm ready to go I've done my cutting and I've done to my to it you know here it is one hundred thirty thousand words and he laughed publisher laughed and said no no Eric we don't publish anything over seventy thousand words and it was like this bolt of horror that hit me I said wait a minute are you actually telling me that I now have to cut my book in half and he said yeah actually I'm afraid I am so for three or four days I was just practically in a coma I was you know any writer you know you're just you're appalled but Wow what they make you to do to your babies and then I got some help I had somebody else a dear dear friend who was good with editing take a look at it and I seriously cut into it one more time for editing I got it down to eighty two thousand words not quite there seventy thousand but I cut it by forty forty-five percent of the book that I thought was absolutely necessary was gone and the book was better for it was such a better book it was clearer and it was cleaner and there were so many swamps removed from it it was an interesting experience but I had did not realize you know you have to reject if I I didn't realize how much work that was yet to be done so writing is word choices and a process of reassessing critical to which means writers never write alone never but what we spend a lot of time alone in the writing process but once we have something then we have to and this is important this is important to to new writers everywhere you have to have a circle of people you choose opinion of material you trust it's one of the things that happens in our program these people make friends for life because then they rely on each other's judgment because everybody knows everybody's opinion grows to become quite sophisticated about a material and you can always call up one of your buddies and say you want to do a script swap you know you read mine I read yours and what you get back frequently is not what you want to hear we're all children you know we all want to say oh that is the greatest thing isn't that great and that's never what you hear so you're always eternally disappointed so you hear objective good criticism of what you've got and I always tell them 48 hours don't do anything for 48 hours suffer fine you stay in bed whatever you need to do in response to what you've heard about your material and then sit down and read it again cover to cover and it will be revealed to you through someone else's point of view what you really have and all of a sudden it's time to start editing again and rewriting again you will get it and that is what has happened there is the cycle of subjective work to re objectification because as the more you work on something over time the more you are in it you are drawn into it and it becomes within you and it is about you and you think you're doing something great and then you take it out and you get a slap in the face or two you get you clears your eyes it clears your vision very very well you become reified and you approach the material again with clean eyes for another go-round and in my experience if you really want good material and I'm assuming we all do there's some we just want Pat's on the head and all kind of stuff but if you really want the material to be good you have to go through that cycle subjectivity re objectification subjectivity rehabbed four or five maybe six times then then each time you know it gets better and it gets a little better and it gets a little better and you don't want to send that anything out it's one of the biggest mistakes people make sending out material before it's finished so if you're giving writers too permission to write badly and and you're doing these exercises and that's one of the first things you write on the board where what permission are you giving them with the rewrites and how open are they to rewriting most of them get I mean it's a cliche but cliches are cliches because they're true that writing is rewriting and the only real way to teach writing is through editing that's why I spent a great deal of time on scripts and sample editing and scratching out stuff and throwing out scenes and telling them people that you don't need this and this is good expand it here and all that kind of stuff because it's it's stuff that people truly need to hear that's what you get in a concentrated two-year four semester program you get a heck of a lot of practice in in a very short period of time surrounded by very knowledgeable people who can guide you is there wear and tear on the nervous system you bet that's that's kind of built in and Gary but I so far I have never heard anybody say they regret it or anybody complain about it when they come out the other end but the other thing I write on the board a few weeks later yeah a few weeks later is there is no such thing as a bad screenplay only an unfinished one and this is something I believe truly believe just as strongly as I believe about writing you know you got to write badly with pride or you're never gonna write anything it's you have to allow yourself to do that but I think any idea for a screenplay that is conflict based you know this is the essential it has to be conflict based but any idea for a screenplay that is conflict based can be made to work it can and bad screenplays if they contain some conflict they can all be made to work it's just that they're sent out before they're finished and when you send something out before it's really finished you really only get one good shot at it you know you kind of burn it up and a lot of good ideas of gone to the idea cemetery because of of making that movie Erik in your book the story solution you claim that you've come up with a completely new paradigm for writing screenplays and novels we're curious what that is just a quick word on how it came about first okay because I know it's pretty outrageous for a lot of people to be from my to be claiming that you know what what new Under the Sun can there possibly be you know from for a long time for years before I became a professor here while I was still a full-time screenwriter I was teaching at UCLA Extension writers program which is the largest such writing program in the world and it's really great really good people teach there and it was a way to get out of the house night a week you know out of my room out of my office and I was working with people who were really bright and really talented in various and sundry ways they you know great characters warm three-dimensional super dialog that just kind of crackles and pops but when they finally turned in their final project at the end of the of the quarter I guess the quarter system there and I read their scripts they just laid there that they were flat the story wasn't happening or going anywhere they would have three or four events and then try to stretch that out over you know 110 pages or have with the whole screenplay would be and I gave them the books we read the books we went over it in the structure over and over the classic structure and and and Joseph Campbell and all of that and yet when they sat down to write it it just somehow didn't gel into a concept or command of screen story structure and screenwriting is screen story structure more than it is anything else right so I went looking for you know as people do for patterns there had to be a way to teach story construction to not to the exclusion of all else but focus only on finding an objective objectified way to teach story construction this is how you build a house board one you know that kind of stuff and I looked you know hundreds and hundreds of films and yes I began to see a pattern that I hadn't heard anybody talk about before or mentioned before or hadn't read about before and and I kind of codified it put it together as a paradigm and cleaned up the questions that it raised kind of stuff and I kept looking and I began more and more convinced and then I did I to prove myself wrong I mean this I thought was a real important step so I went back searching through movies that had been hit movies that had you know emotionally affected audiences all over the world from pretty far back I went far back as 1929 Buster Keaton the general I don't know if you ever saw it it was one of his last if not his last silent film it is you know something of a masterpiece of the silent era same thing the same beats the same moment the same sequences accomplishing the same stuff so I codified it and began to teach it in in in the grad courses people were rather cynical about such a thing to begin with but what I found out over a few years of working on codifying it simplifying it you know packaging it in a way that was understandable and useful as a tool because that's what it is it's just a tool and darn good one useful one too one by one I won them all over and I proved it yes it's true and it was like an interesting experience for all of us because again it is it is about discovery just let me try this okay for just just a few minutes one of the single most important aspects of screenwriting any long form narrative a novel writing to it just screenwriting in particular is change things thus everything in the story must keep changing as it flows it got it has to be different five ten minutes from now than then at what the circumstances were previously ten minutes ago it has to keep changing and I I had came to believe there had to be a pattern of change and what I discovered was this this gets a little numeric you know there is stick with me for this because it's it's important and I think enormous ly useful three acts okay and in a screenplay you've got three actors first act in act 1 I noticed there are six sequences following one another that I called I came to call hero gold sequences here's the definition for a hero gold sequence a hero gold sequence is any two to seven page section of your screenplay in which and through which your hero or heroine pursues one short-term goal physical short-term goal only one as one step toward achieving the overall story goal right just just that little piece of it and at the end of that seven or so you nothing is exact you know but seven or so pages something happened or some discovery is made by this hero that I call fresh news in other words they turn up something that was unknown by them and by us by the audience about what they are doing that puts an end to that current single goal and offers up a new short-term physical single goal to be pursued in the next step and that there are six of these hero goal sequences six little individual pursuits of individual specific goals in the entirety of Act one and what we call there's many names for this plot point one there's the the first major turning point that kind of thing I call it stunning surprise one when stunning surprise one happens which ends Act one officially and dramatically ends Act one and kicks the hero forward tumbling head-over-heels into Act two I call it sunny surprise one because that should be I believe the emotional impact on both the hero and the audience it needs to be emotional and it needs to be impactful not abstract that always happens in here a goal sequence six always and it continues in the first half of the second act there are six more hero goal sequences and hero goal sequence number 12 always contains the midpoint sequence that's a separate discussion the midpoint is a fascinating part of movies that work and it's it's it's rich and layered with things that go on relative to character growth and relative to the plot being you know bumped up to the next level and all but it always happens in number 12 in the second half of Act two there are six more wonder of wonders there are six more hero goal sequences in here real goal sequence eighteen always contains stunning surprise to not seventeen not nineteen eighteen in every movie that works for audiences in ever in other words every hit movie that you can analyze because it's doing something right this is the pattern and then in Act three it's the only act where it can vary where the numbers can vary and in Act three you have between two and five hero goal sequences I don't recommend five five is good movies have been made with five like as good as it gets which has to be you know one of my favorite romantic comedies kind of stuff it has five here with all sequences in a rather extended act three but the audience is getting antsy and it's time to get out by then I I the standard the average of movies that work is 2121 here with goal sequences 18 for acts one and two and then another three in Act three this is a way I know it sounds kind of weird and mathematical at this point but this is a way of quantifying change it tells you in advance this must happen in these few pages there it also goes beyond that I mean people were asking you well and what specifically happens in each one of these can you nail that down in a general way yeah I do that in the book you know I said well these things usually happen in here real goal sequence number four you know that kind of stuff but that's up for grabs and up for people to play with but structurally the bones are these 2223 hero goal sequences laid out in this exact way and they don't change why are there so many screenwriters opposed to structure are they hurting or helping themselves with this viewpoint there are there are a lot of people I always will be and some of them got Tom Stoppard himself no less a writer than tom is really opposed to education you know kind of this education that is now offered in graduate schools for screenwriting and all that but he can afford to be you know if you're born a genius you know okay go for it you can say anything you want do anything you write brilliantly and it's fine for them it's natural but for more for most of us poor unfortunates down here below the peak of Olympus yeah we have to work a little harder at it I think I think it is a misconception of what there is to be learned they are that many many people have always done it a certain way and they sit and suffer and they think there's a muse that comes down some people may be very very intuitive about this story stuff and for them fine yeah yeah it can work but what I find is for the vast majority of people who want to be writers of screenplays or novels that's not the case there are tools tools tools there are tools one needs to master before you are going to play inspirational and fantastic orchestral music for instance you're going to compose and play don't you need to learn how to play the piano well yeah that helps don't you lead to need to know about music and the theories of music and Composition hey it would help you'd save yourself a lot of time in trouble if you do that and I believe very much that it's the same with screenwriting there's so much to learn there really is and the folks that tend to think that way and defended ok that's the way they've always worked I get that you know that's the way you want to work great go pet that do it but I believe they are bringing into their own lives far more emotional suffering than then needs to be there they it's there's not the Muse folks if there is no muse it's up to you to come up with a decent idea that you can then pull out the correct tools to start shaping into something that will work and bring emotional sustenance and release for an audience I think you had a blog post that I just skimmed the beginning of it and it's just that you you think you put you know we wake up the the birds are chirping we feel great and we're inspired and we are gonna write and we get into like page 27 and we've hit a roadblock so is this what we're talking about here sort of like how to find a way out of that roadblock because we know that okay if we're at page 47 we're at this point in this story are we at the midpoint by the way which is the interesting yeah yeah 40-ish is 47 issue it's about the midpoint yes I have always said no plan no detailed plan no Oscar it's just not going to happen if you're going to build a house especially an intricate one as one as intricate as as a screenplay for a really good movie you have to have architectural renderings that take it down to the tiniest dimension and detail and piece of equipment that is going to be used you have to be organized about it disorganized people as a rule don't do all that well as as writer screenwriters again this is not everybody there are in fact geniuses don't you just hate them out there who can do this stuff just instinctively without even thinking about it but there's a handful of them living on planet Earth at any given time and of course they can't see it from our perspective you know the gee maybe you'd have to work at it but yes there is a lot of work and a lot to be known and and isn't it better if you lay the pieces out you know you have a puzzle puzzle board before you and you have all you know the dark pieces here and the light pieces here and you began to search and see and fit together something that is going to be a whole picture by the time you're through that is a systematic way of doing something that is very difficult to do and I would argue the tools the tools quantifying change understanding the 14 character categories knowing that there are 10 modes of plot coming out of how many heroes and and what the hero's relationship is to other characters there's only 10 of those and once you have an idea pick your 10 you know pick which of the 10 that's going to save you a lot of time and a lot of agony and I would also throw this out I would challenge listen I I am open as anybody to learn here I'm a lifelong learner myself if if someone thinks I'm wrong here or has an instance where and if they can prove that I am wrong I'd be very interested to hear it I really would if you think you've found a 15th category for instance if you've taken a look at the 14 and understand what is contained in the 14 categories if you can come up with a brand new character category I would love to be one of the first to hear about it really usually and I offer that to the students all the time on time usually when I hear back when they bring things up rather enthusiastically bless their hearts it's usually from a misunderstanding of the 14 or it's a misunderstanding of of what I'm saying relative to here at goal sequences and things like that but it's okay it I'm I'm happy about hearing about ways in which I might be incorrect with this stuff there is room for growth in all of your classes growing up was there one instructor that said something to you that really changed your way of thinking about writing and do you remember that moment and what it was that it where it really popped it made sense could be something very basic and be something more elaborate mmm whether you were sitting in class whether it was notes they gave you one of the things about being at the MFA program in playwriting this was so it was still fairly fairly early on for me at UCLA they as all universities they're very big on employing inviting even in as lecturers and you know as part-time people people known and it greatly experienced in the industries and they would come in and teach a course for instance a graduate course there was a world famous playwright in particular who who came in and did this course a wonderful wonderful man and a major talent and I took the course and it wasn't it wasn't the ultimate word of wisdom that's not what I took away what I took away from that course is every writer and every life is different and in a way sometimes that we do not even want to hear it is truly up to us writers have in their core hopefully the ability we've you know we've been alone all our lives and our thoughts to stand alone because hearing about other people's journeys in a personal way these these people just weren't I mean this particular individual too was a wonderful soul but basically what he did is he told old war stories for all semester long and what we were writing we wrote on our own we were it was up to us in the entire time as a matter of fact that I was at UCLA nobody made any serious attempt to teach me us the toolkit or approach or structure of writing full-length plays it was all touchy-feely and all up to you and for a while there I was a bit upset about that a bit ticked about that it what did cost money and all that stuff but yes I learned I learned what they didn't it perhaps intend to teach which is one person's journey is going to be different from yours now this is kind of the opposite of what you are asking for you know this ultimate gem or jewel of wisdom but I think it is a jewel of wisdom that these are good brilliant accomplished artists who are most sincere and their ability to share but how they've done it and what they did be able to share that with these up-and-coming writers before them in the grant program but I came away feeling they didn't have a whole lot to share and that said okay okay I get that we will make our own path do you think because they were so busy doing that they had a hard time articulating how they did it or no I don't know I think most of them were instinctive writers they didn't codify it and that's why when I came to teach later came to teach screenplay I was you know kind of obsessed with this has to be you know this is teachable these are smart people they can learn if we can make this teachable it can be taught I mean there are certain levels at which skill talent it helps to have talent but we all know I certainly think I hope most people understand that it's not necessarily the most talented writers who end up you know getting their scripts sold and and and even made that's not how it works they had they they come up with ideas for stories Hollywood buys stories not particulars crypts by particular writers and their stories that take people on a specific emotional journey knowing that most likely they're going to come out feeling good at the end yes yeah yeah less less so with feeling good at the end now today then once upon a time have you seen life like we just saw that recently have you seen life yet speaking of a negative ending yeah but there's still the gems but I get it I felt like after maybe 9/11 things change but then that's a whole nother topic but no yeah good point many new writers say that it's nearly impossible to get their scripts to people that actually have the power to buy them or greenlight them that that's their problem but the access yeah what are your thoughts on that and that's the reason they're not me sorry yeah I would I would say they don't know how lucky they are as of today it depends you have to get used to the system you have I've for instance back in back in the day back in my day there was one way into Hollywood TV film one way and that was through an agent's front door and that agents front door had layers and layers of guardians before it and that was all so frustrating you know in a similar way but very very frustrating to Gideon but now what you have you have a more creative path let me put it this way contests screenwriting contests have now been around long enough to separate the wheat from the chaff you know the good ones a year after year have gotten stronger because you know more people believe in them and the less good ones although they're all sincere I know they're all sincere have kind of fallen and fallen by the wayside but the test is this every time I hear that I mean yes I have great sympathy for that I understand that I remember when I was coming up myself and what it felt like and it was infuriating and frustrating but the number one reason why you are not making it is the material is not yet good enough because you if you're not especially if you're not reading you know that reading the stuff that's out there you have no way of knowing how good good has to be in order to get noticed and coming in you have to be better than most of the people who are now making a living at it in order to get noticed even but the contests offer you know the device talk about Ryabkov a concrete way to do that work on it and work on it and work on it until you've got something you're ready to test but now pick your contests carefully the first time you try it out pick smaller contests more more fringing I mean do your research they should be decent upstanding contests and so forth try it out try it out did you make the quarterfinals or were you swept away you know in in the first pass through okay if that happens you have learned something it's not ready and you keep working on it and you keep working on it and finally when you know you get to the mid-level ranks and let's say it gets your your script gets to the quarterfinals okay but it did not make the top 10 or top 15 fine you've learned something more go back take a vacation for a couple of weeks try not to think about it then read it again make more notes and go back to work on it and it is a way to that's the thing see what what what a lot of neophyte screenwriters new screenwriters don't do or don't pursue which is you have got to be as a writer as a craftsperson you must be relentless in your goal of creating quality material for instance I'll give you for instance and maybe that was sort of I'm working with a young lady right now who was one of our grad students a few years a couple two three years ago she's been my assistant class assistant and stuff like that so we know each other pretty well she took her thesis screenplay from I don't know three years ago and I read it and I told her you got a great idea here you know you really do I believe in this idea and we had conversations about you know there's no such thing as a bad screenplay only an unfinished one and all that and I gave her some pointers and you know scribbled things on the pages and she went back and she wrote it again this is a feature film and I looked at it this is better this is a little better and I went through I did you know the sample editing and scribble-scribble and all this kind of stuff and then she takes it and she comes back and it's a little bit better she has been through that process well in this case with me oh it must be six times now I mean years have passed I mean that was she this she she had a draft of this when she went up for her thesis three years ago right but I'll tell ya and I'm I'm reading it once again I'll probably be looking at it again this weekend she is so close so close what I would really like to I kept telling her keep track of don't lose your draft of your of your first draft don't lose a copy of your first draft because a day is coming I would like to have that in my hand and your final draft and put that together in a binder and use this in class have people read the first draft and now read the last draft and that I believe could be a wonderful wonderful exploration of teaching and screenwriting because this has become viable she is now close to having a an entirely shootable casting really good social commentary screenplay what changed in those six drafts over the three years or how for many craft craft her mastery of I mean what most of them do is they write what they mean when they come to dialogue people just blurt it out and it's called on-the-nose dialogue that's one of the things you teach stop it people do not talk like that people talk around what they mean not that there can't be confrontation and stuff like that under certain emotional circumstances yes but it was dialogue and less is more in terms of the amount of dialogue in description it was about the use of language and vocabulary in description using irrelevant words the and there there's a whole list of there's the nine most utterly useless words I got it back there on a sheet I pass out sometimes all that is is filler all that does is slow the reader down it is developing a style in the way you describe and and offer exposition and description in in scene with seen heading slug lines and then what we're looking at and stuff like that drawing people in where you put things the plot building the plot in an ever better way you can do more here you could do more here that's what's been going on for all those years so you liked her initial idea of the story absolutely and it's so and it was in very rough form very rough form she had written badly with pride and in Neath underneath that there had been there's just something that really struck me you know this is this is worth saying and this is important to say it's a social commentary piece it's not like there's a big market out there for social commentary pieces there isn't but say okay but it has to be done incredibly well to catch the eyes you want to catch we said ever gonna be made I don't know if it's ever going to be made or not that's out of our hands but I am so proud of her boy she has got a work sample for the ages so and you've let her know not not too soon because once she takes this brilliant idea and it's not ready that's the end of it that is correct time and again oh she was planning two years ago to send it off to one of the majors I don't know I don't know what's it's a scriptable loser or what one of the majors you know and she has to take one more look at it before she sent it off I said I'd think you're it's self-defeating to send this off yet and she there was a small contest it's the BFA broadcast Education Association has a student thing every year and they have contests short-film contest of four students and scripts and so forth I said try it there try it there and she did and she learned some stuff she learned some stuff and she also learned that that sometimes judges can be jerks and that's part of the mix too but she learned she kept working and he got better that is how you write everybody who says you know you got a screen once when I was coming up I said you got a cranked out a brand new screenplay every six months that's a that is insane I'm sorry you can't do good work if you're doing that no you have to live with it you have to grow with it you have to be able to go back and read it again and again and yet again it drives my wife nuts when I was working on the book you know I was already was ready to senator debris the publisher and she said you're sitting down to read it again what is wrong with you I said honey you you married a madman I mean that that goes with the territory that's what writers do and I read it again and I found mistakes and I fixed them it's endless so the the best thing for a writer is to have been born a bit obsessive compulsive it's like that is a trait that the craft requires of us you don't just - it off you don't and do it well what are the most common mistakes new screenwriters make okay there's a list but the most let's just say the three most common ones that I see are number one not enough story again it's that old thing characters can be wonderful dialogue can be sparkling and even funny as heck but if the story lays there just flat as a pancake that story is not going anywhere it's it's a weak story number two would be passive central character that kids killed more scripts than just about anything I've ever seen and weak story and passive central character they go together they really go to get fit together to a passive central character is a is a hero or heroine you know the lead down the middle who doesn't really do anything and life and the story happen to them they do not happen to anything or anyone and that is that is a one way to put your audience to sleep very very quickly audience heroes have to be active they I mean the hero is the audience you build that you build a story so that the hero is even with lots of flaws and everything fine yes make them human but they have certain qualities character of the of character and of circumstance they have to be brave that is absolutely essential but you can put them in you know unfair injury we care about people who are being unjustly dealt with they're in a situation of danger they're funny they have a sense of humor that always helps loved by other people there is this kind of list of things you can do to keep characters interesting that allows us to like them and once we start seeing the nature of of the hero or heroines major problem and the major impossible task before them hopefully on about page six or eight the audience the audience becomes one person each of us sitting alone and we project ourselves psychologically project ourselves into the hero and then we're along for the ride and if that hero doesn't do anything or doesn't want anything and other people do all this stuff and all the people that come in all the secondary characters are the witty fun urbane you know loquacious and they're there that and joking and funny they're all the funny characters while basically your central character is more or less wallpaper it's it's dead and that is related to something something else which is the adversary when that happens in a script almost always the problem is there is no adversary or there is no powerful adversary adversary is so critical people need to work on their adversary until it is the adversary should be the strongest person in the story I'm I you know when I was coming up if they oh they have to be equal they have to be equal in power to the hero no they have to be much more powerful than the hero it has to look for most of the movie it has to look like the hero has no bloody way of defeating this adversary or surmounting this the the problems being presented by this adversary but they do it they they think them and they out try them and drive and they can make it happen and that's a story with great conflict with a hero who is doing things who sucks us in emotionally that we can ride along happily for the journey and that's how that's how the good ones work which that's probably more than more than to through and made that three or four but the the next the third I think I would say is getting it out there too soon okay that's what destroys most screenplays it's hard you know writing this a screenplay a feature-length screen pit but heavens that's hard really hard and it's not necessarily all pleasant undertaking labor it it hurts you tear your hair out you pound your head against the wall sometimes literally and but finally you got a draft oh god I did it here it is here it is like I'm gonna get it out quickly as I can and that's the time of great danger you know you can't just send it out it is not ready guaranteed it is not ready is there really this database of cover I mean of scripts slow so I mean really it so some sounds like you know the sort of the medical record database they have one on scripts to this like oh yes I see Eric Edson yes on this date he sent us this no no the coverage was horrible or something I mean really this exists well I mean I I have to confess now it's been some years since I was in the thick of it of this but I don't think a whole lot has really changed in except they've got more technological they've gotten better ways to keep track of stuff and yeah back then you had one basically one shot because one kind the person you're sending it to if you finally and get an agent to say okay you know I'll take a look leave me alone or or if the producer or a friend of a friend or whatever like that most often they're not going to read it they're going to hand it to their reader and I remember those early on when I was getting phone calls back from producers and they were obviously reading from notes they had obviously not read the script themselves they were working from readers notes okay but they have their time issues too and they've got to have use their time as best they can but yeah if you get a bad report first time in it is filed now it's digital digital eyes and you never know ultimately you know what company becomes joined with what company and sometimes the people they just know each other even if they're at different companies and I did this pass through and they now send me over the report and yes those those reports get disobey again disseminated what if you change the the script let's suppose you started one called angels flight and then you said you know what and this got a pass and a pass and so you decided to change it to birds of a feather and I'm just totally making this - yeah but and and and so birds of a feather has been looked at and you've worked on it much more and you've had more time but the story is very similar I would I would say my instinct is that you have probably done severe probably irreparable damage to your career to resend something yes okay under a different title Wow because they have the plot you know that's one of the things that reader does they outline the entire plot before they say and you know whether it good bad or indifferent no I don't don't do it don't just go around changing titles because I don't know they don't like it they don't trust it then they don't trust you yes ah so that's the bottom line okay yes if you really worked on some let first of all that time pass you're not gonna go back at him why were you really I've rewritten it and it's really really good now and it's five months later and no forget it put it away and then when the time comes you know if there may be and what they're looking for in any given year the wheel keeps turning and you know the nature of the material that they're looking for and then do it honestly say look you know I tried this out on you two three years ago I have been working I mean I still believe in the idea and I've been working on it I think it's a great deal better or you go to somebody who hasn't read it before because there's always somebody who hasn't read it before and say you know a friend of yours mm-hmm Nancy or something like that she read it and she read she quite liked it or find another way a back door like maybe the friend Nancy but I wouldn't change the title so be upfront play by their warrant because it could hurt you just yeah you need you need to be upfront about it yeah why do you think people are scared to be upfront sometimes Liars get away with it we have examples we have exact dude we don't have to go yeah yeah plenty sometimes Liars get away with it but people especially people in this business I'm not saying they're all greatly talented but a lot of them are a lot of them are enormous Lee they just have different talents than than writers you know another a different kind of creativity sure and they mean well you know they're they're they're not inherently you know dishonest or scuzzy people or anything like that but they make mistakes and you you need to learn from their mistakes and they also amazingly they have long memories too long long time ago in a land far away and I was a struggling screenwriter and I was cranking out original material that was my thing they figured the only way I could make my I mean I wasn't you know a pusher and a pounder and a Yeller and the only way I was gonna make myself a inevitable was to keep writing and keep writing and make myself inevitable through a pile of good to great scripts and that's pretty much the path the path I took and I had a great idea about a war that takes place at the very beginning of the Civil War it was a Allan Pinkertons story and I pitched it all over town I had a good agent at the time pictured all at my place yeah yeah good story good story we don't want it we don't make at the moment the word was we don't make historical pictures at that time they were very expensive hey costumes Hey sets locations means you know a moolah so I said fine and my agent advised me to move ok fine we know move on and I said you know I want to take give me a couple of months because I'm gonna write this anyway I really like this story I think this is a really good story and I want to write it he said you're nuts but ok so I wrote it and I had really liked it and we tried it again an in script form and you know got the same response nobody wanted to do it and I said ok but I know in my heart it's a good script so I put it away it was I forget exactly but 8 or 9 years later a producer under very charming sweet producer by the Wendy diamond was her name she calls me up and says you know Eric you know that that Civil War thing you had do you still have that is is that available is it available she said would you could you send that over at that time she was working at TNT I was producing with with another you know I'm strong a very strong producer at TNT and at TNT it was TNT that brought back the epic the historical epic that's part of what they were into it I guess he was interested in you know that kind of material or something so I sent it over and within I don't know eight or eight or ten weeks we had a deal then within 18 or 20 weeks they were in pre-production and that's one of the ones my originals had got made so how did they have a copy of the script again I'm sorry you would sent it out but she wasn't Paul she didn't have a copy she only remembered it she remembered she had read the whole script back in the day she was somewhere else yeah she was somewhere else doing is doing something else but I guess the point here for screenwriters everywhere is all of your original material has a shelf life it's not that you give it a shot everybody says no and you contemplate suicide and you put it in the closet and carry on right it's that's not it the cycles of what they are willing to purchase or option or consider actually making the cycles keep changing at one point nobody would touch a historical epic with a ten-foot pole and some years later there was somebody looking for one and my my career during those years at 23 years whatever was my career as a screenwriter went around three times you know hot to cold to hot to cold you know three times three full times and every single time when things were cooling down things sometimes that had nothing to do with me you know a project goes bad and you happen to be associated with it or have had something to do with it and then it splashes over on you people cool for a while every single time the way I got back in the game was with a new original screenplay that's your line of defense you can't be lazy you cannot be lazy you must continually be working on original material you don't need luck to be a successful screenwriter aren't there people that look into it or it just seems that way I'm one of those people who believes in you create your own luck is luck a factor any you know in anything the stars sometimes have to come into alignment before something becomes possible but the thing about luck is you have to be ready for it when it arrives and that is where craft comes in yes I remember I just I got just plain lucky several times along the way but then I had a closet full of work that I could that I could use and prove and and verify that I was really good at this that I was the one worth taking a shot with it's not just luck you can't blame it on luck if you're not making headway you takes a lot of time and you have to be improving your craft forever the thing about screenwriting is truly then the band the best ones will say this I've heard it from the best ones you never master this craft never it's too intricate but if you master your tools you can you can continue to have pleasure in it live in it live the lives I've lived hundreds of lives you know it's just it's it's a very rewarding thing to do even when it's rough you know even when even when you're not selling but it's it's well worth doing and when luck comes and if you're around long enough if you're at it long enough opportunity will come but you must be ready to make the maximum of that opportunity no no deer-in-the-headlight time you know when the headlight hits you are ready to tap-dance and you've got your scripts you have studied pitching you know how to pitch that is we haven't really gone into that but that is really key to this business and there's no way around it yeah yeah I reckon I recommend my dear friend Michael Higgs book what is it selling your story in 60 seconds I think is approximately his title you got to know this stuff and I don't care if you're shy I'm you know you can still learn to pitch a 60 120 second story tell your story and there's a there's this thing a story an old story that goes around that when when we're practicing working on pitching in courses and stuff and people sometimes having fun so other people are upset by it and and I say just just be as nervous as you want to be it's not about pitching is not about not being nervous it's really not said once upon a time there was this creative executive that worked for a very very powerful producer and he comes bursting into the producers office one day and he says Alice I just heard the most dynamic story I have heard in five years it's perfect there's a star as a role for a star it's funny it's touching it's just the best story I've heard for ages but I had to I had to pass because the the writer was nervous they don't give a damn if you were halting or if you are nervous they don't give a damn if you have trouble pitching and that you know you're doing something that everything in you wants to resist tell them your story whoever you are there is room in this business for everybody tell them your story being nervous as you want to be they are in the story business if your story is ready if you've checked away and shaped it into a into a pitch Abul form really a powerful story and if your timing you luck and timing if your timing is right don't worry about it it'll all take care of itself what advice do you have for a screenwriter when they sit down to start writing a screenplay what are some things they should have already done before they type that first page whether it's outlining they should have beside them a list of the 100 most recent screenplays that they have read the published ones the successful ones okay I'll give you a break make it 50 you are not ready to write until you are very well-read and well-versed in the literature you are proposing to create and in this in this place its screenwriting I would say systematize your organization the first thing you have to do see a really bad habit that most screenwriters have is they got a great idea and they're cooking and they just start writing screenplay I'm writing screenplay pages to a boy and it's fun but it's going nowhere ultimately without a plan and a very well thought out the hard work is in the outline and it has to be a very complete outline and you have to have confidence that all story problems have been addressed so the first thing you have to do is the dirty work the outline write yourself I would say here real goal sequences because I happen to think it and I happen to know that it works but however you know beat sheet however they do it have you very complete outline and then good bloody luck it's it's it's a lot of work and then I would also say yeah you write it on a little piece of paper and tape it above your desk write badly with pride no no writer's block none just write badly with pride write a piece of piece of junk you know if you haven't give you just sitting there staring at the wall for an hour okay what would you write if you were just really writing trash really writing garbage go for it because you never know when the real idea is the depth of what you are doing will be sparked you just don't know you don't know and there's so many things you have the tone yeah I'm working I'm beginning to have some fun at this stage of things I have you know some some original screenplays of course as it turns out that never sold and yeah frequently what happens is the stuff you like the most that's the stuff that doesn't sell and there are three or four of them that I'm I want to turn into in turn into novels before my clock and race have been run and I started on one there's some months back and I've been working a month and a half now on the first five pages every day I do it's it's yeah I've kind of fell into it but it's what a Hamming way did everyday he started at page one and that's what I have to do you know by instruction being instructed by him but also by a nature I every day I started page one you can do that for the first 40 or 50 pages you reach a point you know it doesn't work anymore but what you do by that what you gain by that is do not be in a hurry to zoom onward you because those first 5 to 10 pages are the most important pages and the holes and the whole thing in a novel in a screenplay you either convince your audience it's worth to come along or reader it's it's worth their time to come along for this journey with you or not that you II either they trust you by then or they don't so in the search for tone rhythm the use of language and character it's amazing spending five pages with your central character in this case what you can learn about that character and doing the same five pages over and over and over and over and over you'll learn a heck of a lot about your hero this is invaluable as you move forward so I would say also don't rush Eric was the best screenplay that you've ever read and was that script ever turned into a movie mm-hmm that's a tricky one Best Screenplay that I have personally read I would have to go back to Erin Brockovich I would say I mean you know there's hundreds of thousands of others out there that I have not read but of the ones that I have premeditatedly sat down with and read more than once and made notes about and so forth I would have to say it was there in Brockovich and that's why I use it the way I do in class Susannah grant taught me a great deal about screenwriting in that one script but what was the other part of the question oh well that was the script turned into a film Oh most definitely yeah it was definitely definitely done so but you know there's something else here if I might I I encourage people and point them in the direction of studying good movies the screenplays of good movies but just as valuable every bit as valuable and in some cases more valuable is studying the screenplays if you can get your hands on them but certainly studying the movies that bomb movies that are really bad because they can teach you just as much as the good stuff they can teach you what not to do what doesn't work and the idea to really get good at the craft is to get build for yourself an analytical eye and if you want to get good at analysis look at some bet the movies you hate I mean everybody comes down to Iowa what's your worst favorite you know what the worst movie I ever saw oh my god oh no I said okay get that movie and I want you to see it three times and they freaked out that better go spend time with that basic yeah and all this kind of stuff and I say guys let's think this thing through if you really hate it you have to know why just telling me you hate it accomplishes nothing you have learned nothing what you have to learn is why do you hate it what ways in what ways has it let you down as a creative undertaking nobody sets out to write a bear and make a bad movie nobody they may set out to be I will you know will - this piece often it'll be in a whale get some money out of the market yeah but they don't intend that it be a bad movie movies go bad for a whole a whole swath and stack of reasons and we need to know why we need to know why I was I'm not I'm not gonna mention some titles I was thinking about some titles I don't want to go there but I've learned an awful lot from screenplays and movies that are not good why are they not good learn that and then you're growing as a screenwriter how do we know our own writing level the level that we're at we all think were good at something or excellent at something we see the world through a certain lens it fits together with our experiences so we think we're making sense we think it's brilliant in terms of our life experience but how do we really know or maybe we won't I don't think you should know you're one of the few in the class who are really good because that's kind of putting a cap on yourself oh I I would say and we do talk about this I'm going to point out to them in terms of as will workshopping everybody's work and yes everybody's at different levels that I say we all come to this room from different places we all have been writing for different periods of time some are closer to the beginning than others some have already done some stuff sold some stuff so it's going to be we have we're making allowances for that that nobody will be on the same level and I would say that I would just say don't worry about your level it's not relevant to the process of learning to master a craft and you know in a difficult craft at that just do the work in front of you bu and write what you have to write because the thing ultimately with writing and then you know the beauty of it is even when a story is derivative perhaps you got an idea for a plot B say yeah no no no I you know I've seen that the score of times before or through the decades kind of stuff and I would say yes but no one can write it exactly the way you would write it it's not about level it's about individual point of view and insight into the human condition and that is I would say in all time on all things in it for all times it is to be encouraged that's what we do we seek ourselves and what we write even even when we're writing for money for pay and you can overdo that but I think you need to be doing it some of that in absolutely everything you write because what was that that was some some book came out and in the 1930s I forget who wrote it who said there are basically 30 36 plots in all of literature that's it well that's what the thing is with genre you know genre gonna writer Western well that's been done a few hundred a few thousand times hasn't it well you will do it your way you will do it the way in which it has not been done before or if that's not how it turns out keep working on it if you wish or put it in the drawer and you will have learned some lessons about writing and yourself along the way but I'm the level thing you know it's just that we running different races there's so much levels you know it's like some people started sooner than other people so of course they're going to be a but I would admonish writers neophytes and and experienced ones don't worry about that you can make yourself nuts worrying about the level because you will always be writing what you want to write unless you get hired to do it for a job but you will be writing what you want to write the way you want to write it now just work to make it the best you can make it be that's all and one day you may surprise yourself just when you think maybe you aren't so good and this happened oh we all go in cycles yeah this this should be mentioned too I mean you know up one day and down the next day suicidal I mean I mean this is art this is writers you know welcome to the club on that big wheel the emotional journey of what it is what we do but you are also learning whether this art form is for you or not along the way are you in for the long haul that's the only question you need to keep asking yourself am I getting enough food out of this enough creative food and juice and sense of you know that growing sense of command incremental command of a much to be respected craft that can be quite intricate that I'm hooked that this is what I need I mean it has been said that you know for writers it hurts more not to do it than to do it are you up for a lifetime of all the range of emotions you are going to be going through as a writer as an artist does this what you want to do really they want to be an artist that's great but understand that it is not the simple and easy choice to make in life quite the contrary but it is a fabulous fabulous journey unlike unlike any other I think

Channel: Film Courage

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Keywords: full interview, story solution, 23 actions all great heroes must take, screenwriting tips, screenwriting techniques, screenwriting 101, screenwriting for beginners, screenwriting advice, screenwriting career, screenwriting, Eric edson, filmcourage, film courage, interview, screenwriter interview, screenwriter

Id: IdhJ3UGcm_Y

Length: 132min 15sec (7935 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 12 2017