268 | Where to Begin as a Screenwriter (REBROADCAST)

So you want to be a screenwriter… now what?

In a rebroadcast of one of our most popular episodes, we dig into the essential questions every writer should ask before jumping into a draft — questions that are just as valuable for seasoned pros as they are for those starting out.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

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

Lorien: And I'm Lorien McKenna. And today we're gonna talk to you emerging writers out there. So like, let's say you're just starting out. You wanna be a screenwriter. Now what? 

Meg: Yes. Where do you begin? 

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

Meg: My week, well, I'm packing to go on a trip and I hate everything I own and it's completely filling me with anxiety and 'cause now I'm like, ;oh, my butt looks so fat in these pants. Why do I even own them?; And, you know, I'm just kind of having an anxiety spiral about it. 

But, you know, when I have nightmares, if I'm, you know, everybody has certain nightmares that you have if you're anxious or worried? Mine is standing in a closet trying to figure out what to wear while the party's going on downstairs. I can't figure it out, and then I finally, the party's over and I miss the whole thing. So I'm living my nightmare right now. 

Lorien: Don't miss the party, Meg. 

Meg: I have, I'm getting on the plane, I, whatever I put in the suitcase, which is what always happens. I just start to numb out and throw things in a suitcase and I zip it up. But, what I thought, why this is relevant at all to screenwriting, is I'm realizing, I do the same thing with my projects. 

It's like I'm two people. There's the person who planned this trip, which was like this dreamer. ‘I'm going for it. Nobody's gonna stop me. I'm going to Africa and I'm gonna take my kids and it's gonna be perfect. And we're gonna see lions and we're gonna stay in a tent in then Savannah. And it's gonna be amazing and I'm gonna save my money so I can do it. And I have all of these big ideas’ and I go for it, and I do it.

And then the practical arrives. And I'm like, I'm just filled with anxiety. I'm like, ‘wait a minute, I have to get on a prop plane? Wait a minute. I don't, I have to take all, get shots? Wait a minute, there's gonna be animals, in a tent? Wait, does there gonna be people with guns helping us? Like what if my kids get eaten by a lion?’ Like it's just like this tidal wave of doubt and anxiety about the trip is just hitting me in the face. 

But it's the same when I write, I’m like, ‘I wanna do this project, it's gonna be great, and I'm gonna do it so well, and I know exactly what I'd like and I'm connected to it, and I fight to get the project if it's a rewrite or whatever.’ 

And then of course, the, okay, everybody leaves and it's like, okay, do it. And you're like, ‘oh my God. Oh my God. Why did I do this? Why did I take this project? I don't know how to do this! I have no idea what I'm doing!’ I do this every time. 

Lorien: Get outta the closet, and go to the party. 

Meg: Oh my God, I do it every time and it's really hard for me in my writing to get out of the closet. It's real. I love the big, like go for it and get it, but then I end up in the closet. And I end up sitting. And by the way, if I am super stressed or have a terrible thing happen to me, you will find me sitting in a closet. I don't know what this is from my childhood, but that's where I go. I sit on shoes in my closet. 

Lorien: Like if you're in someone else's house, do you go in their closet? 

Meg: No, but that would be good. See, that's a good scene. 

Lorien: You could build, in a new house, a special anxiety closet. It has all the stuff you need like snacks and a book you like a little rug on the floor, like a closet.

Meg: Once I had a very bad day when my son was like, five, and I was in my closet and he came in and sat down and patted my leg, just sat there with me and patted my leg. 

Anyways, sometimes in the writing process I get into the closet, and just get overwhelmed with all the doubts and my ability to do it, and I don't actually know what to write and what is words? That kind of stuff. And then you just have to go to the party, don't you? You do. I'm just gonna get on the plane. 

Lorien: Yeah. 

Meg: I'm gonna be anxious at the moment that the plane door closes. Then I'm not gonna be anxious anymore because the plane's going like, what am I gonna do? I just have to do it, whatever. 

It's the same with writing. Once I get going, once I can get some pages going, once I can barf out, the worst version, all that anxiety starts to go down. Never leaves completely, but you're just doing it. So just do it. So that's my week. 

Lorien: I totally get that. I, you know, when I was packing for Paris, I was like the fantasy version of me who was gonna be in Paris, who was magically gonna be, have some other body and be some other human being and have all these amazing clothes.

And so I just packed everything black, and some clothes I've never worn that I thought in Paris I'll wear these things. And I was so pre-agitated about, like, what I was gonna wear in Paris, you know, because it's all fashionable. And I got there and I just put on my regular clothes and then I realized I'm in Paris. It does not matter what I'm wearing. Like, at all. Right? 

I needed a scarf, so I bought a $7 scarf near the Eiffel Tower 'cause it was fricking cold. But like, I didn't care what I looked like 'cause I was not as cold. Right? It, once you're there, like there's the fantasy version of that script you're gonna write and then you just, you're writing.

Meg: And yeah. And then it sucks. And you get by my mosquitoes and yes, but you're taking your malaria tablets, so it's fine. And yes. You know, just like, it's just life, man. Like sometimes the practical hits you in the face, and you do it anyway’s. Like just do it anyways. 

Lorien: Yeah. 

Meg: The other thing I'd say just really quick is I re-watched ET because my son, who's 17, swore he’s never seen it, which he has, but he doesn't remember. And you know, that movie holds up, and what's interesting to watch it as an adult or an older person is, and especially as a writer, I can see all the themes that they're planting all over the place in terms of that father being gone.

Like, how I didn't see this before? The father is missing, the boys talk about it in the garage. Right? And then at the penultimate moment of the movie, when they're both sick, the little boy reaches out to ET and says, ‘stay. I'm right here.’ Which is what he wanted his dad to say and do like, it's so like, and it's so simple.

It's so simple and it's so much lava, and it's so vulnerable, right? Just to have this little boy saying, ‘stay. I'm right here. Stay. Stay with me. I'm right here.’ It was amazing. It was amazing. And all this other fun stuff's going on, but it's all everything. The shots he's choosing, the, what he's including in scenes. It's all about this, this, this is what it's all about. So, anyways, so it really holds up. Lovely. All right, Lorien, and how was your week?

Lorien: My week was, so I was reading back through a lot of old scripts that I've written that I like bailed on thinking what could I resurrect? Like what is worth actually putting back into the to-do pile? 

And I've been aware of this, but it really hit me that I write about women who are trapped in a belief system or a social construct that they believe to be true, like a system that was not built for them. That they are, something happens, and they're forced then to figure out how to get out of it. Like very early on, like this is not reality. 

And then go doing, whether I wrote this sci-fi one hour pilot, you know, and she has to go into this whole other world, and I realized that this week, is very much that happening in my life. I have trapped myself in a reality that I have constructed. Right? I have created, I have let all the pressures of my life sort of force me into a belief system around being trapped, when I am not. 

But it's hard to break out of that, you know, 'cause of patterns and habits, and I can write my characters out of it so fast because, it's the fantasy. Like oh, clearly by page 10, boom, she's out of that world and having to confront the, am I a monster or a hero? Right? And right now I'm in that and it's, I want to write myself out of it and I don't know how, 'cause I'm so trapped in it. 

And so just again, thinking about how you're talking about the parallels of your everyday and big event things and with your writing journey, I feel the same way. Like there's a reason I'm writing about these women. It just feels hot, and painful, to have this sort of like, ‘well fuck, this is what it's like to be me, and this is what it's like to be me as a writer, and I have to sort this shit out so that I can keep writing 'cause it's stopping me 'cause of the trap I'm in,’ you know? 

So, you know, lava is hard. It's really hard ,because it's something I confront in like the everyday behavioral pattern stuff and belief systems and then again on the page and finding a safe enough space for that is the trick. So that I can compartmentalize a little bit. 'Cause right now it feels a little shreddy, and I would not recommend, writing into it when you're literally in the crisis of it.

Meg: No. 

Lorien: That feels very dangerous to me. Like, I'm not gonna write today. Today I need to do other things. Take a shower, go for a walk, talk to Meg later. 

Meg: Yes. If there's trauma coming up, you know, that needs to be dealt with for yourself and your psyche and everything. Then you're ready, you'll be able to, I do think the brain is hooking, anybody's storyteller, brain is hooking onto that stuff to try to work it out. Right? To see something new to break through the blind spot. 'Cause I believe the highest self is not trapped at all. 

Lorien: Right. Right. Of course not. It's a belief system. 

Meg: Yeah. There's just another part of the brain that. You know, and yours is trapped. Mine is abandonment. We all have our things. But in a weird way, here's what's weird about it. We know how to be abandoned. I know how to be abandoned. 

Lorien: Yes. 

Meg: I know what that feels like. And so the trap actually is not wanting to give up that identity because–

Lorien: –yeah, absolutely. I–

Meg: –and then you just start recreating it over and over. But isn't that also can also be a character, right? 

Lorien: Yes. 

Meg: Like that's such an interesting character, like, when I deal with my abandonment, it's like my always my first question, when I start to feel abandoned or get mad at somebody 'cause they're abandoning me, or whatever's coming up in my lava, I just go, wait a minute, who's abandoning who right now?

Because the truth is, as an adult, I'm abandoning that person first, and second, I'm abandoning myself. Like I, I've gotten to a place that I can kind of catch it. Not every time, my husband will say, that's kind of bullshit, that you don't catch it every time. 

But yes. Yeah, it's amazing. But the writing definitely helps. I had a mentee once who she really, her characters were, had no agency, like none. They were like superheroes and they had no agency. And we, I just gave her exercise after exercise and it really did shift her thinking to have a, ‘if this character can have agency, then I can have agency.’ You know? 

It really starts, it's such a beautiful thing, the storytelling process in terms of how it, yeah, the lava's hot, but the storytelling process can really help you work some stuff out, too, in terms of that. 

Lorien: Yeah, and I do like, you know, I write it into my characters and then I forget to deal with it in my real life. So, sort of the opposite of your mentee. But you're right about the trap. I'm trapping myself. I'm trapping other people in that cycle, and I'm self-aware. I know it's happening, at some part of myself, but I’m still stuck in it.

Anyway, I do wanna talk a little bit about, we get a lot of questions about ‘how do you write into the lava, how do you keep yourself safe’ and again, don't write, I wouldn't recommend writing into the trauma, actively, but it really is about figuring out how to keep yourself physically and mentally safe as a human being and as a writer. Which you know, are both human beings, but like your real life self and your writer self, both need to find ways to create a safe space to get in and out of it. 

Because once you open the gate it feels like it can kill you, but you wanna be able to figure out how to close it again. And that's something that I continue to work on, and all of us do. But writing into that hot hot hot when you're a little frazzled yourself, it can be dangerous. Like I said, I'm not writing today, just, I just have to give myself that rule. 

Meg: And you should have support around you. And you know, often when we say lava, we're not even talking about autobiographical. There is autobiographical and that writing, it can be very, if you have trouble getting into your lava, I recommend doing some autobiographical writing 'cause it'll come up pretty dang quick. 

But yeah, it's, it is tricky. Sometimes the way I do it is I really keep concentrating on the character, not me. Like she's not me. Like I'll, she'll have some piece of her that's so the opposite of me. Right? Like she drives race cars well, and I'm never going fast in a car, ever. But she like, like she, she's, some that fantasy part, right, like we were talking about earlier, of who I wish I could be, right? 

I wish I was a motorcycle riding fast adrenaline junkie. That sounds fun. But she, inside of that is also abandonment and being, you know, that it's, so, it does create a, ‘she's not me, I'm not recreating my trauma.’

Lorien: Totally. It's so funny. The project that I picked to keep working on is this woman who's like this badass vigilante FBI agent who, like, breaks all the rules, which I would never do. I would never get a gun and shoot it, and be a police officer, but like for me, she's all the badass stuff. 

It gives me permission to live in that fantasy and it's healing. So I'm like, there was another project I didn't pick to like sort of resurrect. So thank you for that, Meg. That's such a great, I can have fun thinking about her.

Meg: You just have fun. And the lava can be in spurts and it can be bubbly as subtext. It doesn't have to be the context. Right. It's just the subtext of whatever that pot is like mine's abandonment and whatever yours is, it's just a pot that she'll, you know, what's driving her, really? 

Lorien: So that concludes the mental health portion of my week.

Meg: All right, so we were gonna, we get a lot of questions on the Facebook group from absolute beginners who are enthusiastically, which I love, declaring themselves as beginners, and asking lots of questions, which I think is wonderful and I love it. So we thought, well, maybe we should just do a whole show on this.

So, you know, a lot of the questions that people who wanna become screenwriters, they literally start with, where do I start, right? Like, what do I do? So my advice always is you have to learn the basics. You have to learn them so you can forget them. You have to master them so you can forget them.

Does that mean if you just wanna do a barf draft and not give a crap about the basics? Yeah, go ahead. I don't like, if it's coming up, do however you wanna do it, do it. But eventually you're gonna have to take that lump of clay, and you're gonna have to mold it into the basics.

Lorien: Would it be fair to say that when you have that lump of clay and you start sort of trying to figure out how to apply craft to it, it's about asking questions, right? It's, instead of like laying over, it's more like, does my character have an arc, agency, a want? Or is it, do you think that there's a different approach to learning that?

Meg: Well, I mean, I think it's how, again, how everybody's brain works. I generally do ask questions and then you can ask the character themselves of course, but even I would back up to, if you're really, truly, a beginner, I do think you should take a class. And I think you should pick a class that makes you write. I would not pick a class that is just all talking at you, because your brain isn't gonna learn as much as having to immediately apply that class day into something.

Lorien: Can I add? That the teacher is so critical when you're taking a class, when you're a beginner. Get a recommendation from someone you trust that had a great experience in there, that has a similar vibe. Or, you know, figure out who these people are, what they've done before, who they've worked with. If you have a bad teacher at the beginning, it can crush you. So, you know, make sure you find the right teacher for you.

Meg: Yeah. And by the way, if you're saying, well, how do I do that? I mean, I think they used to say Extension is very good. They have a lot of Zoom classes now there are beginner classes out there. And but, hand in hand with this is, it's not, and I think this is the hardest thing for truly beginning emerging writers to grasp, is it's not one and done. It's not like I'm gonna take one class, I'm gonna write one draft, and then I'm gonna hand it to a manager and I'm gonna get an agent and someone's gonna make it.

I know that we want to believe that 'cause it helps us start. S,  that naivety sometimes, I think, is necessary, but you have to really think, ‘okay, I'm gonna jump into screenwriting,’ allow yourself to learn the craft. Allow yourself the time and the iterations to learn the craft of it. 

If I said to you, you are going to take this glob of molten glass at the end of a stick and I want you to make a goblet, a glass goblet, you'd be like, ‘what the hell are you talking about? I don't know how to spin this! I don't know how to put it in the thing! It keeps, I don't know how to do any of this! What color?’ 

Like there's so many layers of craft involved in glass blowing, right? That you don't think you, of course you'd be like, that's insane. But for some reason with writing, people think, well, you just do it. And it's like, no, not really. It's as complex as glass blowing. Like, it can be that complex and layers and layers of skill and craft. 

So, give yourself time to learn it. Like literally, I'm talking a year or two. If you are thinking I need it right now to go and sell my script and I've never written a script before maybe, listen, I'll never say never. But odds are you're gonna have some craft to learn. And honestly, even if you won the lottery and you wrote three drafts and you sold it, you're gonna be outta your depth in terms of what's coming at you and the notes that are coming at you. Because you don't have the skillset. 

So it's okay. Take some time, learn the craft, know what the basics are. And I thought today we could just go over what, you know, what Lorien and I mean by basics. So, what you need to learn, like the very first thing to learn is what is the difference between a situation and a story? Right? Like, do you understand that this is just a pile of situations happening, or it's actually become a story? And that the story has an engine, and the story has motive, and the story has relationships, and it's evolving, and every sequence, every scene, is there for a reason, right?

And that is a huge delineation. We could do a whole show on that. So that's one example of a basic thing to understand: The difference between a situation and a story. And you know, yes, we all want someone to read our script and say, ‘this is a movie.’ Well, that's what that means. When somebody says ‘this is a movie,’ it means you took an idea, a situation, a series of events, and turned them into a story that is worthy of a movie. 

It's worthy of hundreds of people coming together, right? And paying all this money because it's not just a singular idea. You know, when I came on to Inside Out, Pete Docter sat me down and said, ‘we're on our,’ I can't remember if it was the second or third screening, and people are walking out still saying ‘it's a good idea.’

And that terrified him because by that point he wanted them to be saying, this is a movie. And they weren't. It was still just an idea, a good idea. He hadn't found the story yet, which is what I came on to help him find. So, like how do you get there? How do you get to that difference between a, an idea or a pile of situations, and a story?

For me, that's what I call a story engine, and these are kind of the basics I want you to learn and dive into and take the time to try different things and learn. Like you need to understand theme and thematic, and I don't mean, well, it could be a social theme in your script of course, but I'm talking more of an emotional thematic. That is the arc of your character. What are they learning? What is this about? This is the lava people, this is the, why are we here? Why am I hearing this story? You need to understand how theme tracks through on that character arc. 

Like, in Inside Out, you've got a ton of fun situations, right, that are super fun to come up with. Like, ‘we can go to dream productions! We can, oh we can get, there could be a crazy clown in some scary land! Or, what if the train falls or,’ you know, that those are all fun situations and I'm not at all saying those aren't necessary. You can have a whole week, days, months of just coming up with fun, fun situations to put your character in, and those are necessary, but I promise you somebody is going to ask, ‘why is this in the movie?’

‘Why does your character need to go get, find a scary clown, in a part of the mind? Why? Why is that important for her journey that she do that? That's just a situation.’ It, you know, and sometimes you wanna say as the writer, ‘'cause it's super cool and it's funny and it'll be scary and it's really entertaining.’ And that's very valid. And people, they want that too. Don't get me wrong. They do. Because if you don't have any of that, they're gonna ask for it, too. 

But what we're talking about here is, those are situations. What is the story? The story is Joy. The story is Joy's journey. Where does she start and where does she finish? And to, and it's a transformative journey in this case. So, how do I get her from where she starts to where who she's gonna be and what she'll realize at the end? 

Well, in order for joy to realize you don't keep Sadness away from Riley, you, Sadness is the answer. That's a huge shift, right? So I have to put her through all of these different events. 'Cause it happens to be a road movie, in this case, with emotional relationships in order to get Joy to wake up. Right. 

So now there's a reason. Yeah, okay, well, the reason she's meeting a crazy clown is 'cause it's super fun, but also because of how she's working with Sadness in that part and what Sadness can bring to that moment. So it's very specific. Who's saying what, and why they're saying it, or the beginning, it's super fun to begin the movie with Ronnie Del Carmen's beautiful drawings of the screen and the baby and Joy coming out of the darkness. And you know, that's all Ronnie Del Carmen. 

My job as the writer, in that moment, while Ronnie Del Carmen is pitching this incredibly beautiful situation is to say, and then as soon as Joy says ‘it's me and Riley forever,’ Sadness steps in and goes bleh, right? Because that's the story. The story, the situation is Riley and Joy together and we love it. And that's super hard and you gotta earn that relationship too, Riley's the prize, but the story is immediately Sadness ruins it because this is Joy's problem. Joy has a problem. 

Now I have to convince the audience that, that is also a problem, right? This is also part of your job as a writer. I have to believe what the character believe. So, why is it a problem that Sadness is there? Well, she just ruined this amazing moment with the baby and made the baby cry. So, I'm already starting to be like, ‘yeah!’ But you know, she's Joy, so she doesn't say, ‘Hey, get off of there,’ or get mean. She goes, ‘oh my gosh, hi! Well, can I just? Would it be okay?’ 

Like, she has her own coping mechanism to the problem. So, that's how the story starts. The relationship starts. I've introduced a problem. I've introduced a, we've introduced a prize, which is this baby all, you know, your opening scenes often are the very last thing you write because it, they, usually and can contain the entire movie in them. In terms of those seeds. Not always, but they can. And in Inside Out, they do. 

And so thematically, this movie is about ‘accept Sadness.’ That she can connect you. And that's what Joy has to do. So to make that happen, I have to create a story, versus just situations happening that I don't care, or know, what any relevance of those situations are.

And I mean, you can look at stuff like Avengers, where they've got so many characters, but it's still a story 'cause they're tracking every single one of those characters. Each one is arcing, each one, each relationship is arcing. You know, it's pretty incredible that high story math, right? 

But other things in your engine. S,o your engine is theme. It's what's the world, what world are we in? You know, you have to think, have a think about that. And that's something to master. How to describe a world, how the world is reflecting your main character. Why are we in this world? Why is this the right world for this main character or these relationships? 

What is your tone? Which can also be genre, right? What is what? What are you going for here? We could do a whole show on tone, but you know, what genre are you doing? Do you know it well? Who is your main character? Often, I am surprised, sometimes, when I'm helping up somebody with their script and when they tell me who the main character is. Do they have an emotionally relatable goal, and plan? Is there conflict to that? 

I mean, sometimes that's the most basic thing that we all forget, even in prose, which is, ‘what does your character want and what is in conflict with that?’ Like that is it. That's it. And you know, what's forcing them into action? What in, you know, and what's their impossible goal? The more impossible the goal, the more fun, and places you have to go, right? Because I don't know how it's gonna happen. Suddenly I'm leaning in, you've set expectation, because I don't know how they're gonna possibly get that goal. So already we're engaged, right? 

If the goal doesn't feel that impossible, you're kinda like, okay, well I, you could just get on the bus, and go get the dog. I mean, what's the, you know, like what, you're not gonna be in the story anymore. So that to me is a story engine. And why, if you're a beginner, I want you to start learning about those main craft things to do and to learn by writing lots of scripts without them, because that's how you figure out that what you're missing, and I'm sorry to say, but that's mostly how your brain is gonna learn.

Your brain is gonna learn because you're gonna write an entire script. And this happens to me almost every time. And my first draft, and then you're gonna get the note, ‘she has no agency, what's her want?’ And then you're gonna be like, ‘oh my God, I,’ you know, that, often that's how you learn, and how your brain is gonna learn is through iteration, and not doing it, and then you're gonna do it in a rewrite and see the effect and your brain's gonna go ‘oh, that's really good. I get that.’

Lorien: We get this question a lot like, ‘how do I layer when I'm rewriting?’ Like, you wanna do a character pass, you wanna do a, this kind of pass and it's more like you think you're doing it right, you're writing it, you're doing the rewrite, and then you finish it and you go, ‘oh shit.’ 

Meg: ‘I didn't do it.’

Lorien: I don't, yeah, I didn't do it right. But I don't really look at it like, this is the pass where I'm gonna like, make sure the theme tracks, you know, I'm like, ‘this is the past where I put the character want in it.’ Okay, that's all I need to do to fix this. And then I do all the things I need to do when I write it, and then I get to the end, I'm like, ‘well, fuck the theme is not clear anymore, all of a sudden,’ you know? 

And then the next is like, okay, I'm gonna do the theme, but it's not me thinking about layering, or, ‘this is rewrite number eight and it's this part of the process.’ For me, it's just continuing to like, ‘well, geez, ga!’ You know, like that's what I sound like when I write by myself, just in case everybody wanted to know what the soundtrack of me is.

Meg: But yeah, so to the beginning, emerging writers, this process we're talking about will happen every script you write forever. It doesn't matter how much you're being paid. But especially in the beginning, you just have to attempt it. And if you can have a class so that you know the basics that you're attempting.

Again, I'm never saying there's rules or you have to, but if you can learn the basics, you at least know the rules you're breaking. If you don't even understand the rules you're breaking, I promise you the people reading your scripts will know the rules you're breaking. And if, but, versus, you can say, I'm articulating this in a seven act structure because of this reason, because it's the only way for this character story to work. I, nobody will care. But it has to be articulated, and understood, in a deep way, and that's just the basics, right? So I always encourage people to learn the basics. 

And then in terms of process, I'm still, I still want you to do barf drafts, even if you're a very beginner emerging writer, because you need to find your unique voice too, right? So it's you're learning the craft and the basics of that craft, and then, also trying to get your unique voice in there. 

And, you know, if you have to pick one or the other in your early drafts, I'd always go for voice. Right? If it's breaking the structure and you dunno know how to do it anymore, but that voice is so clear, that is the goal. That's the thing everybody's looking for. People can teach you structure, they can teach you craft. They can't teach you voice. There's just no way to do it. 

I was working as a producer once with a young writer, and everything was at a high quality of craft, but it was just flat, and I can't teach him voice. I can be like, ‘go see this movie and go see that movie’ but that doesn't work. You know, like, who are you? So voice to me is, and being so personal to you, and you being in there is the most important thing.

Lorien: I do wanna say something about voice. So when I started writing. Many years ago, my voice was always very strong in it. And, you know, I took playwriting classes in college, and I took tons of classes. I got my, you know, my MFA and playwriting, and I finally, you know, I put on plays. I had a theater company, I did the whole thing, and my voice was always very clear, ‘that's a Lorien piece of work.’ 

When I got to Pixar, I finally started to understand what three act structure was in a movie, right? So my craft is continuing to develop, but even now. I'll get feedback like, your voice is so strong and what it can do is distract if the craft isn't there. So I have to work extra hard to try to figure out what isn't working and ask the right questions because it's, I, and I get the, you know, your voice is so great and strong and it's like, that's amazing. However. It won't be a real movie or a real TV show, it'll just be like my voice. So if you– 

Meg: –yeah, it's a balance– 

Lorien: –yeah.

Meg: You have to have both. You have to have the underlying structure, craft, but that the voice, but that you're using to get to the voice and they'll want both. 

Lorien: I'm not saying this like I have such a strong voice. I mean, I–

Meg: –yes you do. Oh my God, yoy do have a strong voice. You do. 

Lorien: But it means that I have to work on craft in a way that I, at some point I was like, ‘ah, maybe I don't have to work as hard,’ but I, there's a lot I didn't learn, and I feel like I'm learning and relearning and trying to really apply that now because I, that was a crutch for me.

Meg: Well, you know, there can be extremes on either end, so, I've worked with people who have such high strong craft, but no voice. Then they can't figure out why their stuff isn't getting picked up or made right? They're so good, like, you don't even realize, ‘why doesn't this work?’ Because every craft box is checked. It's just, I don't feel anything. 

And on the other side, which is, it's all voice. It's all voice. And like I worked with a guy once. Boy, his voice is so strong, just so strong. But I said to him, you know, ‘for your next project, just as a writing exercise, could you do a genre movie?’ Because he's so indie. He's so far indie, you know? And he's saying to me, ‘how am I gonna make a living?’ And I'm like, ‘I don't know, because this like is so, it's so just voice,’ right? And it was hard. 

That was a hard thing for him to contemplate because it, it takes an incredible amount of craft to do genre. Everybody's like ‘poo-poo genre.’ Are you kidding me? To do voice, inside of genre, is the gold ring. It is the hardest thing to do. You also will actually make money as a write, because you have both of those things.

Lorien: It’s so funny, the project that I abandoned and just re-pulled up is genre. But I had no idea how to execute it when I wrote it. And even rereading it, I'm like, ‘oh my God, what am I doing in this?’ Right?

Meg: Like, it, but it, but you have to learn the genre you're doing. 

Lorien: Yes. 

Meg: Like I've said, I'm gonna do this horror movie, I gotta go figure out horror. So the there, there's a lot of work to be done. So again, we're talking about these are layers and layers and layers. It takes some time. And why I always say to emerging writers especially is just think of it this way, it's quantity over quality. Honestly, it is, in the beginning. You just have to write a fucking shit load, and just write as many pages as you can, and expect it to be just okay to, shitty to moments of greatness, like that is, first of all, that's just writing.

But you know. You can't expect the quality to be there already. You have to learn it. Let's go back to the glass blowing, like, come on, if I even taught you all the craft of glass blowing, I promise you, your cups are gonna be awkward and sideways and there's some beautiful voice in the fact that it is that way. Right? There's some rawness to that. 

But you just have to write and write and like, if in your mind, if you wanna be a screenwriter, I think you have to write at least three different scripts at least three times each, just to really start being able to forget all the other stuff and just for it to become music inside of you. Right? And even then, I'm sorry, you're gonna still have to do all the hard, this doesn't work stuff. But, you know, and then in terms of process. 

People ask us a lot about contests for emerging writers. I think contests are great for validation. To be seen, to be read, to be part of the milieu of it. You know, like when we go to Austin and all you guys get to meet each other. And that's just, I think that's really great. I do think that I, I think that I like the contest that include mentorship or somebody actually reading your script, and having a meeting with you, versus, because I want you to get as much feedback as you can get, and learn this craft, and where those blind spots are.

But also, just, you should have support. So that support could be in a class, which we're saying you should take. You'll meet people there, some sort of writing group. We'd love you to have, they're forming on the Facebook page. Mentors, if you can find them, it could just be somebody, another writer, further down the path than you. Right? They've already written like four or five scripts. That's a good person to know. They're gonna have some view, they're further down the trail. They have a different view than you.

So those are some of the really just some basic beginner stuff. ‘Where do I start?’ You start by learning craft. It's quantity over quality for a long time. Just give yourself a break on that front and, you know, have your support around you, in terms of people to read, and tell you to keep going and, you know, come to Austin, and meet all your peeps.

Lorien: I wanted to add about writing and writing, and working on your craft. What was, and is hard for me is, I like external validation. And I want someone else to tell me if it's good or not. And so, writing, writing, writing at the beginning, because I didn't know craft, I had no idea if it was good or not, or if I was learning my craft or not. And you know, I didn't have. I hadn't met yet, Meg, yet. I hadn't met a lot of other writers who I felt I could trust with my work, but I was so craving showing it at the same time.

So I got this really bad habit of just writing the barf draft. ‘It's done!’ And I would show it to somebody or enter a contest, and of course it wouldn't go anywhere, because it wasn't good enough or didn't, wasn't as good as the other ones. So, there is a piece that's really hard to wrap your brain around, as a beginner, I have to write and write, but I have no one telling me if I'm on the right track or not, because I don't know the craft well enough to decide if I'm learning it enough. 

So that's why it's so important to find other people, but in the meantime, don't do what I did, which is just stop writing. Keep going. You will learn it in practice. Read scripts you'll like, you will learn it in practice, you will start, we all have a sort of natural understanding of story, and you will hit places where you're like, ‘oh! I get it.’ But it is in the many terrible versions you're gonna write and all the crap you're gonna try external–

Meg: Like okay it’s wrong, I have the wrong main character and the character, the main character's, actually the dog. Okay, what would that be look like? Like you have to really be ready to iterate and iterate it. Don't have to write the whole script with the dog as the main character. Just do a writing exercise, really.

I mean, this is what Pixar taught me. You just gotta go out there man, and try stuff, and just try crazy stuff, because you start to understand story in a really deep way. And Lorien, you said something else, that's so important, which is, you know, when I first started in this business back in the olden days, it was really hard to get a script. Like you basically had to work at the agency or know a friend who worked at the agency to ever get those scripts. Now you can get 'em. 

Lorien: To read, you mean?

Meg: Yes. Script. Yes, you should be reading them. It's like music on a page. So if you are doing a certain genre, read on the page, those genres, because those execs are expecting that genre to read like that on the page.

You, your voice will read differently. So I'm not saying imitate, but again, like music, just to know that kind of base, you know? And, as executive, that's really how I learned story. 'Cause I had to read 5 to 10 scripts a week. So, you know, you just goes in your brain.

Lorien: And I learned story as an actor being on stage trying to figure out what everyone else was doing and their parts too, and like being a partner. So I learned that when you're writing characters, they have to have a connection and a relationship with the other people in the story. It can't just be the solo one act show or no, you know, not for me anyway. 

That example probably didn't make a lot of sense, but I did learn story in theater even though I didn't learn three act structure until I got to Pixar. All of this is scary and overwhelming even for me listening to it. Right? Like, ‘oh, right. I have work to do on every single script if I want to continue to develop my craft and make my voice as pointed as it needs to be in each genre and in each character.’

It's a lot, what we're talking about here. And like I love the glass blowing of it. That TV show that you introduced me to, the reality TV show, but the glass blowing and I have these experts and they're, it just like falls down at the very last minute. Like, it's perfect. It goes crack and it just crack. All of this, and I just, you know, we acknowledge this a lot on the show, but I just think it's worth doing it again.

Like it's hard, it's worth it, but it's challenging in so many ways, and it's so easy to get discouraged. So please don't. Please don't. 

Meg: No, don't get discouraged, 'cause we need your stories. But this is the, this is the requirement, if you're going to be an artist, and a vessel for the stories to come through you, which is, gotta learn the craft, so the story can come through and be received. You can learn this. It's not magic, it's not, you have to be born a certain brain in order to do this. There is a path there is basic craft that you can learn and stand on firm ground and it will happen. I can guarantee you, you will learn it if you try and really push yourself sometimes out to an edge, right? But, and you iterate enough times, you will learn it. 

'Cause I started exactly where you are in terms of, ‘oh my God, it can't be me. I don't know any of that stuff,’ right? Then you just, you learn it. You can learn it. I find, see, for me, I find that exciting. I don't find it overwhelming. It takes the overwhelm and puts it into manageable pots. That's just how my brain works. 

Lorien: I find it terrifying because I thought it was magic. I grew up, and still a part of me believes, that it is magic. Not that I was anointed or any of us were chosen, but that, that it, that you either, that whole thing of you either have it or you don't, which I now know is trash, right?

But, emotionally, psychologically. So, I have to work extra hard to make the effort to read a screenplay, to do the research, to break something down. And I'm always fascinated by it and curious about it, but I, my belief system around it, which is why I find it so scary, and hard, because it's everything we're talking about craft and multiple drafts, it sort of stabs me a little in my belief system, that it's not magic. Because I want to believe it's magic and that I am magic so much, you know? 

Meg: Well, magic can happen. Magic can happen. Like that is when you're writing and all of a sudden the character is so dialed in, you're so in the story, they just start moving and I don't even know where she's going. 

Lorien: Yes. 

Meg: And she's taking over. Like that is why I do all of this, for that moment. 

Lorien: I get discouraged if it doesn't happen. I get discouraged. Like I want the magic all the time, which I know is a false belief system. 

Meg: Yeah. 

Lorien: So that's why for me, when I talk about this is hard and it's a struggle and it's a challenge, because it's, my operational theme is that I should be magic all the time, which is not possible. Then Jeff, you're shaking your head. 

Jeff: I'm just nodding. I so agree. I think like one of the things to remind ourselves is like the thing that's especially strange about writing is all of the beginner stuff is also the advanced stuff. Like it's all kind of one thing and in a way, like we just brought Javi on the show and, I don't know if that episode will have aired, not yet, but he, we, he has this beautiful essay about the basics of screenwriting. 

But of course, like the final thesis statement of the essay is these are the advanced mechanics of screenwriting, like, and every writer we bring on talks about every new draft you have to ask yourself what is writing? It's, you sort of feel like a beginner every time you approach the blank page, no matter how much experience you have. And I don't know if that's–

Meg: –it’s because we're creating something out of nothing. Right? 

Jeff: Exactly. 

Meg: Out of literally nothing. There is nothing there except this thought in your head. Yes, every, it's a really well observed point that everything we're talking about, you have to go back and redo every time. Now, as you get more advanced, you go faster, you jump to things. Your skillset at being able to get it on the page, in an emotional way, in an entertaining way, in an exciting way, knowing like music, when to come in, when to go out, okay, this is actually all backstory, that doesn't have to happen, you know, do I even need any of this, you go quicker, right? But you're still doing it all. You're still doing it all. 

But think about it, glass blowing. They're doing the same thing they had to learn as beginners. They're all of the same techniques. It's just what they can now do with it, and that they've mastered some of those techniques, right? I never feel mastery, honestly, I shouldn't admit that, but I kind of just always slog through and I cannot wait for inspiration. 

I love writers who are able to wait for inspiration. I cannot, I get inspired by doing the work. I never wake up and go, I'm inspired to write today. I always go, I gotta write, I gotta write. And I sit down and I write until, poof! There it is. It's,’ I'm starting to be inspired again,’ and this, ‘she's taking, starting to take over and–

Lorien: —which is the pitfall of believing in magic.

Meg: Yes. 

Lorien: If you believe in magic, then you wait for inspiration, and then you want every writing sit down experience to be like, ‘they're doing it!’ And then you want it to end in this glorious, wonderful, world exploding kind of piece of work when, you might have some magic in there and it might be, then it's adding, you know, it, it's really complicated and hard for me to be a writer and have this belief system, and I am trying so hard to not do it. But that's about discipline. Right? Discipline. 

Meg: Yeah, and I just, you have to do it anyways, right? Until your brain starts to see, oh, it's okay to be sitting here without magic.

Lorien: I've written so many non-magical things. So many. 

Meg: Yeah, it just has to at some point. And you know, this never gets easier, but here's the other weird thing is your brain, like a dream is starting to plant things that really don't feel like magic. And they might even feel bad, like this character is so flat and boring, but some part of you is like ‘that character has to be in the, I just, I don't know why, but they have to be there and I don't even know how to write them.’ The dream metaphors are getting. 

And so you might not think that character's magic. You might think that character shows you as a hack, and yet as you start getting feedback and you start answering the questions, you realize, ‘oh, it's all sitting over in that character, and I have to be brave enough to go fully articulate them.’ You know what I mean? Like you don't necessarily, can judge, especially in early drafts or early skillset, what's coming up in the dreamer, and why. Your dreamer knows, but you don't have access to that. 

So you also have to trust the dreamer. Why is it there? And if I walked up to you and said, I wanna cut that, I wanna cut that character, I wanna cut that location, would it still feel like your story? And if it does, then maybe it can go. And if it doesn't, you're like, no, I, that does then the story. It's not the story. Okay. You gotta dig deeper, right? But that process of, what is this, right? Is just a process you're gonna do over and over again, though your skillset will get quicker.

Lorien: Yeah. I think one of the pros of me starting out as a sort of magical thinker was that I absolutely trusted myself when I wrote. I just wrote it and I trusted that it was great because I am magic. Right? And then came the rewrite, which is where I fell down. 

Meg: So funny, you and I are opposite.

Lorien: Yeah. Yep. Uhhuh. 

Meg: Completely opposite. 

Lorien: Yep, totally. 

Meg: I totally don't believe I’m magic. I totally believe just– 

Lorien: oh, I mean, I don't believe I’m magic at the same time, don't get me wrong here, like it's a very complicated place in my head, but the writing, me as a writer, I have some special thing and I trust it so much. But, then when I look at it from the 30,000, like, the far away point of view, I start to like doubt. And then the rewrite gets very scary and that's when I desperately want external validation of, like, what's working, what's not working, which is again.

Something only I can decide at that early level. Yeah, so that's the piece that I have been working on for the last several years that I'm getting very good at. Better, better. I'm not very good at it. I'm better at it, which is trusting myself through the entire process, which is learning craft, I think.

Meg: Yeah.

Jeff: I think just trusting the process too. I, the thing that's scary about the myth of the magic writer is when inevitably you run into hurdles or problems in your work, the lie you tell yourself is, I'm not talented or I don't have it. That's what gets scary for me is you have this first draft that feels great as it's coming out, and then either you see it or you're getting notes that are pointing out where your magic self failed you, and all of a sudden you think like, ‘I'll never make it in this career. I should just bail.’ 

And that's the lie that I think causes so many people to hop off of the train, when you just have to trust the process of rewriting and kind of dredging it up and just grinding, because that's writing, I think.

Meg: Yes, because everybody, even these, the Gods, who can just supposedly have won multiple Academy awards, trust me, their first drafts also don't work and have huge problems. But they, the difference is they stay and they go again, and they trust that there's a story in here. And that's when I'm always like, well, you better stay, because that character chose you. And, what aren't you looking at? Why is this not being communicated? Whatever you feel, whatever the dream is in you, they're not getting it on the page. They're not getting it. 

There's a blind spot. You're hiding somewhere. You've got the wrong genre. Who knows what it could be, right? That's, you got there is a way to think of it as fun. Like how? How do you fix this? I don't know. I am a story junkie. I love taking a story and talking to a writer and trying to figure out how to fix something. It's just what I like. 

All right, you guys, thanks so much for joining. We've decided to take your questions as part two of this episode, and the questions are about being an emerging writer, but they're also about, where do you start your writing? Where do you start? What's the beginning of your story? How do you get going? So we're gonna do that next week in part two. 

Lorien: So remember in the meantime, keep writing, and you are not alone.