Anatomy Of Story - John Truby [FULL INTERVIEW]

John in your lifetime have you seen more movies or read more scripts and is either more important than the other when it comes to a screenwriting career I have seen so many movies and read so many scripts that couldn't even begin to count which one I've done more of but they're both very important if somebody wants to write screenplays professionally and I say that for two reasons first of all when it comes to Watching film that that's really where I learned my training as a writer and where I developed all my techniques having to do

with how do you write a script that will make a great film what I did was for about a three-year period I went to Classic Cinema and watched two you know really high level films a day and took notes in the dark and what I was looking for were the patterns what were the elements that were found in every great film do Such elements even exist and I found that they did and from that I was able to develop really the the centerpiece of what I talk about in story which is the seven key steps

of every great story from that I also then developed the more detailed 22 steps of every great story these are steps in every good script no matter how long no matter how short no matter what medium no matter what genre and these are really the keys to successful Storytelling now it's also important that writers read a lot of scripts because it's only by reading a lot of scripts that you get a sense especially of the pacing that a professional script has and you only see that when you've read a lot of them but once you've

read a lot of them you see how quickly does this story get established in the script because keep in mind that the reader the person that we need to get through in order to sell that Script the reader has read many many scripts and their normal response to a script is no so we have to break that pattern in their mind now they formed that no in their head in the first 10 pages and so reading a lot of scripts gives the writer a sense of what do I have to have accomplished in those first

10 pages to keep the reader reading and to give them a chance to say yes what's the best script you've seen on screen this Year there's been some good films that have come out in the summertime Hunger Games and Avengers now in both cases we're talking about you know super popular films we're not we're not really talking about Oscar winners here but they do what they do extremely well and I like to talk when I give my class I like to talk about about the story elements that are found in hit films because writers don't

realize that In order to sell a script they have to write the script that Hollywood is looking to buy now to understand what that is you have to understand that what what Hollywood's Basic Marketing requirement is which is they are selling to a worldwide audience now for years now it has not been the us audience that they're most concerned about it's a worldwide audience and it turns out that to sell to a worldwide audience to have a blockbuster Film there are certain story elements that are in those Blockbuster scripts and a lot a lot of

writers don't realize this they think that well it's a blockbuster film because it has movie stars or because it has a lot of special effects and so on well not so Hollywood has not been a movie star based system for at least a decade even though most people think that it still is all about the movie star no it's about the script and it's about the story elements that Are in the script now there are certain story elements that writers have to have in their script to appeal to a worldwide audience because we have to

get Beyond those cultural differences those National differences so the first thing that you realize when you look at these hit films is that they're almost always based on the myth genre myth form is the most popular story form in the world and has been for many years and in the case of both Hunger Games and the Avengers we have myth-based stories which have then been updated now in the case of the Avengers we had another really good story element that they use which is the concept of the Dream Team the all stars that are brought

together and this is a very popular story form when you combine that with a myth-based story you've got a big hit on your hands and by the way that's the main reason that uh Disney bought Marvel Comics in the first place was to Get access to what I call the character bank which is a a number of characters that are already established have world worldwide appeal and which we can then use in any number of films at infinum in the case of The Hunger Games you have a very good adaptation I think of a book

in the sense that once again we have this myth foundation and in this particular case the novelist is really the person who brought all those myth elements together Very similar to the way JK Rowling did in the Harry Potter stories uh you get this element of the the young female Archer that this is right out of Greek mythology Artemis Diana character uh you get the William Tell story with her shooting the arrow um through the the apple and so on but she brought together all of these classic myth elements and put them in a story

which he then modernized using the science fiction form so again we get a very powerful Combination of myth and science fiction that again made for a worldwide hit why is understanding genres so important genre is really the key to understanding screenwriting today and it comes from what I call the first rule of Hollywood which is that Hollywood doesn't buy and sell movies Stars directors or writers it buys and sells genres now genres are story forms and more importantly they are the all stars of the story World they are Story forms that have been told over

decades centuries and in some cases like with myth thousands of years so they've already been worked out and they've been worked out very very great detail and they know exactly how their characters work they know what their themes are they know how the plot is going to work and so so on so it's very very tight now in order to sell to worldwide audience you have to use these different genres because this this is what the Audience is really buying when when an audience goes to see one of the the big summer blockbuster films they

may not know it in their head oh that's a myth-based film or that's an action film or a combination of the two but they know what they like and that's what's underneath each one of those stories Avengers Dark Knight so on these are all just basic story forms basic genres with a unique skin placed on top so it's very important first of all for the writer to Understand what genres they are working in it's also very important for them to understand how to combine their genres because almost every film that gets made now is not

a single genre that was decades ago now almost every film that gets made not just in Hollywood but in worldwide Cinema is a combination of two three and sometimes four genres now a lot of writers know this what they don't know they usually don't know is that combining genres is very difficult Because each genre has its own hero its own opponent its own desire line theme and so on so when you start combining these typically you end up with chaos you end up with so many story elements that are unconnected that the script doesn't work

so it's very important to understand how to put these genres together one final point about this when a writer is developing a story idea right at the beginning of the Writing process they come up against the biggest decision that they will have to make which is what genre is this story the biggest reason that writers fail at the premise and by the way 99% of scripts fail at the premise line right at the very first decision in the writing process the biggest reason it fails is not that it was wasn't a good idea it's that

they use the wrong genre to develop the idea how would you rate the level of Storytelling coming out of Hollywood today to really look at how storytelling Works in Hollywood today we really have to see the different parts of Hollywood because it is not a monolith in any way for example in film we really have the Hollywood mainstream film making and we have independent film and these are very very different in terms of originality and creativity that's found in independent film making Hollywood today is not known for Its originality it's all about branding it's all

about taking these basic stories essentially myth stories and trying to create a franchise that can not only sell one film to a worldwide audience but multiple films over many years which they then now will remake very quickly I mean I I I was amazed at the fact that we needed a new Spider-Man film right this is 10 years ago we had the first one uh and just a few years ago we had the third one in That first series so the point is that is again the marketing strategy that Hollywood is using now what that

means is that for a writer working trying who work in mainstream Hollywood film making there are certain skills that they have to know versus if they are going to write for independent film for Hollywood mainstream film making for example again the the key emphasis on is on genre and combining genres and Knowing which genres appeal to worldwide audience for example myth action thriller those sorts of genres work with a worldwide audience comedy much less so on the other hand if a writer is working in independent film and for many writers that is the way they

get their start then there is a much more emphasis on an original idea on coming up with very unique quirky characters often an emphasis on Comedy and Line Comedy I.E comedy that is has Very witty dialogue in other words we have the they work with very different story structures now there's a third key element when we're talking about Hollywood storytelling and that is television because in my opinion television is the best writing in the entertainment business and when I give my class all over the world what they what those students are most interested in is

not how do I write a Hollywood mainstream film it's how do I write a TV script that's as good as the TV dram is coming out of Hollywood the the the level of excellence in in TV drama has never been higher and the the quality of the craft of writing in television is phenomenal the ability of these writers to produce that quality of work that quickly week after week after week is is frankly amazing to me I don't know how they do it why is it so important to approach a genre in a way That

hasn't been done before it goes back to that first rule of Hollywood which is that Hollywood marketing is based on selling genres now that means that everyone who has any sense of how Hollywood works now knows that if you want to be in the game you have to write a genre based story now there are not that many different major genres there are 12 major genres that 99.9% of Hollywood films get made from typically in combination of those 12 now there's the problem which is that if every everybody is writing a genre script and genres

of course have or essentially have anywhere from 8 to 15 basic story beats that must be present in that script if you are writing that genre script properly if all you do is write that genre in its normal way you're going to write a script that everybody else is writing that has no Chance to sell and this is why in my class I'm constantly talking about these are the Beats of the genre which gets you in the game well I've referred to it as paying the dues hitting the Beats of the genre but then you

got to go beyond that which is you have to transcend the genre you have to rise above it you have to twist the genre in such a way that the audience hasn't seen before which means that you take those 8 to 15 basic Beats and for each one of them you do them in a unique way that the audience that surprises the audience and notice that what you get there when you transcend the genre is you get to have your cake and eat it too which is you give the audience all the genre beats that

they're coming to that movie to see but you're also surprising them you're putting a different skin on those bones in a way that they haven't seen before so they get that double play pleasure And that is the only way in my opinion that a writer can break through from the crowd and have their scripts stand out what is a popular film whose script breaks all of the screenwriting rules and yet it's still a success and how often does this happen and is this something that bothers you in any way an interesting question and to answer

it you really have to go to that concept of screenwriting rules And when I in my anatomy of story class I talk about all of the fundamental key elements that have to be in your script for it to be a great story and that's what we're really talking about how do you tell a great story in that sense there is no popular film that I can tell you that breaks those rules because we're talking about two different concepts of what rule means most people when they think about the rules of writing are they're really Talking

about these very simple conventional type of ideas about what makes a good script which I'm not interested in because to me that is mechanical writing that's that's paint by number script writing and that simply won't work when I talk about the rules of good story I'm talking about these key elements way under the surface that link a story together so that it builds steadily from beginning to end now at that level of story what I Call the grammar of drama the way a a story can build so that it has the greatest impact on the

audience there is no way to write a great script that doesn't hit those beats now here's here's the qualify part which is that when you transcend a genre when you use for example Advanced storytelling techniques you come up with a story that appears to break those basic rules but it doesn't what it's doing is simply Coming up with characters and story structures that are more complex they're not this simple chronological beginning to the end type of story and they might be have these stories might have a main character who is quote unlikable that's one of

those conventional rules that I mentioned that you hear when you're first starting out as a writer and think oh I have to have a likable hero well not so that that is that is false and so it's very important For writers to understand what these quote rules are that actually make for a great story and these so-called conventional rules that are not true they're certainly not true now and they probably never were how do we get a viewer to care about a character you know we see so many films with great production value but there's

a disconnect we don't feel connected or even interested in the characters so how is this Achieved one of the biggest mistakes writers make is in how they create character and they they've heard this about you know we need to care about the main character which is absolutely true we do want to care about that main character but how they go about it is often wrong which is they think that the way that you get an audience to care about a character is you make that character as detailed as possible meaning we give them as many

character Traits as we can this is not the best way to go because those tend to be very superficial elements of a person and that's not what makes an audience care about a character it it's interesting that what makes an audience care about a character really comes down to only two things the weakness the fundamental weakness of that character and the character's goal in the story this is Why in my my story classes it's always the first thing I talk about and they are by the way the first two steps of the seven major story

structure steps that I was talking about earlier earlier weakness need of the character in other words what is that personal problem inside that is hurting the hero in such a fundamental way that it's ruining their life it's very deep and the entire story is going to play out the solving of that Problem the way they're going to solve that problem is by going after a particular goal they don't know it to be beginning that by going after this goal they will eventually deal with their great internal weakness but if it's a good story that's exactly

how it will work now I often talk about the what I consider to be the most important element of good writing the mark of a really good Storyteller which is that Plot comes from character now those are big words and a lot of people oh well you hear that well what it actually does that mean it means a lot of things but the most important thing it means is that you create a goal for your hero which will eventually force that person to deal with their deep weakness if you do that the plot comes from

the deep source of the character and you've told a great story so you've mentioned from prior Interviews that we should show weakness and need and a deficiency in our characters I'm wondering why don't we like to watch people that are sort of stronger than ourselves well this is the a common notion particularly about action heroes the notion was always in the past that when you have an action hero or especially a superhero that you want a character who begins as a good person and upstanding moral Paragon and remains that way throughout the entire story but

about 10 years ago Hollywood discovered that that's not the best way to tell a superhero story that's one of those examples of conventional wisdom that's not so what we care about is to see a character overcome a deep weakness now the audience thinks that the story is All About the hero achieving his goal right because then we've got success and that's important and in most Stories the Hero will accomplish his goal by the end of the story but that is not what the audience is most interested in they can't tell you this but we know

from lots of experience hundreds of years of Storytelling that the case the the real fact is not does the hero accomplish the goal but does the hero overcome the great weakness because that's what makes us care about that character we see them in pain we see them in trouble right right if they're already successful if They're already a good and in some cases a perfect person where where do they go right there's nothing for them to overcome so that's why it's so important that we show in the very opening pages of our script the great

internal weakness of our character now we may also want to give them qualities that are likable qualities uh that the audience can also hook on to but those are not nearly as important as Establishing the weakness up front in the story Natalie Goldberg author of writing down the bones and other works says if you're not afraid of the voices inside of you you will not fear the critics outside of you so is the first step in fearing criticism of our work desensitizing ourselves to it I mean should we put something out there um let the

chips fall where they may get knocked down get back up and then strengthen that sort of what I call a Criticism muscle so that doesn't hurt as much each time um I believe you know everybody faces criticism and especially more so the higher someone climbs in the Public's view so how do we get over that hurdle I know so many brilliant people that just are so locked in because of the fear of criticism that they don't put great work out there I have found over many years of experience in working with writers that the biggest

Mark of an Amateur is is the inability to take criticism now it's certainly understandable why somebody would not want to hear that criticism they have put their heart and soul into that script and in many ways what is in that script is laying themselves be for the public and this is a scary thing and so if somebody doesn't like your script they don't like you but that is not the way to become a great Writer you have to be able to listen to criticism because I don't care how good a writer you are you cannot

write the perfect script you have everybody has weaknesses in their writing everybody has weaknesses in a particular script so the trick is if I'm going to improve that script I have to be able to listen to outside criticism now then very important thing comes into play which is who is giving you that criticism Right most people are not capable of giving a writer useful criticism either because they do not have the structural tools or because they are too too personally connected to that writer right if I give a family member my script what kind of

comments am I going to get back right it's not going to be a they're going to be afraid to be negative and B they're not trained to give me the kind of feedback that can Actually make a difference in my script now this includes a lot of people that you know in the Executive Suite that that are going to be giving you feedback on a script producers agents and so on unfortunately a lot of them are not trained to give a writer commentary that can actually improve the script and a lot of times they will

give commentary that is contradictory they'll tell them the writer two fundamentally opposite things and the writer cannot do Them both right they're they're opposite so it's so important that you not only be open to outside criticism but that you're getting criticism from people who know what they're talking about because the only criticism that actually works for you that is not destructive is structural criticism in other words looking at the bones of the story and telling you what is not working and I have found that writers who get constructive criticism Structural criticism they love that because

it's not personal it's about the craft and if it's only the craft that can make that script better so that's the litness test is is it structural criticism absolutely okay absolutely and unfortunately very few people are able to give that kind of structural criticism this is also why I always recommend to writers form writer groups preferably with the best writers you know because then you're going to be Talking the same language you're going to be talking the structural language because any writer who's been writing for any length of time and is really concerned about improving

their craft they know this they know that it's all about the structure and so when you are in a writer group with and getting feedback from other writers you know that you're getting the stuff that really makes a difference under the surface that the average audience me Person cannot give you say you're a viewer at someone's premere and you see a screening and you honestly think that the work has flaws what's the best thing to do maybe it's not the most honest thing to do do you smile and tell them great job shake their hand

do you admit in a uh Gentle Way that there were some things they were confused about what's the best policy well the the the typical response when uh someone has seen your your film And they they don't like it or they don't like big parts of it is because they don't want to come right out and say that they say film was very interesting and that you know that's that's the code word interesting means it wasn't very good um but the the real fact is that that at that point the the game's over the process

is already over so what good is it to say oh I had a problem with this and this and this now you got to Distinguish that from for example screen with audiences uh on a film that isn't completed yet you know this sort of thing is it typically has a very you know bad name it's oh well these you know it's a marketing screening where we're we're going to try to get a sense from the audience who what do they know about film making but you will find that audiences are very on certain in certain

things are very good at giving you Feedback now they won't be able to put it in structural terms oh you didn't establish the weakness need of your character in the opening pages of your film but if you are able to translate their responses you can often learn a great deal from them they can keep in mind audiences have seen a lot of films and they may not be able to speak in the language of the writer or the filmmaker but they know what is not working for them and so If you as the writer or

filmmaker can listen and be open to that uh I have found time and again getting really good feedback from from an audience just the normal audience out there uh that was very helpful because it it goes back to the the old concept of the cust the customer is always right right you you can't if you're writing a script you can't you know and and and reader says Oh this didn't work for me you can't say well let let me explain to you what I was trying to do if you if they didn't like it it's

your fault it's not their fault so it's very important to be open to to any kind of criticism and if you know how to listen you can often find out some very good things about a script or a film that you did not know what are some things to listen for well typically when an audience is giving you Feedback it's it's it's a lot of it is about the pace a lot of it is about it's all some version of it was slow here uh I didn't like that character uh I didn't like that scene

so on so forth what they're really talking about is that the sequencing of the scenes the building of the story is not right it's not working for them uh last year was was part of a screening in a film that I had worked on and we found from the audience that they were having a lot of problems especially With the final third of the film and we realized well we we we had for various reasons we had a big hole about 2third of the way in the film and and we thought we needed those beats

those scenes because to to tell the story but the audience showed us that we did not need those and so what we did was we basically we cut out about five or six scenes that we thought had to be in there for the detailing for the building of the character over the course of the Story turned out we could pull out all six of those scenes and boom which would give us the drive into the final part of the story and didn't cause a problem at all and instead it gave us the pacing that we

needed to bring the audience along all the way to the end of the story so typically that's it's some version of that because there's a feeling that the audience has they again they're not they're not trained to specifically know why a story is not Building they just know it's not working for me and you think that's because we misjudge the audience a sort of level of Intuition or or interest in the story and as filmmakers and writers were too close to our work well we're always too close to our work you absolutely you you know

if if you've been working on the script all those iterations if you all the way through the film making process and so on then you're you're always going to be too close to it and and Again that's why getting that outside feedback is so valuable but but yes the the the audience has has a kind of knowledge that is very useful if we will listen to them and respect them this by the way is one reason I believe why why TV drama is the best writing and film making in the Hollywood entertainment business today which

is you look at the the the best shows they are not speaking down to an audience that they have exactly the Opposite view toward the audience which is the audience is smarter than we think they are and the audience is smarter than we are and again this goes against the old conventional wisdom that you've got to you know you've got to make things understandable so everybody out there will get it well we found out over the last 10 to 20 years interestingly enough I think that the the the biggest thing that flipped it was Seinfeld

because you there you had four four main characters who were unlikable these these people in many ways were very unpleasant people and this just completely ran counter to the conventional wisdom of mainstream popular storytelling in this case Television right which has the biggest popular audience there is of any medium and all of a sudden we realize wait a minute that in fact it works better if they're not very likable if They have problems if they have weaknesses and so on it finally got into film as well and as I mentioned earlier even with superhero stories

which were the the the end of you know they were the last type of Storytelling where you would have put weaknesses in your main character but now even there we found that the most popular of these superhero films are characters with severe character flaws and it turns out that that makes them more popular to the Audience not less popular but as I say the the the basic attitude of the the best shows today are that the audience is very sharp and they can handle extremely complex storytelling forms and it actually is makes it more popular

not less so so they say that writing is rewriting but what does this really mean I mean how much time should we spend on a first draft and then how much time do we spend Rewriting this is a great question because rewriting is one of the most misunderstood of all of the major writing steps partly because of that famous line that you just stated writing is rewriting there is no question that if you want to write a great piece of Storytelling you're going to have to do a lot of rewriting but that concept that writing

is rewriting often makes writers make a huge mistake right at the Beginning which is they think that my first draft just get it on paper right to overcome whatever writing block just get it down on paper don't try to be perfect right because that just will just stop you from writing entirely right okay so they get the script down on paper and that they think okay I'll fix any mistakes in the rewrite except that they don't fix the mistakes in the root right what people don't realize is that first Draft turns into concrete when you've

actually written it out and it's on paper in many ways in your mind it solidifies in such a way that it is then very diff difficult to break that apart and to make the key structural changes that need to be made this is why and a lot of writers are shocked when I tell them this for most scripts the second draft is worse than The first draft and it just gets worse from there and that is because of the approach that they take to the script in the first place because when you write that first

draft some fundamental things are going to be embedded in that script this is why it is so important that writers do a lot of prep work before writing the first draft starting all the way back with the premise I always tell writers it is so Important to take a tremendous amount of time exploring your premise line taking weeks to look at just one sentence right my my my one line one sentence log line because you can find a lot of the inherent structural problems in your script that you're going to encounter right there in the

first sense now it that also means we do a lot of prep work in creating our characters figuring out our structure learning the end point of the story before we begin writing so on And so forth that doesn't mean that you're going to again try to make that first draft perfect what it does mean is that you're going to be looking at what are the embedded structural problems in this story and try to make the fixes before before you actually write the draft and most of those fixes will occur if you do your prep work

you can get a very good story in the scene list the scene sequence now this is in many ways a lot Of time writers don't realize what an important step this is in the writing process the scene list the scene sequence because this is the last place before you actually write scenes to see the architecture of your story for example I do a lot of story Consulting work and my preference is don't give me a a full script give me your scene sequence I can spot 90% of your problems and come up with the solutions

right from the scene Sequence because if I see it as a as a first draft of a script I've got all that dialogue I've got a lot of undergrowth that is hiding the bones of the story and is keeping me from seeing what is not working and how it could be fixed so this is why it's so important to do your craft homework before writing the first draft and in that first draft it will then make the rewriting process so much Simpler and it will guarantee that your second draft is better than your first draft

one more point about rewriting because it is so misunderstood most writers don't understand that rewriting is a set of tools just like plot character and so on and one of the key tools about rewriting is the order that you rewrite for example most writers the first thing they fix when they're doing a rewrite is the dialogue it's the last Thing you should touch when I work with a writer on a script we don't talk about dialogue for the until the third or fourth draft because it's all about getting the story right and that's what you

want to focus focus on in your rewriting or the steps of finding the structural problems and the first step in finding the structural problems of your script is go back to the desire line of your story make sure that you have a good Strong spine you have a desire line that will track and drive The Story from beginning to end so it's just like building a house absolutely why do most people fail at screenwriting I think most people fail at screenwriting because it's the most difficult craft in the world you know people talk about oh

I want to be a director well directing is very difficult challenging job but it doesn't compare to Writing craft of Storytelling most complex craft in the world takes a lifetime commitment to master it now a lot of writers either don't realize that it's going to take a lifetime of commitment or they don't want to face a lifetime of commitment because that's a lot of work and that's a lot of time most writers are looking for the Magic Bullet and which is why I talk about This in my class all the time most writers start off

with this threea structure way of looking at storytelling which is was designed for beginners and does not work at the professional level the reason it's so popular is because it is a Kind of Magic Bullet says n it's not that hard well we'd all like to think that writing a successful screenplay can be done with a few simple steps you know paint by numbers approach unfortunately It doesn't work you have to be able to put in the work and you have to also realize the the level of training the type of training that's required to

get to to a level of excellence and that means literally hundreds of craft techniques that have to be mastered I will always tell writers in my class you know plot is the most underestimated of all the major writing skills most writers know the importance of a good Main character they know the importance of lean dialogue and so on but when it comes to plot they think well I'll just figure that out as I go and of course that never happens because it turns out that plot has more techniques that must be mastered to become a

working professional than all of the other major writing skills combined if you don't know what those techniques are you have really no chance of working at that level so that's why I say that It's so important to writers to get not just get training but to get the right kind of training so that they are working at the professional level and one of the what I think one of the key Hallmarks of what I've tried to to teach in all of my classes is that professional professional writers use fundamentally different techniques than all other writers

if you don't know what those professional techniques are you cannot Play in that game you cannot compete at that level do you think too A lot of people don't realize that their temperament is not suited I mean you're spending a lot of time alone you're having to be sort of self-generating and maybe people don't realize how difficult that is you're absolutely right I I consider the psychological element the the biggest obstacle to writer success because the Difficulty of what you just said the difficulty of facing the Page by yourself being in that room alone trying

to meet that challenge day in and day out is very difficult on the human mind and writers first of all don't realize what it's going to take psychologically at first and then when they get into it and they try to deal with that they they really don't have the tools of the support system to be able to be in it for the long haul I often tell writers The the the the people who work professionally are the people who are still standing you know everybody else was they were knocked out because for various reasons they

didn't get the right training but but most often it's they cannot handle the py ological difficulty of what it takes to write at the professional level meaning writing alone facing rejection again and again over many Years and so on until you have mastered the craft at the at the level that somebody says hey you're a good writer this is a good script I'm going to hire you so it's the people who a commit to the craft and B who are still standing who who are there after many years so that finally somebody says yeah you've

done the work you're actually pretty good because keep in mind most people don't know a good story they don't you know They just know I like it or I didn't like it but they're not trained as writers again it's the most complex craft in the world so part of the difficult psychology is how do you get over the fact that you're getting rejected from people who don't know what you do that's very tough to face so which do you think is more important stubbornness or a Teflon personality where Um rejection just doesn't Define who you

are I would say neither of those I would say both of those are dependent upon a previous requirement which is M maintaining an openness to learning the craft I will often get professional writers to take my class and when I talk to them what I always find is these people have no ego at least no ego that that is coming across that I could see Because they're professional writers so you would think well they they think I already know this stuff but they don't they don't take that attitude yes they're extremely well trained if they

get to the level of a professional writer they're extremely well trained but these are people who are open to learning more and I find that is the most important quality for being a successful writer the being the willingness to Learn from anywhere anyone so that your repertoire your your Arsenal your set of tools is constantly growing that in turn gives you the confidence to say that person didn't like my script but I know that it is based on these craft elements that make for a good story so whether they liked it or not that doesn't

affect me I know it's a good story that's where you get the foundation of confidence that you need to get through those tough C olical Moments so almost as if an attorney or a doctor needs sort of mandatory um continuing education artists somehow think maybe they're immune to that like I've already learned what I need to learn most do most do and it's a huge problem you know the the when I give classes the most common question is all about how do I sell my script they would now there's an implication in that question which

is I Already know how to write a good script the only thing I'm not able to do is sell it not so 99% of writers you know that we always talk in Hollywood about it's all about the connections all about who you know that's so overrated 99% of writers when they finally meet somebody who is a useful connection they don't have the story tools to make that connection pay off they don't have the craft Foundation so it's all about you know this this ability to treat writing as a profession and part of that is I

I can never know enough about how this craft works and partly that's because every story is different um I talked to professional writer friends and we're always amazed we think okay it's going to get easier now it doesn't it gets harder because the better you Get the higher you set the bar for yourself on your script every St cracking a story is always hard no matter how much you know because every story is totally unique yeah there's certain elements that you can use that you can hang your hat on you can you can get a

way into the story and so on but everyone is tough so that's why this this having this professional approach to being a Writer being a Storyteller is so important it's the only thing that that a makes you successful but be Gets You Through a quote from Julia Cameron of the artist way and many other incredible works is uh it takes constant vigilance not to slip into negativity or simple apathy it takes courage to believe that over a given period of time we are getting better and not sliding into decline so how does someone who has

been possibly in the industry for a long time Whether successful or not strengthen this stance um you know it seems like for those who have maybe not made it quote unquote there's maybe a depression and a bitterness uh that success will never come and then for those possibly that have made it there's sometimes a feeling of being trapped and dictating by uh dictated by the controls of money and not Crea so how do we stay at the craft of writing and keep it fresh this sement That feeling the longer that you are in the the

business of writing that you start to get trapped in the lack of creativity is a serious problem this is an industry and it's all about it's either got to make money or we don't work and so there's there's constantly this pressure to write the commercial script and it is one of the worst things that you can fall fall prey to because what you then do is you start Trying to predict what will be commercial and that is impossible I don't care how long you've been doing it you can't do it even if you were to

come up with a somewhat close prediction of what is going to be hot by the time you wrote that script got it through all the minations that are required for the business it would that moment of being hot is already over it's probably two years pass so you can't do it this is why it is so important for Writers no matter how successful they get and in fact the more successful you you are the more important this is to constantly be challenging your own creativity yes you do have to have certain elements for example genre

elements that will appeal to a mass audience but you don't have to write a generic script you don't have to write a a paint by numbers machine script that you think will be commercial that's the quickest way to fail and it's also the Quickest way to get down on yourself psychologically and not want to write anymore it's one reason when a lot of writers give up but the creativity is your responsibility there is no reason that every script you write can't be something that is personally very meaningful to you and that the techniques that you

use to write that script are have a number of unique creative elements in it So it's strictly up to you but again that goes back to also knowing the craft knowing that a big part of the craft of writing is not just knowing the Beats of a particular genre story but also forcing yourself to hit those beats in a creative way that you or the rest of the audience has never seen before so I I put the onus on to the writer there and I think that it's a a false and an easy step that

we take to say oh it's their fault it's the business you know They they they they make us right this way no they don't it's it's only if you buy into that mythology that you write that way but remember I always tell writers this you can have a lot more ideas in this life than you ever have time to write them as a full length script or novel so always write a story that you both care about and that you think will have an appeal to a larger audience it can always be done if your

creativity is sort of in a slump and you Don't feel challenged by it um what are some possibly even physical activities that you could do I know Julia Cameron always suggests going on writer dates or artist dates she called them and just doing something that visually stimulates you what are some of the things you recommend to people that maybe they're successful they have something they're doing that's that's paying them well but they're stifled and they want to challenge that Creativity you know it it it's a very interesting question and I think it connects to a

larger issue of writer's block writer block of course is a a big problem that writers every writer faces at some time or another I think it's a big miscon conception that writer's block comes from some kind of a psychological element that we face that oh I'm just not in a creative place right now uh uh you know I've been working on this story For too long what whatever the reason that we come up with I find almost every time writers block comes from not understanding the true structure of the story you're telling and but when

I say true structure I mean not only is it hitting those key story beats that I referred to a little earlier but is it kidding the story beats that are unique and right for that story and almost always it comes down to that main Character because the main character drives the story and the key to having a truly creative script truly creative story unique from anything anybody's ever seen before including the writer is that unique main character because that's the person that you know that's a unique individual and that's the unique individual that will drive

the story so whenever I see a writer who is running into creativity problems Running into writer's block of some sort I always say go back to your main character find out what is unique about that person that you haven't thought of so far and find out what is unique about that character that you are passionate about why do you want to tell this person's Story Once you focus in on that character and the unfolding of that character over the course of the story then you will get back in touch With your real creativity and I

find almost every time that that will break the writer's block and break it very quickly should a screenwriter really be thinking about selling their first screenplay well you always want to be thinking about it you know I mean you you're going to be you could be thinking about giving your first Oscar speech right uh that that comes with the territory the the the question is do you Let that affect the process that you wrun with now It's always important to have a sense of writing for an audience in other words I'm not just writing for

myself I'm not just writing for my immediate family I want to write a script that a lot of people want to see but it's very tricky in terms of what steps you take based on that as I mentioned earlier it's not about predicting a trend it's not about Predicting what is going to be hot with an audience it's once you determine certain basic elements that oh this can be a commercial story idea then it's all about forgetting that and getting to what I call the gold of the idea getting down into what is totally unique

about that story idea keep in mind the biggest reason that script failed me that 99 scripts percent of scripts fail at the premise line when we've only written one Sentence and the biggest reason that they fail is it wasn't an original idea in the first place right yeah writers make all kinds of mistakes when it comes to developing that idea but if you don't start off with an original idea in the first place it's not going to be an original script and Hollywood has no interest in that right why why are they going to pay

the kind of money that that is paid for scripts for something that any number of 100 thousand people could write so and and and what most writers don't realize is because it's so difficult to dig into an idea and find out what is truly original about it most Writers come up with a premise that is a copy of a movie they saw six months ago or it's a copy of two movies that they put together that they saw six months ago right that's that doesn't make it original so it's it's very important That once you

have that idea that you explore it very deeply find out what is original about it and if the idea is not original it's important that you not write it now this is counter to what most writers do most writers when they come up with an idea they immediately start writing script Pages it's one of the clearest marks of an amateur and what happens of course is they get 15 20 pages in they Write themselves into a dead end they just ruined another idea now over years and years of experience that I've had as a writer

and a story consultant I have found that most ideas should not be written in scripts and it's exactly the opposite of when I started when I started I thought there isn't a story idea that I can't make work as a script that I can't make work as a full length Story over years of experience I found just the opposite of the case that the real value of exploring your premise taking time to make sure it's original taking time to find out what the structural problems are inherent to the idea the big value of that comes

from finding out that nine out of 10 ideas that you have should not be written because the single biggest choice that a writer makes in the entire writing Process What story do I write not how do I write it yeah there's a lot of decisions that go into that but the most important decision is What story do I write in the first place most stories are so full of structural problems that are embedded in the idea they will not be solved I don't care how good you are at story you will not solve those problems

so why take months and months and a lot of pain to write that as a fulllength script just To find out oh I didn't solve those structural problems after writing the script and I knew what they were right at the beginning WR at the premise idea so don't build the house without the plans exactly okay so that's the the test is if your idea is viable going back to that premise line going back to that Prem this line and it's it's also again it goes back to craft one of the things I spent a lot

of time in in my anatomy of story master class is Techniques for breaking down the premise there are actual techniques that you use to see is this a good story idea it's not just oh I'm I'm excited about that idea no it's about okay how do I find out how this is going to work is 100 to 120 page script right that that takes technique to be able to Jump Ahead can't we only have one line here I need to be able to figure out how this is going to work as 120 page script so

that requires a Number of techniques give you an example you you look at that premise idea and the first thing you look for is there a desire line embedded in this idea that can track track 100 pages that can extend for 100 Pages most premise ideas don't have that no thing you look at is there a main opponent in this idea who can fight with the hero over that length of time and can create ongoing Conflict for the entire story most Premise ideas don't have that either so this is again going back to having the

Tools in order to do your job and at the same time save you save yourself a lot of pain and wasted writing that kills most writers I mean you write a few of those scripts in a row where you go through all that trouble to write the script only to find out that the script is not going to work no matter what you do you're not going to be writing for very Long right it's one of the biggest reasons writer excuse me one of the biggest reasons writers give up what if you have a lot

of tools in place but you don't know your ending or does that mean your tools weren't in place you means your tools were not in place that is one of the most important things that you want to figure out not necessarily right at the premise line but pretty close which is what is the structural endpoint of my Story and a lot of writers ask me this they said well you know I like to be more creative is the term that they use as though figuring out the end point point or the structure is uncreated in

fact the opposite is the case the better you are at structure the more creative the script because what structure does is it allows you to know what will work and what won't work so that you know oh I can take this really cool creative twist Here because I've got this structural Scrat scaffolding underneath it to support it or I don't have it right so so that's why knowing that endpoint is one of the I'd say five most important techniques in all of story keep in mind that that every story is a journey of learning that

the hero takes over the course of that story and in any Journey you take you cannot take the first step unless you know where you're going to otherwise you're going To walk around in circles same is true in the writing process and just because you figure out the structural endpoint of your story doesn't mean that you can't change that down the road it just means that it is going to give you a focus point for every other structure step that that story is going to take why are fake allies or fake foes in a story

so important these characters are what I Call the in between characters of a story because because we have on one side the hero and the hero's allies on the other side we have the main opponent and any secondary opponents that you may have in the story right these are clear characters in opposition but one of the keys to plot if not the key to plot is surprise reveal we want to not only surprise the hero over the course of the story we want to surprise the audience that's Essentially what plot is and the question is

well how do we get reveals how do we get surprises we get them a lot of different ways but one of the most important ways is with these in between characters character who appears to be an ally but is really an opponent somebody who appears to be an opponent but is really an ally every time the audience sees that somebody they thought was one and turns Out to be another that's a reveal that's a plot B and that's where the audience goes oh yes that was really great thank you that's the power of plot and

these characters are one of the main ways that we get these surprises for the audience now to see the value of this character take a look at the Harry Potter stories and of course the most obvious example of this is snake who switches back and forth Between a parent Ally and a parent opponent for seven books right that's how useful this character this type of character is because every time he switches we surprise the audience she was able to sustain that source of plot for seven full books this is one of the ways that we

know that she's a master Storyteller it's just that technique alone she of course had many many others that she was using but that's one of the Most important what is a double reversal double reversal is a very Advanced technique where that by the way is not seen in most stories double reversal occurs when not only the hero but the main opponent learns something at the end now when it's done properly and by the way the place where we see this technique used most often is In love stories because love stories this is a genre that

is designed from the very beginning to end with a double reversal where both hero and lover learn and change at the end other words we have two people having character change not just not just one now when it's done properly it works like this we have a hero who learns from the opponent and grows we have an opponent who learns from the hero and grows and it's the blending of the best Of both characters that is then the author's View of the right way to live it is that's the author's theme what they're trying to

get across to the audience but they're doing it through two characters instead of just one I see it's a very Advanced technique you don't usually see it because in order to have this technique you have to have an opponent who is capable of learning and unfortunately most Opponents are not and that's a problem of craft where they did not design the opponent in such a way to make them more than just a villain Frank darbon is quoted by go into theory.com um where he discusses quote the whole industry of we can make you a screenwriter

and he says I have ambivalent feelings because ultimately even though there is some benefit to be gained by those things I stress the word some benefit minimal benefit ultimately You know what it boils down to you're sitting at your desk all by yourself for years trying to figure out your craft and applying the effort U necessary and that's what nobody wants to hear everybody wants to hear I can teach you a threea structure I can give you a formula and you'll be selling these screenplays within 6 months BS and what's funny about it these guys

in The Business of Being screenwriting gurus they don't even write screenplays I do Think there is some benefit to these classes but I don't think people should be misled into thinking it's a Beall and an endall and that we're going to walk out a screenwriter everything is self applied effort in life everything you don't learn anything easily how would you respond I could agree with with the guy more I mean he's absolutely right for at least 25 years I have been railing against the fact that the normal way that screenwriting is taught this 3x Structure

that he mentions is a bunch of bunk it doesn't exist it's false and it's all about that magic bullet that I was talking about earlier that says hey everybody can do this it's not that hard all you have to know is that every script has three acts with two or three plot points it's bull it's not true and yet an entire industry has been built on this and it's something that makes me especially angry because what it's doing is it's taking advantage of writers and I love writers I hate to see them taken advantage AG

of and especially because of the fact that almost every writer at least when they start out before they become a professional if they were to get to that level they have no money they have you know they're certainly not making any income from their writing it's a very tough life and I don't like to see those people taken advantage of now where I would maybe disagree with Him slightly is in the sense of that not everybody is doing what he's talking about you know just as not all writers are the same not everybody who teaches

the craft of story is the same and it's I think important not to Tar everybody with the same brush one of the things that I have done from the very beginning is be very clear about what I am doing there with those students which is I'm not teaching them the art of writing nobody can teach that but I Think what you can do and what I try to do is teach all these craft elements these techniques that I think are very useful to people and that has always been the Hallmark of all my classes which

is be practical if it isn't useful then it's worthless to talk about the big problem with most of these writing classes and books is that either they talk about threea structure which is the emperor's new close doesn't exist and will not Work at the professional level or you you get talk about writing Concepts that's so so ethereal as to be useless when you're actually facing the blank page where I think comments like that really not necessarily fail but they don't go far enough is these people like Frank darbon don't admit or tell you that they

have quite a background of craft technique that they know now I don't know where they learned it a lot of people they have natural storytelling Ability and then through the the practice of writing they have developed these techniques but those techniques are real they do exist and what has always been the purpose of my class my my main Anatomy story master class is from the very beginning when I put it together is I wanted to give writers all the techniques that I thought were essential that they would know in order to have a chance to

write a great story and I believe that from The very beginning I have kept that promise and I have given that to people and I think that's that's why the response to my classes has been so strong over the years is that when people leave there they leave with a lot at their fingertips they have actual practical tools that will work and can make their story better and I've got you know stacks of letters from people including one we just sent out yesterday from a a novelist very successful Novelist written nine novel novels just sent

me a letter saying thanks for the class that I took in New York a few months ago because I just got through the first round of Sundance and she said thank you thank you thank you changed my life I mean I love getting that right I love to hear that because it's for me it's all about making it work because that's really that that's this writing is so important for people it is who they Are deep down and so if you can help them turn that desire that passion into practical techniques that can get it

on the page it's very fulfillment it's very satisfying how has the game changed for screenwriters to break into the business say from 20 years prior or is everything still the same the fundamentals are still the same I would say that the fundamentals are the same yeah there are some specific Differences but fundamentally it has always been quote impossible to break in in as a screen wrer it's because how many films are made a year mainstream Hollywood make maybe 300 to 500 films a year and it's going down it's actually since the recession of' 08 it's

gotten worse one of the specific ways that it has changed for the worst is the fact that since that Time development money has essentially disappeared nobody wants to develop anymore now it used to be that a writer could make a living could sustain themselves and therefore continue to practice the craft and get better through just development work they have a good script maybe it gets optioned a few times it's a calling card for them to get work for hire that's now much more Difficult one of the things that that I always have a big problem

with is these pitch festivals because they promise people oh you're going to pitch to these Executives and maybe of course everybody thinks yeah that'll be me get the deal well this is absurd it doesn't happen since' 08 not even the top screen writers are getting deals off of pitches because there's no development Money it's all about it's either on the page in a script or it doesn't exist right oh that sounds like a great idea let me see the script and especially if you're not one of the 20 or so top working screenwriters you're not

going to get a deal with a pitch they don't even know if you can write a script or not so these unfortunately are some of the negatives that have become more negative over the Years now on the other side and again something that really hasn't changed it's all about is it on the page one of the advantages that we have as writers over actors is that we don't have to audition in person right they don't have to reject us personally right it can be on the page I can be writing on Mars if it's on

the page I don't care where you're from I don't care what you look Like right if it's on the page and it's a good script I want and is is another reason why it's so important to prove yourself on the page to prove that you've got the craft and I always tell writers if you have a script that is rejected it isn't necessarily rejected because the quality of writing wasn't there most of the time it is rejected because that producer did simply didn't like that story idea didn't feel that it was a commercial idea for

what they Wanted to try to sell you can't get as the writer you can't have any control over that the only thing you have control over is the quality of writing on the page if you do your job and master the craft so that you get that quality on the page at some point you will break through I TR I believe that 20 years ago I believe it now and again for most Writers they think that they've done that craft work when they really haven't so should people set aside a fund for a pitchfest or

avoid them entirely I personally think that it's a waste of money and I would avoid them entirely the one possible advantage that you can get there is that someone will who has heard your p pitch will agree to read the script but again it's very important for Writers to understand when you go to a pitch Festival it's not about selling that idea you will not sell that idea it's all about getting the door open so that they will read your script because most people when they go to these Fitch festivals don't have an agent so

they can't get send their script in but that means that before you go to any pitch Festival you better have a great script that you have written so that when the person says I I like that Idea I like to see what what you have that you have a script to give them that will show off your work as a writer because the only thing that matters is a completed script with the qualities on the page should someone be worried that someone might steal their idea no that's the most overrated fear of writers it it

nobody cares about that it's too much work to go from an idea to a really good script for anybody now do do ideas get stolen yes they do but most of the Time there are ideas that are in the air that you know people grab that and different people come up with them at different times but again this emphasis on ideas and the idea that you could sell an idea that ought just be an idea a man and I'll make a really nice living selling story ideas is total nonsense