Beginnings

Also, The Kid hits The Stunt List and a brand new Sondheim show

Last week my #startwith8 group started an accountability meetup to help all of us see one new (or newly revamped) writing project through to completion over the next couple of months. Since many of us are at the beginning of a brand new thing I passed along these words about beginnings from Rick Rubin’s book, The Creative Act:

“When beginning a new project, we’re often met with anxiety. It visits almost all of us no matter how experienced, successful, or well-prepared we might be.

In facing the void, there is a tension of opposites. There is an excitement for the possibility something great may be realized and a dread it might not. And the result is out of our control.

The weight of our expectations can grow heavy. As does the fear that we are not up to the task at hand. What if we can’t pull it off this time?

What helps to keep these worries at bay and move forward is a trust in the process.

When we sit down to work, remember that the outcome is out of our control. If we are willing to take each step into the unknown with grit and determination, carrying with us all of our collected knowledge, we will ultimately get to where we’re going. This destination may not be one we’ve chosen in advance. It will likely be more interesting.

This isn’t a matter of blind belief in yourself. It’s a matter of experimental faith.”

I identify with so much of that passage.

Without fail, whenever I start a new project, I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not exaggerating or being self-deprecating. The fact that I don’t know where the story goes or how it ends means I’m facing the unknown.

At no point in my creative life have I put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard with a fully fleshed out idea which I then execute to perfection with no false starts or missteps to the end. Every time out it’s a journey of discovery, experimentation, and failure. This works, that doesn’t, throw this out, start over, start again.

Every journey is different because every story is different. The clever solve or courageous act that helps one character succeed (or leads them to failure) isn’t going to work in the next script. At some point I have to stop and say, “I don’t know what happens next,” which can easily feel like, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Rick says that what helps to move forward is a trust in the process. For me the process changes all the time. This year I’ve had a lot of success with brainstorming enough ideas about the character and the setup to get me deep into the first act. I learn about the characters as they evolve. The deeper I get into it the more in tune I am with them.

From there I have a general idea about how the story is going to end but I don’t do a detailed outline or even a full beat sheet. Instead, I do a kind of rolling outline.

When I hit a place where I don’t know what’s going to happen next I take a day or two to think about the next run of scenes. I start with where the character is mentally and emotionally and the problem at hand. I think about what would logically happen. Sometimes I think of all the things that wouldn’t happen, or things that would be cliched or boring. Eventually, hopefully, I come up with something that surprises me.

Once I have that next sequence or handful of scenes I spend the next few days writing them. With each new step I know more about the character, how they think, how they react, how they feel, what is important to them. They start to lead the way.

At each new checkpoint I’m engaging my inner meter. Is this good? Bad? Is it exciting to me? Funny? Scary? Sexy? Cool? Surprising? I feel like I’m much more in tune with my instincts this way, as opposed to relying on a highly detailed outline that I wrote two months ago.

Like Rick said above, “If we’re willing to take each step into the unknown with grit and determination, carrying with us all of our collected knowledge, we will ultimately get to where we’re going. This destination may not be one we’ve chosen in advance. It will likely be more interesting.”

Lately, I’ve found that this is the case. It’s certainly more interesting to me.

I didn’t want to just talk about state of mind regarding beginnings, I wanted to talk about a couple of practical ideas as well.

How does your story actually begin? How do we meet your main characters?

The thing I’ve been thinking about most recently is a combination of something I heard from Shonda Rhimes in her Master Class and Glen Mazzara in a zoom he did on writing for television. In one of her videos, Shonda says that for a TV show to work you have to have “Compelling characters with compelling problems.” One of Glenn’s mantras was, “Give your characters the stage.”

My goal right now is combining those two ideas in the very first appearance of my main character. I’m trying not to waste five pages or three or even one by slowly ramping a character up to speed until they do something, anything, that makes me want to watch them for the rest of the hour. I want to give them a compelling problem in the opening scene and see them tackle it in the most dynamic way.

Last year I pitched a sci-fi thriller series about a lifelike android designed to emotionally manipulate human beings. She was the ultimate undercover operative, able to be whatever and whoever she needed to be. She has everything the algorithms know at her fingertips, she can also read people on a deep physiological level, every little blush, temperature change, bead of sweat, spike in pheromones, she can read and respond accordingly.

At the start of the series she’s essentially a sociopath, able to gaslight and manipulate her targets with zero remorse. She has no feeling for them because she’s android. The emotional journey of the series — which I thought of as “breaking good” — is that the more time she spends among humans the more it affects her programming. At some point she finds herself developing a conscience. There’s a crack in her creation, a defect that renders her useless to her creators and subject to refurbishment. (death)

Early on, I pitched an opening scene for the pilot that would be the first point on that axis. She’s walking through an airport, in tears. A man races to catch her. Breathless, he apologizes, tells her that he finally did it, he told his wife he wants a divorce. We understand that our hero is “the other woman,” but now this guy is saying he’s in love with her and wants to be with her and only her, forever. As he’s saying this it seems like it’s exactly what she wanted, that she’s moved to tears of happiness. Then —

She turns cold, “Sorry, not interested.”

The man is devastated, he just ruined his whole life for her.

She walks over to the gate where another man is waiting for her. This is her creator, the head of a private intelligence company. This was her final test, to convince someone to blow up their life and then walk away with remorse. She passed!

I put this scene in the first version of the pitch and it landed with a thud. I liked that it was on theme and that she started off filled with emotion then turned totally cold and remorseless, in that sociopathic state. But ultimately it was a BUMMER, she was a drag, and it traded on a classic “honeypot” trope that felt dated. It wasn’t the introduction this character deserved. We all agreed we needed another way in.

I needed to give her a compelling problem to solve, and I wanted her to dazzle me while she did it. I knew I wanted it to be entertaining, even if she was gaslighting a target. I wanted to love her by the end of the opening sequence.

Here’s that section from the final pitch…

IN THE OPENING OF THE PILOT:

Until fairly recently Odessa existed solely as an AI on a server. She assisted clients via voice or messaging, and occasionally took experiential vacations in a humanoid body. As she got more comfortable, she was given more time “in-body,” learning to live among humans, passing as one of them, working her way up to an actual assignment.

When we meet her she’s on the very last day of a long experiential vacation that is ending on the Amalfi Coast. She’s having drinks with Nathan (her creator) on a terrace overlooking the water. Nathan asks her favorite moment of the trip and Odessa surprises him by saying, “The airport.”She learned so much from watching the hellos, the goodbyes, the excitement, the fear, new relationships, the ones that were clearly ending… people at their best and at their worst. But she’s ready to go home. She’s ready for a real assignment. Nathan tells her, “There’s one more test…”

He points out a wealthy woman sitting alone by the window, the wife of a tech billionaire (Melinda Gates). Nathan says, “You have to convince her to give you a hundred thousand dollars.” Odessa is stunned… she needs time to recon, time to form a plan.  Nathan says, “You have access to everything you need to know right now. You can know every like, every dislike, every news headline, every picture she’s ever shared, every email she ever sent… you can access all of that in the time it takes to walk from here to her table.”

Odessa composes herself and approaches the woman who we’ll call LAUREN. As she passes the table she stops and introduces herself, spinning a story about how she’s an old friend of Lauren’s daughter, Chloe. “We went to Brown together, we were both Art History majors.” Lauren insists that Odessa join her for a drink. Odessa spins a story (all lies) and judging from Lauren’s reactions, she’s hitting all the buttons. Odessa came here for a conference, hoping to raise money for a non-profit that brings arts education to underprivileged communities in the South. Lauren, “I was an underprivileged kid in the South.” It’s going GREAT, then Lauren says, “Surprise!”

Lauren’s daughter, CHLOE, is coming this way! Shit!

Chloe doesn’t recognize Odessa, obviously. Chloe pulls up a picture from her college days of the art history department  — Odessa’s not there. Odessa asks to see the phone, we see the pixels rearranging themselves. She photoshops herself in on the fly. Odessa hands it back, “I’m right there, in the corner. See?”

Now Chloe’s really confused. Lauren excuses herself for a moment to take a call and Odessa gently tells Chloe, “It’s okay if you don’t remember me, you were going through a really hard time that year. But I was one of the people who went to the hospital with you after the… incident.” She is empathetic and understanding, but… she’s gaslighting this poor person. Finally, Chloe throws her arms around Odessa. “Of course I remember you!”

Cut to Odessa as she sits back down at Nathan’s table.

Nathan says, “Did you get the hundred thousand?”

Odessa says, “No… I got a million.”

END TEASER.

More often than not that last line caused a ripple of smiles and sometimes actual laughter in the pitch. It was so much more fun and a real showcase of her abilities. It was just more dynamic all around.

(At least I thought so. We didn’t sell it, sadly.)

I’m passing it on here because it ties together all of these thoughts regarding beginnings. I couldn’t have written that revised opening sequence right off the bat because I didn’t know the character and the tone as well as I did after a couple of months of working on the full pitch. I needed time to experiment and get feedback from my producing partners.

I trusted the process and arrived at something more interesting.

Part of that process was thinking and rethinking what would make a great beginning.

As I dive into this new project I’m thinking about compelling characters, giving them compelling problems, and giving them the stage to show us their stuff.

The Stunt List

I met Eric Moyer and Ash Lazer through “writer Twitter” a long time ago. It feels like we’ve been social media friends for years. They’re part of the team that puts together The Stunt List, a collection of scripts fusing IP and original voices. These are the crossovers, the mashups, and just plain "fuck it” scripts that people write to cut through the noise and get noticed or just for the sake of pure creative joy.

This year they asked if I had anything that might fit the mission and I immediately thought of my short script The Kid, based on Prince’s “Raspberry Beret.” I’m honored to be a part of this year’s list, and excited to pass on the link for you to check it out along with the other crazy/cool stuff they came across in 2023. There are a couple of other special guests who have already managed to break in and a bunch of people who are on the verge. I’m going to dig into a bunch of these soon, myself!

Without further ado, check out this year's Stunt List!

Stephen Sondheim Felt It Too

There’s a fantastic interview in Vulture with David Ives and Joe Mantello about working with Stephen Sondheim on what turned out to be his final musical, Here We Are. It’s a deep dive into their creative process, with emails from Mr. Sondheim threaded throughout. We get to read, in his own words, about battling his self-doubt, creative blocks, and expert level procrastination. And we get to see how their organic response to challenges along the way turned into creative choices and breakthroughs.

I found this inspiring and more than a little comforting. It made me love the man all over again. You can read the article here!

I have a meeting with my reps next week to talk about the feature spec, the brand new pilot, and my ready-to-go pitches. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take before companies are ready to read/hear new material from people like me. It could be weeks, it could be a couple of months, I don’t know. I’ll keep you posted.

Before I close this out, I want to let my Jewish friends know that I’m sending my love and support. I’m so sorry this happened.

For all of us, everywhere, I’m holding out hope for peace.

Take care of yourselves, take care of each other.