Today we conclude my interview with screenwriter Marc Maurino, who wrote and sold the spec script “Inside the Machine” to CBS Films in May 2011:

SM: Time for some craft questions. How do you come up with story ideas? How important do you think the story concept is to the overall marketability of a screenplay?

MM: Like every writer, I’ve got DOZENS of stories, from journals to scraps of paper to ideas recorded in my voicemail…what has become important is developing that sixth sense for 1, “is this really a movie?”, and 2, “is this a movie that has enough of both a movie star role and a hook to catch in the marketplace?”

These are vital and valid questions for a professional writer, and thinking about the marketplace early isn’t craven or mercenary or an early sign of “selling out.” Every movie that gets made ultimately has SOMEONE believing that it will catch in the marketplace, so whether one plans to go to Hollywood or go indie, these are important questions.

Even films that I love which famously got rejected all over Hollywood, like WINTER’S BONE and FROZEN RIVER, were a “yes” to both of the above questions, even if Hollywood didn’t ultimately make them and the directors needed to go out on their own to get them done. (In those cases, independent financiers said “yes.”)

So concept and marketability are important in the early stages of story development. Art without commerce is a hobby. And this isn’t a hobby for me, just the way that art isn’t a hobby for any professional artist, whether he or she is Neil Young or Jeff Koons or Debra Granik or Jonathan Franzen. (I have absolutely no idea where I just came up with quartet.)

SM: Which aspects of prep (i.e., brainstorming, character development, plotting, research, outlining) do you tend to devote the most time and focus to?

MM: Probably the brainstorming, which encompasses a lot of thought about character development and plotting, of course; and then outlining. Once I have a beat sheet, then I’ll start a file called “(TITLE) ideas”, and just write free form in there throughout the project.

I’ll date each entry as I go, and by the end of a script, this document might be like thirty or forty pages. I’ll go back and scan to see if I had any good ideas that I forgot to include in the script. But mostly it’s a place to write a lot of “What if…” That “notes” document is where all of the ideas start, or are first written down.

But likewise, outlining is hugely important. I’ve got to know where I’m going, and I really like having a strong idea of where I’m going to end up. The most fun for me is to have a fairly detailed outline (I do it in a Word document, but it’s maybe forty or fifty sequential scenes/sequences—other people’s versions of notecards)—and to open up my script, go to the outline and see what scene is next, and start writing. Finish the scene, back to the outline to see what’s coming next…

Research, which I do a ton of, happens WHILE I’m writing. I’ve ended many a night at two in the morning, needing to get up for work and the kids in five hours, and looked at the open tabs in my Firefox and been like “man, that is a weird collection of web pages I’ve got open.”

SM: Is there a specific approach you use to dig into your characters and develop them? If so, what are some of those techniques?

MM: The UCLA program had a series of questions to ask about, or of, our characters. I’ll write character bios in both the third person and the first, and I particularly love writing a long (1, 2 pages) stream of consciousness in my character’s voice. So it might start with the character commenting on his/her situation within the movie, and then just spin out to how he or she got there, etc.

There are a lot of “character questionnaires” in various screenwriting books, and I definitely recommend getting to know where your character came from, what she wants, what scares her, what excites him, etc…lots of things my characters have “said” in these exercises have wormed their way into scripts.

SM: Do you have some key screenwriting principles you keep in mind at all times while developing and writing a script?

MM: Well, for all my talk of CUT, CUT, CUT, I will say that when I’m just writing a first pass, I absolutely let it rip. I mean, I know it’s crazy to have a scene that goes on beyond, say, three or four pages, or scene descriptions that are more than three lines…but when I’m writing a first draft, there will be seven page scenes, there will be five line scene descriptions.

Never in a final draft—that conversation will be two pages, or maybe three as long as nothing else got that long anywhere else; and no scene description over three lines, preferably two, preferably one…but when I’m writing, my key principle is KEEP GOING.

Stay excited, stay fresh, stay creative, and never look back, never edit as I go, only reread something I’ve already written if it’s to marvel at how brilliant it is (seriously, I’m joking, but I’m not stopping forward progress to edit or beat myself up; if I liked something, I’ll check it out again for inspiration, but otherwise, I only go forward.)

The key to finishing a script, as I learned from many unfinished projects, is to FINISH IT! Which for me means to drop it in drive, hit the gas, and go.

Needless to say, once I start rewriting, the key principles are CUT, less is more, trust that an actor is going to do more with his or her face and body than anything clever I can write, and really—scene descriptions more than three lines probably need a “return” between them, and you better really need to say what you’re saying; and more than 4 or 5 lines in one character’s dialogue…well, that better be like an Alec Baldwin in GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS type speech right there. Or else make it shorter.
Name three movies for which you wish you could have written the screenplay and why.

PULP FICTION, by Quentin Tarantino: I’ve loved non-linear storytelling since watching Alain Resnais in college and learning Jean Luc Godard’s famous maxim that every story must have a beginning, middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order. MANY non-linear stories have come and gone since PULP FICTION, but Quentin did it in such a way that it enhanced the storytelling—it wasn’t a cheap gimmick or a mechanism for tricking the audience—it literally made the narrative better.

And beyond that, Quentin’s dialogue felt so fresh and current at the time, and it still does—not just because he consciously writes with such a pop-culture sensibility, but because we as an audience have come to expect such immediacy and cultural relevance from our movies—and in my opinion, a lot of that was born of PULP FICTION (and to a degree, RESERVOIR DOGS.)

In that way, PULP FICTION was really a cultural bellwether for cinema. And of course, it appeals to me as a writer-director; there’s something that bleeds through for me when I know a writer has written his or her own script—it’s like there’s almost a tactile fusion in the vision which I really like.

MICHAEL CLAYTON, by Tony Gilroy. This is another film that appeals to me as a writer-director, and because it is in many ways a feature-length character study. Yes, this is a story with a plot and lots of narrative thrust, but it’s really about Michael Clayton’s journey, his moment in his life, and something happening that changes him and who he is irrevocably. It’s a great script by Tony Gilroy, and an impressive directorial debut.

BREACH, by Billy Ray. Billy Ray is an incredible writer—BREACH and SHATTERED GLASS are both essentially perfect films—and I wish he directed more. But he’s also got an amazing career as an A-list writer, so he’s someone I look to as a career model.

I had a meeting with an executive who had recently hired him, and the exec asked me what I wanted to do with my career; do I just want to be the gritty crime guy, or do I have other aspirations? I mentioned (numerous) other aspirations, and I brought up Billy Ray’s range, and the exec agreed that he’s a great model, and referred to him as a “all services writer”, meaning he can be a go-to writer for a variety of genres and story needs, not just one type of story. Which encapsulates my goal as a professional screenwriter.

But back to BREACH—the story is so tense, and so exciting, but as an audience and as a reader, we never lose sight of the characters’ inner and outer lives, and I think that’s what makes an extraordinary script—and film.

SM: Finally what advice can you offer to aspiring screenwriters about the craft?

MM: Keep writing. Write until your fingers bleed. Read a lot. Do not be precious. Learn to cut. Give your work to people smarter than you and listen to what they have to say. If you get criticism that makes you want to punch the other person, or assume that they are stupid, or which you start ignoring before the criticism is complete, please: take a deep breath, abandon your ego, and listen. Along with character and concept, I almost don’t think there’s anything as important as cutting to make a script great.

But in a way, all the “keep writing” advice is a little trite—everyone knows you must keep writing, so let’s assume you’ve got that. Here’s some advice that I haven’t heard too often, and which has served me immensely well on the early stages of my emerging career:

Learn the industry. If you are looking to break into Hollywood and to hit the ground running once you get in the door, it is worth knowing a bit about the industry, ESPECIALLY if you don’t live in LA. There is a wealth of knowledge available about the inner workings of the industry, both movies in general and writing in specific, on the Internet and via podcasts, etc. If and when you combine the talent, dedication, and luck to get representation, sell a script, go on generals, start pitching on assignments, and landing jobs, it will be incredibly valuable to have an awareness of who’s who in the business, and what the inner operating systems of the town are.

For me, coming from outside LA, I always considered it my responsibility, as part of my career building, to basically educate myself as deeply and as well as possible for anyone who isn’t a working writer or development executive in LA.

For me, this is what that has meant: years of reading every single issue of Script Magazine and Creative Screenwriting Magazine. Reading every single issue of Filmmaker Magazine, and plenty of MovieMaker, too. Reading The Hollywood Reporter, which I have a subscription to. Reading Deadline Hollywood every day. Reading Variety as much as possible. Listening to over 200 podcasts by Jeff Goldsmith (formerly of Creative Screenwriting, now of the Q and A.) Also on a weekly basis, The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell and The Business with Kim Masters on KCRW. Meet the Filmmaker podcasts from the Apple Store. For the past four months, every episode of John August and Craig Mazin’s Scriptnotes podcast. Reading a lot at the DoneDeal forums, and the Artful Writer forums. Reading dozens of blogs by both aspiring writers and professional writers (John August, Jane Espenson, John Rogers, etc.)

For aspiring writers looking to be ready to negotiate the industry, from managers and agents to producers and executives, I recommend immediately consuming all available output from all of the above mentioned, plus as much archived material as possible.

Finally, and I’ve said this in print before, but it warrants saying again: every writer should write a ten page scene, shoot it on a consumer grade video camera, and edit it in iMovie. Short filmmaking for me was a self-financed, self-taught master class in economy, the power of actors, and the importance of cutting text, and I have to imagine it would have a similarly powerful effect on the craft of other writers who have never seen their own work on the big screen or brought to life by actors before—especially since that is the goal we are all writing for.

And finally—live life. Work hard at a job outside writing movies. Find a partner you love and grow in that relationship by looking deeply at yourself and what makes you and your partner tick. Expose yourself to new situations, whether it’s a strange new restaurant or driving through a sketchy part of town. Listen CONSTANTLY to the words, inflections, sentiments, and blather of people around you. Observe other humans like it’s your job—because it is. Strive to be a good, decent, loving, compassionate person, and pour whatever pain, heartache, joy, and happiness that creates into your characters. And write every day.

There is so much to take away from Marc’s observations, but perhaps the single most important message is this: Be passionate about your writing. As Marc says, “Write until your fingers bleed.” That’s worth going on an index card at your desk!

Please head into comments and post your thanks to Marc for taking the time to do this interview.

Good luck, Marc. A special blast of creative juju, just for you!