Black List writers on the craft: Story Concepts (Part 6)

Over the years, I have interviewed over 40 Black List screenwriters. This month, I will run a series featuring one topic per week related to the craft of writing.

This week: How do you come up with story concepts?

Here are a variety of takes on how to assess and develop the story ideas these writers generate:

Nick Palmer: “It’s one of the great benefits of having a writing partner. You’re spending so much time together, you’re constantly in conversation so there’s just a lot of opportunity for developing new ideas. What we’ve found is that while we might get really excited about a character or a new take on a genre, a lot of our job is being able to pitch our ideas to other people and that’s where having a strong, clear concept really helps.”

Jeremiah Friedman: “It all really comes down to whether or not we can see it in our minds as a movie. Has it been done before?”

Will Simmons: “After I’ve settled on an idea, I use a methodical approach during the initial stages of development. I try to be a ruthless and objective evaluator of my own writing, which probably stems from my work as a film editor.”

Rajiv Joseph: “We love to sit around and just talk about stories, and how we would write them. The ones that continued to interest us after about 10 minutes of talking start to find their way into our notebooks.”

Scott Rothman: “If it has legs, and it’s something that we continue to talk about as we’re going out and maybe sharing a few adult beverages with each other, then we know that it’s definitely something that is going to intrigue us and interest enough to actually sit down and write the story.”

Daniel Kunka: “For me, I usually find an idea somewhere out there in the ether and then I just jot it down or start a new document for it on my computer. Then I just let it sit for awhile, and if I find myself coming back to it and thinking about it more I know it might have a chance.”

Barbara Stepansky: “I start to pitch ideas to people once a kernel comes in. I’m not very shy about that… When I meet my friends, I usually talk about an idea. It helps me see if the idea is bigger than just a short story or what the possibilities are. Then I write them down and I keep them in an idea file, and see if I want to explore anything after a while.”

Justin Rhodes: “Most of the time, I get excited by something for about forty-eight hours before I realize that it doesn’t have all the elements it needs to become a movie. But every once in awhile the idea will stick with me. Usually the ideas I write as specs are ones that have managed to linger in my brain for more than a year. If I’m still not bored with it, there’s probably something to it.”

Declan O’Dwyer: “They gestate for a long time. They gestate for a very, very long time.”

Geoff LaTulippe: “Every once in a while a concept just gets stuck in your head and the only way to get it out is to turn it into a story.”

Two things here. First, one way to assess a story idea is to pitch it to friends and other writers. I’m reminded of an observation by the late writer-director Harold Ramis:

For me, a screenplay starts with something I can tell other people in five minutes. If you’re pitching a movie and it takes longer than five minutes, there’s something wrong.

Pitching not only helps you test the viability of a story, but also in wrangling it into a concise, tight shape, you can begin to see the narrative emerge into being.

The second thing: One key for many of the writers is if a story idea lingers with them. Do they keep coming back to it? Does it get stuck in their head? Does it have ‘legs’? Can it survive a gestation period? If so, that can be a pretty good indicator it’s a story which deserves to be written, the writer having enough interest in it to take it from FADE IN to FADE OUT… and hopefully their passion for the story will translate into a script which connects with readers.

How about you? How do you assess your story concepts? Head to comments and share your thoughts.

For Part 1 of the series on story concepts, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Part 5, here.

Tomorrow we wrap up this week’s series.