Interview (Part 5): John Gary

There are several reasons I have wanted to interview John Gary for some time. First and foremost, he’s a talented screenwriter. Second, he has a unique vantage point about the craft as it exists in today’s Hollywood. John has been outside the system, worked inside it, achieved some success, then hit a rough patch, made some key personal decisions and acted on them, which has led to his current situation in which he’s writing two studio projects, one for Lionsgate, one for Paramount. He’s also smart and has a keen understanding of the business side of screenwriting. Finally, John is the person who coined the phrase The Hope Machine as it relates to the whole cottage industry of screenwriting ‘gurus’ and consultants. So I was pleased to be able to grab an hour or so of John’s time recently for what turned out to be an insightful conversation.

Today in Part 5, John provides his take on some key aspects of the screenwriting craft:

Scott: A script like “Sarah,” complicated plot with lots of twists and turns. Curious, how much time you spend in prep writing, and what do you tend to focus on more? Brainstorming, character development, plotting, research, outlining?

John: “Sarah” was a little unusual in that I had come up with it and pitched it, top to bottom, to my manager, and then I sat on it for a year while I was doing a bunch of other stuff. It was sitting in my mind for a long time. Then, I just started writing. I think a lot of that was gestation, character and I was thinking about it as I was driving to meetings and stuff like that.

Scott: Do you outline?

John: I do. I basically outline like I pitch, where I’ll have a pretty good idea of what the story is and what all the beats are, but I won’t have every scene heading or something like that. I’ll know when I’m going to hit each beat. One of the nice things about writing something for a studio, for instance, is that I don’t really need to worry about, “I got to hit this thing on this page,” or whatever. If the first act is forty pages, that’s OK. Back when I was writing a lot of specs, my first act ending after page twenty-five would’ve given me the mips. But that’s part of where spec writing and books and teachers and gurus all focused on specs make you think you need to obey rules that aren’t real rules in screenwriting.

As long as I know that the script is interesting and that the character is constantly being pulled in different directions and there is dramatic tension and conflict, and that I have an arc through each act, then I know I’m OK.

Scott: You’ve mentioned characters. How do you go about developing them?

John: I like to think about all of the characters in relationship to each other. The main character is the one with the arc. Then, I want all of the other characters to splay out from there. The main character should always be the one grappling with the central dramatic question.

Then, the love interest or the co‑star has probably already gone through that and has come out on the other side and already has some answers. The villain, the nemesis, the bad guy is also dealing with the same issue but never resolves it. The fact that the antagonist never resolves it is usually his or her downfall.

I want all of my characters to have different relationships with the theme. Their roles sometimes define their relationship to the theme, and sometimes their relationships with the theme define their place in the story. Does that make sense?

Raiders is always the best example of this because Belloq and Indy are two sides of the same coin.

Scott: Belloq literally says that.

John: Literally says it.

Scott: He says, “We are like the shadows.”

John: Yes. Belloq and Indy start out at the same place, and the fact Belloq does not learn is his downfall. Marcus, such a great mentor, has already gone through what Indy has gone through. Marcus has already been scared. He knows not to do this.

Sometimes, as when you’re learning screenwriting, you learn, “I need a character who warns Indy not to go do this.” It’s like, “Yes and no.” You need a character who has already been through what the main character is going through, and one of the things that character will do is warn you, but you don’t just need a character to warn the main character.

You need a character who’s been through that journey and come out the other side alive. One of the things that character might do is it might warn the main character. It might also help him decipher some stuff that he needs to figure out. In Sarah, that character is David, an older grad student.

Scott: It’s interesting. When I work with writers, I say, “You could look at the story and invert it.” We tend to look at plots and focus on that, but if you invert it and say, “Look at the elements that happen in the plot as being tethered to the protagonist’s development.”

It’s like you invert it and look at it, say, “Why does this stuff happen? Because the protagonist has to go through this psychological journey.” Does that resonate with you at all?

John: Yeah, definitely. I’m always turning things upside down, shaking them and reevaluating the choices that I’ve made. The project that I’m working on for Paramount right now, I’m in my third step. I always say the first step, the first draft, you’re full of confidence. The second draft, you’re refining and fine‑tuning. Then, the third draft, you’re burning it all to the ground.

You’re like, “What am I doing?” I’m completely turning everything over and shaking it and seeing what falls out and trying to figure out, “This choice that I made when I was writing the first draft, should it have been this or that? Should I change it completely?”

You get notes from a studio, and you try to decipher and drill down. “What exactly do they want?” Then, you try to think about, “They want this.” And then, “Is that what’s best for the story?” and try to weigh that. Then, you’re like, “What if I completely take out this one element? Does that fix the problem, magically?” It probably doesn’t.

It’s all a big balancing act, but I think third drafts can be really difficult because they are that, “Let’s completely reevaluate everything we know.”

Scott: It’s so funny, listening to you talk about that. It strikes me that you’ve got to balance or basically have faith that you can say, “I have this, but I’m going to completely tear it apart,” but have some sort of faith that you’re going to end up on the other side. You also have to just deal with the fear, like, “Oh, my God. Will I be able to pull this off?”

It reminds me of that Pixar comic that Pete Docter made. He said, “It’s like every time we do a story, we jump out of an airplane without a parachute, but we believe that by the time we get down, we’ll build the parachute.”

John: The saving grace is that you always have the second draft to go back to. You always know, “There was a thing that kind of worked in the second draft, so I can try a bunch of different things, and if need be, I can always just hit revert.” Or you fail. It is possible to fail. It is possible to do a bad job. That happens.

When you do that, sometimes you just have to hunker down and decide, “I guess this is going to take longer than I thought it was.” Then, start over and try to make it work.

Tomorrow in Part 6, John gives advice to writers trying to break into Hollywood.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

John is repped by ICM Partners and The Gotham Group.

Twitter: @johngary.