Interview: Stephany Folsom (2013 Black List) — Part 5

I’m a big Stanley Kubrick fan and Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is my favorite satire of all time. So when I saw this script make the 2013 Black List — “1969: A Space Odyssey or: How Kubrick Learned to Stop Worrying and Land on the Moon” — I knew then and there I had to interview its writer. That turns out to be Stephany Folsom, and we had an informative and fun one hour plus conversation.

Today in Part 5, Stephany talks about the craft of screenwriting:

Scott: Let’s jump into some craft questions here. How do you come up with story ideas?

Stephany: I’m an avid reader. I’m constantly reading articles. I’m constantly reading books. I devour information like crazy, and I’m always running across interesting ideas. Being open and being curious brings so many great ideas to your doorstep.

Scott: Are you one of those writers that thinks in terms of high concepts or does that not even enter into your thinking at all?

Stephany: That enters into my thinking, definitely. But I don’t think that’s where I start. I start with, “Is this an interesting character that we’re going to care about on their journey?” That’s where I start, and then I build the world around the character.

Scott: You mentioned you spend a lot of time focusing on an outline. I’m curious about your prep‑writing process. Do you have a specific approach or do you feel your way through it? What are the component parts of your prep writing?

Stephany: I’m really methodical in how I write. I do a ton of research up front. Once I have my pile of research, I start outlining. I go into crazy detail in my outlines.

You have to have certain things happen at certain points in the script or the story won’t work. Structure is so important in visual storytelling, and your structure lives or dies by your outline.

Once I have a solid structure in place, I can go to pages and put all my focus on the emotional arcs of the story. I’m like, “I’ve got the setup and the payoff and the plot all taken care of in my outline,” and I can be in the moment when I’m writing the scene, and concentrate on making my it resonate on an emotional level.

Scott: That’s exactly what I tell my students? I say, “If you break your story in prep and you have worked it out, basically, nailed the major elements in terms of the structure, and whatnot, once you go to pages that allows you to devote your attention to the cool stuff, like dealing with the characters, and as you say, being in the moment.”

Stephany: Exactly. It’s like you get all of that logical stuff out of the way so you can bring your story to life.

Scott: You mentioned character several times. Even when I asked you about concept you were like, “I really need to know what this character is, with that kind of emotional resonance.” I’m curious, how do you go about developing your characters? Is there any specific type of tools you use or angles that you go at when you’re developing characters?

Stephany: I approach my characters like I’m writing their biographies. I write up where they were born, what their favorite food is, all kinds of crazy stuff. I try to envision them as people with full lives, so that I know how they will organically react to anything in the story.

When developing my characters’ personalities, I try to give them traits that will create more obstacles in the plot. You want to create as much conflict as possible, and you can do that by giving your characters conflicting personality traits and motivations.

Scott: I’m assuming from just hearing you, because you mentioned those words “they tell you,” that by getting to know the characters in that respect that’s where the dialogue starts to emerge, you start to hear their voices?

Stephany: Completely. Once you have figured out their life story, you will know their voice.

Scott: What about the theme. How important is that to you? Do you start with a writing project where you’ve got theme or themes in mind, or do you find that those evolve or emerge in the context of writing your story?

Stephany: I think when I first find an idea that I’m not like, “Oh, gosh, let’s find the theme in this.” But as I go through my steps to see whether or not this idea is going to be something that can actually make a good movie, one of my steps is, “What is going to be the theme?”

To me, stories are supposed to convey something about our human experience and why we’re here. Theme isn’t what I lead with. But theme has to be there or else it’s not a movie. What’s the point of telling a story if it doesn’t have something to say about life?

Scott: Screenwriting when you really boil it down is scene writing. What do you think about when you’re writing a scene, do you have any specific goals in mind?

Stephany: In my outline, I layout what needs to happen in the scene, and how it’s part of the overall plot, and what the characters need to get across. So when I start writing a scene, I can get into the meat of it right away. When I’m writing a scene it’s about finding the truth in that moment. It’s about finding a connection that’s going to make you care about these people and what’s going on with them.

Scott: One thing I enjoyed in your script was your scene description, your action description. What keys do you have to writing entertaining scene description?

Stephany: I think scene description is so important. I’ve studied a lot of scripts, and I think Shane Black really changed how scene description was written. Before Shane Black wrote Lethal Weapon, scene description tended to be pretty basic. But Shane Black used his scene description to set the pacing and rhythm of his scenes. He had choppy sentences, dashes and sound effects. It was groundbreaking stuff.

Scott: I can still remember sitting in my office on the old MGM lot, the Sony lot, reading, The Last Boy Scout. It had gone out and sold for $3.5 million. He broke a fourth wall several times.

Stephany: Oh yeah.

Scott: It was so much fun. You just got into the spirit of the story. It was just great.

Stephany: Yeah, he uses the scene description to get you emotionally invested and excited about the story. That’s just genius. I think that while the ultimate goal is to have a script you can shoot, you have to get past the reader first, and you have to engage the reader.

You can use your screen description to be like, “Hey, this is a movie. I’m showing you how it’s a movie.” Shane Black, once again, hands down does it the best. If I can get even close his skill level, mission accomplished.

Tomorrow in Part 6, Stephany and I discuss the confluence of what is happening with movies and TV, and what advice she has for aspiring screenwriters.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Stephany is represented by Verve and Kaplan/Perrone.

Twitter: @StephanyFolsom.

Comment Archive