Screenwriters Roundtable, Part 5: Chris Borrelli, F. Scott Frazier, Chris McCoy, Justin Rhodes, Greg Russo, John Swetnam

A special treat this week as I will be posting excerpts from a screenwriter’s roundtable I did with a group of talented Hollywood screenwriters: Chris Borrelli, F. Scott Frazier, Chris McCoy, Justin Rhodes, Greg Russo, and John Swetnam. How good are they? Between them, they have sold more than a dozen spec scripts and have multiple original screenplays on the Black List.

This is the third GITS screenwriters roundtable, the first two of which you can read here and here. Hopefully this will continue as an annual event as it’s a great way to take the pulse of what’s happening in the screenwriting universe, track the careers of these talented writers, and benefit from the many insights into the craft they share.

Here is Part 5:

Scott: Wendy has another really interesting question. Could you ask that one about the character plot thing?

Wendy: People divide themselves into two camps. You either write character really well or you write plot really well. Do you feel you kind of fall into either group, and then if writing plot’s a challenge for you, how do you approach that?

Justin Rhodes: I would say plot and character are the same thing. Or at least they are from my point of view. If you had a different character, you’d have a different plot. If you’re following your protagonist, and your protagonist is an active protagonist, and the plot’s coming from how he reacts to what’s happening, then who your character is is what’s determining your plot.

Maybe your initial setup or your inciting incident or some of those things are different, but then also your villain is doing what he’s doing. You’re even in a script where you don’t necessarily have a villain, but what’s happening is happening because the characters are setting those things in motion.

At least for me, if the plot’s not working, it’s probably because the character’s broken.

Chris Borrelli: I love that, by the way. I think that’s a really good point, and it sounds like what you’re talking about, too, is that idea that your hero is the perfect character for this exact situation and problem, for the plot. You have the exact right hero when it’s someone who has to react to the plot, and only she or he can react in a certain way or solve the problem in a certain way.

John Swetnam: I’ll chime in with something that I learned this year I thought was really interesting for me as a writer. As a producer I learned this, and it was that I think as a writer, you also have to know your strengths and your weaknesses.

I don’t think there’s a lot of writers that are just the best at everything. Then there’s not a lot of writers that have such a reputation that they can just do whatever they want and follow it all the way through. What I learned was I think you have to know what you’re really, really good at and be OK with just doing what you do well and allowing other writers who do something else really well…

Now, I’m saying you can write plot and character fine, but for me, I’m much better at plot. Before, someone would come to rewrite me, and they would do a lot of character work and dialogue work. And I would get really pissed off and be like fuck that, I can do that.

But then I realized that when I would read the revisions they made, I’d be like holy shit. They’re amazing at character and dialogue. This was really great. So as a producer, I’m working with a lot of writers now. And you find some writers that get a little overprotective or a little too defensive.

And it’s OK, because it really is a collaboration. If you do dialogue better than me, I’m OK with that. My loyalty is to the movie. I’ve learned to not have loyalty to my script. I care about the movie. And if bringing on a guy who is amazing at dialogue or who is amazing at character will help get that movie made and make that movie better, I’ve learned to just embrace the shit out of that.

I actually enjoy it now. It’s actually become something that I really love, is when writers actually work together in that way.

I know a lot of times, people hire writers because they don’t know what the fuck they want, and shit gets goes crazy. But if it can work, and you know what you do really, really well and let other guys do what they do really well, you can join this fucking Voltron thing, and it’s actually really cool to me.

So for me, I’m a concept guy. I’m very good at plot and structure. I have realized that I am not that strong at character and dialogue. I’m working on it, and I want to get better, but there are a lot of people out there that can do that shit way better than me, and I’m OK with them coming in and doing that to help make a great movie.

Greg Russo: I feel like to work professionally, you have to be able to do both. But let’s say you’re starting out and you feel like you need a better grasp on character, I think one way to learn more about character is to get out of your space, go out, and just observe people. Go somewhere. Take a trip. Try to immerse yourself around other people and see how they talk and how they act. Try to keep that as realistic as possible.

If you feel like you need a better grasp on plot, then break down real scripts.

Take the movies you love, and then break them down into their pieces and look at that transparently, and ask yourself how does this work, how do these parts move? How do these beats gel from moment to moment? That would be my advice.

Chris McCoy: I do think that if the audience really cares about a character, they’ll follow you anywhere. You can be the best at plot in the world, but if people don’t care about who they’re looking at up on the screen, then it’s not going to matter.

For me, I feel it all starts with character, and it all starts with creating parts that have depth to them and that actors want to play. And a lot of your plot is going to come from knowing your characters so well that you know what they’ll do in a given circumstance, in a given situation.

Once you’re in their head, you can surprise yourself and just know where to go next. It’s sort of your character telling you where to go next and not a bunch of 3x5 cards sometimes.

F. Scott Frazier: When I’m outlining or coming up with an idea the most plot I ever think about is what happens on page 15. What is the inciting incident? After that, I feel like it’s up to the characters to determine that. That might just be me making it up as I go along because I don’t think that I’m good at plot. I get something like The Departed and I just shake my head at it like holy shit, I don’t even know where to begin to write something like that.

Or The Dark Knight or The Dark Knight Returns where it’s a thousand 30-second scenes and every single one of them move the plot forward in crazy ways. My head doesn’t work like that. I tend to prefer simpler plots, simple stuff. If you saw The Numbers Station is two people in a basement trying to get out. A lot of my scripts are that way. “Autobahn” is very much a guy in a car trying to get to his girlfriend.

Not a lot in the way of plot outside of what happens on page 15 and the rest of it is just how the characters react to what that big event was and how they interact with each other.

John Swetnam: I’ll just jump in and say that I agree that one of the things I’ve learned by reading more scripts than I’ve ever read, and mostly from guys that are considered professionals, is that there is a baseline like the NBA. If you’re a professional, you are pretty good at both, at the plot and characters. I think if I was coming up again it would be, yes, work on both those things and get to a certain level, but then when you are working you are going to be considered usually one thing or the other.

You’re usually brought in on an assignment because you do one thing that they want. I’m OK with embracing that, to a certain point, if that makes sense.

Scott: Well, we’re talking about characters. How do you all go about developing your characters? Are there any specific routines or rituals or tips or tools that you use?

F. Scott Frazier: It’s part and parcel to what I was just saying. I usually come up with that inciting incident first, that’s usually where my ideas start from, and then out of that I figure out who is the character that’s going to be screwed up the most by that kind of situation. That’s usually where my character comes from.

Scott: Then how do you develop it further?

F. Scott Frazier: Oh gosh. I don’t know. The Numbers Station, just as an example because people could see it if they wanted to, it started out with I heard about these short range radio broadcasts and I thought I wonder where they come from and maybe they come from a secret underground lair. Then I thought wouldn’t it be cool if the people that work there got trapped there because what they have is very important and so bad guys want it?

Then, of course, the broadcasts are all female voices so I thought there’s a girl but then wouldn’t it be cool if there was a guy that had to protect her and he’s not really protecting her, though, he’s protecting the broadcasts. Then, from that, it came out with how would that guy end up in that situation? I came up with this idea that he didn’t protect a girl earlier in his life and so he’s kind of messed up in the head about that, that there was a girl that he could have saved and he didn’t.

Now his job is that he has to protect the broadcasts but his want is that he wants to protect the girl and atone for his sins in the past. To me, that’s enough of a character, that’s enough of a plot, that’s enough of a situation to start writing. I think that any other character bits that come out of that are just organic to the process of me writing and typing something and thinking that’s cool, I don’t know where that came from.

Scott: That sounds like what Justin was saying where it’s like character is plot, plot is character.

F. Scott Frazier: I agree. I think that movies are way, way closer to short stories than they are to novels because they’re just bite‑sized pieces. I think that if you look at a lot of short stories, they’re usually all based around an inciting incident and a character. There are very, very few short stories, I don’t even think I ever read one, that are based on plot.

A lot of fiction and a lot of novels all revolve around their plot, like the Jack Reacher series. They set up a character in the first book and then the series of books are all how that character reacts to multifaceted plots.

Greg Russo: I’m not opposed to character breakdowns, either. I don’t know if anyone else uses them. If we’re going to see 90 minutes of this guy’s life or this girl’s life, as a writer, what can you tell me about the other 34 years? I feel like if we’re creating this character we should know that.

If you try to figure out who this guy is outside of the events of the movie or the story that you’re telling, I think that will help flesh the character out more. Even if that stuff never appears, it will add subtext and color to it.

Chris McCoy: I do character bios and I just mine the weirdest, darkest, funniest parts of my friends and I pull from real life as much as I possibly can because I feel like if you’re writing a character and you have a seed in that character that reminds you of someone from some part of your life I feel like it’s easier to tap into who that person is.

Chris Borrelli: Is the belief that many writers just really write one character, even if they create twenty, whether it’s books or screenplays or whatever, I don’t know if that’s exactly right. Besides horror I do action-thrillers and I’ve had some pretty good luck. In one of them, “Wake” has a character who’s a criminal sociopath and “Sad Jack” has a character that’s a schizophrenic hitman, basically, and another character who has ADD but he has to solve a mystery.

I have these things but in a very basic way there’s a cheesy sounding thing where it sounds like Disease of the Weak kind of movie that I’m doing in an action-thriller. But really, I get to love these guys and I start off with them and I put them in a situation where they have to react to a series of events. I write pretty similar to Frazier in that once it gets going I let them lead me. I just stay with the character and follow it.

I also probably do draw a lot from friends and my own family. I get a lot of material from my family, I have kind of a crazy family, so that’s fun.

F. Scott Frazier: I think the realization that I’ve come to this year, kind of similar to what you were saying about how we all write the same character, is I’m realizing that I’m just writing the same movie over and over again. I kind of have gotten to the point where I’m embracing it.

One could be a giant action adventure and another one could be a low-key character drama. At the end of the day, thematically, I just keep doing the same thing over and over again. I don’t necessarily know that there’s anything wrong with that, maybe there is, but I definitely see the same kinds of stuff constantly coming up in what I’m doing.

Chris Borrelli: I do the same themes. Usually redemption is in almost every script of mine in some way or another and there’s other themes that interest me and that’s what gets me to write in the first place.

John Swetnam: I have a trick that’s worked well for me. I just basically ask myself what would Channing Tatum do and whatever that answer is usually works.

Chris McCoy: I feel like you could also do that with Tom Hanks and always have your character be sympathetic.

John Swetnam: See?

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Each day for this series, I’m going to highlight one of the writers. Today: Greg Russo.

Russo has sold multiple specs, pitches, and has worked on numerous studio assignments during his 4-year career. He’s currently working on an adaptation of the TV series, “It Takes a Thief” at Universal. He inked a blind deal with an upstart film finance company this past spring. And he’s thrilled to have made the crossover into television this year, recently setting up a one-hour action drama at Fox for the 2014–15 TV season. You can usually find him traversing around the East Side with his wife, and their two rebellious, yet somehow always forgivable, terriers.

Please take time to leave a reply with your observations and follow-up questions, and while you’re there thank these writers for taking time out of their busy schedules to do this roundtable for GITS readers and the wider online screenwriting community.

On Twitter:

F. Scott Frazier: @ScreenWritten

Chris McCoy: @thatthere

Justin Rhodes: @twopointfour

John Swetnam: @JohnSwetnam

Many thanks to Wendy Cohen for logistical help with the roundtable.

Tomorrow: Part 6 of this exclusive screenwriter’s roundtable.