Screenwriting 101: John Sayles

“It’s usually not a matter of lots of ideas, it’s a whole subject matter that I’m interested in. What I need to do is really think and condense it. Really think about what do I want to learn about this subject. So it’s not so much getting rid of ideas as kind of condensing them. When I’m writing a script for myself, my rule of thumb is it’s my story, I focus on what interests me the most, what I want to explore. I think a lot of what fiction is for people, whether a book, movie or play, is a way to organize or focus what goes on around us. When you run into somebody on the street and they tell you a story about a friend that’s funny or shocking, they’re doing the same thing when they’re telling the story — they’re choosing details, omitting some things and highlighting other things that make the story better. So it’s really not omitting things, but focusing them, to get a sharper picture of what it is I want to say or talk about.”

— John Sayles from “Creative Screenwriting,” Spring, 1996