What questions would you ask a professional writer?

As you may have noticed, I have been doing a lot of interviews with screenwriters and people involved in the movie business. Just this year, GITS has featured interviews with:

* Screenwriter Marc Maurino who sold the spec script “Inside the Machine”

* Screenwriter Stan Chervin nominated for an Academy Award for Moneyball

* Screenwriter Chris McCoy with three scripts on the Black List

* Head of Pixar’s story department Mary Coleman

* A roundtable discussion with screenwriters Chris Borrelli, F. Scott Frazier, Jeremiah Friedman, Nick Palmer, Justin Rhodes, Greg Russo, and John Swetnam

Here’s the deal: There are a lot more interviews coming your way because I believe learning how industry insiders think about and approach their craft is enormously important for anyone aspiring to write for film or TV. Besides I know how popular these Q&A’s are from site traffic, tweets and emails.

So yesterday as I was looking at the list of screenwriters and TV writers who we [Franklin and I] are in contact with about potential interviews, I had this thought: Why not reach out to the GITS community about what questions you would ask a professional writer?

Indeed are there some core questions that should be addressed in all interviews? I’m not talking about probing into the writer’s background or analysis of their movies or TV projects, I can handle that, rather specific questions about the craft of writing, both theory and practice, the business of writing for film and TV, and so on.

Therefore I’m soliciting your suggested questions in the hopes of coming up with an essential set of subject areas that the online screenwriting community would find important and helpful.

And don’t be afraid to think whimsically. One of the best questions I ever heard asked of a group of screenwriters [this was at a WGA event a few years back] was, “Is there a movie that came out this year where you thought to yourself, ‘I wish I had written that’”? It was a surprising question and the responses were great.

Please take a few moments to think this over as I really want to make the best use of these upcoming opportunities to get information and insight that you want and need from these professional writers.

Thanks for your suggestions!

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