Writing Lessons from Black List Feature Writers Lab Mentors

Last week, I was one of 7 mentors for 7 writers selected for the 2016 Black List Feature Writers Lab. It was a remarkable week filled with fantastic activities, but the focus was the one-on-one writer-mentor sessions and group workshops which I led. Check out this list of mentors:

Stephany Folsom (THOR: RAGNAROK)

Eric Heisserer (ARRIVAL)

Graham Moore (THE IMITATION GAME)

Scott Neustadter (THE FAULT IN OUR STARS)

Kirsten Smith (LEGALLY BLONDE)

Victoria Strouse (FINDING DORY)

I spent time with each of them. In addition, I asked each of the lab participants to review what the mentors had told them about their stories and writing in general. Here are a few insights derived from these Black List lab mentors:

• Characters: Learn more about them, drill down into them, have them inform your plot, and just in general embrace the character-development process to the max. The more you know about your characters, the more your story will reflect the world views and personalities of its key players.
• Dig deeper: You may think you know your characters, but it’s almost a lock you can come to know more by immersing yourself in your story universe.
• Need: What lies at the core of your Protagonist’s psychological state? What is it about the specific journey on which they embark which feeds and informs their character arc?
• Write from passion: Find your emotional connection to the story and write from that place. This is key to crafting stories which lift up off the page and into a reader’s imagination.

Finally there’s this: Work your ass off. You may think once you sell a spec and break into the business, the hard part is over. Wrong. It’s not easy starting out. It’s not easy afterward either.

Picture this: On Friday at 6:30PM, I emerged from the lab’s final group workshop, exhausted from our analysis and brainstorming, heading off to have a drink with everyone. There seated just outside the bar was ‘Kiwi’ Smith. Over the last two days, she had worked one-on-one with 6 of the lab writers. That means she had to read and critique 6 feature length scripts. This along with multiple projects on which she is working. Indeed, the reason why she was plunked down outside the bar, tapping away on her computer? Finishing up a treatment for one of her multiple writing-producing projects.

As a writer, it just never ends. You have to have the fortitude to push yourself, be creative, and be productive.

Work. Your. Ass. Off. Whether you’re outside looking in or inside the system, you have to embrace the spirit of hard work. Someone may have more talent. Someone may have more connections. But no one should outwork you.

Sage advice from a week spent with some of Hollywood’s best and most in-demand screenwriters.