731 - Avoidance and Other Anti-Quests

Hello and welcome. My name is John August.

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My name is Craig Mason, and this

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is episode 731 of ScriptNotes, a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Often on this podcast, we talk about characters heading out on a quest. We discuss wants and motivations. Today on the show, Craig, let's flip that around. What are characters running from? What are they trying to avoid? And how can that help drive story? Let's also answer listener questions about writing as a couple and what happens to residuals after we die. And in our bonus segment for premium members, I want to talk about the pivot to video because if you're a premium subscriber, you sometimes see us in addition to hearing us, because we've been doing videos for the last couple of months. But this is still basically an audio podcast. So there are some changes coming to script notes and I want to give listeners a preview of what is to come in the road ahead. Change, John, Change. Change.

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Feels like something we should avoid perfectly on theme, I love it.

1:00

Mostly, Craig, I want to say hello because I've not seen you in so long. And so there's been an interregnum. You were off directing an episode of your great series I went to Madrid and then Portugal and then I was locked in a room negotiating the WGA contract, which just wrapped up.

1:04

Well, I thought that was your code for being locked in a room. You're like, I gotta go to Madrid again.

1:18

Yeah, absolutely.

1:24

Stuck in Portugal.

1:25

But we're back.

1:26

We're back.

1:27

Thank you, our listeners, for your patience while we did encore episodes and other things to fill the month that we were away from our microphones.

1:27

And just to be clear, the reason is because when I'm directing, once Saturday comes, my brain just stops. It's just putting it's pudding for Saturday and it's pudding for Sunday and then I start again on Monday. But got through that happily and glad to be back and particularly glad because there's stuff about the new contract that you guys did on your side cast, which is awesome. But I just wanted to say congrats to you, John, as co chair of the WGA negotiating committee for the least drama filled while still successful negotiation for our union. Thank you.

1:36

Oh, well, certainly you're very welcome. It was an honor and a privilege and absolutely exhausting slog at times, but it was more normal and we just haven't had normal for a long time. 2023, of course, was a strike. 2020 was the pandemic. 2017 ended up having a strike authorization Vote was also a healthcare fight. So it's been a while since we've had a cycle that was more. These are the things. This is how we're going to get it done. And we got it done.

2:18

And new leadership on their side as well, which sometimes makes a big difference if you can hit a reset button there. Because the Carol Lombardini who was the head of the AMPTP wasn't really new. She worked for Nick Counter who was the prior head of the amptp. So it was. It was more of a continuation of that regime or even a worsening of it, I think some people would say. So some new faces over there may be a sign of better things to come.

2:43

Yeah, one would hope so. I would say we have to remember that the ampatp's job is to give us the absolute least they can possibly get away with. And that was consistent in this round as well. But hopefully some tone matters too. And so we were able to get

3:12

through this tone and a basis of historical success. Yeah, it's good.

3:26

Absolutely. Well done. All right, let's get back to our actual podcast that we are here to do this morning. Let's do some follow up. It's been a minute, Drew, help us out. What did we miss?

3:31

Jesse in Chicago writes, I remember a discussion about Craig's frustration with locking pages during production. He suggested that because most people receive and view scripts digitally, that we really only need to lock scene numbers. And as a script coordinator, I agree. But I've never had the buy in to put it into motion. So I'm wondering if Craig has implemented this on the new season of the Last of Us, and if so, how is it going?

3:40

Well, Jesse, I tried. I tried and I could have. It wasn't that I didn't have permission, but somebody. I remember when we were talking about this, a script supervisor mentioned that there was some aspect of the software they used that would make unlocked pages a little more arduous. And because our script Supervisor already does 12 different jobs a day, and because I rely on him so much for so many things, he asked nicely if we could keep the pages locked. So I said, sure. But just the other day something happened that drove me crazy. Because of some adjustment. There was a scene and then the next page there was just one line of dialogue. And then on the next page, the scenes continues. And there was something when we were doing it where that line, people were putting this emphasis on this line and I'm like, why is this happening? And then I looked at the sides, I'm like, oh, for F's sake. And I went over them like, this is very. I understand this psychologically, why this line is sticking. Just. It has its own page that doesn't mean anything. Just flow on through. But it was. It was Devil's monster. So, Jesse, I. Man, next one. I swear. I swear to Moradin.

4:04

Yeah.

5:27

The Dwarven God of steel.

5:27

Back in future times, you and I were basically our own script coordinators. And so if we had run into that situation, we might have done something tricky in order to pull that line onto a previous page. This way, it's around it, but I hear you, I feel you. It's so frustrating because we associate white space with emphasis. And this was not meant to be emphasized.

5:30

No. And I do try and do that, but there are times where I think to myself, am I screwing this scene up just to change? But that. Really. That one. So I haven't. Yeah, maybe the last episode. I'm gonna go. No, no, no. Page breaks. Driving crazy.

5:46

So we have more follow up from Stephen Follows, who is the data scientist who does a lot of stuff with movies and screenwriting. We've had him on the show before. What's this bit of follow up here?

6:05

He tried to calculate whether one page was actually one minute. So he grabbed. He grabbed over 2,500 screenplays, put them up against the runtimes on IMDb, and basically what he found was that one page doesn't equal a minute. It equals about 55 seconds.

6:15

Yeah. And so this is a follow up on. He'd done an earlier study, but he took a larger sample set to make sure that this rule of thumb, which is approximately correct but not actually accurate and sort of how it all works out. The takeaway is that for four out of five scripts, the rule doesn't really hold. Screenplays are normally longer than the movies that result. Different genres have different standard lengths. It falls apart for long scripts, for short scripts. And if you take the end credits out of the movies, it's even worse and sort of less applicable. So, again, it's kind of what you'd expect. It's a rule of thumb that should not be taken as an actual rule or law.

6:31

Do you happen to know if, when he did this study, he also included the notion of standard deviation? Because if most scripts don't follow this rule, it's just that in the aggregate, this is what it ends up then. Do you know what I mean? Like, some scripts are.

7:08

Yeah. A standard deviation and sort of how it falls on the bell curve is absolutely a thing. So we'll Put a link in the show notes to his post, which really runs through in exhaustive detail.

7:22

I love exhaustive detail.

7:32

It's approximative but not accurate.

7:33

Yeah, I actually don't think it ever works for me.

7:36

And we've discussed this topic before and the reason why we need to be mindful of this fake rule is that people use it to justify having to cut things shorter than they should be.

7:39

Well, also it may be that a produced single page takes more than a minute on screen, but things get cut. So barring additive reshoots, the general process is to winnow things down. Which means you will effectively get fewer seconds on film per page. Which means when you get the script, it doesn't mean if it's 120 pages, it doesn't mean the movie's gonna be two hours.

7:50

Nope. You know, we've had conversations with folks who've been on shows long running TV shows and on those cases you probably can much more closely estimate like, okay, based on this length of the script or this number of words, it's gonna kind of track because you're doing in a set thing. But for any given single screenplay, it's not going to be accurate. No more follow up. So I love it when a How would this be a movie? Becomes an actual movie. Yes. We have another example of that.

8:21

Christian writes in episode 525's how would this be a Movie? You discussed the story of Syllable and Brains, a Scottish rap duo who faked being American to land a record deal. Craig's verdict was that the stakes were too low and that he struggled to care. But I'm pleased to update that the story has now been turned into a movie Directed by James McAvoy. It's called California Scheming.

8:47

Well, let's find out if I was if you're right. But you know, there are movies where the stakes are simply we want to succeed as a band and that can often be nice. So I struggle to care about all sorts of things. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't become movies. And this is. I wouldn't. Now the question is, do we think anybody heard what we said? And then we're no, there's no chance. Right. They'd already licensed it.

9:08

I'm sure at some point we will. Our paths will cross to James McAvoy and we'll ask if he had any awareness that we talked about this idea.

9:36

After he punches me in the mouth.

9:44

Yeah, exactly.

9:46

I deserve it.

9:48

So we'll put a link in the show notes to the trailer the trailer is charming, and I hope it succeeds. And McAvoy seems really smart. I can totally believe him being a solid director on this. I like that he's Scottish. The band is Scottish. It all fits. It makes a lot of sense. And two bits of follow up on the Scriptnotes book, which remains out there in the world for people to buy. It's always nice to see it featured prominently at bookstores. So what do we have on follow up for Scriptnotes book?

9:48

Micah says, I've recently purchased a Scriptnotes book and I've been having an amazing time reading it thus far. I'm sure many have brought this up, but one of my favorite things is the lightweight quality of the paper. In particular, it makes it such that my cat can jump on my lap and stretch out fully, as she's prone to do, while I can raise the book into the air and keep reading without my relatively weak wrists getting tired. The result is a satisfying situation for all parties.

10:14

I just love the idea, like, Micah and his cat are both sort of like boneless people.

10:39

Totally.

10:45

That's great.

10:47

I just, like. We made a book for weak wrists writers, and that's fantastic.

10:48

That's most of us.

10:53

And so we know that Micah is American because it's the US Version that is lighter than the British version for just reasons. It's mostly because you perceive that it should be heavier. We talked about this before. You perceive that it should be heavier than it actually is, that it looks more like a textbook size, but it doesn't have a textbook weight. So that's what happens here. More follow up from Luke and Mallorca.

10:54

In the introduction to the book, you say struggling with theme. You can jump right to that chapter. But there's no chapter on theme.

11:15

Yes, it's true.

11:22

Nor is there an episode specifically dedicated to theme. I mean, Craig's how to Write a Movie Episode looks at thematic arguments, which is super insightful. But I'd love to hear both of your thoughts on theme and the many different interpretations of exactly what theme is in a story.

11:23

Oh, then they included this beautiful picture of where they were in Mallorca with the book and a glass of. I'm gonna say beer. Yeah, yeah. Beautiful.

11:37

Beautiful. You know, I think as we wrote that sentence, as I probably wrote that sentence in the first chapter, there probably was a chapter on theme that was pieced together and it all got pulled apart into different things. Drew, you're nodding. I think there was a theme chapter at some point and just. I think there was. It just got broken into other pieces. We have a page in the notion about the script notes book of like things to fix in second printing. And so I think the sentence about the theme chapter will probably be updated in a feature printing.

11:50

John, you and I read the classic choose your own adventure books as children.

12:19

Yes. So amazing.

12:25

And I remember one, I think it was one where you go to, like, some new civilization in space or something where there were two pages. Like, there was a point where you would open the book and on left and the right. It was a place that you couldn't get to by choosing. And they're like, we don't know how you got here. You're not supposed to be here. This is the secret place, and blah, blah. And I was so like, oh, my God. And yeah, maybe. Maybe that's what's happening.

12:26

There's a secret theme chapter. You just haven't looked. You haven't found it yet.

12:50

It's not listed, and you haven't found it. I will say, Luke, the how to write a movie thing, that is basically how I think about it. That's. So you got my two cents in there. Yeah. Mostly when I think about theme, I try and get rid of that word as quickly as I can and come up with something that's more useful.

12:52

Yeah. So if we update that sentence, I'll say, like, you know, you can skip ahead to Craig's chapter on how to write a movie, which is his analysis of theme. Finally, we have a question about free work.

13:07

Yeah.

13:19

Brian writes in episode 727. Craig mentioned that per working rule 8 of the WGA contract, if you're a member of the WGA, you cannot write for anyone without an employment agreement. I hope this isn't a stupid question, but as someone who has currently written two freelance scripts for television and is about to join the WGA officially, does that mean I cannot work on a project on spec which I later intend to pitch?

13:20

No, it does not mean that.

13:45

No.

13:46

So when we say you cannot write for anyone, anyone means any employer means anyone who could pay you. You yourself can write anything you want for yourself. Of course, what happens if you sell something on spec is a little bit of legal jujitsu where the employer says, yes, you wrote this, but really you wrote it because we wanted you to write it. And now we own copyright, and here's a bunch of money, and you are now employed on a thing that you in fact created. And then everything is fine. But no, you are free to write on spec to your heart's delight. So there's this interesting thing that happens. And there used to be a lot of this. I don't know if it's going on as much anymore, where producers would ask writers to write things on spec. And that is a funky territory. We know that. For instance, a studio cannot ask you to write something on spec.

13:46

Obviously that gray zone of like, you know, producer saying, I'm really looking for inexpensive horror that could be, you know, shot in this sort of schedule or in this location. And so in those situations, you're writing this thing that you actually own, you have no agreement with that producer. It's the idea that that producer will then be able to set that thing up for a thing.

14:41

Yeah, I mean, really, Brian, the rule is there so that you don't take money from people under agreements that are not WGA agreements. That's really what the rule is there for.

15:00

Yeah. One of the best things about being a writer is you can just create your own stuff. And actors have to wait for someone to hire them. Directors need material you can just self generate, which is great. So in the time that I've been a WGA writer, I wrote Go On Spec, I wrote the Nines on spec. It's a thing that writers are often doing, so that's absolutely appropriate. And in tv, you're often writing new samples for yourself to get yourself considered for other projects. So, yeah, you're always writing your own stuff and never stop that. All right, let us get to the marquee topic today. I want to talk about avoidance. And here is.

15:11

I don't. I know what I'm talking about.

15:47

See, exactly. Craig has the spirit already. I'm reading this book called Indistractable by Nir Eyal. And there was one bullet point that just sort of stopped me cold. His quote was, all motivation is a desire to escape discomfort. All motivation is a desire to escape discomfort. And I said, well, that's not true. I feel that's fundamentally not correct. And yet it feels plausible on some level. It's provocative. And so I wanted to pick this apart because, Craig, we're often talking about motivation. That's what's driving story. You have a hero that wants something and that's what's causing the story to begin. Craig, do you mind talking us through the basics of the hero's journey kind of thing we're usually talking about with motivation?

15:49

Sure. This goes to the simplest thing. What do I want? And we do want things all the time. And whatever we want could be something like winning a race or getting the girl or defeating my enemy or saving my village. Or keeping my child safe or it doesn't matter, or going faster than the speed of light. Whatever it is, it's the thing we want. And typically in these stories, and this goes back to the most ancient of fables and mythology, typically what a story is is somebody trying to get what they want and other things or people trying to keep them from getting what they want. And if they do get what they want, their life will change for the better. And if they don't, their life will change for the worse in significant ways. That's the most basic plumbing of a story I can imagine.

16:36

Part of the reason why it's so important to think in terms of what a character wants, what a character is trying to get to is that as the reader, as the audience, we lock into what they want. We want them to get that thing that they want. We understand what the story is about. It's like the contract that we're setting with the audience is, okay, this character is trying to get this thing, and we will see the character work to try to get this thing. And at the end, they will either get it or not get it. But that's the journey that we're going on. And so we often talk about the freeze frame. You should be able to watch a scene and freeze the frame and point each of the characters. What are they trying to do? What is their goal? What are they aiming for? And so what I'd like to talk about today is so often you can actually reframe that as what are the characters trying to avoid reframing that positive motivation, what they're aiming for as the negative motivation. What are they trying to escape from or get away from? Generally, the characters are running from something. And so sometimes that is built into kind of a classic hero's journey, which is the denial of the call to adventure, that they want to sort of stay put and stay at home. But often it's just. They're trying to just avoid anything unpleasant and they want to stay in the place that they are.

17:34

Yeah. So very often a character will want the right thing but for the wrong reason. And I don't think all motivation is a desire to escape discomfort, but I do think a lot of it is. And I think really there are only two real basic motivations that humans have. Fear and love. Those are the things that drive us. One of them is generally viewed as positive. One is generally viewed as negative. But what we often find in stories are that characters are moving towards something or away from something out of fear, and then are taught to elevate themselves and change their motivation to a more positive love. That is a higher motivation based on the well being, not just of themselves or anything selfish, but everyone. Or sometimes it's a higher spiritual state of being. Luke Skywalker wants to get off his stupid planet. He wants to be a pilot, he wants to fight in the war. But he's doing all these things because in a sense he's afraid of being meaningless. He's afraid that bad people around him will die, like his uncle and aunt who are all crispy there. And then of course in the end he has to change that. So it's not fear, but rather this higher. I'm sort of stretching love here to embrace the force and join with everybody as one consciousness so that he can commit an act of violence that kills many, many, many, many innocent people and is a war crime.

18:48

Yeah, yeah. So you're talking about fear and love and like those core emotions are driving a lot of the avoidance here. So fear, loneliness, awkwardness, all of the things that sort of keep people, keep people at home, keep people from like stepping out of their comfort zone. It's understandable. And our brains psychologically are kind of hardwired to sort of try to get back to homeostasis, that we're going to go back to this thing that we recognize, a thing that we feel safe in. And so sometimes what looks like a lack of motivation is just someone just trying to avoid that discomfort. They're making choices that are unproductive either for story or for themselves because it's understandable why they're trying to stay, stay close, stay at home, keep things normal.

20:28

Well, they could be productive in the sense that they are staying safe and it's working. It's just not the best life they could live, you know?

21:13

Yeah. And so the idea of avoidance, of course goes back. It's always been part of philosophies. You know, you see it in Buddhism that, you know, dissatisfaction or suffering is the source behind craving. So craving being ambition or a call to action to do things Schopenhauer talks about will comes from a lack that you're missing something that you're suffering. And that's what causes you to go out and try to do a thing. And so again, a positive motivation is often really just an expression of this thing you're trying to avoid.

21:21

Yeah. There is the pleasure principle, which you would argue the opposite, that what people go for are the things that make them feel good positively. And I think it's both. I do. It's both what we forget. I think we tend to overlook how important avoidance is for us and how important fear is for us and how much of what we do really is secretly about that.

21:57

Well, let's get some concrete examples. And so the first thing that jumped to mind was Carl in Up. This is a man who has shut himself off from the world after losing his wife. And he's an almost entirely avoidant character. He just doesn't want anybody to do anything. And his quest and certain the balloons and going to Paradise Valley is about shutting himself off from everything else. And the movie is constantly creating obstacles and forcing him to confront these things he doesn't want to confront and step outside of his comfort zone. We talked about your chapter in the book, and you talk a lot about Marlin and finding Nemo. This is, again, an avoidant character. It looks like he has a quest. He's going to see his son, but really he's driven by fear. He's driven by trying to avoid the pain of the loss and acceptance of what's actually happened.

22:19

Yeah. This duality of fear and love was something that I think I made as concrete as I possibly could in the Bill and Frank episode of the Last of Us. Bill is avoidant. He does not want to deal with the world. Anyone locks himself behind a fence is theoretically thrilled. Doesn't matter. He's also. It's a whole. Even before the world ends, he avoids expressing his sexuality or experiencing connection with other people. And Frank is about love. Frank. Frank's goal is to make the street look nice.

23:06

Yeah.

23:42

And to have friends and to enjoy things as much as he can while he's here to make the world around him better. And we do find, typically, that when we have a choice of a character, we want to choose the guy who's avoidant to be the protagonist because they're the ones who have to change. So much of the story of avoidance is face it, face the thing you can't face and deal with it. Because, after all, I think that's what 99% of therapy sessions are. Can you face the dragon? Slay the dragon, or are you gonna continue to get eaten by the dragon?

23:42

Yeah. We've referenced two Pixar movies, but a third, which one is also iconic, is inside Out. And so in the real world, you have Riley, who's trying to avoid uncomfortable situations. And then in the inner world, we have Joy, who's just trying to keep things happy and avoid the reality. Like, oh, there's other emotions too, who need to have their turn at the wheel.

24:22

Toxic positivity.

24:40

Toxic positivity for sure. Paul Giamatti in Sideways. This is a character who looks like they have a quest. They're going to go on this road trip to encounter all this great wine, but really he's just trying to escape his failures, his failed marriage, his book, his life. It's avoiding confronting the realities and situations, and the movie is forcing him to encounter those along the way. Whiplash. This again looks like a kid who has a quest to become a legendary drummer. But when we see his home life, we see like, oh, no, he's actually just trying to avoid being the normal kid. He's trying to avoid this being ordinary or nothing special. Which is what he great example, because

24:41

there throughout the movie, you do sense he is driven by this avoidance of that life. So his move towards something is really a move away from something. And he is punished for it over and over and over. And in the end of the film, it is clear that he is no longer motivated by fear. He is motivated by love. He creates something spontaneous and outrageous because he's not afraid anymore. He just is experiencing love. He doesn't care what that guy does to him anymore. And in that moment, the caterpillar becomes a butterfly of bloody hands. And there's a whole lot else going on there, but basically fits into this dynamic.

25:20

Now we talk about the Bill and Frank episode partnering up. Two characters who are an avoidant and an outgoing one are as often successful. But you look at Lost in Translation, there you have Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. They're both essentially avoidant characters. Neither one is trying to wants to confront the reality of their situation. And together they kind of do, which is an interesting dynamic that you don't see very often.

26:04

Yeah. So in that case, it was a wonderful story of two people in limbo.

26:25

Yes.

26:31

They will not see each other again. They should not have seen each other this first time. This is an ephemeral moment in which they can both take comfort in each other's fear and loneliness. And two lonely people getting stuck together is fascinating because they're no longer lonely. But you're right, the dynamic of the avoidant and the I'll just call them the loving person is classic. Planes, Trains and Automobiles. John Candy, Just Outwards. All the movies that David Spade and Chris Farley did. Spade, Avoidant, Farley, Outward and Loving. And it always ends up where the one changes the other. And it's always the avoidant one who must change.

26:32

Always.

27:14

You never want to see a movie where an outwardly loving person goes, yeah, you're right, we Actually, this is a little crazy.

27:14

Well, you see that same dynamic in Groundhog Day. So you have Bill Murray's character who is super avoidant, and then it becomes trapped in a situation. And Annie MacDowell's character is the one, even though she doesn't realize she's doing it, is the one who's pulling him out of this thing and making him see the love in these moments.

27:21

Yes, yes. With very little agency, by the way.

27:36

For sure.

27:40

There is a better version. I love that movie so much. But it does suffer from the very specific 90s era woman as morally perfected human syndrome. It's just this sloppy man trying to reach the already perfected height of a woman who was created perfectly and will exist in such perfection. And you're like, no, what's interesting about people is that they are not. But still, awesome movie.

27:41

Yeah, well. And so the opposite case of a morally perfect woman is Lydia Tarr in tar, who is the most complicated woman. And we find her already at the piece of her career. And then she's avoidant about everything crumbling around it and the bad choices that she's making that is causing it all to unravel. Tar. I just love TAR so much. And I love what an incredible character is there. Because obviously she was. She had a goal going into this, but we're coming into this moment where she's avoiding all of the negative repercussions of the things she's done. And love it. It's just the right moment to see.

28:11

It's also one of the best character names possible in general, but also specifically for what is happening to her. Lydia Tar.

28:44

And it has to have that. The little slashy, little accent down. Slashy.

28:56

Just being called Tar with the little slashy. I mean, it's wonderful.

29:02

Yeah. So good. I want to talk about. Sometimes avoidance can become the quest, which is I think, actually a fairly natural pattern. Legally Blonde, Elle, she's going to Harvard, but really to avoid the pain of heartbreak. She doesn't have a vision for what her positive version of her life is going to be. It's like she wants to get back to homeostasis. She wants to get the guy back. And that's motivating. Her initial quest to Harvard. Mad Fury Road. Max is trying to stay out of everything and sort of ends up getting dragged into it and then becomes the reluctant hero in it. A classic pattern. And I guess what I'd ask people who are thinking about this for their own characters is, does the character know they're running away from something or do they think they're running towards something. And how does the audience react to this? Is the character self aware or not self aware of what they're trying to avoid? Can be helpful, yes.

29:05

You need to at least understand what they're afraid of. And I don't care who the character is. If you are a loving character, you're still afraid of something. And if you are a fearful character, you still have the capacity to love something. Han Solo can just keep saying over and over, I'm just in this for the money. I'm just in this for the money. I'm avoiding being part of the fight. I'm avoiding giving crap. I'm avoiding falling in love with that lady who's kissing her brother and then in the end he comes back and does something loving.

29:54

And I think what you're talking about is there's a pivot, there's a moment in which the character, what they're running from, someone else needs them to face it. And so basically, it's the thing that they've been avoiding, is the thing they actually need to address in order to help something else. And so that pulls them into it, brings them across the barrier, into the positive quest.

30:24

They will inevitably get called out. Somebody at some point in a story where the main character is avoidant will call them out.

30:44

Yeah.

30:52

And say some version of, are you going to run away like you have your whole life? Are you going to pretend to not care your whole life, just protect yourself, or are you going to give a damn about something because we need you? There will be that moment always. And inevitably, at the end of that little speech, the avoidant character will say, screw you, I'm going home. And then they'll just think about it for a while and then they'll come back. And we like that. We love the rhythm of it. We love it as much as we love verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, break, chorus.

30:52

Yeah. And so let's wrap this up by talking about. So often we'll get notes about making sure the character has agency, that the character is driving story. And like, some of those are good, well intentioned notes. But I think it's easier to imagine characters who have a lot of agency and a lot of, you know, vigor and vim and zeal and they're driving stuff forward, but they don't feel real because real characters have fears. Real characters have things that are pulling them back from moving forward. And it's those, the avoidance things are what we as an audience recognize in them. The fact that Indiana Jones is terrified of snakes. That's a reality. If he didn't have that, he wouldn't feel as real to us. Yes.

31:24

Indiana Jones also avoids the religious, spiritual implications of the things he engages in. They're simply objects that belong in a museum. He needs to be avoidant of these things so that at the end, when there is something that is about to happen that is supernatural, he. He must embrace that in order to save himself and Marian.

32:04

So takeaways for our listeners is that, yes, you should be thinking about what characters want and being able to articulate what they want and to what degree the characters understand what they want, the audience understands what they want, but that doesn't mean that they aren't running from something as well. And it's finding that balance between what they're running from and what they're running towards. So it feels like a continuous arc. That feels like, oh, this is the journey that I'm seeing these characters on. Obviously, we're talking largely about movies here, where there is a clear arc and trajectory, but even in series television, there's a sense of seeing both aspects of a character to make them feel real. So they're both driving story, but they also feel like real human beings always.

32:25

And sometimes it switches as characters go through things. Somebody may be on the rise or another person is. And for ongoing series that are meant to keep going, like soap opera drama, whether it's daytime or prime time, they kind of need people to cycle around each other where one is avoiding and one is creating and moving toward. It just. It's inevitable.

33:04

Yeah. All right, let's answer some listener questions. Drew, help us out.

33:32

Trepidatious boyfriend writes. My girlfriend and I are both early career TV writers in la. We're a couple months into our relationship and she wants to write something together with me. Wondering what the pros and cons are of writing with your romantic partner? What sort of feedback have you received over the years from writing partners who happen to be dating or married to each other?

33:36

Well, the ones that we know that are married to each other, who are writing, are only the ones that were successful.

33:57

Exactly.

34:04

The rest of them broke up in all possible ways. So we didn't even know.

34:05

There's a strong aspect of survivorship bias in the things we would cite.

34:09

Exactly.

34:13

So a couple of first instincts here is basically, do you want to write the same kinds of things? If that's not the case, you should definitely not write together. Are you Trapatai's boyfriend? A person who is a good creative roommate? Do you share well? Do you like Having that second brain. Would you write with a partner if it was not your romantic partner? That's a good question. There are big advantages to writing with your romantic partner because you see each other more, and that can be great. And it can be a problem, too, if you need some space from each other. But it can be really good. And we know so many teams who. It's great. They're working together because they like to be together and they get to stay together and they get to do the stuff they love to do. Craig, what other instincts do you have? What's the checklist you would give them in terms of yes or no?

34:14

I think the most important thing would be that you both fill slightly different roles in the process. Because from the married couples that I know who work together, and we know a few, it does seem like one of them fills a different role or capacity than another. That typically, while they are both imagining and thinking, one stays more in Dreamtown and I. And one is more in Typey Town. Not like I'm only typing what you say, but rather there's one that generally is a little bit more constructive on the page, while the other one is more imaginative, outlining conceptual. That's just my impression. But for you. Trepidatious. The thing that's concerning to me is you were a couple of months into your relationship. Yeah. No, give. Give it a little more time maybe.

34:59

Yeah.

35:49

I mean. Cause, man, this could. This could kill it fast.

35:49

It could. I'm thinking back to some of the writing couples I know who've lasted, and in some cases, they were writing partners first, and then they'd sort of fall in love over it.

35:54

That's different.

36:04

And that tracks and makes sense.

36:05

That's fair.

36:06

I think your love life, your emotional happiness, your finding a partner in life is more important than finding a writing partner. And I would say prioritize that.

36:06

I agree. Yes. You don't need a writing partner, clearly, because you're both writing individually anyway. But finding somebody that you can love and live with much worth everything. Yeah. Honestly, it's like, so much. And you just. What's the point of. You know. And God help you, the day you guys break up is the day you get a call that you just sold a script as a writing team. I guarantee you it's a nightmare. I just give it some more times. Get a little more of a basis.

36:16

So friends of mine were a married writing team who were staffed on a TV show, and they broke up during the. Of course, it was really, really hard. It's hard for them emotionally, but then they also have to have a professional relationship split up, and that's so tough. So don't go into anything expecting, like, catastrophizing it, of course, but these are just things to think about.

36:49

But I'm guessing the odds are low. You know, I'm guessing the odds are low here. I mean, the odds in general are low. 50% of marriages end in divorce, I think. I'm not suggesting marriage here, but that's the funny part is writing together is sort of marrying somebody. Yeah, it's. It's an entwining you may not be ready for.

37:08

All right, another question here from JP

37:28

with the recent passings of so many Hollywood legends, I can't help but wonder what happens to a person's residuals when they die? When a person's no longer around to collect those checks, who does?

37:31

So the setup of this question, like, recent passings of so many Hollywood legends, this probably came in around the time of the Oscars. And wow, that In Memoriam segment was so long, and there were so many iconic people who passed away this last year. And it made me realize, like, oh, God, like, that's only going to continue. Like, I'm going to know more and more people. This is going to show up in the In Memoriam section.

37:42

This is good news, John.

38:03

Yeah, yeah.

38:04

Because the more people that we know that die, the more comfortable we will be when it is our turn to die.

38:05

Maybe so.

38:15

Because we'll be like, yeah, that's what's going on these days. So that's what we're doing.

38:16

So, Craig, True Confessions here. I cannot help but watch the In Memoriam segment and think, like, if I had died in that group, how much notice would I have gotten in that group? Like, would I have been a sly that goes past? I think so, probably. Yeah.

38:22

Yeah, I think you would. I think when the screenwriter slides come by, my expectation is that when they're creating the death montage, they are orchestrating for swells of emotion. So when you know you want a big swell, put the screenwriter into lower.

38:34

Yeah, I think so. I'm in the middle of a beat.

38:51

Yeah, it's a dip to set you up for an actor. It really is. Let's face it, you don't end the thing on the screenwriter.

38:55

Whereas, Craig, I think you would be in the Emmys memoriam more likely than you'd be in the Oscar memoriam.

39:05

That's correct. I think I would be currently in the. Do people normally show up in both? Is that a thing?

39:11

For sure. Yeah, I feel like Rob Reiner would show up in both.

39:19

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yes, I do. It's funny, when I watch these, I just do think, like, oh, okay. They just put that. He's like a camera operator. He worked a really long time. I'm gonna. I think I got a shot at getting into this thing.

39:23

Totally. Yeah.

39:38

But I'll never know. That's the thing.

39:40

That's it. Yeah. You will never know. So there are unanswerable questions, jp but this is a very answerable question. You asked about residuals after you die, so I looked it up. This is a thing you could have Googled, but I'm actually happy to ask the question because I actually can have an answer for you. So I'm going to read you from the page that I found. In 1977, the guild negotiated for the member's right to receive residual compensation in perpetuity. As a result, even after death, a writer will continue to receive residual compensation if their material is reused. Your residuals will be dispersed pursuant to the terms of your will or trust document or under intestacy law. Did I say that right? Intestacy?

39:42

Yes. If you are intestate, it means you died without a will. It sounds dirty, but it's not as

40:19

well as under the terms of community property as may apply. So, yeah, residuals are forever, and they go along with your estate. And in some cases, it can be meaningful. So that's some good stuff. I looked it up and SAG AFTRA is basically the same thing. So the bottom line is there's no expiration date on residuals. They follow the worker, and so therefore they pass on to estates.

40:26

It is important to actually, for so many reasons, to have your stuff in order, even if you are not, say, ready for the ME post mortem montage. You're a young person. It's still important to have some sort of arrangement made. There are very, very cheap ways to do this. But what does happen sometimes is when someone dies and there's no arrangement and no nobody tells anybody anything. The guild tries to figure out who to give the residuals to, but in the end, a lot of money ends up in the unclaimed residuals pile. And that money eventually, I believe, starts to filter back into the general fund of the Writer's Guild. But they do try to distribute those funds as best they can. Obviously, you want to make it easier on them than harder.

40:48

Absolutely. All right. I think it is time for our one cool things. My one cool thing is it feels Like a Craig One cool thing, but it's delightful for both of us.

41:43

Oh, yes.

41:50

So Josh Wardle, who created wordle, he came on the podcast many, many years ago. We celebrated wordle as a great product that he'd made. He has a new thing out called Parseword. Parseword is a cryptic crossword puzzle game that Craig directly inspired. So it's based on his conversation with Craig on this podcast and Craig extolling the versus of cryptic crosswords. That got Josh thinking about, well, how could I make a game for cryptic crosswords that would actually be accessible and playable, even by someone like John August? And he succeeded. Parsewords is delightful. It's just parseword.com and it's walks you through how to think about these things, because it's complicated. It's not as simple as wordle is. But I see Craig smiling. You've got to be delighted.

41:51

Of course. So what. What Parseword does is, in its own way, teaches people how to do this. It's a very specific format. So typical crossword clue will just give you some prompt, and you have to answer it like, river in Egypt, Nile. And the cryptic crossword will give you both a straight clue and a wordplay clue within the same clue in a way that's funky. Like, let's say winding river in Egypt leads you to straight. Okay, well, what is that? Well, in Egypt, it's not a very good crossword. It's not the bad crypto clue, but it's the. It's Nile, and then you anagram it to line. So there's all these, like, actually, what I just did is illegal. But regardless, the point is, this teaches you all the tips and tricks of how to do these things. And I have to say, once you get into cryptic crosswords, you just don't care about the regular crossword anymore because it's just sort of like, do I know a thing? Sure.

42:36

It's why, like, after you started skiing blacks, you don't want to ski, like, bunny slopes anymore.

43:37

You're kind of. You leave it behind. Checkers was fun. This is chess.

43:42

Yeah.

43:46

And then there are so many levels. And. And it goes, you know, I go deep into, as I've mentioned before, like, the Kevin Wall cryptics, which are insane. But even beyond those, there are the cryptics from the listener in the UK which are borderline impossible. And. And it's all fantastic. It's just such good brain work. I mean, I. This is. Doing a cryptic crossword is my night routine to go to sleep. Like, I spend 20 minutes or so. And then when I feel like I made some progress, I put the iPad down and I go to sleep. If I didn't have that, I don't know if I would sleep. I think I would just stay up all night.

43:46

Yeah. Yeah. So people should check out Parse Word. It's a really well executed version of a difficult thing to do. And so it's just so smartly done. So check that out. Parseword.com. what do you got?

44:27

I have a book review. So I've not read the book, but I've read the review and it's in the nation. So, you know, it's. It's quite thorough. The book that is being reviewed is the AI Paradox, how to Make Sense of a Complex Future by Virginia Dignam. Side note, when did books have to be. Title? Colon, Explanation of title.

44:39

Oh, yeah, that's interesting. I don't just know when that started.

45:01

It just never everyone. There's no way to know.

45:04

I think it's within the 2000s, but.

45:07

But that's it.

45:09

If you just called it the AI Paradox, it wouldn't be meaningful at all.

45:10

That's how books used to work, though.

45:13

Yeah.

45:15

You know, Anyway. The AI Paradox, how to Make Sense of a Complex Future by Virginia Dignam. And this review is by Ben Tarnoff. And what she seems to be digging into, per his analysis, which I think is really fascinating, is that we seem to be caught between either fearing that AI will destroy us all or fearing that AI is a huge scam and our economy is about to collapse because it's just a sham.

45:16

Yeah.

45:45

And what. Ms. Dignam sort of takes the philosophical position that actually artificial intelligence isn't really like our intelligence, but it is something that cooperate with our intelligence and that we ought to be. Rather than running away from it or elevating it instantly to replace us, we should be actively figuring out how to work with it by its side and make it work for us. I liked the review mostly because I think it was sort of positive about, and I thought a very reasonable approach, like, hey, what if everyone on the extremes is wrong here? What if there's just this messy middle? And I remain generally in the. I think this might be a scam camp, but I was somewhat hopeful that this could be a really, really good version of a calculator. And work like that is of value.

45:47

Yeah. So I'm looking forward to checking out the review and possibly the book itself. It is tough because you have to hold multiple things simultaneously in your head. It's that There are genuinely useful things that people are using it to do, which is great in applications that seem valid and like, oh, that's a thing you couldn't do without this kind of technology. And disruptive and dangerous. Just this last week, the security implications of the new anthropic model that basically break everything. And that's why they can't even release it until they find all these patches for stuff. And the fact that it's like, all the money pouring into it and the weird side deals. It could be Enron, but also be real. And so it's. It's very frustrating.

46:43

It is frustrating. It's hard to tell if people are in so deep financially that they have to just keep shoveling crap at us to make sure that we don't notice that it's just sort of bland. But then again, maybe this is, in its best version, a great new tool like the computer. I mean, the computer changed. And it wasn't like, when the computer came along, people were like, oh, my God, so many people are gonna lose their jobs. A lot of people did lose their jobs and had to retrain doing other jobs, but it notably created a billion jobs. The notion that artificial intelligence must replace us, that seems like that's the toxic point of view.

47:30

Yeah. An article I was reading yesterday was talking about, are humans horses or coal when it comes to AI? Basically, we used to have so many horses in the world, and we was like, we just don't need the horses anymore. So all those jobs for horses went away. Or is it like coal, where it's just like, we are still necessary for actually figuring out how to implement it and do all the things with it. And by being able to do stuff, we can actually grow things bigger. I don't think we know yet. It's probably both. It's a very different thing. I think the rise of computers and the rise of the Internet are directionally similar, but it's just a different force than we've had before.

48:13

Yeah. She makes the argument that part of what makes human intelligence different is its cooperative nature with other human intelligences, that we are constantly relating to each other, learning from each other, and changing our minds because of each other in an inventive, creative way, including people whose minds don't work quite right.

48:48

Yeah.

49:08

So, for lack of a better word, mentally ill people have had an outsized impact on art and culture forever.

49:09

Yeah.

49:15

And that part of things I don't think AI knows what to do with. I don't think so. Yeah.

49:16

We'll check in in several Hundred episodes to see where we're at. If we're still around.

49:24

We're at. Yeah. Yeah. The bots. We got Craig Bot. John Bot.

49:28

Craig Bot, John Bot. It's all working.

49:31

One final one. Cool. I have an extra one. Cool thing. This week. My daughter, Jessie Mason.

49:33

Yes.

49:39

Was asked by the Indigo Girls to open up for them. She will be opening for the Indigo Girls on all of their western dates. So if you go to their, their upcoming concert, it's, you know, Portland and LA and all places in between. And I think Boulder, I think Colorado Great Is her first. You know, she's put this, you know, song out and it's, you know, attention. And this is going to be her first, like, real thing. I mean, we're all very excited and very proud of her and she did this all on her own. I don't know the Indigo Girls, but she will be opening for the Indigo Girls and we're all very excited. So if you want to buy a ticket, check it out.

49:39

Absolutely. Every father is so proud of their. Their child's first national tour. So

50:24

I never expected.

50:30

Yeah.

50:32

That I would ever say, like, when I was in college listening to the Indugo Girls, I never thought, you know what, it's fun. Maybe I'll make somebody. I'll make a person. And that person will open for these ladies one day.

50:32

Yeah.

50:42

Did not have that on my bingo card.

50:42

Life is full of surprises indeed. That is Scriptnotes for this week. It is produced by Drew Markowart and edited by Matthew Shillelly. Our outro is by James Ashley McLaren. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to askjohnaux.com that's also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You'll find transcripts@johnaux.com, along with a sign up for a weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. The description of this book is out and available wherever you buy books. You'll find clips. Another helpful video on our YouTube. Just search for scriptnotes and give us a follow. You'll find us on Instagram ripnotes podcast. We have T shirts and hoodies and drinkware. You'll find those at Cotton Bureau. You'll find the show notes with the links to all the things we talked about today in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you. As always to our premium subscribers. You keep the lights on and make it possible for us to do this each and every week. You can sign up to become one@scriptnotes.net where you get all those back episodes and bonus segments like the one we're about to record about video and other changes coming to Scriptnotes. Craig, it is a damn delight to have you back in my little zoom window to record another episode of Scriptnotes.

50:44

He's back. Thank you, John.

51:49

Sam.

52:04