Courtney Miller, Filmmaker/Producer/Author/Editor: I always start with the ending so no
I don't start writing until I have the ending.
Film Courage: How did you learn to write stories?
Courtney: How did I learn to write stories? Wow, you start off with the whole Save The
Cat situation. Here's a funny, it's not funny, but here's a story. A friend of mine who actually is
a director he I used to choreograph a show called It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
and he was the director of those episodes that I choreographed and now he went ahead and did one
division all the episodes of Wandavision, he's in Game of Thrones, he's huge now. I said hey look,
I want to actually learn how to how to write, what would you suggest? He was the one who said Save
The Cat so of course we all we're all told Save The Cat so started off with Save The Cat initially
at the same time I was going to school so I learned writing through that and that was
not save the cab but it's basically the same beats so those that's how I started writing
and then I went ahead and worked with Pilar Alessandra who's like a mentor of mine and I
went and took her clash as a this she has a book that that she has as well regarding screenwriting
and Ive taken her course in many of her courses Ive looked at film courage Ive looked at other
videos regarding structure and what have you and so I think when you look at my writing
it's changed over time it's evolved it was it was very Save The Cat at first and then I kind of just
slowly but surely just went down to okay what exactly do I need to what are the basic elements
that I need and so I kind of just focus on five main things knowing that in there are things in
between these five things that I need to have I need to have conflict obviously which helps to
to change your protagonist over time and so I always start with the ending
of so initially I come with an idea okay there's an idea for something that I want to write great
what do I want to say what's the theme so I go there first if I can I come up with a log line
and I kind of use that as my north star that way I remember okay it's always about this moment that
may change over time then I go ahead and I do the ending how do I want this character to end
by the ending of this tv show pilot or movie what I want to have them in and then I start them the
exact opposite in the very beginning so I have two pieces that I need I know I need an exciting
incident what sets them off on their journey they get this letter that came out of the blue they
open the door and there's a dead body something that happens that's the exciting incident so
that's that's there then I need a midpoint some kind of twist that happens in the middle
and then I need an all this loss moment so I have those five points and then from
there I go ahead and I start making beats so I knowing that I need to get to these five points
then I begin to create a beat sheet and the beat sheet is literally just okay then this happens
and then this happens and then this happens and they meet this person then this happens
and it's blo it's everything there's nothing that's off limits and a lot of it doesn't get used
but some of it does and then once I have an idea of through the beats I begin to massage the beats
to make sure that it makes sense that based upon these beats or these scenes
this character is changing and they're making decisions and there's conflict and
who's con who's creating the conflict and I start I start coming up with characters that
can help to drive this protagonist one way or the other to get to these five main main points
and then after that's done and then I create an outline and my outlines are very detailed
what I typically do with my outline is I take my beats that have been approved that I'm going to go
with and then I put them on a on a a word document something like that and I put down location
exterior interior location day night underneath that in parentheses I put down the name of the
characters that are in the scene and then I put down a summary of what the scene is about
what does each character want sometimes I want to feel some dialogue I'll throw in some dialogue in
there that will be temporary dialogue that I'll change later on but just get an idea of what it is
and I do that for all the beats until I'm done with the whole thing and when I'm done
then I copy this and I paste it into final draft and now I have my outline and the reason why I
know not everybody uses it online but there are going to be times when you are on a paid project
they're going to ask you for an outline and so it's good to it's a good habit to
develop the habit of outlining because sometimes you'll have to that's part of your deliverable to
a network that you need to have an outline so once that's done now it's like it's like 15 to 20 pages
and when I have that I'm go that's why it takes me such a short amount of time to
to write because at that point it's just dialogue at that point I know what the characters want I
know who's in the character I know who's in the scene I know the location I know it's day or night
Ive done all the hard work now it's just about let's go have fun let's write how
how do we get there in the scene how does how does steve get upset at harry is she hiding
something from him are there any and I just do a first vomit draft blah get everything done
for me it takes about two weeks to once everything's outlined it takes about two
weeks to finish a feature film my first draft then I put it away for like a day and I always at the
end of whenever I finish writing my first draft I always drink something a little alcohol and
I will go eat something something like spend some money and go just like celebratory like
whoo the hard part's done then I'll go back after a day and I'll start looking at it and
I'll go back into each of these scenes and I make sure like is there are there nuances in there am
I did I write too much is there too many words can we because I'm a director I also look at ways that
I can visually look and tell the story without words I would much rather do that kind of stuff
and I go back and I and I do that for every single scene and that takes me
about a week to do and then after that I go ahead and give my script to my brother who is who has
learned through your website through me teaching him he's learned he and he he works in aerospace
we've actually written two scripts together over 2020 we did two feature
films that we wrote together because he's gotten the hang of storytelling
I give it to him he gives me some notes back things that he because he's logical
so he gives me the this doesn't make sense how did he get here like like like character wise like why
is he so upset what happened before to get him to this point so I'll go back and maybe add a
few extra scenes or whatever to to earn why we are at this point in the in the character's behavior
then I'll give it to a friend of mine that's a woman and she she's an actress but she also writes
and because I like to get a woman's point of view about certain things especially because a
lot of my characters are women and I want to get somebody else's point of view that's not a male
in reference to how this person is behaving and she'll give me the real skinny like I told her
like don't play with me like give me the truth and she'll tell me like we would never do this
or this is what would happen and so I can now go back and I can make that right and then I'll
give it to my management team and they'll give me notes and they'll tear it apart and then we'll get
that cleaned up and then after that that's when I can take it out and go and go shopping with it
so that's my process in a nutshell regarding how I start from the very beginning of an idea
which ideas come from everywhere we've had discussions and we literally just thought of
an idea for a Christmas movie what I'm saying like it comes from anywhere just like talking to people
noticing things like as a writer you have to do that now like nothing's off limits right anybody
tells you something it's like then it may end up in the script somewhere just letting
and they understand that so two weeks to finish a feature like the first draft of a feature script
and how does that break down per day or are you doing more in one day than another yeah
so I have a mandate that I do 15 pages per day and that's my mandate no matter how long it takes so
I'm I'll I won't go straight through I'll take breaks I'll go get some food I'll get lunch and
other kind of stuff but it's like 15 pages a day and it goes back to that mantra about you may be
a better writer than me you may be a director than me but you will not outwork me and that's kind of
like my thing it's like I'm i'm putting in the work and so I treat it like a nine-to-five job
like I'm clocking in and so it's like no I have eight to 12 hours that I'm dedicating towards
these these 15 pages now there's been times when Ive gotten 12 hours and Ive only done 10 pages
it's like okay I I'm taking the l on this one I can't go anymore I'm too tired blah blah
so as a result you kind of leave that alone and you kind of come back the next day
knowing you owe for the those those five pages but for the most part that's that's the way I do it
and and that's what allows me to knock things out so fast so a feature film I get it done
in two weeks the first draft and then a one hour episode of a tv show I'll get that done in a week
it sounds like you honor a lot of commitments for yourself with writing like you said you have these
amounts of pages that you do but then also once you finish you put it away for one day and then
you go and you kind of do this mental or a real celebration yeah so you're keeping your word like
you're becoming your own boss with yourself yeah so it's very interesting yeah rewarding yourself
yeah I totally agree I think you have to do that it's so hard to sit down and just write
it is the most it's the most amazing and most horrible thing because it can be boring
I think one one benefit that I have because as a director I like to like look at okay how would I
shoot this when I'm writing it which I shouldn't do but I can't help it so I will I put a lot of
action in my scenes not necessarily like fighting action but like I give my character something to
do and that's also because I'm a choreographer I don't when I when I stage my my scenes I usually
will give the character something in their hand or they'll start someplace doing something because
the actors love to be busy they don't want to just stand there and just be talking heads
like give me something and then when you're writing think about I'm always thinking about
okay whatever they're doing what does that tell me about who they are as a human being as a person
or about this moment like are they is their knee going up and down are they what's the
situation here because that visual situation tells me what they're experiencing so I try to marry all
that stuff together in a way that tells a story not only through words but also through actions
and are you ever tempted when you can't figure out the ending to say well for this one I'm just going
to start writing and I'll figure out this ending later good question no I always start with the
ending so no I don't start writing until I have the ending like I know whether the indie's going
to be happy or sad so I have a a a script that I wrote that initially you see this is this was the
interesting thing the initial ending of the script was a sad ending as a mother she dies in the end
and and that's how I wrote it and so the very beginning I knew I needed to make her um
well let me go back it's a mother who dies but she dies sacrificing herself for her family
so for her to reach that arc how does she have to be in the very beginning she has to be
the type of mother that doesn't sacrifice that's selfish
and that's how we start the story so that that way to me if I know this and this
I know we're going to have an arc now the question is how do we earn getting her there you know
if she's going to sacrifice herself in the end in the very beginning she has to be selfish
well let's say you're being selfish in the very beginning how do we how do we show that
and so that's how we get into the story and that's how I do all my scripts that's how I started I
started with the ending because it's easier for me to to understand the beginning and typically
my openings usually are very dynamic my openings are like there is some something going on and it
pulls you right in so I'm really good with my openings because I know how I'm going to end it
and you keep that log line you said it's kind of like your north star yeah yeah which is
again overall what is the story about what's what am I trying to say what's the theme or
it also kind of tells you a little bit about about the arc as well a self-centered mother
just throwing out an idea a self-centered mother a mother deals with family tragedy from her from
her from her past and as a result you know s saves her family from something that log line
reminds me of what this is and everything that I write in between there midpoint all is loss
clothes are the ending it reminds me of what I need to be doing with this character
and all the all the characters that come into her life are going to be pulling her one way or the
other either to stay to stay uh selfish or to not be selfish like all the character's going to be
pulling her back and forth one way or the other whether it's her husband her kids her boss
yeah and the dialogue that you write does that it must vary then for the projects
if you're going to do a Christmas movie it's going to be cleaner dialogue it's going to be
maybe more on the nose yeah ooh that's a very good point um
that's where I do try to buck the system a little bit I try not to be so on the nose
even with those situations where it's pretty much a pain by numbers story in the sense that
we know what a Christmas movie usually entails I try to find moments of nuance
especially when when there's emotional moments so I wrote so for example a stone cold Christmas
there is there's some dialogue back and forth between the woman played by Dimitri Mckinney
and her ex-boyfriend or this guy that she's a date and they are talking about the past about
things that happen but I do try to hold back some things and to let this the face of the characters
explain what happened I do try to do that so even with even with a Christmas movie there's moments
that you can do that maybe not a lot of moments but there's a few moments that you can actually
find nuanced ways of telling a story without being on the news and in that movie it's about sort of
a power driven woman who's all about success and Christmas is just another day to her and
then she sort of finds the meaning of Christmas through her own arc yeah exactly and she she
she became angry because of because of a trauma that happened when she was a child she had a kid
she had to give the kid up for adoption because because she was a child and she
her mother didn't approve and so she gave this child up and
come to find out that the assistant that works for her actually is her
her own child but we don't fight that out into the third act oh wow spoiler alert
so yeah so this whole time she's been grooming this girl and this girl is her her own daughter
she never knew that oh wow until the very end so yeah there's there's a nice little emotional arc
there they're all crying and it's very weepy and it it's fun it's a fun movie so it's funny because
that is my way of trying to buck the system by having this really cool twist in the end but I
still played within the sandbox all the same beats are there there's a kiss at the end there's snow
falls we she's she's she's angry in the beginning and she's mean at the beginning but by the end
she's a different person but we started with the ending where do we want her to end up we want her
to end up finding love realizing that this is her daughter and now we have a happy family in the
very beginning she's alone she's angry she doesn't she has bad she has bad memories of her childhood
yeah so that's again it's the same rule even though it's in a different genre and when you
got notes on it did anybody say like oh that's a little you're talking about like an unwed unwed
teen mother or whatever that might be too taboo for Christmas movie or something thank goodness
for the network bounce tv they didn't feel that I know for a fact lifetime would not have gone
for that so this network I felt like I can push them up a little bit it was their very first it
was their very first movie of the week and before that they had like a whole bunch of like half-hour
comedies and one-hour dramas and the drama states of sinners is really crazy so I think
they were already groomed to accept some things even though it was a Christmas movie.