Charla, there are four books that you believe every screenwriter should
read. The first one being John Truby's The Anatomy of Story. Why this book?
Charla Lauriston, Screenwriter/Owner of The Working Writer/Comedian: I think that
new screenwriters struggle with structure and I think that new screenwriters before they
get comfortable with story don't really recognize how innate story is I think
I think even if you're a terrible Storyteller like I'm a terrible Storyteller like in a in a bar if
I'm telling a story I'll start with middle I'll jump to the end all I have to like retract to the
beginning it's always I'm a terrible storyteller in the moment but the story itself is there and
the the joy that you get even in a bar when you're talking to your friends and telling them a story
and you are able to build it up in a way that has people hanging on your everywhere so that they
can hear the end of how this story goes and like or the punch line of a joke it's like the punch
line of a joke the end of the story and so I just kind of feel like John Truby's Anatomy of Story
breaks down story in a way that shows how organic it is to us as human beings, how
innate it is in us. How we all know how to tell a story and how story is everywhere story is pattern
story is story is organic structure I feel like I'm not necessarily explaining it in a good way
but I just think that the way that he shows how every story is very similar and using different
different ways of showing us how every story is a pattern like I just think that he's really
he's just really explain it in a really smart way I think so I think it's really good for
people to just get a broad understanding of of story and that's kind of what that book does.
Film Courage: The second book is The Art of Dramatic Writing, why this book?
Charla: This book I love so much because dialogue was something that I really struggled to make feel
natural I really struggled to make my characters talk in a way talk how I talk on my friends talk
but the scenes that I would be writing were all very relatable scenes and that's what The
Art of Dramatic Writing talks about like I mean it talks about starting with character it talks
about the importance of having a character know what they want and having a character
struggle with something being at the core of what makes them who they are and like having
something to overcome and all all of this helping to put words in their mouth on the
page and to also drive story at the same time just this idea that dialogue is story dialogue
drive story dialogue is character it's all these three things wrapped up into one and every time
your character talks they reveal something about themselves or about the scene the situation it
gives context every time your character talks it pushes the story forward it reveals something so
just the idea that like that dialogue is this layering this unlayering this peeling of an
onion of helping us tell the story so it's like I just I really love Lajos Egri (I think that's
how to pronounce his name). I love that book in particular because I feel like it's like
that next level like if we start with John Truby's Anatomy of Story to get the foundational elements
of what story is. The next level is The Art of Dramatic Writing Lajos Egri because it helps us
to help our characters tell the story basically.
Film Courage: Third book is On Writing by Stephen King, another Northeastern writer. Why this book?
Charla: That book I think just made me feel like okay I'm a writer and I'll explain why
and it's because Stephen King sort of he writes it like a memoir like he really just writes about
his process the way that his mind works he talks about his mind being very chatty and descriptive
in the same ways that my mind works I can be very observant I can be somebody that is usually more
to myself and that's because my mind is working and kind of transcribing what's going on around
me and that's kind of how he talks about writing he talks about the necessity of being descriptive
and the way that good writing allows you to be able to close your eyes the same way that
you can read a book and see a room being described because the writing has described it so well maybe
he's talking about the light cracking through the window or the dampness of the wood after it rained
the night before or these kinds of these kinds of descriptive words really invoke sight almost you
can almost like see what he's talking about and I think if particularly if you're a screenwriter
when your words are very much describing a visual medium I think on writing is a really really great
book to check out just in general but also in particular if you're a screenwriter because
of how important I think it is to understand how our minds work when it comes to writing.
Film Courage: The fourth book is The Nutshell Technique by Jill Chamberlain.
Charla: The Nutshell Technique is great because it's one of those book like a lot of books do
this actually like there's there's always some technique that someone tries to show you when it
comes to writing a pilot script or writing a an episode of television or a screenplay
or something like that it's really trying to describe patterns and show you the ways that
every story is pretty much the same whether you're writing a screenplay or a TV script or a novel
you're writing similar stories and she just talks about
I'm blanking on what she calls it like she calls it like writing in an X in a nutshell or something
like that I cannot remember like the specifics of her book but it is a good it's one of those
books that talks about structure for story and how to I guess get the patterns down so I think
Jill Chamberlain's book is great for that all four books have their own controversy we've seen it in
different comments how would you dispel some of that controversy whether someone's saying
this technique is too formulaic this is what's going to churn out and I'm just I'm parroting
what I've seen in comments I don't personally feel this but this is going to turn out a very
specific filmmaking we've all seen these these movies you've got to let the writer be free
I think that those points are valid I think that they're misplaced though and misunderstood because
I think it's very difficult to write a good screenplay or a good television script without
understanding a structure and viewing structure as a cage instead of as like I would say a boat
instead of viewing it as something that kind of locks you in viewed as something that helps to
buoy your story like view it as something that helps to deliver your story because when you
don't have the structure you're not really able to bring the story together in a way that I think is
effective and cohesive and like hits the person that is watching it and gets your message across
I think structure is essential in order for you to play I think it's essential in order for you to be
loose and creative learn the structure so that you can forget about it learn the structure so that
you can not have to think about it so that you can just get your story out in the best possible way
I mean so stories have been written written for thousands of years I think to have the I almost
want to say the audacity but even just like the ego to think that better than thousands of years
of storytelling and hundreds of people that have come hundreds of thousands of millions of people
that have come before you and have written novels and screenplays and best-selling works
of art it's like we're telling you this because we've been there I've been the person that didn't
want to that wanted to forget about structure I've been the person who thought that it was too
restrictive and then I went around I went ahead and tried to do it without it and what I realized
during that time was that oh I never really understood it like what was happening was that
it can be taught in a way that is so formulaic and so dry and so not organic
to our our understanding of story that it can just feel like a math equation but I think that
once you actually understand it and I actually think like the South Park guys explain it the
best because it's in this like very easy way that anybody can understand they say
if your story goes this then this then this then that then it's a bad story but if your
story goes this happens so this happens because that happened therefore that happened therefore
this happens that story is about causation it's about momentum it's about things pushing things
forward the reason that we teach that your character your story has to be character based
and your character can be anything it can be a landscape but most likely it's a person mostly
like the history of your character is important because the whole story is about what they want
and whether or not they're going to get what they want find it like I'm trying to think of
the best stories and like I'm just saying that like structure is in all of our favorite stories
it's in Finding Nemo it's in Star Wars, it's in all those stories and it's not a mistake
it's there for a reason and it's there to help you and so from your time being in writer's rooms
or even with stand up or or doing The Werking Writer school have you seen sort of the rage
the the people enraged over these screenwriting books or no you've never encountered some of
the pushback I don't think it's a rage I think it's like just plain old frustration of being
a writer who wants to tell a story and struggling to get it across in a way that that is satisfying
in a way that would be satisfying to you and you've seen it done in a satisfying way and
you can't figure out why you can't get it and I would just encourage those people to keep going
keep writing the story poorly keep writing it badly do as little bit of it as possible bit by
bit every day if you can write if you can stand to write it for 15 minutes 20 minutes an hour
it doesn't have to be like three hours of writing every day so that you can get to your story you
can do a little bit every single day and you'll look up in a month after 15 minutes every day of
itching away scratching away at that story you'll have something that you might be happy with and
I think it's just like I think it's just about being able to sit with the difficulty sometimes
of getting our stories across which they are and they and I don't know why we expect it to be easy
I almost think you should expect difficulty and so if it's easy it'll be a surprise but if it's
hard you expect it to be hard because telling a good story is hard sometimes and that's okay.