Film Courage: How do you answer the writer who says "why do I get stuck?"
Alan Watt, Author/Screenwriter and [Founder of L.A. Writers’ Lab]: I think there's a lot of
reasons we get stuck but I think the big reason is that when we get into the result rather than
lose ourselves in the process we tend to get stuck because we forget that we're the channel or and
and not we we forget that we're we forget that the word the channel and that it's not our job
to figure out the story I think that the process of making a story is really about marrying the
wildness of your imagination to the rigor of story structure so you're doing both things
simultaneously if you do one or the other I think you're going to get stuck if you just do stream of
consciousness writing you could end up with some brilliant material but that it won't have it won't
have any shape to it or or you can if you're so focused on story structure that you fail to bring
your passion and your curiosity and your and your everything your humanity to it you're going to end
up with something that's formulaic and so I think that that's really the key is to surrender to the
process bring your passion but also bring your craft and and let go of the result so do you see
that in in your classes or or with writing where you have the the a to the perfect student who
who's making sure that the midpoint is the right spot at the right time and then you have sort of
the I don't know for lack of a better term sort of the Jerry Garcia of writing and they're just free
flowing and it's amazing and they're brilliant but you're trying to get them both out of their
comfort zone I always tell my writer I say I know this sounds like a Zen conan and but you've got
to be a bad student I want you to write every day I don't want I don't want you to to to to to skip
off but this isn't long division you're you're making art there aren't any rules but there are
principles and so you've got to if you try to be a good student the people that are good students I
can feel them I'm like if you ever have to choose between the aliveness of your characters or your
idea of your story structure always choose the aliveness of your characters because it's going
to lead you to the truth of your story structure not your idea we've all watched those movies where
you can feel that they're hitting the plot points but you're not being moved so the number one thing
is to let your characters be alive so that you're moved or you're curious you've got to be willing
to surprise yourself the only way the audience is going to be surprised is if you're allowing
yourself to be surprised so is that similar to when you when we go back to my character would
never do that then me as the writer well I'm a good student or or me I'm the I'm the one that
I'm the contrarian I sit in the back and I shake my head and I smirk and we we're still in our our
identity and that's affecting how we write yeah you know I don't think we can really be an artist
without our our heart being open to some degree and I think I think it's one of the reasons I
love teaching so much I find it so satisfying because you teach what you need to learn and
I went to every I went to every lecture every seminar I read every book on writing but I was
very stubborn for for over a decade and I knew even though I had a I had a big fancy agent and
I was going out on meetings and and they like my writing but my dirty secret was I knew that I had
not really had I hadn't had a third act experience I hadn't had a true surrender so I was writing for
my ego and I had been a stand-up comic for years so I developed a facility with language I had a
strong first person voice because I was connected to that but the purpose of story is to reveal a
transformation and I hadn't had a transformation in my own life and so it wasn't until it wasn't
until I called my mentor and this was like God almost 30 years ago now and I was I was just
hitting bottom and I said I can't I remember I'll never forget it I said I can't do this alone and
she said oh my dear whoever said you had to and for whatever reason that was the moment the light
bulb went on and I realized that I was writing my idea of what I thought the market was looking for
and when I let go of that and I said I'm going to write something that I'm never going to show
to anybody and it's going to be a story that's so personal and so intimate and so I wrote this thing
very quickly and that turned out to be the first thing I sold and that was the thing that sold in
the bidding war became an LA Times bestseller and won a bunch of awards and that was the moment I
realized that was the moment I got the lesson and I think it's the thing that made me really want to
pass this thing on to other people because I'd had such a transformative experience that when
I see writers who are trying to figure out how to become successful it breaks my heart because
because I had some success and realize that it didn't change anything the thrill of creation
must be its own reward now is that because we feel shame about writing something that might
be salacious might be interesting but a nice girl would never write something like that yes
I think there's a I think there's a lot of that I think that what make you know when you look
when you look at the stories that really move you or or you that you really find compelling there's
often something in there that is scary you know I remember the first time I watched Sunset Boulevard
I couldn't I was like I this is such a weird movie I can't believe this got made and Billy Wilder was
in in his former life before he was a before he was a filmmaker was apparently a gigolo and
that's what the movie is about essentially and so he was writing about his personal experience that
that that's a really brave thing to do and that movie is weird but it's also so compelling as you
just it's riveting you can't take your I can't believe this is happening and but you can only
write that when when you're willing to go to that place that was the end of my sentence okay and and
the thing is was was he judged for that film was he judged for putting such such smut out there or
he was praised you well you're always going to be judged and that's that goes with the territory so
I couldn't tell you but I have no doubt that some people probably probably judged it but
I think it also I don't know if it won the Oscar but I don't think that probably wasn't his goal
I think the guy was he was just such a brilliant you know artist that that his goal was to tell a
great story and and and and when that's your focus when when you're not thinking about the next story
you're not thinking about your career whatever that means you're just focused on really telling
the truth and exploring the your protagonist's dilemma the the results take care of themselves.