Film Courage: I think you’ve said you write for emotion not for gimmicks?
Kelly Edwards, Staff Writer, Author, Producer: Yeah, I think that sometimes particularly when
writers are starting from concepts and not really delving into the reason why people show up which
is the character. Characters are motivated by their emotions, right? When you are writing and
you’re writing from just plot it’s less engaging than if you’re writing from character. What is
this character going to do? Why would they want to do this? What’s the reason? Who are the stakes
that they’re doing it for? When you’ve got those things and you’re working from
the inside out, it’s a lot more emotional. I will connect to your material a lot more,
we will all feel something. When you’re writing from the inside out (as opposed to the outside in)
and you can start with the outside, obviously you need something plot to hang it on. But if
you’re not doing the work underneath it, if you’re just giving cool fight scenes
and you’re not really delving into Why is there a fight scene? Then you’re going to lose your
audience for sure. Film Courage: Let’s say if I’m doing a coming-of-age drama of some
woman that’s hanging out at Venice beach all the time and she’s kind of floundering and she’s
doesn’t know if she’s going to go to college, doesn’t know if she can even afford to go, but
it’s a cool gimmick and we can have skateboarders and all of these interesting characters around her
but I’m not getting to really her story, I’m just it’s too flat. Kelly: I think you have to
get underneath the character and figure out well what is she really motivated? What does she want
to do? What’s her goal? Because you don’t want a passive character who’s just sitting on the beach.
You want someone who wants to do something. What is that something and then why does
she want to do that thing so if you have to it writing is really unearthing so much of
you have to get underneath everything in order to have something that really resonates and that's
the hard part that's the hard work that sometimes writers don't want to do it's scary because it's
you have to tap into your own stuff and when you tap into your own stuff then you can you can share
it with somebody else and they can they can tap into theirs and isn't that really why we're doing
all this anyway we're sharing emotions otherwise who cares right who was the first character that
you you felt a connection with oh my goodness a television character film television in a book
where you really felt like you were in that person's skin you knew you knew that world
you knew who they were wow that's a I don't even know I don't even know if I could rewind
the tapes to tell you where that first person was although I will tell you there may have been okay
this is going to sound really weird but it's a children's book one of my very favorite children's
books was a book and I don't even I don't think it's in print anymore it's called anne likes red
red red red a blue dress and no I like red red red I read it so much and I don't know if that was
because I think it might have been because there was so much of me in that I loved red but I also
just loved her determination that she was really focused that there was just this sense of this
young girl and I again I must have been in grade school if not even before it's probably preschool
book where I just I memorized every single line of that book what I do I do know what it was I
do know what it was that just sparked something so there was another book at around the same time
when I was really young and again I don't know if I could even tell you the name of it
but it was a book about a young girl who had all these dolls and they were of all
different colors from all different countries and she wanted a doll that looked just like her
and I think at the very end the the doll maker made her doll that looked exactly like her
now she happened to be a blonde little blind girl but the fact that there were
that this book had dolls that looked like me they were all sorts of beautiful dolls and different
clothing from different countries and again that was something that I think for me was like yeah
there's there's difference and I'm one of the different ones I'm one of the other ones and
wouldn't I love a doll that looked like me and I identified with a girl but I also identified with
all those other dolls because I looked like that so yeah oh is that that's a really interesting
little piece of like something that you just unearthed there that's interesting I'm going
to have to find that but I think I don't I do know that I still have I still have that book
I own that book someplace and i'll have to figure that out very cool huh I just I don't know why I'm
just yeah thinking I know because cost plus world market they would have these different little dots
very international and I always liked going there too because it wasn't yeah I had a barbie and
a skipper and all right it was it was just like just the same thing every time perfectly straight
hair which I couldn't have right right right yeah I think there was that whole I had a lot
of alexander dolls and I had a lot of different different colors and different dresses and yeah
that was a great book I wonder if there's a movie in that book but there's a movie in that book oh
okay there you go adaptation why do you say the best ideas are personal okay so i'll say that
i'll say this for and and maybe let's see if we can come at it for a couple of different ways so
it's obviously difficult to to write a screenplay or to write a a pilot right it's it's a hard thing
to do if everybody did it there there'd be a jillion of them they were just amazing
it's hard to do but again as we talked about connecting and being able to understand those
characters you really need to get underneath all of those all of the
the the trappings of this is a really cool story to get to the why of it all and the
and the emotion because again that's what's going to make you want to lean forward it's going to
make you want to come see it again it's going to make you want to show up week to week right is if
and understand and you love these characters or I should say at least understand those
characters because you may not love some of these anti-hero characters but you can understand them
and and the and what do we all have that's different from somebody else it's our own personal
experiences so I can't write your story you can't write my story so that's what makes us special so
if we're going to be able to dredge up as writers our whole goal is to dredge up all of that stuff
and to convey it in a way that's going to connect us and for you to feel what I feel
you need to be able to tap into all of that well what's the best story it's the one that you have
that you own so I do think that the when I was running the the access program for HBO
we always looked for writers who could access that really quickly
people who were willing and already there at a place where all of their personal stuff was
just at the surface where you didn't have to to go through a therapy session for them to unload
all of their stuff because that stuff is the stuff that makes a script really resonate
and you can tell when someone is really willing to to go there otherwise everything is very cute
plotty/surfacy but it's not really moving so so I do think that there's an important
piece of that switches use the stuff that you have which is all of you and put that on the page
and then you can place that whatever that little ball of
stuff is in any situation you want so it doesn't have to be that you're writing specifically about
your life it doesn't have to be a autobiography but it should that kernel of that of that idea
in the center of it should be transferable to a story no matter where it takes place and it's
the more truthful you are the more authentic you are in your writing the better you're writing
I know for a fact excuse me I know where for a fact when I write if I'm not being truthful and
I have to go back and then go another layer and go okay how do I really tap into this character
and I have to do the work because and I think people can you can feel it people can feel it
when you are being really truthful and when you're not being truthful when you're doing
it for cutesy sake versus you're doing it because you're as I call it opening of a nat onto a page
have you ever had to tell a writer that like maybe not in those exact words but
I feel like you're holding something back or maybe we need to go another layer somebody
just said that to me recently they said I think you can go deeper and I went oh
I was caught and I went yeah I know but it was hard it was a hard thing to do and when I and
so this was a script I actually just turned it in to my manager recently and he was the
one who gave me the note and he said so you can do a little better and and the story was very
much about me in college so it's a it's it's a horror sci-fi there's like some really cool
stuff that happens in it but the character at the center was me in college and and I
and he knew when I knew that I had not done the work I had done most of the work I hadn't
done all the work that I could have done and I went back and I rewrote the entire script and
even throughout the entire storyline I just and I went and I went okay I was writing I did a lot of
a story but I hadn't really done the b stories I hadn't really fleshed out the other characters
I was quick to get to the finish line and when I went back and I tore the whole thing
apart and put it back together again and then went back to the original story but I had to
do some of that work in order to figure out who everybody else was in this world
it was I'm gonna say a thousand times better he was absolutely right I needed to do the work
and I hadn't wanted to do the work and I thought well I could get my kind of cool slick idea
but I and I thought like I said I said I thought I had done some of it but I hadn't done all of it
so so it does work and yeah you have to give those notes all the time and I think that how
you give that note though is important is just as important as the note itself
and sometimes a good coaxing or a good question hey what were you trying to get to here
or what's the theme as you see it and what's the big question that you're trying to answer and
how do we help you get there sometimes those can be a lot better than hey this wasn't great or you
can if you compose it in the jeopardy way of asking a question question then sometimes the
sometimes those answers come organically to the writer sure what would alex trebek say
yeah yeah exactly but were you do you think you were doing it in too much of a cutesy way
no I think I had I think I had a I hadn't I acknowledged to myself that like I said I had
done some of the work I had done quite a bit of the work what I hadn't done was the hardest part
of the work which is when you go a deep a layer deeper and the I think the part of it that was
the light bulb that went on for me was that I hadn't written her emotions I had written
what she was doing and why she was doing it
I had the stakes in there I had everything else I hadn't gone back and done the work of
of tapping into what I was feeling at the time and why the story was important and what was the
thing that was driving me to write it why beyond the idea was it important to me it's a story that
I had I had actually written a draft of this in 2009 so it's something that I kept holding on to
and I realized that there are themes in it that were really important to me that I keep coming
back to in other work and and so I knew I had to do finally do the work and go okay this is really
me it's the setting was Vassar everything about it was was every single building in it was a sensory
memory coming back to me and the the fear was well what if I exposed too much of myself and so I had
to let go of that fear and go okay let me expose how I was feeling and why I was doing what I was
doing and what was that journey that I was on and why was that and so important and that was the key
I think and when you can do that in your work when you can really pull back the layers on your
on your your own journey and try to ask your questions of well why was that important why
was that important well what touched a nerve there and what was the why did you feel so alone at that
moment and and what was the the tension that you were feeling with those people at the time
I really get underneath that that's when things start to really pop.