Film Courage: Does that deferring and delaying and awkwardness show the mark of a professional?
UCLA Screenwriting chair Richard Walter: Yes absolutely.
You show me a writer who says she was satisfied with what she did and that it went well I’ll
show you an amateur.
Film Courage: So in the beginning it’s like dating, there’s a honeymoon phase, everybody
looks perfect.
Richard Walter: Well dating is better.
If everything works out eventually you get on well with that person but you never get
along well with writing.
That never changes.
Maybe gosh-willing you are able to make money at it and actually support yourself at it.
But it’s always, always painful, always a struggle.
And again it’s about feeling, that’s what it’s about.
It sort of makes sense that it should be feelingful.
Film Courage: When does a writer know it’s time to abandon a character?
Richard Walter: You never really know.
And I’m asked that all the time about…I’m asked two kind of questions all the time about
that.
What I’m called the macro version and the micro version.
The micro version is should I…you read this script, you read several versions of it, am
I beating it too much, should I just move on?
I sure don’t know?
I’ve seen people rewrite scripts into oblivion where they should have gotten rid of in my
view.
And I’ve also seen conversely scripts that look pretty hopeless that suddenly broke through.
Who am I to say?
I can’t tell you that.
But you’ve got to do all of the work on that.
That’s the micro version “Should I stick with this script or should I give it up?”
I’ll also say what is very useful is to put a script aside and write something else
and then come back to it.
The macro version of it is (and I get this all of the time) should I…do I have what
it takes to be a writer?
Am I good enough at this?
And my answer is I don’t know?
That’s not for me to say?
Should I continue to do this?
Actually my answer to this is usually no, don’t continue to do this.
Because you had to ask me if you should do it.
If you need to ask somebody as to whether or not you should be a writer then you shouldn’t
be a writer?
You should be a writer because you can’t help yourself, there is nothing else you can
do.
You just can’t stop yourself, you have to write.
Not because it’s fun, but because you have to do it.
Because you have to breath you know?
As I said we were in the midst of our admissions process here at UCLA.
The “take rate,” that is to say the number of people who are admitted to the program
who actually enter the program is very high.
It’s almost 90%…it’s almost 100%.
It’s over 90%.
That is to say anybody who is admitted to the program comes into the program for the
most part.
It’s extremely unusual that someone is admitted to the program and has doubts about whether
they want to enter the program.
And yet I met with somebody the other day who had been admitted to the program and now
told me that he was wondering if he should enter the program and he wanted to ask me
some question about that and I said to him "Look are you asking me should you enter this
program?”
And the way he put it to me “Is this is reasonable, intelligent thing for me to do?”
And I told him “No!
No!
Is it reasonable and intelligent to think that you can create characters and stories
and make up dialogue that they speak and that people will line up in bad weather to pay
over $14.00 or $16.00 for a ticket whatever it cost to go to the movies these days to
sit in the movie theater to watch this thing that you created.
I mean imagine somebody stops you in the street and says “I’ve got to tell you about this
dream that I had.
I had this dream and I’ve got to tell you about it.”
So let’s say you’re a generous and a humane person and you say “Okay, let’s hear it!”
And imagine that the person…I mean you’ve wanted to tell the experience that you’ve
wanted to tell a dream that you had to somebody and there are people who surely say “I have
to tell you about this dream I had.”
What about just before they tell you the dream they say “Before I do this, you have to
meet two conditions.
You have to be ready to sit there for two hours, I’m going to need two hours to tell
you this dream.”
I mean that would stop me right there.
But that’s not the end of it, that’s just the beginning of it.
And the other part is “I also want $15.00” or whatever a ticket costs.
I mean it’s crazy.
And I said to this person “No!
Don’t do it.”
If you are wondering about it, if you have to ask about it, then you shouldn’t do it.
I’m not about to say to somebody “Give us a chance!
Give us a chance.
Please be a writer.”
There’s nothing in it for the writer to tell them that.
And the same thing with on a narrower basis with a story whether this is something they
should write a story about.
I go to a lot of writers conferences.
I am an academic but I don’t go to a lot of scholarly conferences.
But I do go to bunches of writer conferences and I was at one recently in Northern California
and there were a lot of agents there on panels and I was chatting with them.
I was a presenter as they were and I remember them complaining to me (the agents) that writers
were coming up to them at the conference and saying “What should I write about?
What’s hot now?
What should I look for?”
Imagine asking somebody else what to write about.
I mean if the writer doesn’t care about what she’s writing about, why would the
agent care?
Why would the producer care?
Why would audiences care?
So again you really have to…you can’t look to anybody else other than yourself in
this enterprise.