Film Courage: How does a writer incorporate theme into stories?
Jeffrey Alan Schechter, Author/Screenwriter/Founder of Writers Room Pro:
Carefully, judiciously, possibly even subliminally. To me it's all these things.
It's kind of like the pre-flight checklist that pilots go through and I think you keep referring
back to it. All the principles, everything we've talked about over the last hour or so,
it's just stuff to keep in mind as you're writing so that if you get stuck when you're writing and
inevitably you will you could look at this list and go oh yeah my villains were not emphatic
enough about their viewpoint about technology or my hero was was too clear that faith is
stronger so it's like you could you can look at a scene and pondered in terms of oh I'm on page
55 and my central questions are not clear yet well clearly I've overshot so let me go back
so everything is kind of a test so for me for a writer to incorporate the theme it's like you’ve
got to live with these concepts kind of as a holistic piece right as a whole and until that
you kind of they get inside your your soul and your it's like muscle memory right that you you
have to just story muscle memory so to incorporate theme really just should be as simple as you write
a scene with a character and you don't have to chart it out ahead of time and say what's what's
my thematic arc in this particular scene is it being true whatever the theme is like Sleepless in
Seattle I know we talked a little bit about that before it's like Sleepless in Seattle the question
it's the Thematic question is can love can can the the magic of love happen more than once
right that's that's it that's the entire thematic question right and Tom Hanks kind of Wonders it's
like yeah I don't think it can happen I'm pretty sure it can't happen more than once so he's kind
of willing to sell out yeah right so it's funny I think a way to really understand the story about
it is it's you Tom Hanks is some weird kind of antagonist in this because he's kind of convinced
it can't happen once right so I guess he's kind of pondering it at a certain point but he's sort of
convinced it can't happen once his son thinks it can happen and it's really kind of at some
level the main character might be Meg Ryan who's wondering well if I can meet this guy could could
this magic of love happen again so there is a way to look at that story that Meg Ryan is really the
main character and Tom Hanks is the end antagonist because he's the one who's really getting in the
way of love happening another time right so the this idea that you just look at and say am I being
true thematically to what these characters believe and are willing to either question or fight about
that's that's the way to incorporate it that's just the way to to use it so you don't want to
bludgeon anybody over the head and you can you can park it I mean I can't tell you how
many screenplays I wrote before I had anything resembling an understanding of theme and there's
no like another's going to sound a little strange maybe to put it this way but I like everybody has
a an innate storyteller sense and some people it's more intuitive and some people it's less intuitive
so the reason why we have people like me talking about how we approach it is to such is if you're
an intuitive Storyteller you don't need me you don't need anybody you don't need Blake Snyder
you don't need you don't need McKee it might be interesting to read that stuff but you don't need
any of that stuff because you just naturally get it for those the vast majority of people who maybe
haven't exercised that muscle and don't and aren't natural storytellers you can use logic to get to
that place of intuitive storytelling right it was like for example if there's well like they're
let's say there's a flood right they've just had some flooding like in the midwest right so there's
some flooding and somebody goes okay there's a flood that means people are have lost their homes
that means they don't have clothes to wear or food to eat that means they're displaced I have to help
right so they've logiced their way to a place of I have to help there are other people like
oh there's a flood I have to help like they just intuitively know what's needed it's the same with
storytelling right some people are just intuitive story time that's why there's some people who like
they'll they'll go they'll look at not just mine but anybody's kind of theories on story structure
and go I disagree with that I write stories I never read one of these so yeah because you're
a natural story you me for I know your Mozart when it comes to storytelling right sort of you've got
that natural ability for the rest of us who are salieri and who aren't Mozart we need tools and
techniques to catch up to where you are naturally right so I think it's perfectly fine to put theme
aside Write Your Story as intuitively as you can and then just keep going back to it go back to all
of it it's my professional personal and private central question is that clear enough right in
this scene and this is an extraneous scene do I have a loop going to buy a dog in the pet shop do
I even need that scene is it sad are my archetypes falling out properly in the story oh I have my
main character being a a warrior in the first scene well that could be fine but maybe you've cut
the legs out from under him when he really or her when when they really need to become a warrior
later on you've kind of diminished the power of this because you put it here right like you steer
away from right so you can use all this stuff as a sort of like litmus tests as you're working on
your story to try to figure out okay why the hell isn't this working because it's very hard
when you're in the middle of a story it's really hard to know what's working what's not working why
is it not working is even more important I know it's not working but I can't tell you why so it's
really hard so all these things theme included are just things you can turn to and say oh well maybe
it's the theme so you look at it from or my heroes asking questions are my villains making arguments
oh they are okay good it's not working but it's still not working but I know it's not because
the theme is wrong so maybe it's the archetypes so then you say okay is I'm in act one is my hero of
figurative or literal orphan no not really oh okay maybe that's the problem you're not setting up the
main character right so that's a long-winded way to yeah you asked me about theme and I brought in
everything else but it's but it that everything's all connected no it's all nothing lives in a good
story nothing lives outside of itself if you can pull something out of a story doesn't belong there
or if you can pull something out of a story theory or story structure theory then it doesn't belong
and lastly what if someone thinks oh I'm an intuitive writer good what but what if they're
really it's hard for people to see themselves we all think for one thing and the W\world shows us
that we're not so how do we know though I mean what would what would be the signs you
make money or you you start you start showing your script around to people and it's like my
experience is that is that whatever the we all know the stories of of the writers who they're
working as a waiter one day and then they've been writing the screenplay and then they it's
some producer comes in and they the waiter was so well it was so compelling that she asks the
producer oh we've got would you mind taking away and they read the script and this kind of it's
anecdotal but it sort of happened to Diane Thomas who wrote Romancing the Stone who well actually
I had the the distinct pleasure of getting to know her she passed away very young in a traffic
accident I was upselling computers at a computer store and she came in this is in the mid 80s and
she came into the store to like get a first computer and not as the resident's screenwriting
guy in the computer store back in the days when there everything was on floppy disks still so I
had a chance to work with her to help get her computer set up and teach her kind of how to
how to use the technology and we became friendly I would say friends but certainly friendly as a
result it was very sad when she passed away but I think famously she she was a waitress and was
working somewhere and had written Romancing the Stone and somebody knew Michael Douglas and gave
it to him and he read it and he loved it and he bought it and so you might think that that's like
that you went from here to here you know instantly and people hear those stories and go oh that's
going to happen to me that's really it's not it's the vast majority of people that I know who've had
lasting careers in the business it's like whatever the smallest possible incremental step forward
that could happen is what's going to happen it's like I came to Los Angeles when I was 24 and I
had two scripts written one was better than the other and so first I couldn't get an agent then
I got an agent but the agent was not a good Agent then I got a better agent and I still
can sell any of the screen I'm still writing scripts and I've got like four or five scripts
and I still can't sell a script then I can get a script optioned great but it's an option for like
ten dollars it's like it it's like that's whatever the smallest steps are so if somebody thinks that
they're an intuitive writer you certainly might be TR it might be true but at a certain point
you still have to you still have to earn a living you still have to make some money so
so that's to me the ultimate test is if you're feeding your family then well done yeah it's yeah
it's really the same in any arts like how many how many artists have we heard who great artists Van
Gogh died penniless right intuitive artist died nobody wants to wait that long to wait till you're
posthumously recognized as an intuitive writer right so you might be find out write something
if it comes easily to you and you don't get stuck on page 55 you might be an intuitive
writer or if you get stuck on page 55 you might be an intuitive writer who got stuck on page 55 right
so I know that there's an easy answer but but ultimately I'm a market capitalist so the market
announces to you one day that you are an intuitive writer then you've done it and
the market might announce to you that you're a logical writer that you've used logic to
replace intuition even better because now you thought you now you can you thought your
way into it that means you can think your way out of whatever problems you run into.