Aaron Sorkin Answers Screenwriting Questions From Twitter

Kevin Powers asks, anybody have good recommendations

for a story planning app?

Not scripting, but a good tool to put story pieces together.

First of all, when they said screenwriter support,

I thought you were gonna be giving me the support.

I didn't know it was the other way around.

I've actually never heard of a story planning app.

That might be showing my age.

Hi, this is Aaron Sorkin,

and this is Screenwriter Support.

[dynamic music]

All right, Holly Jack.

People who write stuff,

how do you approach second drafts?

Blank page and start again?

Amendments to what you've already got?

Any thoughts/tips would be appreciated.

Yeah, great.

Second drafts are really important.

Friend of mine once said about me that

I don't write scripts, I rewrite scripts.

And here's what he meant.

In the process of writing the first draft,

by the time you get to the end,

you've sort of discovered what the movie is about.

Because it may not end up, that first draft,

being about what you thought it was gonna be about

when you started writing it.

You plotted a course to go due north, but as you were going,

you started going a little bit east,

and then a little bit more east.

And when you end up you're going northeast.

So you figured out what the script is about.

It's probably fat, it's probably long.

Go back to the beginning of the script,

start writing it over again,

peel away the things that don't have

anything to do with your story.

Hang a lantern on the things

that you need to bring to relief in the story.

You're gonna discover that a problem

that you have in the third act,

isn't really in the third act.

It's because you didn't set it up properly in the first.

So, second drafts, I say retype the whole thing.

Sharpen up that joke that's kind of clunky,

sharpen up that dialogue that's kind of clunky.

Get it down to its fighting weight.

That's what I do anyway.

Thanks a lot for the question.

Quentin says, what's key, focusing on creating the plot,

story worlds, character, or et cetera,

when writing a script?

Here's what's key in creating drama.

Intention and obstacle.

That's what you've gotta cling to.

Somebody wants something,

something's standing in their way of getting it.

They want the money, they want the girl,

they wanna get to Philadelphia, they wanna win the big game,

they wanna save someone's life.

Somebody wants something,

something formidable is standing in the way of getting it.

The tactics that your protagonist uses

to try to overcome that obstacle,

or those series of obstacles,

that is what's going to create your character.

'Cause you're not gonna tell us who this character is,

you're gonna show us what this character wants.

It doesn't matter if they succeed or fail in their quest.

It matters to you, it doesn't matter to storytelling.

It's just as good a story if they fail as if they succeed.

What matters is that the intention be important to them

and that we understand why it's important to them.

And the obstacles have to be real.

Intention and obstacle.

Thanks a lot Quentin.

Kaitlyn Greenridge says,

if you are writing a marginalized character

whose identity you do not share,

can you imagine your way into that character

through their joy and not their imagined trauma?

Yes, you can.

Empathy, right?

Same blood that goes through your body,

goes through that person.

We all have, as humans,

the power to empathize with each other,

to understand each other's lives,

and to put any character we want into a dramatic situation.

Because the most important thing in your story

isn't going to be someone's sexual orientation,

their skin color, their religion,

whether they are able-bodied or disabled.

The most important thing in your story

is going to be intention and obstacle.

What does this character want,

and what's standing in the way of getting it?

And I assume that because you're interested

in telling this story,

you are interested in what the character wants

and what's standing in their way of getting it.

Or you think it's a great comic premise

with which you can use your sense of humor.

Or you think it's a great premise with which to tell

a murder mystery, or a romantic comedy,

or anything like that.

But I really think it's important

that writers not start to get cautious

because they're scared of being offensive.

Stereotypes should be avoided,

whether it's, as you say,

someone from a diverse population,

or someone who looks exactly like you.

You want to avoid all kinds of stereotypes.

Not just because of racial or ethnic sensitivity,

stereotypes are just bad in writing.

I can be different in every possible way.

But if that person is a father, I'm a father.

If that person is also a father,

I feel like I know everything about them

that's important to know, that you can know as a stranger.

I can empathize with that person.

You don't wanna judge that person,

you wanna defend that person.

You wanna be able to make that person's case to God

why they should be allowed into heaven.

Do not, do not, do not feel that you are required

to write about yourself and your world.

Write about any world you want, you're making the world.

Sorry, I don't mean to be yelling at you.

I'm passionate about this.

Okay.

You, ma'am, are not confined by any guardrails.

Thank you for your question, Kaitlyn.

Okay, so Matthew Ward says,

if you could write an episode for one TV show,

which one would you choose?

I'm very curious.

I'm glad you asked, Matthew, because it's a

more complicated question than you might think.

One of my all time favorite TV shows, The Office.

I like the BBC Office too,

but I'm a super fan of the American Office,

the NBC Office.

So you would think I would wanna

write an episode of that, right?

Except I think I'd do badly.

I think I'd make The Office less good.

So it would be self-defeating.

If I could go back in time

I think I'd like to write an episode of M*A*S*H.

I was late to catch up to Schitt's Creek

and just started watching it.

I totally get all the hype.

It's fantastic.

That's another show I would love to write for those actors,

but would not do the actors,

or the show any favors by doing so.

So I would love to go back to an episode of television

I've written and write it all over again.

Thanks a lot, I appreciate the question.

Lisa DuBois, real question.

Are TV writing rooms just RP sessions?

I'm not sure what an R...

Oh, role playing sessions.

Are different writers in charge of different characters

on shows like some kind of Sex and the City D&D?

Okay, that's a great question.

I don't think that happens on any show.

But the reason I'm not sure what the answer is,

is because the way most other writers' rooms work

is that at the beginning of the season,

several months before production starts,

the writers meet every day

and they try to break a whole season arc.

Whether it's 22 on network TV, or 13 on premium cable.

That we wanna start here and end here.

So if we're gonna end here, that means by Christmas

we need to be here, so by Thanksgiving we need to be here.

Then they get more granular.

Okay, so we need to do this by episode one,

this by episode two.

And they'll simply assign, you take episode one,

episode two, episode three, episode four.

I want you to turn in story pitches in five days.

And a week after that it's gonna go to outline.

And a week after that it's gonna go to first draft.

And then the showrunner ultimately runs it through there.

The writers' rooms on the four shows that I've done,

that's Sports Night, The West Wing,

Studio 60, and The Newsroom, work entirely differently

than writer's rooms on other shows

because I'm writing different episodes.

While I'm writing an episode,

I have a leader in the room, the person running the room.

I can come in and say, what are you guys thinking about?

And they'll say, what if Josh is subpoenaed

to appear in front of a committee,

and this happens, that kind of thing.

We'll start banging out that story.

So they're just trying to break stories.

It was an ordinary day when all of a sudden.

What makes this night different from all other nights?

That's how stories and drama go.

That's how our writers' room works.

My shows were run like not a well-oiled machine.

Thanks a lot for your question.

Shah Ali Riyad.

Have you been inspired or influenced by

the quality of writing of particular TV shows and/or movies?

For me, my writing was greatly influenced by Breaking Bad,

you say, and Northern Exposure.

Two great shows to be influenced by, big fans of both.

And the answer is yes, I've been influenced by

the writing of a lot of movies and TV shows.

I'm kind of an accidental screenwriter.

I'm a playwright who fakes his way through

movies and television shows by adding sort of

just enough visual stuff so that you don't realize

what you're really watching is a play.

And so I've been influenced by all the great playwrights

whose plays I've read,

or sometimes been lucky enough to see.

I've been influenced by a lot of a TV shows.

Pretty much any good television show today,

I think a show that you would consider good,

is following in the footprints that Larry Gelbart left

when he created the TV series M*A*S*H.

He was the first one to say that

sitcoms don't have to be sitcoms.

They don't have to be silly.

Just because they're funny,

they can tell real stories, and moving stories.

So I would say that I was heavily influenced

by Larry Gelbart, to be sure.

So thanks a lot for your question.

J.D. May asks, what are your best tips

for writing villain characters?

Okay, that's a great question.

And my best tip is that you, J.D.,

cannot think of them as a villain.

You can't judge the character, you're the writer.

You can't judge the character.

You have to be able to empathize with that character.

Find something about that character that is like you too.

And then you have to write that character

like they're making their case to God

why they should be allowed into heaven.

I don't know if you've ever seen the first movie I wrote,

was based on the first play that I wrote, A Few Good Men.

And you probably know, you can't handle the truth.

That whole you can't handle the truth scene

from Nicholson in the courtroom,

that is Nicholson's character making his case to God

why he should be allowed into heaven,

even though he has committed manslaughter, okay.

Even though he's responsible for the death

of a Marine private, he's defending it,

why it was actually a good thing to do.

So, whether it's Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook,

or Nicholson in A Few Good Men, or anybody else,

the audience could think of them as a villain, but not you.

The real Gavin JT asks,

what do you need to be successful?

If there was a real answer to that

everyone would be successful, right?

Okay, so you need talent.

There are some things about writing

that can be taught and learned.

And there are some things about writing that that can't be.

And those things that can't be,

that's usually what we mean when we talk about talent.

Whether it's writing, or playing the violin,

there's stuff that can be taught,

and there's stuff that can't be.

You need practice, in that regard

it's also like playing the violin.

You need to do it a lot and keep doing it.

Be a diagnostician.

When you see a movie you don't like,

or an episode of television you don't like,

don't be like your friends who don't necessarily

wanna be writers, who are just saying,

oh god, that sucked, man.

And they're just making jokes about everything.

Go ahead and make jokes.

And it's okay to say, that sucked.

But then when everyone leaves, and you're going to sleep,

try to think about what was wrong.

Same thing when you love something, okay.

So when you're done with the experiential thing,

think about what was so good about that scene.

What was so good about that moment?

Was it the little push in that the camera did,

was it the way that the joke was set up?

Was it the fact that it wasn't scored at all,

it was completely dry?

Or was the whole scene saved by score?

I know when I'm talking about score,

it doesn't sound like writing things, but it is.

So that, little bit of luck.

Thanks a lot for the question.

These were great questions.

Thanks a lot.

And let us know what you thought.