The Internet has many interesting, strange rabbit holes. And Reddit — the user-curated social network — is just one of them.
Reddit, in case you’re not familiar, is like the Star Wars cantina — only scarier. (There weren’t many Russian spambots next to Greedo.)
But with its AMA (Ask Me Anything) feature, it can be a fantastic way to get insight from professionals. (Especially the Screenwriting sub-reddit. And especially if you’re looking for some Aaron Sorkin screenwriting tips.)
Here are a couple of the more notable highlights from this recent AMA:
Screenwriting Tips From Aaron Sorkin (Courtesy of his Reddit AMA)
On Training As an Actor
“I think saying that I started as an actor is probably overstating things. I studied acting in college, but when I graduated and came to New York, I knew I wanted to be a playwright. I think the conservatory training that I got as an actor is very helpful. I perform all the roles as I’m writing them. I speak out loud, and that helps me do my best to make sure that the dialog is speakable by an actor.”
On Character Backstory
“I don’t like to commit myself to anything in a character’s backstory until I have to. I didn’t know going into the West Wing that Bartlet had MS. Then, along came an episode where I needed to introduce the idea that the First Lady (Dr. Channing) was a medical doctor. And the way I did it was by giving Bartlet MS.
“David Mamet have written some excellent essays on this subject. You can get lost in the weeds if you sit down and try to create an entire biography for your character. If this is what they were like when they were six years old, and this is what they did when they were seven years old, and they scraped their knee when they were eight years old. Your character, assuming your character is 50 years old, was never six years old, or seven years old or eight years old. Your character was born the moment the curtain goes up, the moment the movie begins, the moment the television show begins, and your character dies as soon as it’s over. Your character only becomes seven years old when they say, “Well when I was seven years old, I fell in a well, and ever since then I’ve had terrible claustrophobia. Okay?“Characters and people aren’t the same thing. They only look alike.”
On Number of Drafts
“I write a lot of drafts of screenplays and plays. I keep writing and I keep writing; what I try to do at the beginning is just get to the end. Once I’ve gotten to the end, I know a lot more about the piece, and I’m able to go back to the beginning and touch stuff that never turned into anything, and highlight things that are going to become important later on. And I go back, and I keep doing that, and I keep doing that, and I’ll retype the whole script, over and over again, just to make things sharper and sharper. That’s for movies and plays. In television, there just isn’t that kind of time. In television, I have to write a 55-minute movie every nine days, so we shoot my first draft.”
On Rookie Mistakes
“One of the biggest mistakes rookie screenwriters make is not having a strong intention or obstacle. The drive shaft of a car, beautiful leather seats, a fantastic sound system, a really cool paint job but the car isn’t going to move forward if the car doesn’t have a strong intention or obstacle.”
On Finger Painting
“Intention and obstacle is everything. Intention and obstacle is what makes it drama. Somebody wants the money, they want the girl, they want to get to Philadelphia; it doesn’t matter, they just need a strong intention, and then there needs to be a formidable obstacle. The tactic that your protagonist (or protagonists) use to overcome that obstacle is going to be your story. That’s what you’re gonna hang everything on. Without intention and obstacle, you’re coming dangerously close to finger painting.”
Caveat Emptor
The whole Aaron Sorkin AMA is worth checking out. Though you may have to scroll through quite a bit of…ummm….noise to get to the signal.
Got a screenwriting hack you’ve picked up from one of the masters? Perhaps another set of Aaron Sorkin screenwriting tips? Let us know in the comments below!
