Everyone wants to be a showrunner,
which is again, why it's so freaking. Hard. I want to make all the decisions,
but you don't know based on what you. Don't know what you're doing.
Why would you want that? Is it an ego thing you want to tell people
you're a showrunner or don't you want to learn? Do you assume?
When I was starting off, I didn't want to be a
showrunner for 10 years. I didn't want to be a show
runner. Like, this is a hard job. I don't know how to do it. You are listening to What th
e Hell is
Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by
my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase
and to support me in this podcast, please visit michael
jamin.com/book and now on with the show. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of What
the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, we're doing another q and a from one of
our webinars and my special guest
host is Kevin Lewandowski, script
coordinator extraordinaire. He helps out with a lot of my projects, social media projects here and he's
subbing in for Phil and he's doing a great job. So welcome Kevin. Thank you again for having me. You screwed it up. You already
screwed. No, I'm only messing with you. You're doing great. Thanks. Yeah, I'm not going to apologize for
not being Phil anymore, so fair Phil. But no, I'm happy to be here and
this how professional
screenwriters overcome Writer's Blo
ck is one of my favorite
topics to talk about. Oh good. So I think it's super, super
interesting and there's been, when we dive into it, I'll say my favorite line
that you always say that just unlocked the excuse sometimes
we use for when we have writer's block. I'm curious to know what
your favorite line is. Alright, I have so many Michael Jainism that
I think my all time favorite is Shit Happening is not a story. By the way, we have that on
merch now, guys. Yeah, we do. We got merch and you ca
n go
get it@michaeljamin.com/merch
where all the crazy things that I say, you can get it on
a on mug or a notebook or whatever. We got merge. Go get it. I should
have plugged it before, but I forgot. But anyway, these questions came from our last webinar
that we did and if you're not on my webinar list, sign up for it's free. Go to michael jamin.com/webinar
and you can sign up. You can be invited when we do
our next one. And so yeah, Kevin, we had a lot of questions people asked. We didn't have
time to get all the
questions answered and so here they are n. Here we go. These first couple of questions are
going to be about kind of course related stuff. So this first
one is from David Zilo. I feel like we see his name a lot. I feel like he comes to these webinars
a lot and ask a lot of questions. The question is, how does the story structure change
when say a character does not, cannot achieve a goal in the
tragic story, for example. Doesn't change at all. It's the same
old story structur
e that we use. Whether the character achieves
their goal at the end or not, it's the same damn thing. Yep. The guys you're just asking,
he's just asking at the end, what if the last two minutes
are different, so what? Nothing. Yeah, I think it's always more interesting for
me when that character doesn't achieve their goal. I think the breakup with, but yeah,
Vince v and Jennifer Ston, they don't stay together in the end. No. It's one of the few rom-coms that
I think they decide to go off the bea
ten path and not have. Them end often. We call this the joyful defeat in a movie
or the character doesn't get what they want, but they get what they need. Yeah. Next question, Rob. Robert, when is the latest the
stakes should be made clear? The sooner the better because the story
does not start until the audience knows what's at stake. And so until then you're boring them
and you're daring them to change the channel or read another script or
do something else with their time. So the sooner the b
etter, and that's a
note you'll get from a network executive. They'll always say, can we start the
story sooner? And so wherever you have it, they'll give you that note. If it's
on page four, they'll say page two. In your experience, is there a realistic,
for instance, if they were like, oh, it's on page three, we
need it on page two, have you ever run into We just can't. We need a little bit
of room to be able to. Set. Something. Up. Absolutely. And so you'll
move it up a little bit, but someti
mes there's
only so much you can do. Yeah. But yeah, like you said, they'll
always say, oh, can we start this sooner? Yeah, we'll take a look at it. We'll
take a look at that. Coley Marie, can the goal change or appear to change? Yeah. Yes. And often it sometimes will. It's like because something happens and
what the character thought they wanted is not what they want anymore. So yeah. So how do you feel about,
because sometimes it's, is there a fear of if you start
writing it too much of a chan
ge, can it almost feel like, oh, okay, now
we're following a different story to. It usually happens kind of like an act top of act three
with the character discoveries. This thing that I wanted turns
out I don't really want any. I got what I thought I wanted
and it's not what I want. So that's usually late in the script. Yeah. So you're saying in top
of act two, if they wanted to. It wouldn't be top of. Act ride a pony at the end of act one.
Top of Act two should be like, well, I want to win thi
s prize at the Carnival. Now. Yeah, top of act two is one. Well,
this is what we teach in the course. What tab of Act two would be, so yeah. Arius Kennedy. So should we
avoid high stakes conflicts? No. The higher stakes are
good. High stakes are good. Higher the stakes are better. You
want to avoid low stakes conflicts. Yeah, low stakes conflicts
are not that interesting. Heather Marie, vital, how do we find conflicts for TV
shows with main characters without getting stale? That's kind
of the jo
b of a writer. Yeah, that's right. That's exactly,
that's the job without getting stale, it's like, and again, this
is not her concern. Concern. Your concern is to do it once and then
let's a showrunner worried about it getting stale. Right now your
job is to write one great script. Are Barry, when it comes
to an episodic show, there's the overall show conflict and
then the mini conflicts of the episodes. So I'm assuming they're talking about,
there's the A story, the B story, the C story. Or ma
ybe they're talking about
the overall arch of the show. I'm watching Show Gun right now
and I'm only on episode one, so it seems like the overarching stories, how is this one? I dunno if he called
the futile Lord going to maintain his position in the kingdom, but within each episode he has a
challenge that he has to overcome, so to make that larger prop goal happen. Meg Parker Wilson, when
you are writing a TV show, do you plot out the entire story pilot
to finale and then create all those momen
ts episode by episode in
terms of the arc and the structure? No, it's too much work. It's too
difficult. What you really, and again, this is not something that
she needs to worry about, but maybe she's just
asking me out of curiosity, we'll come up with a pilot and
we'll have that pilot broken. We know what that story is going to be
and then we have a vague idea of what season one might be.
But I'm talking vague, just enough to bullshit our way through
this because it'll change when we're breaki
ng the story. As we discover
writing and digging into the character, we'll discover something that might
be better. So what are we going to do? Not do it just because we said we were
talking out of our ass that this other thing was going to be better. Right? Yeah. I think Vince
Gilian, creator of Breaking Bad, I think he says something very
similar. Yeah, we kind of have an idea, but part of going through different story
ideas is you discover stuff along the way. Jesse Pinkman was only supposed
to be four or five episodes, and then now they realize how much
chemistry those two characters had. And could you imagine, would that show have worked if they
would've killed off Jesse Pinkman? Because they said,
well, we said our pitch, we have to kill em off after five
episodes. We have to stick with that. I'm always surprised that people don't
know that and they're worried about breaking the entire series. It's like, but breaking one episode of
television when I'm talking breaking, figuring o
ut what the story is and writing
the outline in the script is so much work. How could you possibly do all that in
advance and you have a team of writers doing all that work. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. Sometimes
you'll see people that'll talk about, yeah, I have this TV series I wrote and
I have the first eight episodes done, and I'm like, oh, that's a lot to do with. No they. Don't. One person. They really don't. They might have enough for one episode
and they broke it up into eight episodes.
They don't know any better.
That's very common. I think. I remember there's another example on
friends that one of the writers was talking about. It's probably one of the more iconic
moments of the whole series is when Ross is getting married to Emily
and Rachel shows up and he ends up, he accidentally says Rachel's
name, I Ross take the Rachel. And the writer was saying that wasn't
anything we would've ever thought of. It was one day we were
rehearsing or something like that. And he accidental
ly said the
wrong name. And as writers, we all laughed and we thought
that's super funny. He was like, we had the aha moment of like,
oh, we need to include this. And that little moment had so much of
a change for the rest of the series. Now it turned into, well,
Emily will make them now. Okay. It's clear that Ross is still
in love with Rachel and Emily. She's only going to come to New York
if Ross stops talking to Rachel. So it was just that little
moment of discovery and what would that scene
or storyline
have been if Ross married Emily. And they discovered that by accident and
rehearsal and what are you going to do not do with this and that, that moment everyone gasped in the
audience and people at home gasped. So what you not going to do it? Yeah, and I don't think in
their pitch they're like, okay, season five we're going to
have Ross marry this British girl, but when he is actually up there, we're
going to have him say Rachel's thing. It was just discovery. You don't think that f
ar in advanced.
You can't. It's too much work. Let's see. So this next
question from Sarah, there's a bit of terminology
from your course, so I'm going to not use that terminology, but does the end of act
two have to be in direct relation to the conflict with
the introduced in the first act? Can it be attributed to a
different relationship conflict? No, no, no. Pretty much no. If you're telling one story that's your
A story or your act two break to be on the A story. If it's coming out of
nowher
e and it's like, what's this? It's not going to feel earned. It's
going to be like, what's going on? Rob, Robert again, how do we make funny? Because it can be so subjective. Yeah. One thing I say is in my course, I can't teach you how to be funny. I can maybe teach you how
to be a little funnier. I could give you tips that will
help you be a little funnier, but if you're not funny, I can't
help you be funny. It's okay. You can write drama. There's plenty of work for drama writers
and just write
what you're really good at. But it is a little heartbreaking.
I see sometimes when people, I want to be accommodator,
but you're not funny, so you don't have that in you. That's
okay. Write some other stuff. Drama's great too. Yeah. One of my other
favorite things you say, and this wasn't the one I
was talking about earlier, is you have to find new ways to
say old things in a funny way. Yeah. Every version of a joke
has been told to a degree. So how do you make it relevant to today
and your sto
ry and your characters and make it so it hasn't been
heard that way before. You know what though? I
just got an email from, I don't know how I'm
on this list, whatever. I got an email from a writer and she's
doing a public appearance and she said, come see me the headline, come see me.
I don't bite. And I'm like, oh God, you're supposed to be a writer.
Don't tell me you don't bite. That's so unoriginal. That's so clammy. That's not something a writer should
ever say. Find a new way to say, I don
't bite. I was so
unimpressed. I was like, oh God, you just embarrass yourself.
Don't do that. You're a writer. You have to find a new
way to say old things. Yeah. Okay, so these are kind
of more craft related questions, Nathan Shapiro, what are the rookie mistakes you see new
writers making both in writing as well as from the business side. What is something you wish you had
known when you were starting out? And then part two, which I think
this is actually part three, do all supporting lead ch
aracters
need an obstacle and goal? Or is it sufficient that they're simply
there to facilitate the main hero's journey? This guy's got. Questions. We'll split this up. So the first part was what are the rookie
mistakes you see new writers making both in writing as well
as from the business side. I mean, a rookie mistake in the writer's
room is what we call when they bitch instead of pitch. The expression
is pitch, don't bitch. So it's very easy for a new writer to
shoot down an idea in the room
without having a better one because it's
hard to come up with a better one. So that's a rookie thing. I don't
care if the idea on the table is bad, if you don't have a better one, shut
up because it's what are you there for? You're not a critic. Your job is to
make it better, not to say this is bad. And. Also don't defend your joke if the
showrunner doesn't think it's good. If you put something, they're like, ah,
I don't really know. Okay, that's it. Don't. Fight for it. Don't just let
it go. T
hink of a better one. What was the other question? So the next one is, what is something you wish you had
known when you were starting up? Well, to be honest, everything
that I teach in the course, I didn't know any of it. Yeah, I think it's just,
yeah, I mean, again, Michael's course has unlocked a lot
for me and someone that's not a very intelligent person, he
really simplifies it. Yeah, make it easy. It's easy to understand. I don't understand the terminology of
progressive complications and
sight incidents, all that stuff. I. Don't understand it either. Any sense to me? I won't tell you what the
terms are that Michael uses. You'll have to take this course,
but they're much easier to. Understand. Yeah, I think writing
should be simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. And then the last part of this question, do all supporting lead characters
need an obstacle and goal, or is it sufficient that they're simply
there to facilitate the main hero's journey? Well, often they are an obstacle
in the main hero's journey. Sometimes if you don't
give 'em too much to play, they can be the Greek chorus, but generally every character in a scene
has to have an attitude on something, and if they don't wire in the
scene, if they don't have, they're not just there
to stand around. Yeah. So do you also think when in the context
of the story structure that you teach in your class, those B stories that aren't necessarily
as emotionally empowering as what the A story is, do you think it should st
ill follow all
those structure points or just enough or doesn't really matter? No, a b story doesn't carry the same
emotional weight as the A story. So it doesn't actually have to carry, it doesn't have to be structured
the way an A story is, but stuff does have to happen
and it can't be random. It has to be on that story
that we're following. Okay. Next question. If
it's an ensemble cast, like Orange is a new
black or stranger things, does each character have to have
a stake or only a main char
acter? So very similar to this. Question. Yeah, usually
you're following. I mean, I haven't watched Stranger
Things in a long time. Maybe they have two or three running
storylines in each episode. I don't know. They probably do. Who is the hero in horror
movies like Friday the 13th? Is it Jason or the person
who survives at the end? Well, you're not rooting for Jason. You're not rooting for him to
murder everybody. And again, I haven't seen those Friday the 13th
movies, but you're rooting for th
e person in the summer camp. Michael. Is there such
thing as an anti-hero? Yeah, of course there is,
and I talk about that, but the problem is I think
it's unnecessarily complicated.
What's interesting, an anti-hero and a hero. Why don't you just call it a hero
and make it easier on yourself? Oh, because your anti-hero is a little bit unlikeable or a
little bit dirty or villainous. Well, that's okay. There's still a hero. I think there was an example you used
of if you're writing something about
the devil, him being what we
all think the devil is, that's not interesting. You make him where he has compassion
with some things and you give him layers like Sopranos. You talk
about the example as well, and I think it's those villains are, they're the hero in their own
story. We may not agree with it. They're the hero in their
own story though. Yeah. I think Tony Swan, I don't think he's
an anti-hero. I think he's a hero. Okay, next question. Do you have to
know the end when you start the st
ory? Can it change? And often it does. You'll get
often it does. Often it does, but usually when we're breaking a story
on the board in the writer's room, no one sent off to outline or script
until we know what the ending is. But it's not uncommon to get a draft
back and you go, you know what? This ending isn't working. Let's
figure out a new Act three. And in your experience, do you think for something like
the ending doesn't feel right, do you think that was potentially
because it wasn't broke
n in the best way? Or do you think the writer didn't maybe
necessarily deliver the dialogue the right way? Well, often problems in act three
requires solutions in Act one. So in other words, it wasn't set up right. The ending wasn't set up early, and so it's unusual to say, okay,
all we have to do is fix Act three. No, you got to fix all of it. And that's when you have the really
late nights and you do dinner in the writer's room, which everyone hates
when that PA comes around is All right. What
does everyone want for dinner? Yep. You are listening to What the Hell
is Michael Jamin talking about? Today's episode is brought to you
by my new book, A Paper Orchestra, A collection of True Stories.
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the podcast, come check out my book, go get an ebook or a paperback, or
if you really want to treat yourself, check out the audio book. Go
to michael jamin.com/book, and now back to our show. From Rachel. It helps to do
homework before even writing.
Yes. If you're new to fantasy, read
some fantasy scripts or books first. Sure, a lot as much as you can, but I'd also ask you why you
want to write fantasy then, if you've never read any or what's attracting to you, to you if
you don't even know anything about it. Next question. What's with the job
titles that writers end up with? What do the different kinds
of jobs actually cover? So there's different levels to writers. They're just ranks and in terms of how
much it's big pay grades basically.
So the lowest level writer is called
a staff writer. Even though everyone, it's confusing because every
writer on staff is a staff writer, but the lowest level writer
has the title of staff writer. Then the next higher up
is called story editor, then executive story editor,
then co-producer, producer, supervising producer, co-executive
producer, executive producer, the executive producer's the showrunner, and so they're the boss and everyone else. They're just different levels
that determines ho
w much
you're going to get paid. Often it determines how much
responsibility you have. If the showrunner leaves the room, often it's the co-executive producer
who will run the room in their proxy or they'll do the set,
they'll work on the set, they'll do whatever that's
based on their experience. But in terms of job
responsibilities, other than that, it's really up to the S to
determine how much they want. Maybe they'll say if someone's a producer, they may let them go to the
set on their own. I
mean, it just depends on the showrunner,
what they want them to do. Yeah. One of the shows I worked on, I think we talked about this in
the last podcast, Steve Rudnick, who wrote Space Jam
and Santa Claus movies. He was a supervising
producer on The Muppets, and he spent a lot of time on
set and he really liked it. It's just fascinating to watch
how those puppeteers can. Do. Their stuff. Next question from Steven. Can stream of consciousness
work for screenwriting? Sounds terrible to me. I'm no
t a
fan of stream of consciousness. I'm not really interested
in reading your thoughts. If you're going to take me someplace,
take me by the hand and lead me there. To be honest, just going
to say it right now, I feel stream of
consciousness is masturbatory. I feel like it's for yourself
and no one else, but I could be. Someone else may enjoy it. So when you say hold my hand,
because I think there's also this, people sometimes assume, well, well,
I don't want to put that on the page. It's just g
oing to take a
page. The audience will get, the audience will understand
what I'm going for, and I think is there that fine
line of figuring out, okay, what do I need to hold the hand of
the audience through versus what do I think they're going
to be able to pick up? Yeah. I like to write. When I'm writing,
I like to check in with the audience, let 'em know. Yeah. When
I say hold their hand, let them know. Remind them what's
at stake here. This character wants, I'd like to just check. So
it's no
t a mystery. Now, often that's the difference between
sometimes you'll see a really smart writing, they won't kind of do that. They
expect a little more of the audience. It just depends on what
kind of show you're doing. If you're doing a broad silly show, you
check in with the audience knowing that that's not what they're there for.
They're there for something silly and fun. You got to keep checking in with them. But I just saw a zone of interest, which is really smart, and they
didn't check in
with the audience, and that might win. The
Oscars a wonderful movie also. That's not a movie for the masses. I don't think it's going to be
a movie that's a blockbuster. It was a great movie though. What are the stakes of
2001 a Space Odyssey? God, I haven't seen it in forever. What were the stakes was the
guy I am trying to remember. They went on a spaceship.
They had a mission, but then the computer was sabotaging
the mission and there was going to basically, I think the
computer was going to
kill them, basically take 'em on a mission that
would kill them. Is that that I remember. So the stakes were life or death. Those are pretty mistakes. And how do we defeat the computer?
Who's the boss of the whole thing? How do we fool the computer? I
believe that's what it was, right? It was a long time ago. Yeah, it's been a while since I've
seen that, and I guess if they don't, they die. I think so, yeah. Next question. How would you recommend
doing a man versus a system conflict, like perha
ps is seen in Cool Hand Luke? Well, I mean, yeah, that was the whole thing. He wanted to
get out of prison. They were trying to, and again, I haven't seen that in
10, 12 years. I don't remember. He was in prison and the system was
trying to break him down. Right? That's like anything you escape
from Alcatraz to the same thing. How do we get out of this prison? So yeah, but I'm trying to remember in Cool Luke, there was probably a face to the
system. It wasn't like a system. I'm guessing it there
was
a warden or something, or there were other inmates
who was the face of the system trying to remember. They
called me off guard. Yeah. So I was thinking about when you
said I was Shawshank Redemption, and I think it's, yeah,
there's the system, but then kind of the warden represents
the system. In that context. There was the warden and then
the warden's proxy, the guard, and there were definitely,
it wasn't so much the system. They were faces of the system. Yeah. Okay. Can the conflict
be hi
dden from the hero? The hero thinks they want control money, but they really don't want to be alone
because they were abandoned as a kid. Well, I mean, all of that is fine, but your hero is not going to want a hero. Wanting money is not a
reputable goal. Who cares? So what your hero wants it sounds like, is companionship. If they're
abandoned or or whatever. That's what they're really
wanting. So yeah, I mean, all of that is fine, but I'm not sure
why it's not hidden for the, yeah. I think think
ing about breaking bad, I
think a lot of people would think, well, Walter White wanted money. No, that's. Not what he wanted. Walter White
wanted to provide for his family. He was going to be dead soon, so
it wasn't the money he wanted. What he wanted was very reputable. He wants to give his family something
so they could live when he's dead to, because he can't provide for them. So
it wasn't like he wanted a new Ferrari. And I think that slightly eventually
morphed into he just wants to maintai
n being powerful. Well, then it turned into something
else. Then he went down this path of it was about power and
control, and he went down that, but that was only seasons into it. AI and equalizer for skill and
creativity in this competitive era of artists? I don't think so. I think ai, I guess it's a cheat code
if you want to be a writer, if you wanted to be a race car driver,
you'd learn how to race, car drive, and you'd go to courses and classes and
you'd be really good at shifting and all t
hat stuff and understand the apex
of a curve and how to attack a curve. Or I suppose you could get behind the
wheel of a Tesla and put it on autopilot and you could just fall asleep. But why do you want to be a race car
driver then if that's what you aspire to do? Do you just want to be a
dummy in the wheel of the car? I think one of the other
things you always say too is AI may never be able to
write true human emotion and never be able to really write what my
personal stories have been my life
. And I think until it can do
that, I think we're fine. Yeah, we'll see. They're
doing some, I guess, crazy amazing things, and I don't
know. We'll see. But I'm not sure. I don't know why you or any other
aspiring writer would want that. I would think you would
want to root against that. Oh yeah. I think, don't you want to write stories? Don't you want to be the author
of the stories, don't you? Isn't that why you want to be a writer, to take what's inside of you and express
it in a way that ent
ertains people? Or do you want to be just the person who
plugs the computer in the morning and say You're a writer? And I think about the writer
strike we all went through, and that was a huge topic of conversation, and writers took a sacrifice to stop this from happening to help protect writers
that are going to be coming up. And I think it's probably going to
be an ongoing battle for a while. Yeah, the world's changing fast. Yeah. Scary. Yeah. Too fast. Yeah, too fast. Is it possible to have t
wo
showrunners attached to one project, the creator of the show, and
one more experienced showrunner? No. I mean, they're not
going to be equal. I mean, I suppose anything's possible,
but it's very unlikely. I've been on shows where someone, a younger writer created it and
then they assigned a showrunner. And the showrunner on that one show, the showrunner was very gracious, and he included this young writer
and a lot of the decisions, and it wasn't like he made
it a partnership as best as he co
uld, but at the end of
the day, he was still the boss. Someone has to be the boss, but he was very gracious about how he
treated this young writer and he really wanted to mentor him. But
again, when you're a mentor, that means more than the other person. And you and Seaver have
run shows together, right? Yeah. But we're a partnership,
so that's a little different. But this person is talking about
one person created another one. Everyone wants to be a showrunner, which
is again, why it's so freak
ing hard. I want to make all the decisions, but you don't know based on what
you don't know what you're doing. Why would you want that? Is it an ego thing you want to tell people
you're a showrunner or don't you want to learn? Do you assume?
When I was starting off, I didn't want to be a showrunner for 10
years. I didn't want to be a showrunner. This is a hard job. I
don't know how to do it. And then you get to the point
in your career where it's like, it's either that or unemployment.
So I'm li
ke, all right, sign me up for showrunner. What, even with that,
the rooms I've been in, you just see how many meetings that the
showrunners have to be in that aren't necessarily directly related to the
writing and the story. It's costume stuff, it's hair and makeup
stuff. It's set pieces. It's all these different things that they
have the final, final approval on and. And that's the easy part, all that stuff. Breaking in. Any advice for being hired in a writer's
room without coming up with an or
iginal show idea? Or do you have to bring
an original idea to an interview? No, you don't have to. You can
write a script on an existing show. You can write a great Game
of Thrones spec script, and as long as the showrunner wants
to read it and thinks it's great, you're hired. Yeah. Do you think in today's
world, from what I've heard, spec scripts sort of aren't
really a thing anymore. Do you think a lot of that has to do with
just because there's so much out there that if I'm like, here, Michae
l, here's a specs on whatever show, there's a real chance that
I've never heard of the show. Yes, that's exactly, and that's why,
that's why I think it's unfair. I mean, life is unfair, but that's why I think it's harder today
than it was back when I was breaking in. Because you could write a spec
sip on an existing show on er, and everyone knew what ER was. Yeah. It's interesting too, because then
I've heard you say this too before, if you're running whatever show and
it's in season two or seas
on three, and you're interviewing me and
you read my original pilot, you're more like, well, this
is great, but I want to know, can you write my show?
That's what I want you for. Your original pilot is cool, has nothing
to do with my show. I want to know. Can you write my show? Do you have
the character's personalities down? And it's harder to create an original
show, a pilot. It's much harder, I feel, than creating a spec script of an
existing show. That's the days we live in. What are we going
to do? Yeah, I think that might've been all
of our questions for right now, but I did want to say, so the one thing I always take away
when we talk about this is when writers overcome writer's block, something you always say is Writer's block
isn't really a thing for professional writers. You don't get to say, I'm going to go to the beach for
three days and clear my head. And if you're really struggling
with the writer's block, chances are you don't necessarily
have the structure down to a poin
t. And that'll help unlock a
lot of problems for you. And that's what Michael scor teaches
is those structure points and what you need to know. And I think there's little instances
of writer's block where if I'm just kind of like I'm a little frustrated,
go for a walk for 15, 20 minutes, and I live by a mall here in Glendale,
and it wasn't too long ago, I remember I was walking and I was just
thinking about something. I saw these two people, and it looked like it
was a boyfriend and a girlfriend
, and she had her Starbucks, and
she was taking a picture of it, and someone bumped into her
and she dropped it everywhere. And I just happened to see
this interaction. And the guy, his reaction was kind of like, well, and I thought that was so
fascinating because I was like, okay, what's the relationship
between these two people? Because this is definitely not a first
date. Because if it was a first date, he'd be like, oh my gosh, let me go get
you a new one. And so then I was like, okay, so ha
ve they been dating
for a while? Okay, then it's like, okay, well, if that was his reaction,
has this happened so many times? He's just sick of her shit, always
posting it to Instagram. He's like, I told you this was going to happen.
And then I start kind of building this story in my head of what if this
is her moment where she's like, I'm going to break up with
you. This is bullshit. You're laughing at something
bad. That happened to me. And I remember coming back
to my apartment that day, and
I felt like more
just relaxed and calm. I saw this live event unfold that I
don't think anyone else was watching, but I just happened to see this unfold. And I don't think that was anything
I could have really written. I think I would've wrote like,
oh, she drops it. He picks it up. He wants to impress her because
he wants to get laid later. But his reaction was like, yeah, I told
him this shit happens all the time. Stop taking pictures. Just
drink the damn coffee. Yeah, it's good. You're observ
ing.
That's what you should be doing. It's good. When I worked at a theme park, Get a lot of material there from people,
a lot of different personalities, I used to jot down a lot of stuff I
used to see and just how people would interact. And it's nice to, when you kind of feel those moments
of writing and you're kind of stuck, go back to those notes you took
in that can help unlock something. I know you always show on your webinars, you have your black notebook that you've
been carrying around
your entire career and things people have
taught you along the way, and you write 'em down in there. And
that's just, that's gold right there. Yeah. Write it down. Keep a list
of your, like what you're saying. Those specific things
are just interesting. And because you always say
too, when you're driving, you don't really listen
to the radio or anything. You just kind of talk with notes on
your phone just to get it out there and start thinking about it. And. Yeah, if I'm working on a story,
I wo
n't listen to the radio. I'll just obsess over this one moment
I'm trying to fix in the story. And if I get it, great. Now, that was my writing for that morning
was fixing that one problem. Yeah. Well, I think that is all we
have question wise, Michael. We. Did. It. We did it. We did it. Thank you everyone.
What else do we got to talk about? If you want to come to our
free screenwriting webinars, you could sign up at michael
jamin.com/webinar if you'd like to. I got a newsletter. Get on that Mic
hael
jamin.com/newsletter. And of course, we're unplugging my book, which I
worked on for four and a half years. It's called the Paper Orchestra,
and it asks the question, what if it's the smallest, almost forgotten moments that
are the ones that shape us most? And someone asked me on the live, if I could explain it a little better
what it is. And I think what the book, one way to explain it is imagine they're
very personal and intimate stories, and I'm sharing them as if,
imagine me reading my
diary, but performing it out loud knowing
that you are going to be watching it. And so I'm going to say it in a way
that's going to be entertain you, but it's still my diary. But it's
structured in a way, so it's like, I know I have an audience here.
And so that's kind of what it is. They're stories, they're true stories, but hopefully they're told in a way
that is engaging and makes you laugh and hopefully makes you feel
something. It's more importantly. Yeah. Yeah. So go to michael jamin.com,
check out his book. There's a bunch of, just go to his website, michael
jamin.com, click around. There's webinars, there's the podcast. Get uploaded there. There's a couple of free lessons you
can download, scripts he's written. There's so much there. And like he said, that you can get his book there and you
can get a signed copy from him on his website. And it's Amazon. It was
when you originally launched it, it was number one in five
different categories on Amazon, so it was pretty wild. So
ye
ah, check out the book, join the class, join our webinars,
follow Michael on social media. He's still giving out free tips and
trying to help people. And yeah, that's all I got. Excellent. Alright. Thank you Kevin.
Great job. And if they want to follow you, Kevin, where do they
follow you on social media? Yeah, so it's Kevin Lewandowski.
It's a long last name, I'm sure after you just type the
first five letters, it'll pop up. Excellent. Alright everyone,
until next week, keep writing. Wow. I did
it again. Another fantastic episode of What the
Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? How do I do it week after week? Well, I don't do it with advertiser supported
money. I tell you how I do it. I do it with my book. If you'd
like to support the show, if you'd like to support me, go check
out my new book, A Paper Orchestra. It asked the question,
what if it's the smallest, almost forgotten moments that
are the ones that shape us most? Laura Sanoma says, good storytelling
also leads us to ourselv
es, our memories, our beliefs, personal and
powerful. I loved the Journey, and Max Munic, who was on my show
says, as the father of daughters, I found Michael's understanding
of parenting and the
human condition to be spot on. This book is a fantastic read.
Go check it out for yourself. Go to michael jamin.com/book.
Thank you all and stay tuned. More. Great stuff coming next week.
Comments
I love Kevin's story of observing a couple in the mall and the analysis of the boyfriend's response when his girlfriend dropped her coffee was brilliant. I think the boyfriend is done with her too. You know this could be a really good exercise to bring to a webinar, where you or Michael present an observation like the couple in the mall and we all post what we think is going on between them. What do you think?