"So it’s really really important… the idea, a clean idea... I want to write things that get bought and get made." Exactly. I keep on my white board this thought, "Write what a producer/director/actor can say 'yes' to." What a great series, thank you for taking the time and congrats to all--even more success in the future.

Big thanks to Scott for putting this all together. We all had such a great time shooting the shit and talking business. I usually lurk here in the comments, but if anyone has any follow up questions they want to leave here, I'll do my best to try and answer them.

This round table is ahmaaaazin! Good advice to focus the striving screenwriter -- I'm looking forward to the rest of it!

[...] First, in screenwriting news, if you haven’t read Scott Myer’s round table with Hollywood’s newest screenwriting darlings, go there now. [...]

What a great piece. My only criticism is that it would be helpful to know each of the writers from the very beginning, that way the reader gets a better idea who everyone is from the start. Nevertheless, fantastic start to a very exciting series.

Thanks Scott, and Scott (F) for offering to answer follow up questions :-) I'm curious to know if, right before you sold your first spec script, you felt like you were a cut above your peers, or if you felt on par with them and truly just landed the right reader on the right day. For example, were your scripts standing out in workshops or critique groups? Or were your fellow students or wanna-be writer friends writing as good or interesting material? I guess I'm asking about genius vs serendipity :-) The exact ratio would be preferred if you happen to have the formula!

Great Q&A and I'm looking forward to the rest. Question for Scott F. When you wrote that breakout spec, how did you come up with or what inspired the concept?

I suppose a follow up is, how did know it was a winner?

Scott, firstly awesome interview, thankyou. Secondly, thankyou for the interview with Carson at Scriptshadow, also awesome. Question: What was is like being on the set of your own movie for the first time with 'The Numbers Station'? Did you have a sit down with the stars about character etc? And finally, probably not the sort of question you were looking for but... will you read my script?! (Worth a try..!)

Nevermind, I reread the interview already on this site.

@American Jetsetters I don't think I've ever thought I was a cut above. I didn't do any workshops or critiques, and never entered any contests, so I was always just off in my own head, writing, writing, writing. For me it wasn't a comparison against other writers that told me it was time, but rather I had two scripts I personally thought were decent, and I was running out of time to get a screenwriting career off the ground before my savings was all dried up. (At the time, I had quit my job and was living off a charitable grant from my fiancé.) As far as serendipity vs. talent, I feel you have to both, but the ratio is different for every person. There are so many factors in building a career, you never know what you'll need on any given day. That being said, I am a firm believer that the cream does rise in this business, and having that lucky break will only go so far. If you suddenly find yourself with an "in" because of your cousin's roommate, if you don't have a good script to back it up, you're dead in the water. Very, very few movies get bought and made because the producer / director / actor is related to or owes a favor to the screenwriter. That's bad business to be in, and no professional with a career is ever going jeopardize their future for a favor. I'm also a firm believer in "You make your own luck..." Is it possible to start and build a writing career from places other than Los Angeles? Of course, but it's that much harder. Is it possible to sell a script without knowing anyone in town? Of course, but it's that much harder. Is it possible to sell a script that's not very good? Of course, but it's that much harder. We can control the product 100%, but we can also control the serendipity to an extent.

@Chris Westfield Sorry I missed your question, but I hope Past Me was able to a answer it adequately.

@Ned Kilgannon Unfortunately I wasn't able to be on the set for Numbers Station, as it was filmed over the holidays and I elected to stay with family.

Whoa! What a great interview, Scott. Excited for more awesome stories! Thanks :)

Fair enough, looks like you've got plenty more coming up! Thanks Scott, all the best.

Thanks Scott as always for a great website. And thanks Scott F. for answering questions. 1. Any suggestions on how to brainstorm to squeeze the most out of the key concept? 2. Suggestions for developing the best character for the story (type of character, personality, job, etc) In some cases that may be easy but for other ideas there not be a clear character that stands out from potential characters. The standard answer is the character that has the most to win/lose or characters that have the most conflict but that may not be obvious at the start or may still be a fairly large net. 3. Similarly is the problem of determining the cast of characters. (should there be a best, friend, girlfriend, etc) Thanks.

@ Scott Squires: 1) For me, squeezing the most juice from a concept comes down to creating problems and conflicts that must be overcome. JURASSIC PARK has an unbeatable concept: dinosaurs have been reborn and put inside an amusement park. Hot damn, I would kill to come up with a concept like that. But what makes it extra special is it's not just dinosaurs; it's also a test weekend for the theme park; it's also that the park is short staffed; it's also that there's a guy trying to sabotage the park; it's also that the electricity goes out; it's also that dinosaurs get on the loose; it's also that there's no escape. If you have a great high concept, that's half the work. Come up with problems that need to be overcome and pack them in as tight as possible. I like to brainstorm "problems" on a whiteboard and come up with dozens and dozens of them. Then find the five to ten that are the coolest, that work the best, and use those to build out the plot. 2) I think the cold, hard truth of it is, if you don't have a standout protagonist from the very beginning, the concept may be flawed. Stories are about people, and the people should be as intrinsic to the movie as the concept. JP is not as interesting a movie to me without Grant. They could have just as easily made the main character the kids, but the paleontologist is a smart connective tissue. Again, I think finding the right character is a matter of brainstorming complications. LIAR, LIAR had a great concept, and could have worked if the main character was a school teacher, but man, a lawyer who can't tell a lie is infinitely more rewarding on a scene by scene basis. So I think it comes down: who's life would be made the *worst* by my plot concept. That's probably pretty close to who your main character is... 3) I think this correlates pretty close to #2... Who are the people who will be *most* effected by your plot, by your protagonist's struggles, by your villain's ruthless pursuit of his goals? That's your cast. I personally like to use side characters as a way of expressing theme in my first draft, but a lot of times it makes me feel constrained, and I usually end up dumping after the first draft.

As an adjunct to that, Traci, it's interesting to see how focused they were on writing movies, not just scripts, not satisfied with deals, but getting movies made. And that impacts their thinking about the stories they choose to writer, either of original conception or from a producer and/or studio. And that's a great test to put to any idea we generate: Is this a movie? Is it big enough to be a movie? Does it feel like a movie? John Swetnam did a live-chat with my college class months ago -- they were thrilled to talk with him -- and he made this very same point: Being honest and trying to imagine if this idea or script could translate into something the writer could see on screen, opening in 3,000 theaters nationwide, trailers, one-sheets, etc. That's called putting on your producer's hat. Again story concept is critical to a script's success. Can not be overestimated.

Good note, Stefan. I'll update the OP with titles of their spec scripts and credits, and include that upfront with each daily post.

Great interview, Scott. Can't wait to read the rest!

Thanks for putting this together, Scott. And thank you, Scott F., for agreeing to step up and answer a few questions. My question is: what is your take on theme? Personally, I like Scott Myer’s take on it (as written below), but I was just wondering what your take was on the subject, and at what point in the project to you dedicate most thought to it. Thanks in advance. Sean Theme is about the emotional meaning of a story. Theme is not so much an intellectual exercise — e.g., “absolute power corrupts absolutely — but rather something personal, human, affective. A story’s thematic elements should, in my view, connect to a reader or viewer’s very soul, they should feel the themes, not just think them. In the screenplay paradigm I use — Narrative Throughline — there are two parts of the screenplay universe: The External World where we see and hear characters through their Actions and Dialogue. I call this the Plotline. The Internal World were we interpret and intuit characters through their Intention and Subtext. I call this the Themeline. External World – Action / Dialogue – Plotline Internal World – Intention / Subtext – Themeline If this is right, then themes are grounded in the Themeline, what we may think of as the story’s emotional plot. The Plotline answers the question: What is the story about? The Themeline answers the question: What does the story mean? Hence this idea: Theme = Meaning. .

The roundtable conversation just gets better. I know it's fashionable to crap on Hollywood, the movie business, whatever nowadays. But speaking as someone who has been at this for 25+ years, I came away from this discussion feeling really great about the future. I know this group of writers represents a small percentage of working screenwriters, but the simple fact is they are successful at what they do. And their obvious talent, their appreciation for the craft, their enjoyment for what they do, and their camaraderie is infectious. Then there's this: They don't want to just make money. They want to kick ass and make movies. And not just movies, but good movies. Honestly I tip my hat to all of them and every single screenwriter who yearns to tell compelling, entertaining stories. We can't control the outcome -- movies are finally a director's medium -- but we can craft stories that are so strong and evocative, they can appeal to the higher angels of everyone else involved in the process and make them want to bring that story home as a great one. In other words, let's all do what we can to see more and better movies.

I would absolutely agree with everything you have quoted here from Scott M. Here's my own way of dealing with theme, and I'm not sure if it's correct, and I'm not sure if it would work for anyone else, but there you go: I don't actively think about it during the planning of a script. To me, that time is better spent on character and plot and set pieces and moments and scenes. I'll usually start actively thinking about theme somewhere in the doldrums of the second act, when my brain refuses to write good scenes. For example, my newest spec, as I was writing it, and everything was going terribly for my heroes, I thought to myself: "Damn, the world really sucks..." And to me, that was a interesting theme-bite (not really a theme, but close) and so I start researching around on the Internet and in books about what smarter people than myself have had to say about the world sucking. And eventually came across this wonderful quote from Ernest Hemingway: "The world breaks everyone... But afterward we're stronger in all the broken places." Boom, themed. So now that I know the basic direction of my theme, I write the quote onto the first page of my script (what I call my pretentious epigraph page) and go back to writing. And most of the time the quote itself eventually disappeared off the front page of the script, because I've found a way to organically integrate it into my story and my characters. Sometimes I don't figure it out, and it stays on my epigraph. I feel like theme is not one of the necessary ingredients of a balanced breakfast. No one walks out of the theater saying: "Wow, the theme of that movie really blew me away." It's a great element to have, and can really help pull you through scenes or sequences that you may not initially know what to do with, but if you totally ignore it, and make great characters and great scenes and great dialogue, people will ascribe whatever theme they like to your movie. For example, DIE HARD is a perfect movie, but five people could all watch it, and all come back with various interpretations of what it's "about." Love conquers all? Sure, I buy that. But what about: It's easier to fight a skyscraper full of terrorists, than to apologize to your wife. Either way. It's still a great movie.

Thanks for taking the time to respond with such a great answer. Loving the quote/epigraph idea. It’s defiantly something I will consider doing from now on. And for the record, sometimes it is easier to fight a skyscraper full of terrorists, than to apologize to your wife. Once again, thanks for the great answer, Scott.

Great discussion... and a special thanks to BOTH Scotts for hittin' the comments afterwards... INSIGHTFUL!