I would like the pros to talk about one of their hardest scenes to write (preferably relation to one of their available scripts). Get them to tell us how long it took to crack and how they got there. Personally I find that when you really nail a tricky scene it releases something about the characters and story that fuels other scenes. And maybe get them to tell us if there is a type of scene that they find harder to write that others. Maybe they could identify a scene from a well known and available script that they think we can all learn from. (I know you have a few favorites yourself Scott and referenced Frank Darabont's Shawshank recently on your blog). And don't be afraid to ask them what they think would be a good question to ask the next screenwriter you interview. (Taken from an old lawyers joke, who was cross-examining an old lady so badly that she told him she could ask better questions herself, to which he asked "So what questions should I ask you then"?)

Good suggestions, Michael. Thanks!

I'll throw this one out there: When one of their own stories was re-written by another screenwriter, what qualities made the script better? What did they learn from a craft standpoint?

That's an interesting one. The whole subject of rewriting is a delicate one for pro writers. Much of it done in private, yet insiders know who's doing what. Never fun to be rewritten, yet those rewritten rewrite others.

I always find it interesting to hear the genesis of a story idea. Maybe a question along the lines of "What was the seed that planted this story in your mind? And what tools/techniques/additional resources/serendipity did you use to develop the story from the initial spark into the final draft?" This question avoids the trite "How do you come up with your ideas?" question, which I feel is pointless (coming up with ideas is not the difficult part, IMO). Rather this question focuses on "How did you come up with and develop THIS idea?" Maybe the writer saw an image and paired it with a situational concept they'd already developed. Maybe they thought of a character and just chose a random situation to put her in. Maybe they started with a theme and filled in characters later. I suspect there will be loads of different answers to a question like this. Personally, I'm always fascinated with the creative process, and answers to this question will demonstrate how the pros take an image, line of dialogue, character, or situation and make it into a Story. I believe the George Miller anecdote was somewhere on GITS about the seed of Mad Max: Fury Road being "five wives fleeing a warlord." WOW do I want to hear more about that image and how it was developed. Full disclosure: I also like origin stories so take this point with a grain of salt ;) Scott, you do a great job of extracting information like that in your interviews and as you mention above, you never know which little nugget might be the one that clicks and makes sense to help develop a current or future project. Also, a question like this also dispels the notion that one day you'll wake up with a fully formed screenplay in your mind. While I've heard this myth, it ignores the very real aspect of all the work that comes AFTER the idea.

My take on some questions that one could ask: 1. What inspires/has inspired them to write in general and a few examples of what inspires/has inspired characters/scenes and similar things in one of their movies. 2. Other than writing a good script in general, what do they add to a script to make it a page turner or create what I call "narrative pull"? 3. How do they feel about character backstories? How vital do they think they are, how do they create character backstories and perhaps some tips on how to create character backstories. 4. How did they get into the business? And perhaps some tips on how to "break in". 5. What does their creative process look like? I am always intrigued by how different everyone's process is; do they outline, when do they write and so on. I know that the third question is probably the weakest of my suggestions, but since I have a hard time coming up with character backstories, I thought I'd suggest it anyway.

I'm with you, niz19, sharing your fascination with creative process. And your point about how writer goes from idea to developing it into script form is really the crux of it for me. As I want to make this set of questions more generic than specific so as to cast a wide a net as possible for interview subjects, your comments generated this iteration of the question in my head: How do you decide which stories to write? Some writers don't generate ideas, some just adapt stories, rewrites, etc. So this question could pertain to them. For those who DO traffic in generating original ideas, same thing: How do they go about determining whether a story idea is worth pursuing? I'm actually going to do a blog post about this subject based on a Twitter thing that broke out yesterday. Anyhow still noodling around for questions. At some point, I hope to post a preliminary set of, say, 10 questions, then crowd-source feedback to winnow it down to 5-7 questions to carry forward into this initiative. Thanks for your feedback!

Thanks, Joe. These are all solid suggestions. I've got a question in mind that would likely cover #2. And I definitely want to cover their character development process, so a question relative to #3 should be on the list. And #5 as well. Those three are generic enough to carry through to a wide array of potential interview subjects, yet on-point to have a lot of relevance to readers. Again thanks!