Tag Archives: screenwriting tips

When John Watson and I first came to Hollywood, we decided to meet with the marketing analysis people at Universal. We asked them one question: what do audiences want in their feature films? The answer that came back was stories that were “new”, “interesting” and “different”. Although the studios themselves were always puzzled on how to sell something they’d never seen before, they also knew the power of originality. If you take Steven Spielberg, for example, there really was no movie like Jaws before Jaws, or E.T. Close Encounters was also highly original. And to this day, Spielberg still brings audiences to theaters because they know they will experience things they’ve never seen before. Continue reading →

I believe that the same, wonderful part of our brains that brings us our creativity is the identical engine that also helps give us anxiety; both experiences give us a sensory input of a variety of possibilities. When these thoughts are creative they can be quite magical and help piece together our ideas – but at the same time the human animal has evolved over millions of years to be a survivor, and at a certain point anxiety became a positive safety mechanism for pre-thinking possibilities of outcomes that might be dangerous to us. Literally, complacent animals died, whereas those that learned to think about negative possibilities avoided disaster and survived. We have inherited this mechanism (which seems more potent the more creative you are). In a way, this kind of probing of dark thoughts are really trying to help you avoid difficult outcomes. But when our creative engine turns to dark, negative thoughts like “wow, you’ll never be able to write anything good”, or “you’re wasting your time” or “this idea will be rejected left right and center” – those versions are not usually helpful. Continue reading →