🌳 Inneresting #157 - Digging up emotional roots
Asking characters why they are the way that they are.
In the early days of television, when the “kitchen sink” school of realism held sway, we always reached a point where we “explained” the character. Around two-thirds of the way through, someone articulated the psychological truth that made the character the person he was. [Paddy] Chayefsky and I used to call this the “rubber-ducky” school of drama: “Someone once took his rubber ducky away from him, and that’s why he’s a deranged killer.”
I always try to eliminate the rubber-ducky explanations. A character should be clear from his present actions. And his behavior as the picture goes on should reveal the psychological motivations.
–Sidney Lumet, Making Movies
How do we account for the parts of fictional characters’ lives that happen before they show up on the page? How much of their implied or imagined past matters to what they’re doing on screen, in the moment?
Let’s look for answers from psychology. Joshua Rothman brings up a set of studies looking at the comparison between our personalities as children and adults. Even with the information gathered, there are plenty of inconclusive results about exactly how we change, even if it’s clear change does happen:
Young bodies differ from old ones; possibilities multiply in our early decades, and later fade. When you were seventeen, you practiced the piano for an hour each day, and fell in love for the first time; now you pay down your credit cards and watch Amazon Prime. To say that you are the same person today that you were decades ago is absurd.
Brad Stennerson shares a personal recollection of how a school bus insult shaped his inner monologue into adulthood. Jennifer Senior investigates the difference between people’s perceived age in their own mind versus their physical age, and how significant life events can arrest a person’s self image.
Ayesha A. Siddiqi counsels a reader on how to grieve for the person they could have been if they’d gotten treatment for depression earlier in life. One familiar character motivation is the reaction to the road not traveled, and what influence that counterfactual thinking has on the character’s present actions. Cautioning against the very kind of thinking Lumet described in Making Movies, Siddiqi says:
Despite the ways we’re shaped by trauma, we are more than just what trauma leaves behind.
Taking this into the fictional realm, Kyle Humphreys relates his personal experiences to what he doesn’t see depicted about PTSD in film and television, calling on creators to do better. The site Black Girl Nerds profiles Terminator 2’s Sarah Connor as a lesson in showing an audience how past trauma shapes and redefines a person’s present. Marga Luna groups recent Disney films Coco, Encanto, Turning Red, and Strange World together for a look at stories built around intergenerational trauma. Luna also brings focus to how the narratives are shaped by working toward healing: restoring balance and ending the continuity of trauma within their family.
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Take the screenplays and run with Weekend Read 2
This week Drew brings in a set of featured scripts about heists! Hell or High Water! Dog Day Afternoon! Out of Sight! And many more…
Whether you unlocked the Pro version or downloaded it for free, you can check out these pilot scripts and add them to your library.
Weekend Read 2 fits screenplays perfectly on your iPhone or iPad. No more squint, pinch & zoom when trying to read on the go.
This new update to Weekend Read also makes it easy to add and share notes on a script while on-the-go, and the Read-Aloud feature lets you go eyes-free and listen to your scripts narrated in a range of high-quality voices.
See for yourself—Download Weekend Read 2 from the App Store!
Chris Nee’s entire thread about being shut out of residuals and any other participation in the success of Doc McStuffins is worth a read. She details the ways in which other people who spent much less time on the show were entitled to residuals in their contracts, and it took her personal fight to secure a better deal for herself after the show took off:
I ended up getting profit participation. It was a hell of a fight. But I won partially because I only had a two season deal, and I not only threatened to walk, but I was prepared to walk. I couldn't stand that I was working my ass off for everyone else's benefit.
Profit participation is the fairest thing there is. In failure no one makes the money they want. In success the creator is a participant. I feel the same way about residuals. They only become lucrative in great success. And that should be shared.
It’s also worth reading Max Kim’s linked article about how Netflix’s investment in South Korean productions hasn’t had a positive impact on working conditions in the local entertainment industry, or on the overall compensation for local writers.
As an example, Hwang Dong-hyuk, the creator of Squid Game, made the show for $2.4 million dollars. The success of the show increased Netflix’s value by $900 million. Hwang received no residuals and forfeited all intellectual property rights as part of the deal.
From the article’s description of the ways companies in South Korea keep costs down by breaking labor laws regarding overtime and falsifying records of how long people actually work on set. There’s also issues with writing staffs that echo the WGA’s warning about the use of mini-rooms:
“Most Korean dramas are written by one or two main writers, with another one or two assistant writers,” the writer said.
Assistant writers — who are akin to staff writers in Hollywood — typically make close to minimum wage and work long and irregular hours. They are yet another reason production budgets can be kept low.
The South Korean industry’s experience isn’t an isolated example: Without strong contracts backed by legitimate enforcement workers can be exploited into providing free labor and agreeing to unsafe working conditions.
The WGA Strike Continues — Get Involved!
We want to remind you of ways you can participate and support the effort to create a fair contract protecting the future of writing as a profession!
If you are interested and able, join a picket line and show your support. The Writers Guild also has a list of other ways to help.
Plant some core memories in your next Write Sprint
Each week we post a comment thread for writers to meet up, cheer each other on, and put some words on the page with a Write Sprint.
What’s a Write Sprint?
John wrote up an explanation, but here’s the short version: Set a timer for 60 minutes, close down all distractions, and do nothing but write until that timer goes off.
Shout out to last week’s Sprinters Mark Leiren-Young, Brian Matusz, Elyse Moretti Forbes, John Harvey, and Aimee Link!
Previously on Inneresting…
In case you missed it, in last issue’s most clicked link Jacoby Bancroft and Nicholas Twohig discuss how Tony Stark created many of the MCU’s villains and larger problems, and the way these unintended consequences are baked into the character.
Other Inneresting Things
Kai McNamee explains why rising temperatures are leading squirrels to “sploot.”
Dan Cullum shares advice from an Olympian about the rule of thirds when pursuing a goal.
Rachel Anderson on how the World Air Guitar World Championships and the COVID lockdown of 2020 played a role in her gender transition.
Reading the room
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And that’s what’s inneresting this week!
Inneresting is edited by Chris Csont, with contributions from readers like you and the entire Quote-Unquote team.
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