Everybody makes mistakes, including fictional characters. Playing with the repercussions of a mistake is part of the fun for the writer.
Marty McFly makes what seems like a small mistake when he arrives in the 1950s: Getting hit by a car when stopping it from running over the man who grows up to be his father. But that action prevents the first meeting between his future parents. Keith Phipps looks at what makes Back to the Future tick, and how “[Marty] has a powerful motivation: Should he fail to set things right, he won’t just disrupt history, he’ll be erased from it.”
In Vertigo, Judy Barton writes a confession about her mistake: hiding her true identity from Scotty and acting as an accessory to murder. Mike Tiano takes a deep dive into how the confession sequence was almost cut from the film. It’s a pivotal moment, taking a story that had the audience asking “How far will Scotty push his girlfriend to emulate his dead lover?” and adding the question “Will Scotty recognize this woman actually is his ex-lover?”
Mistakes often come from taking big chances, and as John and Craig pointed out in Episode 218 of Scriptnotes (Features are different), features are more likely to reward a character for making a big swing instead of in some types of television storytelling where they’re setting up the character for failure to drive home the point that trying to change was a mistake for them:
John: In movies, you see characters making big, bold, and sort of irrevocable choices. “I'm going to fight the world heavyweight champion.” They're stating their goals probably really clearly and boldly and in way that you can actually see in the trailer. And that is what they're going for. So you're making the contract with the audience that like this thing that I say I'm going to do, you're going to see me try to do that.
In television, characters might pine for somebody. They might want a better life. But there’s not that expectation that we’re going to see them do that and become that over the course of watching that show. It’s informing what kind of character they are, but not necessarily what they’re doing on a daily or weekly basis. And it’s very rare that you’re going to see characters in television essentially burn down the house, like basically destroy the place of safety that they have in order to move onto their new world.
In movies you see that quite often. That’s what you end up doing at the end of your first act often is burning your whole previous life behind you, so you can move forward into this next phase of your life.
Craig: Yeah, interestingly, television characters are often punished for attempting to be different. They try and change. And they are punished for it, or they come to an understanding that they were better off the way they were. So, television has trouble with change. Television does much better with situations.
And by television I don’t mean the series that have ends, but rather television that’s meant to go on and on. So, characters will say, “I’m quitting my job and I’m changing my life,” and at the end the lesson is don’t do that. Because we have to do another episode next week. And that’s not our show.
John: In many half hour comedies you will see a lead character make a fundamental choice that would change and upset everything. And by the end of the episode they’re back to where they are before. And that is the nature of television and we’ve come to sort of accept that.
As one example of this in television, Jack Picone covers every one of Homer Simpson’s jobs, highlighting the tension of how most of the stories where he takes on a new role has an arc about a rise and fall to make sure he returns back to his status quo.
Poe Dameron is no stranger to big chances. Bryan Young looks at how all the primary characters in The Last Jedi (especially Poe) relate to a thematic core about recognizing your mistakes and learning from them. Chuck Wendig’s initial reactions to the film also point out the way that the catalyst for the entire narrative is Poe’s big mistake by choosing to go all in on a pyrrhic victory against a First Order Dreadnaught.
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WGA Strike Update
We’re past 100 days on strike, and the best way to participate and support the effort to create a fair contract is still to find a way to get involved!
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.
It’s okay to let yourself make mistakes
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.
A sprint like that is a great opportunity to try new things, even if you delete them later! Give yourself the space to see what happens on the page right now instead of worrying about what it needs to look like when it’s finally polished.
Shout out to last week’s Sprinters Elyse Moretti Forbes, Brian Matusz, and Aimee Link!
Weekend Read 2: Now macOS compatible!
Weekend Read 2 already fit screenplays perfectly on your iPhone or iPad. No more squint, pinch & zoom when trying to read on the go.
But now you can take notes and read on macOS, as well! You can even drag-and-drop on your desktop to add scripts to your library (that sync with any other devices that have Weekend Read 2 installed).
Weekend Read 2 for Apple Silicon Macs isn’t a separate app. If you downloaded it for your phone and/or iPad, you can add it to your Mac. And if you purchase a subscription for the Pro features, that carries over to the Mac as well!
See for yourself—Download Weekend Read 2 from the App Store!
Previously on Inneresting…
In case you missed it, in last issue’s most clicked link Jocelyn Silver took a look at the production design for Barbie.
What else is inneresting?
Someone made AI-generated books impersonating author Jane Friedman. It was not easy for Friedman to get these imposter books removed from Amazon and Goodreads.
Lisa Olivera on perceived authenticity:
I’ve been thinking about how we say we value authenticity, but what we actually seem to collectively gobble up is the opposite, or at least the top layer of it: After/Overcoming stories, healing memes, emotionally easy narratives, overly-simplified versions of what is muddy and murky underneath.
Reading the room
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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