On December 30th, I hosted a webinar called “How Professional Screenwriters Overcome Writer’s Block” and I talked about why story structure is so important in getting past this block. This episode addresses questions you asked in our Q&A session that we didn't have time to answer. There's lots of great info here, make sure you watch.

Show Notes

A Paper Orchestra on Website: - https://michaeljamin.com/book

A Paper Orchestra on Audible: - https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R&irclickid=wsY0cWRTYxyPWQ32v63t0WpwUkHzByXJyROHz00&irgwc=1

A Paper Orchestra on Amazon: - https://www.amazon.com/Audible-A-Paper-Orchestra/dp/B0CS5129X1/ref=sr_1_4?crid=19R6SSAJRS6TU&keywords=a+paper+orchestra&qid=1707342963&sprefix=a+paper+orchestra%2Caps%2C149&sr=8-4

A Paper Orchestra on Goodreads: - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203928260-a-paper-orchestra

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Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/course

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Autogenerated Transcript

Michael Jamin:

Everyone wants to be a showrunner, which is again, why it's so freaking

Michael Jamin:

Hard. I want to make all the decisions, but you don't know based on what you

Michael Jamin:

Don't know what you're doing. Why would you want that? Is it an ego thing you want to tell people you're a showrunner or don't you want to learn? Do you assume? When I was starting off, I didn't want to be a showrunner for 10 years. I didn't want to be a show runner. Like, this is a hard job. I don't know how to do it.

Michael Jamin:

You are listening to What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about conversations in writing, art, and creativity. Today's episode is brought to you by my debut collection of True Stories, a paper orchestra available in print, ebook and audiobook to purchase and to support me in this podcast, please visit michael jamin.com/book and now on with the show.

Michael Jamin:

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of What the Hell is Michael Jamin talking about? Well, we're doing another q and a from one of our webinars and my special guest host is Kevin Lewandowski, script coordinator extraordinaire. He helps out with a lot of my projects, social media projects here and he's subbing in for Phil and he's doing a great job. So welcome Kevin.

Kevin Lewandowski:

Thank you again for having me.

Michael Jamin:

You screwed it up. You already screwed. No, I'm only messing with you. You're doing great. Thanks.

Kevin Lewandowski:

Yeah, I'm not going to apologize for not being Phil anymore, so fair Phil. But no, I'm happy to be here and this how professional screenwriters overcome Writer's Block is one of my favorite topics to talk about. Oh good. So I think it's super, super interesting and there's been, when we dive into it, I'll say my favorite line that you always say that just unlocked the excuse sometimes we use for when we have writer's block.

Michael Jamin:

I'm curious to know what your favorite line is.

Kevin Lewandowski:

Alright, I have so many Michael Jainism that I think my all time favorite is Shit Happening is not a story.

Michael Jamin:

By the way, we have that on merch now, guys. Yeah, we do. We got merch and you can go get it@michaeljamin.com/merch where all the crazy things that I say, you can get it on a on mug or a notebook or whatever. We got merge. Go get it. I should have plugged it before, but I forgot. But anyway, these questions came from our last webinar that we did and if you're not on my webinar list, sign up for it's free. Go to michael jamin.com/webinar and you can sign up. You can be invited when we do our next one. And so yeah, Kevin, we had a lot of questions people asked. We didn't have time to get all the questions answered and so here they are n

Kevin Lewandowski:

Here we go. These first couple of questions are going to be about kind of course related stuff. So this first one is from David Zilo. I feel like we see his name a lot. I feel like he comes to these webinars a lot and ask a lot of questions. The question is, how does the story structure change when say a character does not, cannot achieve a goal in the tragic story, for example,

Michael Jamin:

Doesn't change at all. It's the same old story structure that we use. Whether the character achieves their goal at the end or not, it's the same damn thing.

Kevin Lewandowski:

Yep.

Michael Jamin:

The guys you're just asking, he's just asking at the end, what if the last two minutes are different, so what? Nothing.

Kevin Lewandowski:

Yeah, I think it's always more interesting for me when that character doesn't achieve their goal. I think the breakup with, but yeah, Vince v and Jennifer Ston, they don't stay together in the end. No. It's one of the few rom-coms that I think they decide to go off the beaten path and not have

Michael Jamin:

Them end often. We call this the joyful defeat in a movie or the character doesn't get what they want, but they get what they need. Yeah.

Kevin Lewandowski:

Next question, Rob. Robert, when is the latest the stakes should be made clear?

Michael Jamin:

The sooner the better because the story does not start until the audience knows what's at stake. And so until then you're boring them and you're daring them to change the channel or read another script or do something else with their time. So the sooner the better, and that's a note you'll get from a network executive. They'll always say, can we start the story sooner? And so wherever you have it, they'll give you that note. If it's on page four, they'll say page two.

Kevin Lewandowski:

In your experience, is there a realistic, for instance, if they were like, oh, it's on page three, we need it on page two, have you ever run into We just can't. We need a little bit of room to be able to

Michael Jamin:

Set

Kevin Lewandowski:

Something

Michael Jamin:

Up. Absolutely. And so you'll move it up a little bit, but sometimes there's only so much you can do.

Kevin Lewandowski:

Yeah. But yeah, like you said, they'll always say, oh, can we start this sooner? Yeah, we'll take a look at it. We'll take a look at that. Coley Marie, can the goal change or appear to change?

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Yes. And often it sometimes will. It's like because something happens and what the character thought they wanted is not what they want anymore. So yeah.

Kevin Lewandowski:

So how do you feel about, because sometimes it's, is there a fear of if you start writing it too much of a change, can it almost feel like, oh, okay, now we're following a different story to,

Michael Jamin:

It usually happens kind of like an act top of act three with the character discoveries. This thing that I wanted turns out I don't really want any. I got what I thought I wanted and it's not what I want. So that's usually late in the script.

Kevin Lewandowski:

Yeah. So you're saying in top of act two, if they wanted to,

Michael Jamin:

It wouldn't be top of

Kevin Lewandowski:

Act ride a pony at the end of act one. Top of Act two should be like, well, I want to win this prize at the Carnival

Michael Jamin:

Now. Yeah, top of act two is one. Well, this is what we teach in the course. What tab of Act two would be, so yeah,

Kevin Lewandowski:

Arius Kennedy. So should we avoid high stakes conflicts?

Michael Jamin:

No. The higher stakes are good. High stakes are good. Higher the stakes are better. You want to avoid low stakes conflicts.

Kevin Lewandowski:

Yeah, low stakes conflicts are not that interesting. Heather Marie, vital, how do we find conflicts for TV shows with main characters without getting stale? That's kind of the job of a writer.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, that's right. That's exactly, that's the job without getting stale, it's like, and again, this is not her concern. Concern. Your concern is to do it once and then let's a showrunner worried about it getting stale. Right now your job is to write one great script

Kevin Lewandowski:

Are Barry, when it comes to an episodic show, there's the overall show conflict and then the mini conflicts of the episodes. So I'm assuming they're talking about, there's the A story, the B story, the C story,

Michael Jamin:

Or maybe they're talking about the overall arch of the show. I'm watching Show Gun right now and I'm only on episode one, so it seems like the overarching stories, how is this one? I dunno if he called the futile Lord going to maintain his position in the kingdom, but within each episode he has a cha