Screenwriting : Life experiences by Warren Mack

It is impossible to write something that you have no experience of. Even if you have only experienced via others.

Life experiences and relatable don't mean good entertainment. And that is what the movie public want - entertainment. Write entertaining stories with great characters and interesting worlds.

What did Damon & Affleck know about math when they wrote Good Will Hunting? Movies are all imagination & storytelling craft; you don't need to kill in real life to write John Wick.

Well, you most certainly 'write what you know' when you filter through fictitious characters or imbue stories with your own ideologies, feelings, thoughts, perceptions, inspirations and life experiences. You may not be writing your life directly, or the lives of those whom you know personally, verbatim, but your life experiences and knowledge can add authenticity and realism to your characters and subject matter. With Good Will Hunting, Damon and Affleck have both said they pulled from their lives growing up in Boston, "borrowed" from those around them to form characters and the story. Here's something Damon revealed at his graduation speech at M.I.T. last year: "“One of the scenes in Good Will Hunting is actually based on something that happened to my brother Kyle,” Damon told M.I.T.’s graduates. “He was visiting a physicist we knew at M.I.T. and he was walking down the Infinite Corridor. He saw those blackboards that line the halls. So my brother, who is an artist, picked up some chalk and wrote an incredibly elaborate, totally fake version of an equation. And it was so cool and completely insane that no one erased it for months. This is a true story. Kyle came back [to me and Ben] and he said, ‘You guys, listen to this. They've got blackboards running down the hall [at M.I.T.] because these kids are so smart. They just need to, you know, drop everything and solve problems.’ ...It was then we [me and Ben] knew for sure that we could never have gotten in [to M.I.T.].””

I think every artist puts a bit of themselves in everything they do.

And, yes, I have written a screenplay based loosely upon some of my own life experiences—my very first script. It did well in contests, got me some interest, and some praise too. That experience emboldened me to keep going, to keep writing. ;)

Inspiring Beth.

Small elements only. If anything, I will write something and then realize there's a connection somewhere rather than actively decide to dramatize a part of my life. I'd rather control the content from the POV of the character rather than trying to put "myself" in it.

Well, that's disappointing Dan MaxXx! Does that mean I need to return all of the guns I got and the Mustang too? What about the dog? Can I keep the dog?

My fist screenplay was based on an actual event that happened to me and I optioned it to John Travolta's manager/producer but it didn't get made. It was poorly written but the story was unique which is the reason they optioned it in the first place.

My life isn't that entertaining. What's in your imagination (screenplay) should be.

My first screenplay was about a convict turned secret agent. I'm pretty sure I've never been either.

I think it's different for different writers. Everyone has their own style. I find I am constantly discovering I have based characters on an aspect of my personality or have actually written a character who is me. I try and avoid copying myself entirely, but bits of myself find their way into all my screenplays. I also find that locations I've seen or houses I've been in have also entered my writing. I think it makes the story more real and personal to me. And you never have to tell anyone, it can be a secret between you and your characters!

I like your post Cailen Ro

Dan Max I think they understood being alienated as a young person, which they were. I think they understood giving up stuff for a girl, which they had. Plus I think they understood being poor in Boston which has seemed to occurred in Affleck's writing. Based on your assessment only Neil Armstrong would be able to write about Space.

Craig

Matt damon went to Harvard and Affleck's parents were teachers. The two were not "poor" by American standards. It is all BS imagination with research, throw in human universal emotions and there is your story. This is not rocket science. It is story telling. Crackheads on the streets can tell stories.

I do it all the time. In the career path that I have chosen, outside of writing I have met many interesting characters. Some a little more crazy than others, but they each have a unique story and many of them make great stories to tell. My family, they are another story entirely!!!

Dan, did say they were poor? No, I said they understood it. Based on the thesis that life experience means nothing, we should stamp out diversity as it brings nothing to the table? Experience is the filter your brain uses to filter how you view the world. I guarantee I have a different take on being poor than other people based on my life.

Ha yup, I started using me and my beloved onez just because using their namez made the scenez and characterz feel more real, now I just use them in most of what I write ha and also because I wanna hook them up with movie money without them feeling wierd about it, assuming my shit sellz

Craig

Poor is poor in any language or country. Dont need to live it, just understand human emotions. This stuff we want to do, write movies is all fake. It is us telling an audience what we feel or want to show. Fake world with actors and a camera. JR Rowling made up Wizards and magic for Harry Potter. So did Lucas with Star Wars. It is all fake using tools of storytelling and great writers know when and how to dramatize human emotions with fictional characters. But hey what do I know. I'm learning as i go. I rewatched "Train to Busan" in Korean language. I don't speak Korean but I can see the emotions of the main characters as Zombies try to eat em.

I think we have a fundamental difference in belief. JK wasn't a wizard when she wrote Harry Potter, but she did have a deep understanding of the English boarding school system, she knew the isolation and the family that builds between child in that situation. She knew the fear that children have of certain School Masters, the power of bullies and the class structure in English society. I probably could write from my imagination, but it would appear fake and wrong. Her stuff was amazing because of the truth of her experience, so when she went into fantasy land, we believed it so easily because of the truth behind everything else she had shown us.

I kind of agree with Dan M. This business is all just bullshit and the person who has the best bullshit usually wins.

I believe is not a requirement, but can be of a great help to create not just characters but stories in general. In the end, what matters is the creativity.

I am afraid I have to much respect for the craft and lack the cynicism to say bullshit wins. Bullshits wins if you're a conman or professional liar. Couldn't imagine walking up to William Goldman and saying I loved that bullshit the Princess Bride, such remarkable bullshit.

Not in a screenplay, but certainly in my books there's a little bit of me. :-)

Craig. I didn't say the craft is bullshit I said the business is and it is. I love writing screenplays and I like the people I work with but the business sucks.

I think every screenplay is enriched directly or indirectly by the writers world, Imaginary and real, experienced and fantasied, lived or desired. It would be impossible to write about a character you dont understand, even their insanity/dementia needs to be achieved within the narrative for it to be a good screenplay.

A writer may not initially know who he is building a particular character on but by the end of the screenplay most of us know where some of the strands of a particular character originate most of the time it is putting ourselves in the given situation for the character and then tweaking the moral, ethical, social psychological parameters for them to take on the form you want it to take so as to further your narrative!

Once the emotional & story arc is constructed the technical or scientific details can be inserted post relevant research as I am sure it would have been done for 'Good Will Hunting' you dont have to be a genius to write about a genius.

The implanted academic research used as detail in the screenplay doesnt take away from the fact that it is still someone you inherently understand emotionally and it is because you understand that character you are in the best position to build, sow, nurture his insanity in the narrative in a manner that makes them a real person for the reader or the viewer. And when you do that in a manner that creates a whole new world for the reader you are most likely to be considered a craftsman by your peers!

A writer who is not aware that he is doing so is either incredibly blessed with permanent ignorance or is simply refusing to acknowledge the obvious. Whether we are aware or not each one of us has used a part of our life in our screenplays.

^^^^^ nice write up Sanjay. You get the gist of storytelling.

Agree with Dan MaxXx Nice! Sent an invite!

In almost every screenplay I have worked on I have used my life experiences or those that I have witnessed/lived with friends and family. Put a dash of imagination onto life experiences to add flavor ... and there you have it. That way it is easier to anticipate how the character(s) would react, what they would say etc...