The Hollywood Reporter’s 2011 roundtable still offers working habits and craft advice, from Aristotle to longhand first drafts
Sorkin, Zaillian and Almodovar on How Screenwriters Actually Work: A Writer Roundtable Revisited
The Hollywood Reporter’s 2011 roundtable still offers working habits and craft advice, from Aristotle to longhand first drafts
A Table of Writers
In November 2011 The Hollywood Reporter brought six screenwriters together for a roundtable, which Backstage summarised on its site. The page was last updated in 2019. The participants were Pedro Almodovar (The Skin I Live In), Dustin Lance Black (J. Edgar), Oren Moverman (Rampart), Eric Roth (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close), Aaron Sorkin (Moneyball) and Steven Zaillian (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Moneyball).
The conversation is fifteen years old, so it says nothing about current industry conditions. It is valuable because it records how experienced writers describe their habits, which change slowly.
Habits
The habits varied widely. Almodovar says many of his ideas come while he is in motion, such as flying or riding in a taxi. Black likes to write on airplanes, and arranges research on note cards to find a story’s structure. Moverman improvises heavily with actors on set and says, “I like the chaos of it.”
Roth writes on a schedule but breaks for gambling or family, then works late into the night; he also changes the weather in scripts. Sorkin works in an office, throws a ball against the wall, and takes showers and changes clothes to restart. He says, “I’m an on/off switch.” Zaillian writes first drafts longhand before typing them up.
Sorkin on Intention and Obstacle
Sorkin’s central craft advice is that a writer must find the intention and obstacle that drive a story. In the summary’s words, he says, “Until you’ve found that, you can’t write.” He recommends returning to Aristotle’s Poetics when stuck, since a broken dramatic rule is often the cause.
He also wants a script “as tight as it can possibly be” before rehearsals begin, so that directors need not make major changes. That is a statement of preference about process, and other writers at the table, such as Moverman, work differently.
Black on Structure
Black’s point is that real-life stories do not follow classical structure, so the writer must find a spine that turns the material into a movie rather than a timeline. The remark applies to any biographical or historical script. The temptation is to include every event; the discipline is to choose the thread that makes the events matter.
Zaillian’s advice to Sorkin on the Moneyball rewrite was blunt: “Just write more of it.” The summary uses it to illustrate that a script in trouble may need more work in the same direction, not a change of film.
Almodovar on the Set
Almodovar described changing the script of Bad Education during filming after an actor’s makeup scene caused a panic attack, and noted that “everything is alive when you are shooting.” His point is that a script is a plan, and shooting is a conversation with people and places that can alter it.
This sits against Sorkin’s wish for a locked script. Both views are held by successful writers, and a newer writer should expect to meet directors of both kinds.
Writing for the Director
The roundtable also shows how writers think about directors. Sorkin wants a script tight enough that directors need not make major changes. Moverman likes the chaos of improvisation with actors on set. Almodovar rewrites in the middle of shooting. Each stance implies a different relationship with the director: from protective to open.
A new writer should be ready for both. A script that reads well on the page but cannot adapt to a set will suffer when plans change, and a script that has no clear spine will not survive improvisation. The strongest scripts seem to have a firm structure and a loose surface.
Process and Product
The habits described at the table are not recommendations. Longhand drafting, ball-throwing and gambling breaks are personal rituals. What matters is the outcome: a draft that exists. Several of the writers describe rituals whose purpose is to restart work after a pause, and that purpose is general. Any routine that reliably gets a writer back to the page is a good one.
What to Take From It
The most useful lesson is that there is no single method. A writer who needs a regular schedule is not worse than one who writes in bursts. What the six share is a willingness to find the thing that makes a story move, whether through note cards, Aristotle or a shower.
A cautionary note: this is a trade-magazine roundtable among established, award-recognised writers, and survivorship shapes it. Writers who tried the same habits and did not succeed are not at the table. Habits should be adopted for their usefulness, not for their association with success.
The summary page is a secondary source, and the full roundtable video and transcript, available from The Hollywood Reporter, provide more context.
Reading the Funny Page Alongside the Data
Readers meet comedy and reporting in the same feed, so it helps to know the difference. On one overseas property story, see Manila News, the London Prat (see https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and Bohiney: each starts from a recognisable market fact and signals its tone through exaggeration. More material sits at prat.uk and bohiney.com.
For the lighter side of the news, there is always The Daily Squib.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/