A special treat this week as each day I will be posting excerpts from a screenwriter’s roundtable I did with a group of talented Hollywood screenwriters: Chris Borrelli, F. Scott Frazier, Chris McCoy, Justin Rhodes, Greg Russo, and John Swetnam. How good are they? Between them, they have sold more than a dozen spec scripts and have multiple original screenplays on the Black List.

This is the second screenwriters roundtable, following up on one we did last year [which you can read here]. Hopefully this will become an annual event as it’s a great way to take the pulse of what’s happening in the screenwriting universe, as well as benefit from the many insights into the craft these writers share.

I will be running the series all week long. Here is Part 5 where the focus is on what to do when you hit a creative wall:

Scott: OK, here’s another one for you from a blog reader: “Any tricks that you’ve developed to keep moving when you’ve hit a wall? Do Cool Ranch Doritos do the job?” Do you ever hit walls or do you just get up and write no matter what, boom, there are no walls?

F. Scott Frazier:  I have to tell you, that’s actually the secret to getting past the walls. I’m currently in the weeds on a script I’m writing. The only thing that makes it better is sitting down and writing every morning. It’s the only thing that helps.

Chris McCoy:  I think a lot of days you hit a wall but you just keep going. You can throw away that whole day’s worth of work, but there’s still some value to it because you’ve been figuring something out during that day.

F. Scott Frazier:  Absolutely.

John Swetnam:  At the end of the day, We are now professional writers. This is our job. We have to show up. Even if you don’t feel like it, you have to show up. And I think as an aspiring writer, and I tried to do this, was to take that mentality.  It’s a job, and you must always show up and work.

There are all these people out there that are working at this like a job. If they don’t feel like writing, and they hit a wall. They break through it.

And before I ever sold my first script. I kept thinking to myself, I can’t just stop if I hit a wall. I’m not going to fucking quit. Like these other guys, these professionals, and hard-working dreamers, they aren’t quitting, so I can’t

And I love that mentality of like no matter what, just keep working. Because there are 10,000 people out there and more and more every day that want to do this. So, for me it was like, I’m not the most talented guy, but I’ll outwork them. And I don’t care if I hit a wall. I’ll fucking bust through it. I have to.

Chris McCoy:  Just treat it like a job. There’s a great Stephen King book called “On Writing” which is a fantastic book.

F. Scott Frazier:  Best book on writing ever.

Chris McCoy:  It’s great. King essentially goes to his office and writes for eight hours a day, and that’s the reason that man is so prolific. Regular people are at their jobs for eight or ten hours a day, and so is he.

Greg Russo:  If I get stuck, it’s usually in the outlining process. My simple trick is, I try to always have three or four other things actively going. So if I get stuck, I go on to something else for a few hours. If that fails, I go out for a run.

F. Scott Frazier: Absolutely.

Greg Russo: And when you come back to it, it’s like, “Shit. There’s the answer right in front of my face” or I’ll think of it while running down Franklin or something. So instead of sitting there twiddling my thumbs, I now have two things moving forward.

F. Scott Frazier:  I think there’s like a Patton quote or something about “if you find yourself in the middle of hell guess what, you’re only half way there” which is very apropos. I think it’s, you just have to do it. You just have to go.

Justin Rhodes: For me, the thing that’s kind of funny about blocks or, you know, when you don’t know where to go next, is that story problems don’t seem get solved by throwing yourself into the wall harder or something. Smashing your head into concrete doesn’t seem to work very well. It’s more about being relaxed. Take a shower. Take a walk. It will be there tomorrow.

And the answers normally come when you finally quit beating yourself up about the fact that they’re not coming. And then you relax and then your brain just kind of delivers you the answer. And you go, “Oh. There it is” and it’s always something really simple that you feel dumb you haven’t thought of.

Greg Russo:  Isn’t it Sorkin that takes showers? Dude takes like seven showers a day or something like that. Every time he gets stuck, he takes a shower.

F. Scott Frazier:  I love the shower. Shower’s great. Driving too. But, yeah if I get stuck I put my time in the office. I’ll write something else. I’ll punch up another scene or like Greg was saying, just do something else. But I’m not like, if I come up to a wall and I had no idea where to go it’s not like I’m going to go out of my office and screw around for a couple of hours. That’s definitely not the way through.

John Swetnam:  If it’s an aspiring writer who’s working on one script and they hit a wall, like the great thing about what we do is watching movies is part of the job. Reading other scripts is part of the job. So if you’re working on one script and you hit a block, like go watch some movies. Like that might help you. Go read some other scripts that might help you. As long as you’re putting in the work.

Chris Borrelli:  Very little of what do is actual writing. Most of it is just thinking, research. When I say researching I don’t mean you have to be looking up science or facts or anything like that. It’s just getting a feel for those scenes and ideas. And it really isn’t one thing. It’s not sitting at a typewriter or a laptop and typing away all the time.

But at the same time, I get up and I have work hours. I’m in that room, I’m thinking and then I’m walking or lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling and all that stuff, but I’m still in the script. So I agree, you work through it.

The only times I will give up is if it’s very early stages where it’s like an outline. There are a lot of movies that are … especially with younger writers I think… There are a lot of movie ideas that are actually just Twilight Zone episodes I always call them. Meaning like, OK that’s a cool 30‑minute bit, you know. But it isn’t a sustainable movie.

There are times where you will hit that and there’s a reason you hit it. And maybe there’s a way to make a movie out of anything. I don’t feel that way. I won’t pursue it if it’s so hard. There’s a time when it’s too hard in the early process. And then after that, if you know what movie you’re making, if you have just a general idea where the movie’s going, then those other things I think can all be worked through.

Each day for this series, I’m going to highlight one of the writers. Today: John Swetnam:

John Swetnam’s original horror-thriller “Evidence,” which he wrote and produced, has been completed and will be in limited release later in the year.  His original spec “Black Sky” (Formerly known as Category 6) which he also wrote and produced, has been completed and will be released by Warner Brothers.  John is currently working on assignment, writing the fifth installment of the Step Up franchise, and a top secret (if he told you, he’d have to kill you) project at New Line Cinema.  His production company Mad Horse Films is developing numerous projects with writers, producers, and financiers, and will be officially launched this summer.  In his downtime, John likes to write and develop screenplays for film and television.

For my interview with John Swetnam, go here.

Please take time to leave a reply with your observations and follow-up questions, and while you’re there thank these writers for taking time out of their busy schedules to do this roundtable for GITS readers and the wider online screenwriting community.

On Twitter:

F. Scott Frazier: @ScreenWritten

Chris McCoy: @thatthere

Justin Rhodes: @twopointfour

John Swetnam: @JohnSwetnam

Many thanks to Laura Stoltz (@LeStoltz) for logistical help with the roundtable. Laura is one of my UNC former students, currently an assistant at Haven Entertainment, and a talented writer in her own right.

For Part 1 of the roundtable, go here.

For Part 2, go here.

For Part 3, go here.

For Part 4, go here.

Tomorrow: Part 5 of this exclusive screenwriter’s roundtable.

A special treat this week as each day I will be posting excerpts from a screenwriter’s roundtable I did with a group of talented Hollywood screenwriters: Chris Borrelli, F. Scott Frazier, Chris McCoy, Justin Rhodes, Greg Russo, and John Swetnam. How good are they? Between them, they have sold more than a dozen spec scripts and have multiple original screenplays on the Black List.

This is the second screenwriters roundtable, following up on one we did last year [which you can read here]. Hopefully this will become an annual event as it’s a great way to take the pulse of what’s happening in the screenwriting universe, as well as benefit from the many insights into the craft these writers share.

I will be running the series all week long. Here is Part 4 with some advice on how to approach writing in a specific genre:

Scott:  That actually provides a segue to a question from one of the blog readers. They asked, “I’ve been curious what the writers think of the visual impact of the script should be, what writing techniques they know to make a script more visually interesting?” I think that’s a really critical thing for a lot of aspiring writers, they don’t necessarily grasp that movies are primarily a visual medium, and tend to rely on dialogue more.

In terms of writing those paragraphs, Scott, like that, each is a shot. Are there other things you do to heighten the visual impact? What are the ways that you think about your scripts visually?

John Swetnam:  What I do is, since I’m a hack, is I read people’s scripts that are really awesome, and I’ve read so many of these scripts, where I read them and I go, “God, that’s such a cool shot,” or, “I love the way he wrote that.” Then I’ll find myself kind of mimicking that, in a weird way, when I start writing my script. Then it’ll become my own thing, but I think by reading scripts, that when you read them, you saw visuals in your head.

Keep those scripts near you. Those are the ones that, certain writers that I look at, and I go, “Jesus, I wish I could write like that. I wish I could explain my visuals the way he does.” Normally it’s a Scott Frazier script, but then I’m like, “How does he do it?” I just find a way to take from a lot of different people I respect, and make it my own.

Chris Borrelli:  We all have our own style, and so will that writer. You can teach, and learn, all these rules, and things like that. It’s important to learn them, but everybody approaches the art of it in their own way.

Greg Russo:  Yeah, if you read a script from every one of us, each would read differently.

Chris Borrelli:  Yeah, same scene. Give us all the same scene to write, and it would read differently.

John Swetnam:  It’s like learning anything though. You go through life, and you consume, like we’ve all watched a shitload of movies. We’ve all read a shitload of scripts, and we’ve all written a shitload of scripts, and at a certain point, you just kind of pull from all of that knowledge. As you continue to practice it yourself, it becomes your own. It’s hard to explain it, it just becomes you.

F. Scott Frazier:  I mean to me, that’s what people are always talking about when they say voice, honestly. Like that one paragraph equals one‑shot thing, that’s just something that, whatever it was, a year and a half ago, two years ago, I thought to myself, that’s how I write. Every paragraph is a shot. If you go back and read my scripts, basically every single paragraph is its own shot, and its own thing. I have five or six other rules like that, of how I write a script.

They’re just in the back of my head, and I think that I would assume that we all have those rules. I think it’s really about coming up with your own rules. What does a paragraph equal in your script? What does dialogue look like and sound like in your kind of movie? I think it’s coming up with your rules, and how you define the script for yourself that’s important.

Justin Rhodes:  I think this is kind of an unanswerable question. How do you write visually? That would be sort of like saying, “How do you tell a joke that’s funny?” It’s funny or it’s not, or it’s visual or it’s not. It’s kind of like an intuitive thing, kind of like some of the guys were saying earlier, from absorbing it again, and again, and again, in terms of how to convey what you’re saying.

Scott:  I think Swetnam’s right. That’s what I would tell people. Just read these scripts. You read scripts by great action writers, or writers who write visually, and you do. You absorb those things, you pick up on those patterns, and it gets you thinking like that. That’s a good suggestion.

Here’s another question for you. “If you had to pick one route for an aspiring screenwriter, is it better to be skilled at multiple diverse genres, or be a master of only one genre?”

F. Scott Frazier:  Master of one genre.

Justin Rhodes:  One genre.

Chris McCoy:   One.

Chris Borrelli:  One genre that you love, that you can have love for. That love comes out in the script. It becomes special, and it’s different. You’re not just imitating other people. No, I don’t think you should, even career wise, I think managers and such would tell you, be specifically in one genre. I like to think I have maybe two or three genres I really like to write in, but they’re all things I love.

F. Scott Frazier:  But your genre is still very much definable, right? Your movies tend from horror to action, but they all have the same kind of tone, and special sauce to them, right?

Chris Borrelli:  Right.

F. Scott Frazier:  Your kind of action movies are not, it’s not Taken, right? It’s very much your own kind of action movie. For me, I always come at it; I always say I can come at things from any direction, as long as there’s a heartbeat of action or adventure to it. I’d never try my hand at horror, I’d never try my hand at comedy. It’s just the big set pieces and the fun characters are what gets me up in the morning.

Chris McCoy:  For a young writer or someone just breaking in, if you’re sending stuff to reps its best not to confuse them. One way or another, you’re going to end up on a list. Maybe eventually you can move from comedy, to dramedy and then make a graceful transition to drama, or vice-versa, but at least at the beginning have a couple of samples in one genre.

John Swetnam:  Also, if we’re talking about somebody who’s trying to break in, and have that first bit of success, it just makes sense to practice that one thing, to become really good at that thing, so you can sell that thing.

If you want to be a basketball player, you don’t spend 10 years practicing volleyball, and tennis, and all these other fucking things, you spent all your time learning how to play basketball.

As long as you get that first one off, if you want to try your hand at other genres later on, that’s fantastic. But you’re already in the system. You have a defined genre because whatever your first script sells, that’s your genre. You can have a living, and you can continue to do those. If you want to go off and try something different, do it then. Don’t do it at the very beginning.

Find the one thing that you like to do the most, and that you think you’re the best at, and become really, really good at that so you can have that bit of success. When you have success you can diversify. Try whatever the hell you want to because you’ve got money in the bank.

Scott:  Even on a pragmatic level, John, they’re competing against the top, top pros in the world and so they’ve got to know their stuff in that genre. They’ve got to know the scripts, they’ve got to know the writers, they’ve got to know the tropes, the memes. How could they expect to necessarily excel in one genre if they’re focusing on multiple genres?

John Swetnam:  Absolutely. For me, I’ve told this story before, but I wrote 20 scripts before I sold the first one. But in the very beginning, I was always chasing the market, chasing the money.

When I started, everyone was selling these big, high‑concept comedies, it was like, OK, it’s fucking, it’s, “Mini Golf with Jack Black.” OK, sold. Or it’s, “Bass Fishing with Will Ferrell.” You could sell anything with a big‑comedy concept. So, I chased that for years and I wrote these big‑concept comedies.

Then I tried some romantic comedies. I did all these things. I look back at that, and the reason it took me 20 scripts is because the first 10 of them I was just all over the place.

Until I found the one genre I liked, which was sort of the thriller‑action‑horror kind of thing, that’s when things started taking off for me because I really focused in and tried to learn from the people that do that really, really well and really focused my studies.

Because you’re right, Scott, you’re going up against people that have spent 10 years studying that specific genre. So, if you want to better than them, or as good as them, you’d better put in the work.

Unless you’ve got 20 years and you can study everything, you have to sort of focus yourself and be the best at that one thing.

I would like to one day when I learn how to be funny try to write comedy. But, not right now. Not until a few more years. But, I’m going to try and do something else if I feel like it, but not at the beginning. I think that really kind of slowed me down when I look back.

Scott:  Borrelli I think made a really good point. It’s got to be a genre that you’re really interested in, that you’ve got a lot of passion for. Not only to help drive you through the process of learning it and writing it, but also too, because you’re going to be put on these lists, like Chris said.

So, your agents and managers are going to be putting you out for assignments in that genre. You’d better damn well love that genre because that’s what you’re going to be seeing for five, six, seven years.

Greg Russo:  The establishment of a brand as a screenwriter is the easiest way to go out and get jobs. The ability for someone to categorize you is not a negative. That’s actually a big positive, in terms of getting work.

John Swetnam:  That’s such a great point. I always hear this. This might just be me, but people always say to me, “Aren’t you afraid of being pigeonholed?” I’m like, “Fuck you. I want to be pigeonholed.” Put me in a pigeonhole because that means I’m getting those jobs. I’m up for that specific thing.

I think it’s an amazing problem to have. I want to have a brand. I want to have a certain thing that I do really, really well.

Again, if I can expand that over the course of my career, that’s fantastic, but having a pigeonhole in the beginning, people talk about it so negatively. For me, personally, I think that’s like you hope for that. You hope to be pigeonholed.

Scott:  Because then the execs and the producers will default, like Found Footage, for example. You’ve had two projects with Found Footage. They have something come up, they need a rewrite. It’s Found Footage. They would probably default to you. You’d be on that list.

John Swetnam:  Absolutely. I sold two Found Footage things and I get a lot of Found Footage stuff. Because of that pigeonhole, I use that to expand the pigeonhole. I was doing Found Footage stuff, and then I did a Found Footage movie, but I made it bigger. I added more action and more adventure.

So, then it was, “Oh, well maybe he can do action as well.” Then I would get a job doing action and adventure. Then it’s, “Oh, well he might be able to do this next thing.”

At first it was the pigeonhole, it was Found Footage. I’m so grateful for that every single day because that got me in the door, and I could expand that pigeonhole because I was already in there. For me it was fantastic, I’m so glad that happened.

Scott:  That’s very helpful because I think for those writers out there who are afraid to commit to a certain genre, to know that there is some freedom, and that in fact you’re building a brand, that does open up a lot of opportunities for work, but that you always can expand that. You can expand it out either through certain assignments that may be a little bit different, but like what Frazier was saying, play to your strengths. But then you also could just run a spec script of whatever genre you want, down the road, and have the freedom to do that.

John Swetnam: Absolutely.

Each day for this series, I’m going to highlight one of the writers. Today: Greg Russo.

Russo sold thriller spec “Down” to Relativity in 2010,  and has twice optioned action/thriller spec “Autobahn” formerly “I-95” – He sold an action/thriller pitch to Alloy Entertainment in 2011 and wrote the most recent draft of “Heatseekers” at Paramount for producers Michael Bay, Chris Morgan, and director Timur Bekmambetov. In 2012, he was hired to write an original action project for the Bandito Brothers (Act of Valor) and director Scott Waugh (Need for Speed) – He’s currently in negotiations for two action/sci fi projects at Relativity and Sony and has signed on to develop a one-hour action procedural for Alcon TV. He’s repped by ICM Partners and Madhouse.

For my interview with Greg, go here.

Please take time to leave a reply with your observations and follow-up questions, and while you’re there thank these writers for taking time out of their busy schedules to do this roundtable for GITS readers and the wider online screenwriting community.

On Twitter:

F. Scott Frazier: @ScreenWritten

Chris McCoy: @thatthere

Justin Rhodes: @twopointfour

John Swetnam: @JohnSwetnam

Many thanks to Laura Stoltz (@LeStoltz) for logistical help with the roundtable. Laura is one of my UNC former students, currently an assistant at Haven Entertainment, and a talented writer in her own right.

For Part 1 of the roundtable, go here.

For Part 2, go here.

For Part 3, go here.

Tomorrow: Part 5 of this exclusive screenwriter’s roundtable.