HUMANITAS INDUSTRY 101 PODCAST

Episode 2: John Wells

Today’s Industry 101 Podcast episode comes from a writing workshop with John Wells recorded on April 17, 1993.

John discusses why he became a writer, humanistic writing, and gives his advice on writing characters, and the role of the writer’s thematic point of view when working on a script.

He is a producer, writer, and director who has produced over twelve thousand hours of television across his 30+ year career in entertainment.

John’s work includes series such as ER, The West Wing, Shameless, Maid, and The Pitt and films including August: Osage County, Burnt, and The Company Men.

His shows have received over 300 Emmy nominations with 60 Emmy wins and 5 Peabody Awards. He has been nominated for 7 Humanitas Prizes, and won in 2006 for an episode of The West Wing.

John previously served as President of the Writers Guild of America, West from 1999 to 2001 and from 2009 to 2011.

Full episode transcript appears below.

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Humanitas's Industry 101 is made possible with support from our series sponsor Sony Pictures Entertainment.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

MICHELLE FRANKE

00:00:08:10 → 00:01:59:01

Welcome to Humanitas’s Industry 101 Podcast. I'm Michelle Franke, Executive director of Humanitas Industry 101 is a conversation series that introduces topics foundational to understanding and launching television and film writing careers.

Humanitas has a long history of presenting conversations and workshops for writers exploring craft and career issues. Industry 101 is a continuation of that work. It includes our online event series, in-person events, and this podcast, which will present both new episodes and conversations from our archives highlighting our history.

Today's industry 101 podcast episode comes from a writing workshop with John Wells, recorded on April 17th, 1993.

He is a producer, writer and director who has produced over 12,000 hours of television across his 30 plus year career in entertainment. John's work includes series such as E.R., The West Wing, Shameless, Maid and The Pitt, and films including August Osage County, Burnt, and The Company Men.

His shows have received over 300 Emmy nominations, with 60 Emmy wins and five Peabody Awards. He has been nominated for seven Humanitas Prizes, and won in 2006 for an episode of The West Wing.

John previously served as president of the Writers Guild of America West from 1999 to 2001, and again from 2009 to 2011.

John discusses why he became a writer, humanistic writing, and gives us his advice on writing characters and the role of the writers thematic point of view when working on a script.

Stick around for a brief writing prompt at the end of the episode, inspired by the advice shared.

And now here's John.

[MUSIC PLAYS]

JOHN WELLS

00:02:03:21 → 00:02:17:22

One of the things we were asked to talk about, which probably is a good starting place, is sort of why we decided to become writers. I never decided to become a writer. Actually. There was never a moment where I decided it.

00:02:18:00 → 00:02:32:21

I had, I came out of the theater and I actually started writing because I was trying to raise money for shows all the time, and it took so long to convince my relatives and friends who hadn't already contributed to plays and lost money with me to, to contribute new money.

00:02:32:21 → 00:02:51:08

So in those periods of time, I started doing some writing and, and discovered that it was the first thing that I ever tried to do, that I that that I realized I would never be able to do really well, that no matter how long I did it, that it would never be as good as it was in my head.

00:02:51:08 → 00:03:13:09

And the idea that I could, that I'd actually found something that I could work on my entire life. And I believed I would never write what I considered to be the perfect piece of writing, where I had actually gotten everything to come together actually challenged me to the point that I thought, this is something that I could spend my entire life getting better at, that there was never a point where I would stop learning.

00:03:14:08 → 00:03:22:11

So I've actually got my degree in directing and design and have never really returned to any of that since. Since writing.

00:03:22:11 → 00:03:37:15

And people often ask me if I'm not planning, particularly people who know me for a long time to direct. And my answer is no, because I feel as if at whatever time I decided to do that, that would be less time that I would have to try and and be a better writer.

00:03:38:05 → 00:03:45:04

And it seems to me that no matter how long I do it, it's just never going to be as good as I want it to be.

00:03:45:06 → 00:04:05:04

One of the misconceptions is that humanistic writing is somehow something that you do when you're not necessarily attempting to be financially or commercially successful, and the idea that this sort of writing is a noble calling, like following the grail of some sort, that it's not really where the industry is going or what people want to see.

00:04:05:07 → 00:04:07:03

I couldn't disagree with that more.

00:04:07:03 → 00:04:10:13

And what we're going to try and show today is the idea that good writing is humanistic writing.

00:04:14:15 → 00:04:28:09

And if you go back and you look at 20 years worth of Academy nominated pictures, you're going to see that, that a huge majority of them have all of these kinds of values, human emotions, complexities in them.

00:04:28:09 →00:04:38:12

And and if you look at the television shows that I think we all admire, the movies of the week that we admire, and those writers are making very good livings.

00:04:38:12 → 00:04:41:15

The writers who I respect, this is the kind of work they're doing.

00:04:41:15 → 00:04:59:14

And and I believe that the awards and the and the money and the prestige follows doing this kind of writing. The terror for me always, and I expect other people share this, my terror is that what interests me will interest only me and not, you know,

00:04:59:15 → 00:05:07:00

I mean, the first thing I ever wrote for television, I've been doing the theater where we had like 60 people showed up at an equity waiver theater it was like a great night.

00:05:07:00 → 00:05:12:06

And I walked into the office and somebody said, show didn’t do to well, last night. And I said, oh, really?

00:05:12:06 → 00:05:19:07

And they said, yeah, numbers were bad. And I said, well, you know what was and they told me the numbers. And I said, well, what does that mean? I mean, how many people watching this? 16, 17 million.

00:05:21:04 → 00:05:31:19

So the idea that sort of what you're writing will be accepted as a universal experience by so many other people is something that I have to just trust in.

00:05:31:19 → 00:05:42:22

The difference, to me between a script that's well written and a script that's not well written has to do with all of the values that we're going to talk about, because those human values are, to me, what makes material worth watching.

00:05:42:22 → 00:05:46:21

It is those things which touch the people that you're trying to touch, the people who are watching it.

00:05:46:21 → 00:06:00:16

And we're going to talk a little bit about individual moments where you can make a choice in whatever script you're working on, whether it be an action script or a or dramatic script, a comedy where you make small choices which touch on these human moments.

00:06:00:16 → 00:06:18:08

And my experience has been that those are actually the things that when people stop me later to comment on something that I've done, those little moments are the things that people always mention. They oftentimes won't come up to me and say, I love the entire show. They'll say, I can't get that image or that moment or that line out of my head.

00:06:19:23 → 00:06:34:11

Any show that you're writing, whether whether it be a television show, a half hour an hour show, whether it be a film or a movie of the week, you have the opportunity at each moment to add things, little bits and pieces about human beings which can touch other people.

00:06:34:11 → 00:06:49:15

I tend to write rough drafts that are really tough, and then I will put them down for a few days or a week or whatever, you know, depending on how much time I have to be able to put it down.

00:06:50:02 → 00:06:58:13

I would suggest that if you watch television shows that really move you and that you really care about, you can find those details are the things that make the difference, and it makes a difference to me.

00:06:58:13 → 00:07:11:06

When I read a script, I want to see how somebody connects all those moments, whether they're just in a hurry to get from plot point to plot point. Plot is necessary. It's the spine of your show, and it's what you're going to hang things on.

00:07:11:06 → 00:07:26:08

But as far as I'm concerned, it is, it's literally the spine and every single little detail that you add on to or hang on to that spine is what makes your writing and your script special, valuable, different.

00:07:26:09 → 00:07:34:18

After you've written a scene, I go back and say, is there something in this scene that compels me to care about the characters, whatever it is?

00:07:34:18 → 00:07:48:04

What's a half hour script or an hour script or a movie of the week, or a feature. You know the plot’s great, and we're telling a story, but I'm interested in the people, so every scene to me has to advance one of the characters.

00:07:48:08 → 00:08:04:14

It doesn't mean that it has to advance them in some way, that it reveals some extraordinary amount. I think it's much more interesting to do with the opposite way, which is a script is a huge jigsaw puzzle or a puzzle for the viewer, and they're looking for all of those little pieces of the characters puzzle to put in.

00:08:04:15 → 00:08:14:02

So I go to scenes and I don't say, do I need this for plot? I ask, do I need this for the character? Am I finding anything new about the character?

00:08:14:02 → 00:08:41:11

One of the things that I use to gauge, not only in my own work, but other people's work, is whether I can, whether it comes back into my head the next day.

A lot of times I'll read someone's script, and if the next day I'm driving in my car and I realize that I'm thinking about their script, there's something in that, that has bypassed my conscious ability to judge a script and gone to the communal human experience.

00:08:41:12 → 00:08:44:07

That's what you have to get into your writing somewhere.

00:08:44:07 → 00:09:03:20

That feeling, that somewhere and anything that you write, the commonality of the experience to every human being that can be in the most straightforward three beat comedy, you know, half hour comedy that you write or the most serious motion picture that you write.

00:09:03:20 → 00:09:18:03

If you don't find those moments in which your viewer and your reader who's going to read your script finds himself lost in that common human experience, I don't believe it'll get made.

00:09:18:03 → 00:09:22:21

And when you see movies that have been made or television shows have been made without that, you know it.

00:09:22:21 → 00:09:35:22

Because when the credits come up, I can't remember what the show was about. I have no recollection. It's completely out of my mind, and it's completely out of my mind because it doesn't connect to something more important.

00:09:36:02 → 00:09:47:23

I think there's a truth to it. There's a truth to the action or the moment of the situation. And if, if, if that truth doesn't ring true, you'll know it and you'll feel it if it does.

00:09:48:00 → 00:09:51:21

And a lot of times, the best place to end a scene is before it's over.

00:09:52:11 → 00:10:03:05

You want it, you write the entire scene, see if you can back up 4 or 5 lines and get out of the scene, because it's a lot more interesting. You don't want to tie everything up all the time.

00:10:04:020 → 00:10:18:15

I think that the problem with a lot of television is that it's created and presented

in such a way that you have no option but to agree with the point of view of the writer. And in this case, it's almost always exclusively our responsibility.

00:10:19:20 → 00:10:37:23

That I think completely undermines your case, particularly if you're trying to make people think those people who agree with you. You're just preaching to the choir, and those people who don't you haven't given them anything to change their opinion, because you've presented in such a way that leaves no room for their point of view.

00:10:38:17 → 00:10:53:11

So the things that I enjoy hearing the most about my work is that people argued about something that I wrote afterwards, that people had completely different interpretations of something that I wrote.

00:10:54:10 → 00:11:11:01

You know, I've actually said this happens usually with my own family, where, you know, they'll bring up something that they saw of mine at a dinner. And and my father, who tends to pontificate a little bit, will say, well, I thought it was wonderful that you did that. And my mother will say, well, that's not what he was talking about at all!

00:11:11:16 → 00:11:24:10

And then that's great, because then you've left enough room in your work for the opinions of various people to get in. You're not trying to force people into your point of view.

00:11:24:11 → 00:11:30:16

You're trying to present an attitude and an idea that you can agree with or disagree with the idea.

00:11:30:16 → 00:11:42:10

But you have to believe and care about the character. If you care about the character in the scene, whether you agree with the specific choices that that character makes, you understand their point of view.

00:11:42:14 → 00:11:52:18

Then you have enlarged the experience of the viewer, and you've also let someone come into the other life and into that life of that character that you've presented.

00:11:52:18 → 00:12:02:04

I think we have additional responsibilities when we have those opportunities to ask questions, questions that can't be answered, put them out, things that people don't talk about that you're uncomfortable talking about.

00:12:02:05 → 00:12:12:11

The scene is artificial because it's not something that I think the really ultimately, those characters would be comfortable getting into that conversation over a long period of time. They would at some point drop out of it.

00:12:12:11 → 00:12:37:09

I've sort of forced them together to have that conversation for a long time intentionally, because we don't hear it enough. And until the language gets into, oh boy, I'm getting on my soapbox now, but until the language gets out, it's the old Lenny Bruce argument. Until you desensitize words and situations by talking about them, by by exchanging information and hearing somebody else's point of view.

00:12:37:09 → 00:12:53:21

And when we're talking about evaluating your own work, one of the things that I always find myself doing when I go back through a script after I've written it is enlarging the viewpoint, enlarging, giving more room for other opinions and attitudes.

00:12:53:21 → 00:13:11:05

Because when I write it, it is one thing in my head. I know where I'm going and that's what I write. When I reread it, I then have to ask myself, how are other people going to get into this story or script? How are other people going to find their way into it?

00:13:11:06 → 00:13:25:10

Because I don't know what your experience is, but when I watch something and the writer has been so specific in only giving me one option for an opinion, I have no interest in it whatsoever.

00:13:25:10 → 00:13:37:14

I believe that if you take the position as the writer that you actually have an answer, you've immediately put off the viewer. You're putting yourself into a position where the other person's point of view is suddenly not valid.

00:13:37:14 → 00:13:51:09

By saying, this is the only direction that I think that in those situations, your entire job is to figure out what the point of view is and make certain that at the end of it, whatever the outcome, that we understand what that is and that goes for.

00:13:53:10 → 00:14:02:01

That goes for stories in particular, goes for stories about things which seem as if there can't possibly be another point of view.

00:14:02:01 → 00:14:26:06

I think you can only write it if you can actually understand and have some compassion doesn't mean you're forgiving the person. It doesn't mean that you're that you're accepting the behavior. It means that that vilifying somebody else without understanding who they are as a human being on some basic level, removes it from, I think, from being something of value.

00:14:26:07 → 00:14:41:23

You don't really have to agree with everything that you're writing about, nor do you have to present a single point of view. You can show a lot of different things. And the second thing that you don't have to have moments at the end which resolve everything to feel as if there's a possibility of hope or of something happening.

00:14:41:23 → 00:14:52:01

You only need those gestures at which people attempt to cross the distance. They don't have to cross it, and it's a lot more interesting if they don't.

[MUSIC PLAYS]

MICHELLE FRANKE

00:14:56:12 → 00:16:19:15

Thanks again for listening to Humanitas’s Industry 101 Podcast.

At the end of each episode, we ask writers to apply the lessons learned to their own writing through a writing exercise. Today's exercise was written by Daniel Plagens, our Program Manager. You'll need a script you've written yourself, or a script you've studied endlessly.

Flip through the script and find a scene. You'll want something meaty where two people are interacting. Now read it thoroughly.

Identify its protagonist, the person proactively pursuing a goal, and apply

John's questions. What in the scene compels me to care about the character? Do we need this moment for the character? Why is it necessary? If you think it's unnecessary, why is that? Am I learning anything new about the character? What is it? Is it duplicative and escalation or an evolution of something that's come before?

Think deeply about these questions and write the answers down. Evaluate them. It's okay to answer yes or no. It's the critical thinking that you're doing that's most important.

And with that, thank you for listening to Humanitas Industry 101 podcast, which is made possible with support from our series sponsor, Sony Pictures Entertainment.

If you'd like to learn more about Humanitas and the work we do, please visit our website at Humanitas Prize dot org.

Until our next episode, be well and be writing.

Credits:

Host/Writer-Producer: Michelle Franke

Featuring: John Wells

Audio Editor-Producer: Campbell Moore

Writer-Producer: Daniel Plagens

Mixing/Mastering: Jeff Schoeny at Voxstop

Music: "We Don't Stop" and "Got to Be" by Mooveka

Music Licensing: Artlist.io