Entertaining Questions!

Today is Entertaining Question Day here on Just Effing!

Question: Julie, are you still helping writers and giving notes on scripts and manuscripts?

Answer: Well, sure, that’s my job.

Question: What about Stories Without Borders, doesn’t that take up a lot of your time?

Answer: Like you, I have a day job. Which is story development and working with writers. Until SWB becomes really, really active, I am keeping my day job. That doesn’t mean I have less faith in SWB (or that you have less faith in your writing, if you have a regular day job too) it means I actually love my day job and that I have nothing but faith in my other endeavors as well.

That said, it has been a trick to blog here and blog on SWB and to keep each blog happening and alive, inspirational and informative. But I can do it because, as it turns out, there are so many things in common between the two.

Just Effing Entertain Me is about being a writer and all that entails. There are how-to articles here. There are inspirational, stay sane articles here. There are updates on other writers and what they are doing. There are opinions about trends in Hollywood and around the world.

Stories Without Borders is a blog (and an organization) about getting the knowledge, encouragement, computers, equipment and opportunity to write (and create films) to people who do not ordinarily have easy access to what we take for granted. And in the doing of it, to create community (just like on Just Effing!) open hearts (just like on Just Effing!), find new talent (just like on Just Effing!) and to create a dialogue and healing (who doesn’t want that?!).

For me, SWB and Just Effing are two sides of one coin: WRITE!?

Anywhoodle.

…I was writing some notes today and thought to myself, well, this is particularly educational, isn’t it? I anonymized the particulars of the notes but also left them there for you to see them in context with other examples:

Theme is that subtle element that is sometimes hard to understand. Theme speaks to what your script is really ABOUT. It’s helpful to ask yourself what question you are asking in this script. Are you asking and pondering, on these pages, if genius has an obligation to create?  Are you asking if every artist needs a muse? Are you asking whether insanity is really insanity or the mark of a genius? What is the point of your story, in other words?

All movies ask this what I like to call “entertaining question”.  Let’s take the academy award winning Artist for example. What’s the entertaining question: Will the character be able to transition from old Hollywood to the new one? Will sound change film forever? What happens to those who cannot adapt to change? See how I asked the question three times, zooming out each time until we reach a larger question?

What’s the entertaining question in LEGALLY BLONDE? Can a blonde airhead succeed at Harvard Law? Or maybe something like: Can you judge a book by its cover?  What’s the entertaining question of JAWS: Can three ordinary men defeat a monster shark? Another entertaining question from the film was: should a small town take a huge bite out of its much needed summer economy by warning swimmers of the presence of a killer shark, or should it forget the economy and save lives? Well, that last question is particularly interesting (read: entertaining) because of COURSE we’d like to answer – NO, save lives!! But that leads me to another thing to think about here in the section of theme and entertaining questions and that is the What Would You Do question (that’s also in my Just Effing book).

So let’s rephrase the Jaws question: what would YOU do if your business relied upon summer tourists but a killer shark was eating swimmers? You still think there’s an easy answer, don’t you? Not so easy. Let’s stack it up. What if your business is about to fail? Would you answer differently now? What if your wife needed a surgery? Now what is your answer? We stack it up, we make the question harder and harder to answer. In 3:10 to Yuma, Christian Bale has his ranch and his family’s well-being on the line. He had to save that ranch. (He learns, as the story goes on, that what’s really important to him is his pride, but that’s another layer). So for $200 he says yes, he’ll escort a very dangerous criminal to the train depot. Is THAT in the best interest of his family? Is THAT safe? No easy answers here, are there? And there won’t be for your character, either. Or for that matter – there won’t be easy answers for you, the writer.

If you find that you have a pat, easy, quick answer to your entertaining question, then the question really isn’t that entertaining anymore, is it?

postscript: You may or may not have seen that Stories Without Borders is looking for a tax-deductible MacBook donation. If you or anyone know has a new or gently used MacBook they’d like to donate to SWB, please do contact me soonest.