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AARON SORKIN GIVES A FEW GOOD TIPS ON WRITING by Tom McCurrie
Writer Aaron Sorkin ("A Few Good Men", "The West Wing") gave a lively Q & A at the latest edition of the Spring Storytellers series, sponsored by the Writers Guild Foundation, commanding the stage like a charismatic movie star. But maybe that's because Sorkin received his training in acting, not writing, graduating from Syracuse University with a degree in Theatre in 1983.
In fact, Sorkin turned to writing as "a happy accident". While a broke, struggling actor in New York, Sorkin was asked by a friend to take care of his "grandfather's semi-automatic typewriter" while he went away for the weekend. Prior to this, Sorkin says, "I had never seen writing as anything but a chore to be gotten through for a school assignment." But the planets aligned that Friday night, making it especially conducive to writing. According to Sorkin, "It was one of those Friday nights living in New York City where you feel like everyone has been invited to a party that you haven't been invited to." Throw in the fact that it was raining and the TV was kaput, and Sorkin realized, "There was literally nothing to do on this Friday night but stick a piece of paper in my friend's grandfather's semi-automatic typewriter and see if I could entertain myself that way." Sorkin stayed up all night typing dialogue, and caught the writing bug for good.
Or more accurately, Sorkin caught the dialogue bug, since he doesn't have near as much fun writing plot: "I don't have stories to tell...I'm not one of these guys who grew up around the campfire saying let me tell you another one, I got a million of them." Despite his award-winning career, Sorkin says, "It's a terrible struggle for me devising an intention and an obstacle that I feel holds water and that's interesting. I would much rather blather on [with dialogue]."
Sorkin doesn't speak into a tape recorder to get the rhythm of his trademark dialogue down, either. Sorkin: "I tried doing that but I can't. When I tried using a tape player, when I tried dictating I'd freeze up immediately. It's walking around talking to myself, it's being in the car and talking to myself." Indeed, Sorkin seems practically a Mennonite when it comes to technology: "The problem I have with these new-fangled computers is that they don't make a good sound...The [clacking] sound a typewriter made you felt like you were working, felt like you were doing a day's work."
After catching the writing bug in New York, Sorkin says, "Writing movies, writing television never crossed my mind." Writing plays was all he ever thought of doing. Of course, it was difficult for Sorkin to earn a living as a playwright, even after getting some notice for a one-act he wrote. So he ended up bartending at a Broadway theatre to pay the bills, and "that is when [he] began writing ?A Few Good Men' on cocktail napkins".
Sorkin's award-winning play "A Few Good Men" was based on the experience of his sister in the JAG corps, defending some Marines accused of assault at Guantanemo Bay. It took two years to write "Men", since Sorkin's writing process was so thorough: "I'd write it to the end and go back and write it all over again, go back and write it all over again, go back and write it all over again. I think I probably wrote, without exaggeration, about twenty drafts of ?A Few Good Men'." (If this doesn't prove writing is rewriting, nothing does!) And Sorkin is "still not quite done yet", even though the play opened on Broadway in 1989. "Men" is going up on the West End and Sorkin plans to do a little rewriting: "I was 28 when I wrote it [and] I feel like I'm better now."
"Men" made a big splash on Broadway, and soon playwright Sorkin was doing something he'd never thought he'd do -- adapt his work for the screen (in a weird twist of fate, the film rights were actually purchased before the play was put up). Sorkin: "...Not only had I not written a screenplay before ?A Few Good Men', I hadn't read one before. I first struggled with the format a bit, which seemed to be unreadable to me..." This slowed things down somewhat: "I think it took me three-and-a-half days to write the first page of ?A Few Good Men'."
Sorkin soon learned from fellow screenwriter William Goldman to "screw the format" -- don't worry about camera angles, tracking shots and close-ups, just write a script that hooks a reader on an emotional, page-turning level. Unless that happens, all the camera angles in the world won't save it. Sorkin: "Even now in the scripts that I write, I only frankly describe what is important for me to describe for you to get that moment now." All the "and the camera pushes in, and pushes in, and pushes in, and pushes in" stuff is kept to a minimum. Sorkin "also like[s] description to take as much time for the reader as it's going to take to happen onscreen". If a woman storms into a room and storms back out again, Sorkin says, "I'm not going to describe what she's wearing. It couldn't be less important." Pace and flow trump those kinds of details.
Now Sorkin's forte is certainly his dialogue: "If you've ever seen anything I've written, there's going to be some chatting. People are going to be talking." This doesn't play into film's visual strengths, and Sorkin doesn't make up for it with exciting description, either: "There's a scene in ?A Few Good Men' -- Tom Cruise is driving his car, pulls over, pops out at a newsstand, buys a copy of Sports Illustrated, gets back in the car and drives off. That's my action sequence."
So "Men"'s director Rob Reiner taught Sorkin how to do the "walk and talk" -- the characters would get out large blocks of dialogue while moving from room to hallway to parking lot, usually in one long Steadicam shot. This allowed Sorkin to keep his lines without sacrificing visual energy, and is something he used quite frequently on "The West Wing".
Despite his success with "Men" and "Wing", the writing process hasn't gotten any easier for Sorkin: "Listen, I love writing. What I hate is not writing. That's where I am right now...[wanting to do] the next thing and I don't have an idea -- it's bad enough not having any ideas so you really start to try and get one. Every day you're flipping through this Rolodex of instantly dismissible ideas, so my head is like the worst movie you've ever seen. Ideas that go nowhere, you know? Ideas that all they do -- it's like being bludgeoned with your own inadequacies." Nevertheless, Sorkin admits, "Writing something well, writing something that people like, that's funny or good or emotional, it's my only means of showing off. And that's something I like to do. And so if I have an idea for something I want it to get on paper as quickly as possible so I can show it to people as quickly as I can and get that affection I so crave from strangers." So if you're looking for love, get out there and write -- I know I will!
Responses, comments and general two-cents worth can be E-mailed to gillis662000@yahoo.com.
(Note: For all those who missed my past reviews/articles, they're now archived on Hollywoodlitsales.com. Just click the link on the main page and it'll take you to the Inner Sanctum. Love them or Hate them at your leisure!)
A graduate of USC's School of Cinema-Television, Tom McCurrie has worked as a development executive and a story analyst. He is currently a screenwriter living in Los Angeles.
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