A Screenwriter's Companion: Instruction, Opinion, Encouragement

By Joseph Dougherty and Scott Ryan

“I was a writer before I knew what a writer was.” -Joseph DoughertyJoseph Dougherty has been a successful playwright and television writer, producer, and director for more than thirty years. He's written for breakthrough series that have changed the way we look at television drama, from thirtysomething to Pretty Little Liars, winning everything from Emmys to Teen Choice Awards along the way.In A Screenwriter's Companion, Dougherty offers insights and advice both practical and nonpractical to writers and would-be writers. Dougherty's voice comes off the page with anecdotes about the writing process, hard-learned tips for survival in “the business,” and reflections on the influences that head led him to a successful career. Honestly, entertainingly, without cynicism, he gives readers permission to embrace the writer they want to be, so they can experience the rewards and satisfactions of writing. Beyond an insider's take on story and structure, dialogue, action and outlining, A Screenwriter's Companion is as much mentor as it is manual. With every insider observation about how to keep a potential producer reading till the last page of a script, there's encouragement to explore your thoughts and memories, things a writer needs to embrace in order to become more than “a pro.” In short, to see writing not as merely a career, but as a way to greater self-understanding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fayetteville Mafia Press
• Release date: Sep 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781949024401

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A Screenwriter’s Companion: Instruction, Opinion, Encouragement ©2022 Joseph Dougherty

All Rights Reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part without the author’s permission is strictly forbidden. All photos and/or copyrighted material appearing in this publication remains the work of its owners. This is a scholarly work of review and commentary only, and no attempt is made or should be inferred to infringe upon the copyrights of any corporation.

Cover design by Erin Lovelien

Cover photo by Joseph Dougherty

Edited by David Bushman

Book designed by Scott Ryan

Published in the USA by Fayetteville Mafia Press

Columbus, Ohio

Contact Information

Email: [e-mail]

Website: fayettevillemafiapress.com

Instagram: @fayettevillemafiapress

Twitter:@fmpbooks

ISBN: 9781949024395

eBook ISBN: 9781949024401

For Beverly.

I’m not going to teach you to be writers. You already are writers. – Ivy Dunbar, 1989

Let’s face it. Watching television is like sitting in front of a slot machine in Las Vegas. The chances of hitting the jackpot are super slim. The silly part is we know it going in, and we still drop those tokens in that little hole because we hope for the high we hit when those three cherries come up. I hit the jackpot back in the early nineties with a script written by a young Joseph Dougherty. I didn’t know his name before that night, and he sure as hell didn’t know mine. But I always remembered his after that. He wouldn’t learn mine for another thirty years.

I wasn’t a writer, but I dreamed of being one. It was a silent dream. I hadn’t told my parents, or my girlfriend, or anyone. The only person who knew was Michael Steadman. Problem was, he didn’t know my name either. He was the lead character on thirtysomething, which aired on ABC from 1987 to 1991. In this Joe-crafted episode, Michael took a writing class with fictional author Ivy Dunbar. She was a hero of Michael’s, and he hoped to learn from her. When she didn’t like his writing, it bothered him, but it crushed me as I watched from home. Michael was deciding between being a writer or working in corporate America for the evil Miles Drentell. At the time, the decision was made for me by my father. I was told I would major in advertising, and I was reluctantly earning that degree as I watched thirtysomething. At least it was the same job Michael had. I thought if Michael could do it, I could do it. But then here comes Joe to put Michael and his dreams through the ringer in that jackpot episode titled Michael Writes a Story.

When Michael goes to Ivy Dunbar to quit the class, due to plot points too subtle to get into here, Ivy doesn’t care. She says, Writing isn’t that important. This shocks Michael and upset the twentysomething in me. Writing meant everything to me. When Ivy asked Michael what he would give to become a great writer, he and I both said simultaneously, EVERYTHING. Michael chose to go work for Miles, and if you wanna know how that turns out you better watch the series. How it turned out for me was that I refused to get a corporate job after graduation for fifteen years. But I also didn’t write during that time. When life forced me into corporate America for ten years, a curious thing happened—I couldn’t stop writing.

My first published book was about none other than thirtysomething. In 2016, I phoned Joseph Dougherty to interview him for the book. He had some explaining to do. Why did he not respect writing? Why would he make Michael choose Miles over writing? Why did he have Ivy say those horrible things? He told me, I wanted to talk specifically to people like Michael who said, ‘If I can write, everything will be okay. If I can figure out a way to get published or get produced, somehow that validation will fix everything.’ And that validation doesn’t fix everything, and even at that time I was still learning that lesson. So maybe that lesson was very close to the front of my head. In the time between writing that episode and our interview, Dougherty had worked on such shows as Judging Amy, Once and Again, and Saving Grace. He had written plays, books, and telemovies. He was then writing on one of the most popular shows on television, Pretty Little Liars. We had a great interview, but he didn’t understand why Michael Writes a Story had stuck with me for so long. He said Ivy Dunbar probably was as close to himself as any character he had created. We had a great discussion about how writing can and can’t forgive the sins of your past. I remember so specifically him mentioning how people do not knock on your door and tell you you are now officially a writer. His words were just what I needed to hear as I stepped onto the writing stage with my first book. Once again, he was my Ivy Dunbar.

thirtysomething at thirty: an oral history was published, and somehow the writing episode that had kicked me in the face now was a part of my first published book. That would be the coolest twist if not for the book you are holding in your hands right now. (I won’t acknowledge the e-reader you are most likely reading this on, because only printed books matter to writers.) Over the years since that first interview, Joe and I have become friends. I have written for his website a few times, and we have kept in touch. In that time, I started the Fayetteville Mafia Press publishing company with David Bushman. I asked Joe to write an essay about Doctor Who for an upcoming essay book we were working on. He agreed and said he would like to write a book about writing if we were interested. Did the phrase full circle mean anything to him? Of course we were! So now I am publishing a book about writing through the business I started after becoming a writer who wanted to avoid working in business. If you can follow all that, then you probably also could follow all the twists and turns on PLL and you know who A is.

This book has such worthwhile advice in it. Joe walks potential writers through exercises and gives real-world examples, delivering counsel with much more charm than Ivy Dunbar ever did for Michael Steadman. It was my lifelong fear that I would make the same choice as Michael and give up my writing dream for a business career. Thanks to Joe’s words of encouragement, his interview for my first book, and now A Screenwriter’s Companion: Instruction, Opinion, Encouragement, I am lucky enough to hit those three cherries once more and hear that loud clunk of germ-filled coins dropping into a plastic bucket. Don’t worry, you don’t have to be jealous, because you get to share in the winnings too. Ivy Dunbar might think writing is not that important, but luckily for readers, Joseph Dougherty is about to share just why it is important to him.

Scott Ryan

October 6, 2021

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case.

– Annie Dillard

Don’t Panic.

– Douglas Adams

My initial thought was to call this book Secrets of Failure. That presented a variety of marketing problems.

I wasn’t going to teach people to fail. I just thought they should know that failure has its own set of secrets. Big things, such as failure is inevitable. Little things, such as failure should never be wasted.

There are so many books and videos and lectures promising success, I thought I’d found a way to separate myself from the herd, break through all that noise, carve out a nice niche for myself.

Then I realized people wouldn’t want a book that sounded like a guide to achieving failure. Most people figure they already know all they care to know about failure and in some cases considerably more than they care to know.

I liked the idea of calling this a companion. At first, I thought about calling it a bedside companion, but that generated an entirely different set of marketing challenges. That said, I would like this book to be something you keep within easy reach.

My aim isn’t to be definitive, but to be informative and supportive. What follows are things I know and things I believe. You won’t have any problem telling the difference.

This isn’t the only book you should have about writing, but I think it’s a book you’re entitled to. Something with a different perspective from the ones packed with all that SUCCESS.

I’m a writer. That’s what I proudly told the county clerk when I applied for my first marriage license. I had little to prove it at the time and maybe the clerk could tell, or else he just misheard me. In either case, the profession he entered on the application was waiter.

Now even the federal government recognizes me as a writer. It says so on my tax return. Sometimes I wonder what I could do for a living if I didn’t write. This self-evaluation usually comes on the heels of a bad experience in what is called The Industry, a phrase I’ve always liked because it indicates on the part of the speaker a belief that there’s only one industry worth discussing.

So, when I’ve had a bad meeting or a bad experience with a script or, worse, a bad experience with a production, I wonder what I’d do if I decided to hang it all and seek something else to pay the mortgage.

This intense self-evaluation usually lasts about five minutes, cut off by the realization that, through my own pigheadedness and refusal to learn a recognizable trade, the only thing I’m even marginally qualified to do is to teach others about writing. And I’m not so sure helping someone move closer to this business is such a noble idea. While the earthly rewards are substantial, writing for television and movies can be discouraging, disappointing, and frustrating.

The books on television and movie writing I’ve looked at seem reluctant to discuss this aspect of the business. Most of them avoid the difficulties and responsibilities and proceed to render writing down to a series of logical steps, a checklist for creativity. Building story and character, they tell you, is simply a matter of following instructions and filling in the blanks. You can write a screenplay! It’s easy and fun! Fool your friends! Confound your enemies!

Possible, I suppose. Up to a point. Someone can show you how to fold origami, but it’s going to take you a while to get good at it.

When I peek inside one of these helpful tomes I usually find such nuggets of wisdom as: Make Sure Your Characters Are Interesting. I avoid these books the way I avoid the grammar check on my word processing software.

I will let others tend to the more cynical aspects of your education. Me, I want you to develop an annoying sense of right and wrong. A desire for worth and purpose. If that doesn’t put the kibosh on your career, I don’t know what will.

While I believe good writing should challenge convention and authority and stoke the fires of righteous indignation, I’m convinced it has a more human mission: to relieve pain, confirm love, spark joy, and sit in hospital rooms holding the hands of the dying.

I believe drama is a place we go to try out emotions and learn how to be human. Maybe it can’t change the world, but it can change a world. A play can do that, a novel, a poem, a movie, a television show, or any part thereof. I’m not suggesting everything has to be a sermon or that you can’t jazz around and have fun. You shouldn’t teach when you write, but you have to be aware that someone will learn from what you’ve written.

Most of my adult life, I’ve had a quote from John Gardner’s Art of Fiction within sight of where I’m working. It’s a very simple statement from the exercise section of the book:

To write with taste, in the highest sense, is to write with the assumption that one out of a hundred people who read one’s work may be dying, or have some loved one dying; to write so that no one commits suicide, no one despairs; to write as Shakespeare wrote, so that people understand, sympathize, see the universality of pain, and feel strengthened, if not directly encouraged to live on.

I like to use this quote as a measure of my own writing. In spite of that, I’ve actually made a living as a writer.

Preparing to write this book, I tried to determine the basic building blocks of writing, but right there we have a problem. Building blocks suggest something solid and uniform, and those words don’t describe good writing. Some of the aspects of construction are useful as metaphors for the writing process, but good stories are not made of anything as unforgiving as cinder blocks.

Things you need.

There is skill. A working knowledge of how language and drama and film are put together. Tastes have changed in all those areas, but the underlying grammar is solid and necessary. You can break all the rules you want to break as long as you know why the rules are there and why you want to bend them.

There is respect. When you write, honor the tug that pulled you toward this thing. The books you’ve read, the plays and television and movies you’ve seen that didn’t leave you when the show was over. Plenty of people have a touch of this, an attraction toward an imagined world, an imagined life. The people who want to write aren’t the people who want to escape to fantasy; they’re the ones who want to come back to the real world and share with everyone the traveler’s tales of what they discovered.

There is love. A writer has to love writing. You can kick yourself when it’s not going well, but you still have to love it.

There is permission. This is usually mixed with a certain amount of support and trust. I was out of college and trying to find someone to read my scripts when  personnel manager where I was applying for what is often referred to as a real job asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I told her I was going to be a writer. She smiled a smile you may be familiar with. The poor, poor dear smile. Then she said to me, with all the kindness in her heart, "You know, it’s nice to have a hobby, but you really should think about the future.

If someone says something like this to you when you tell them you want to be a writer you should be polite and thank them for the advice, then slowly step away from them, resisting the melodramatic urge to throw a drink in Aunt Philida’s face, which is something Uncle Otto has been dying to do for years, ever since Aunt Philida talked him out of studying to be an opera singer.

A writer needs visible means of support. That includes, for as long as it takes, a way to make a living that doesn’t depend on selling what you write. Writing doesn’t respond well to that kind of pressure.

A writer also needs invisible means of support. Passion, confidence (real or pretend), and, in the best case, someone in your life who believes in you. This last is hard to come by and fragile and must be maintained with care.

So, consider this book your permission slip. Find out if you like writing and if you’re happy with what you write. Nobody here’s going to give you a hard time, except to push you to be a better writer, to be honest with yourself and your work and never sell either one short.

Years from now, I don’t want you looking up at the sky and asking, "Why didn’t I at least try to write that down?"

You can do something today to avoid ever having to voice that question.

The only things I know about writing I know from personal experience. We can talk about craft and what works for me, but you’ll have to decide what you need, what helps you access the creative parts of your brain.

Be leery of someone saying, This is how to write.

It’s like someone saying, I have found the best pair of shoes. They’re comfortable, they look great, and they take me anywhere I want to go. Here’s a pair just like them. Try ’em on.

They could be great shoes for somebody else’s feet.

Try the shoes. Walk around, see how they feel, then decide if they’re right for you.

Things have worked out rather well for me, considering where I started and what I started with. But this is not the career I planned. The career I imagined for myself was imagined by an adolescent and was more about other people telling me what a great writer I was than actually learning to be a writer.

To quote Joseph Campbell, You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.

I’ve done some of my best work for a very disposable medium, television. I believe that’s one of the things that’s kept me honest as a writer. It’s forced me to think of how to accomplish the task at hand without worrying about assessments in the future. Assessments I’m not going to know anything about.

My experience is as a dramatist, but I think there are things here that can be useful to all fiction writers.

If you’re toward the beginning of things, I hope what follows is of both practical and nonpractical use. If you’re further along on your journey, I hope revisiting some of the more elementary aspects of the calling will provide perspective.

Fair warning, for all my good intentions, this book is mostly for me.

This is my opportunity to record not only some of what I know about writing, but also how I feel about it. What writing has meant to me, how I got here. I’m including those things because you deserve some context, some knowledge of how this particular writer was formed.

But, hey, you bought the book, you can skip as many pages as you like.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but writing is, at its core, a solitary discipline. Solitude, I believe, is one of its rewards.

The poet Daniel Hall wrote of those moments when solitude becomes loneliness. Loneliness doesn’t endure. But it feels like hell when it