“You’re not Vince Gilligan” : When to stop following the rules and start writing what you want.
A few years back, when I made the switch from writing feature films to television scripts, I signed up for an intro-level course in hour-long drama. The teacher was a hip, peppery 50-something who knew everyone’s name within seconds and, before the end of the first class, had given us all a nickname. I was The Daine.
“Everybody hold on — The Daine has something to say.” This was a typical declaration from the teacher when I raised my hand. It might have been exactly what he said the day we got our first scenes back, and I had a question about his notes.
“What’s up, Daine?”
“I was just wondering why you wrote ‘unfilmable’ on all my action lines.”
“Because they weren’t action lines. They were directorial comments.”
“Some people call them description.”
“Doesn’t matter what you call them. They’re instructions to the crew on what to film. You can’t shoot things like — what did you write here? — ‘FML.’”
I spent a moment presenting my case. “FML” was an instruction to the actor telling her what her character was feeling. Knowing the character’s inner thoughts would guide her in creating a natural response. Even if “FML” wasn’t filmable in the abstract, the actor’s response was.
My teacher wasn’t buying it. So, in a last-ditch effort to support my point, I said, “Vince Gilligan does stuff like this all the time.”
“Yeah, but you’re not Vince Gilligan.”
Duly noted.
Following this exchange, I went back to writing things like “She grimaces” — clear, straightforward actions. Meanwhile, I kept reading the top screenplays on the market and seeing that no one seemed to be following “the rules” except for me. And that made me wonder…
When do you get to stop following the rules and start writing whatever the hell you want?
Before I get too far into this, let me start off by explaining what I think “screenwriting rules” actually are. Same as all rules, they’re an agreement between two parties. More specifically, they represent an understanding between the writer and the reader about how ideas are communicated.
Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re telling a story about a dude named Alain who gets stuck at home during a thunderstorm. If you were writing a novel, you could say something like, “It was a dark and stormy night. Alain was in the living room, pacing by the fire.”
But if you’re writing a screenplay , according to screenwriting rules, you wouldn’t express it like that. Instead, you’d write something like this:
INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
Thunder RUMBLES. A fire CRACKLES in the fireplace. Alain paces by the fire.
Then the reader, who ideally also knows the rules of screenwriting, would then fulfill his or her side of the deal by interpreting things like “INT.” to mean “inside” and all caps to mean sound effects, etc.
Scott Myers has an excellent, in-depth series of posts on screenwriting rules, one of which is that “there are no rules.” He refers to them instead as “expectations,” which I agree is more accurate in theory. However, in practice, the expectations of decision-makers often become rules for aspiring artists. And even in Myers’ series, it’s clear that readers generally want their expectations to be met.
So. When do you get to say screw all that and start writing by your own rules? Here’s what I’ve figured out:
- When you’re a marketable product.
Not trying to pick a fight with anybody, but in my experience: How you say things matters less than what you’re saying, and in Hollywood, what you’re saying generally matters less than who you are.
This is the “You’re not Vince Gilligan” syndrome. My teacher wasn’t cutting me down when he said that I wasn’t Vince Gilligan. He was pointing out the fact that if I were a commercial success, the market would grant me more creative liberty. Since I wasn’t, it behooved me (in his opinion) to toe the line.
Winners make the rules, in essence. Up-and-comers follow.
Is this always true? No. Nothing is always true. (Let the logicians riddle that one out.) But it is very, very often so.
One example: David Milch. Clearly a genius from day one. But he didn’t break in by writing the pilot for Deadwood. Instead, he performed the quintessential act of rule-following — writing a spec episode of someone else’s show (Hill Street Blues).
After proving himself as a writer on HSB, he went on to co-create a show in a similar vein which ran for 12 seasons (NYPD Blue). Then, and only then, with a proven track record of marketability, Milch broke the mold with the greatest Western and one of the greatest dramas ever on television.
Again, Milch is a genius. And for the purposes of this article, I’m assuming you are too. But as his example demonstrates, even geniuses very often have to walk the line — at least until they become commercially viable enough for the industry to take a risk on innovation.
Milch did a terrific interview with the Television Academy about all this. It’s worth a watch if you’re interested in the idea of creative liberty as a journey, more than a destination.
2. When “what you want” strongly resonates with what the industry wants.
What did I say above? It’s not always the case that you have to be somebody before your genius, groundbreaking work will catch the public’s attention.
Sometimes, you can toss all the “rules” out the window, write whatever the hell you want, and it just happens to resonate so perfectly with the zeitgeist that it takes on a life of its own.
Hence, once every generation or so, you get something like Fleabag.
By her own account, Phoebe Waller-Bridge was far from a “marketable product” when she wrote the one-woman theatrical show that would become a runaway hit TV series.
She was essentially a non-working actress co-running a small theatre company in London. She wrote a short piece on a contingency basis and then expanded it to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Do you have any idea how many one-person shows there are every year at the Edinburgh Fringe? Me neither. But in 2018, there were 3,548 shows in 317 venues, so without knowing what percentage of those were one-person shows, I’m still gonna say… a shit ton.
How did Fleabag become the one that rose to the top? Great writing and performance aside, it’s because the themes and characters perfectly captured the zeitgeist of early-30s, single women from that culture, in that particular moment of time.
This is a special kind of synergistic magic. I think if you’re trying to write to the moment, you’re probably going to miss it. But every once in a while, like at 11:59 P.M. on Christmas Eve when you’re trying to get home and it’s snowing, magic happens.
3. When you truly, madly, deeply no longer care about beating the game.
The commercial art world (whether “art” is writing, directing, performing, painting, or whatever) is extremely competitive. It’s like a hockey game with ten thousand players and only one puck.
(Think I’m exaggerating? According to the WGA, you’re 5 times more likely to become a professional baseball player than you are to get into the Writers Guild.)
But maybe you genuinely, deep down, in your heart of hearts and soul of souls do not desire public recognition or acclaim. You create purely for the joy of self-expression, set your finished creations aside, and feel no need to share them with anyone else.
If this is you… first of all, please tell me what it’s like. I do believe that people like this exist, but I’m not one of them, and I don’t know of any screenwriters or TV writers who are either. (I know some who claim they don’t care about an audience, but I secretly don’t believe them.) Feel free to prove me wrong.
Second of all, have at it! Some people believe art requires an audience; others think it has value independent of its witnesses. Me personally, I think if all you need is to love what you write, you’re better off than most of us.
And really, loving what you write is the only rule that should never be broken.
Meagan Daine is a television and podcast writer interested in cons, cults, and random acts of kindness. Follow her on Twitter/IG @writeordienow or check out her latest projects at writeordienow.com.
