Interview with Screenwriter Xander Bennett

Xander Bennett can't remember a time when he didn't want to be a writer. Growing up in Australia, he knew it was a goal he'd have to achieve elsewhere, which he attests is the reason he travelled so much ( Sydney, Saigon, Vancouver, and Los Angeles). To date he's written everything from graphic novels to children's television scripts to books to games, and even blogs. Currently, he develops film and television scripts with Madhouse Entertainment.


What was your path towards publication like?
In 2009, I started my blog, Screenwriting Tips, You Hack, as a place to complain about the crappy spec scripts I was then reading. At that time I was working for a small production company in Los Angeles, and like so many script readers before me I was going slowly mad from reading what we call "the slush pile" -- the stack of incoming screenplays written by aspiring Hollywood scribes.

I saw these guys and girls making the same mistakes over and over again, and recognized those same mistakes in my own material. It was all good fodder for my daily screenwriting tips -- short, snarky blog posts about the craft of screenwriting.

About a year into the blog's life, a writer and screenwriting teacher called Will Akers contacted me. I knew Will as the author of Your Screenplay Suck', which was my absolute favorite book on screenwriting.

He told me, "Dude, you've got a book here". I didn't quite believe him, but he was persistent. He helped me prepare a book proposal and sent it to Focal Press on my behalf. They bought it just like that.

Actually working with Focal Press on the book was a dream.

I couldn't believe the way they'd consult me on every aspect of the book, from content to copyediting to page formatting. As a screenwriter I'm used to the writer being everybody's bitch, but it's not like that in publishing. It's enough to make you want to become a novelist.


What is your biggest obstacle when it comes to pitching yourself as an author and what steps have you taken to overcome that obstacle?
When pitching myself as a writer, my biggest problem is that I tend to downplay my experience and under-value myself. I think it's some sort of defense mechanism against fear of failure -- I try not to make too big a deal out of anything. Of course, you can't do that when trying to impress new people, so I've learned to be a little more enthusiastic when talking about myself.


How do you balance your life as an entrepreneur with your duties as a parent or spouse?
I'm not actually a parent or spouse, but I've been with my partner for almost eight years now, so I can probably take a shot at this question.

I don't know how anyone else does it, but I do it by having the smartest, wisest, most loving person I know to guide me. She's a freelancer also, and we do everything and travel everywhere together. She gives me the space I need to write, and I try to balance that with pitching in and doing what's needed to get through daily life.

Sometimes I get depressed or worried about the future, and I'll ask her, "Maybe I should stop doing this? Maybe it's time to go get a real job?". She tells me to stop complaining and get back to writing. That's the kind of person you need.


What is your best advice for getting past writer's block?
I don't think writer's block is a real problem -- at least not in the way people use it, which is to say, "My wellspring of creative energy's dried up! The Muses have stopped singing!".

There are no Muses, and writing isn't divinely inspired. It's just ripping words out of your brain and placing them on the page, one after another. It's mundane and unsexy and difficult and boring, and that's just the first draft. If you think getting something down on paper is hard, wait until you get to the rewriting stage.

I think people use "writer's block" as a shorthand for "this isn't as fun as I thought it was going to be, and I can't be bothered doing it". So I suppose my advice for getting past writer's block is: stop feeling sorry for yourself and start writing.


What was the best writing-related advice you ever received?
There are so many, but I'm going to have to go with a very simple little screenwriting rule: never let your characters agree with each other.

I think I learned this one in film school. It stuck with me over the years, and the more I learned, the more profound it seemed. This is basically the essence of drama. It's a shorthand way of saying: don't write a scene in which two characters just talk passively to each other. Always give them objectives to accomplish in their conversation: attack, defend, persuade, conceal, bluff, probe, flirt, seduce, etc. This one has helped me spice up (or cut) countless boring scenes.

My runner-up would be: never write an action paragraph longer than three lines. It's an arbitrary rule, but the impact it can have on your scripts is incredible.


What do you feel is the single most detrimental thing an entrepreneur could do to destroy his/her career?
Assuming you're not missing deadlines and you're actually a decent writer, the only thing that could conceivably destroy your career is being an unpleasant person.

If you're rude or bigoted, if you talk way more than you listen, or if you can't take criticism or even suggestions, then you'll get a reputation for being "hard to work with". That's the kiss of death.

This is why Hollywood has what they call "general meetings", by the way. That's when you meet someone and the entire purpose of the meeting is to confirm that they're not a jerk.


Can you tell us a little bit about your latest book?
Sure! My book's called Screenwriting Tips, You Hack, and it contains over 150 short, sharp pieces of advice to help make you a better screenwriter. Over 70 of these tips have been expanded into chapters, which are like mini-essays covering everything from choosing a concept for your first spec script, to pitching your ideas to producers. It draws on my experiences and perspective as a young writer 'in the trenches' who was also a script reader, and it's pitched at everyone from total amateurs to journeyman screenwriters. It's also written in a conversational, occasionally-snarky tone, so you won't fall asleep reading it.


How did you come up with the idea for your book?
I credit the idea entirely to my friend Will Akers. I didn't know I wanted to write a book until he convinced me that I should.

From there I came up with the idea of taking the tiny, 1-2 sentence tips on my blog as a starting point, and expanding them into short chapters. I also had the idea of structuring the book like a character's arc in a screenplay, with Acts One, Two and Three of the book leading the reader through the process of writing a script. I thought that was pretty clever... until I learned every other screenwriting book author already did that.


What was the most difficult aspect of writing this book?
The most difficult aspect of writing the book was probably choosing which tips from the blog to include. I've been writing a tip a day since mid-2009, so there are over 800 of them now. It was a matter of exhaustively going through every tip, categorizing them into potential chapters, and finally choosing the ones I wanted to write more about.

I wish I'd been able to include more advice about television and video game writing, which I love just as much film -- in some ways even more. But the decision was made to stick with the most widely applicable advice. And really, a lot of the film-related advice applies just as well to other media.


Did you have to do any special research for your book?
Since this was such a personal book, it didn't require a lot of traditional research. The contents are really a collection of opinions, tricks and theories which I'd been formulating over the years, and in a way it was good to get them out on paper. I suppose you could say that my experiences over the past few years -- especially reading material for producers and developing scripts with my managers -- constitute a kind of research.

In fact, I deliberately decided not to re-read Your Screenplay Sucks and Save The Cat-- the two books which mine most closely resembles -- because I didn't want to unconsciously repeat too much of what Will Akers and Blake Snyder had already said. I may have inadvertently done so anyway, but hey, there's only so many ways you can explain three-act structure.


If you could choose just one thing for your book to accomplish, what would it be?
One desperate, struggling writer gets a break because of something they picked up in my book. If I can help one person improve their screenplay to the level that it sells, or it gets them repped, then I'd consider the book a massive success.


What’s ahead for your writing?
After concentrating on TV pilots for the better part of a year, I'm finally embarking on a new feature screenplay. And it's exactly as daunting and terrifying as it was the first time. It just doesn't get any easier. But eventually I'll make it out the other side with a finished script, and that makes it all worth it.

Learn more about Xander Bennet at http://screenwritingtips.blcklst.com/

And don't forget to pick up a copy of his book, Screenwriting Tips, You Hack from Amazon. I'm currently reading a courtesy copy and I can definitely say it's worth every penny!


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