Go Into The Story Interview: Amy Tofte

My conversation with the 2015 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

Amy Tofte wrote the original screenplay “Addis Abeka” which won a 2015 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. I had the opportunity to chat with Amy about her background as a writer and her award-winning screenplay.

Scott Myers: I understand you grew up on a farm near Brookings, South Dakota. What was that like and how did you find your interest in writing?

Amy Tofte: It’s a combination of things. Being on the farm, I often only had my siblings to play with. I think not having access to other kids or things to do meant we played outside with a lot of inherent make believe and imagination. I remember all the different worlds that we would have around the farm. Or in the basement. In the barn.

My brother and I would also build forts and things. If we couldn’t ride the real horses, we would ride large tree branches. Those became horses or dragons, and we had these very elaborate story lines. My mom was a teacher, there wasn’t necessarily an emphasis on writing, but we read a lot as kids.

That’s one of my earliest memories is being read to by my mom. Then going to the library when I got old enough to read on my own. My mom gave me Steinbeck’s “East of Eden,” the summer after sixth grade. Another book she gave me was, “The Count of Monte Cristo.” There’s something so epic and cinematic about those stories that triggered my imagination. I loved those books.

I was writing short stories and small plays, puppet shows with my brother. I didn’t realize that a screenplay was a thing until I got much older.

Scott: I think South Dakota’s got the highest literacy rate of any state in the United States and that Scandinavian stock, education’s a big deal. And of course, your mom being a teacher, it figures you would end up doing a lot of reading.

Amy: The other thing about teachers in South Dakota is their pay is always the lowest in the country. Or one of the lowest. They’re not necessarily doing it for the paycheck, they really love it. I had a lot of great teachers in public schools. That’s what I remember.

Scott: In your Nicholl acceptance speech, you talked about how you saved up your babysitting money and went to movies.

Amy: Yeah. [laughs]

Scott: What are some of the most important or memorable movies from your youth?

Amy: I actually remember Fatal Attraction in the theater. And seeing Cobra, the Sylvester Stallone movie, in the theater. I was way too young to be seeing those movies. My parents certainly didn’t know. I think we were even forging notes to get in because they were rated R. It was probably a high schooler at the ticket counter. [laughs]

But it’s limited in small towns. You don’t get art house movies or at least not always great movies. Fatal Attraction is a pretty awesome movie, Cobra not so much. I was so blown away by the adult world that movies gave me access to.

And I think I remember Cobra vividly because of the surrealness of it. It was so sexy and scary to me. And cool. So very NOT South Dakota. The movies were like an entire world outside this small place where I lived. It didn’t matter what it was.

I remember being really young when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, and I had no idea what I was watching but I remember that opening sequence. It wasn’t until I got older and I was able to watch it and really understand it. I loved it.

Our public library also rented movies for free and that’s where I saw the classics. I loved Bette Davis and Marilyn Monroe movies. My dad loved westerns and I saw all the Clint Eastwood movies. I saw All About Eve when I was fifteen. I will never forget it. That might be the first movie that really changed me.

Scott: So you’d been doing these little plays and puppet shows at home. There’s a certain amount of writing involved in that, then at some point you make this connection, “There are people who actually write these movies.” You’re living in South Dakota. Did you have any idea at all about how to become a screenwriter?

Amy: No. I think what a lot of kids do is what I did, because the movies felt so…they don’t feel accessible. My hometown, Brookings, is about 20,000 people and Hollywood just doesn’t feel possible, so I did a lot of theater. I did theater in high school. I was acting in a lot of plays. I read a lot of plays. But I loved the movies.

Theater felt like a version of storytelling that I could be involved in. I ended up at the University of Iowa for undergrad and did theater. They had special guests come in from all over the country. But I was still primarily thinking “Oh, I’m going to be an actor.” Because that’s what I knew and I had confidence in that. But I was still writing. I read my first screenplay in undergrad…Sex, Lies and Videotape. And then Do the Right Thing.

I never actually took a screenwriting class, but I started to learn what screenwriting was. This is something I’ve realized recently. It wasn’t until the University of Iowa that I was surrounded by women writers and it does make a difference.

Because, yes, I believed I could do anything and my parents raised me to believe I could do anything. But it’s so different when you see it being done by someone like you, it’s easier to believe you can do it, too. Winning the Nicholl has prompted a lot of self-reflection on my journey so far.

Iowa was also known for its writers. You would have one writing things very experimentally, and someone who’s writing very much the well‑made play or the well‑made screenplay. It opened ideas of what writing could do. All the different ways you can tell a story whether it’s theater, film, or a novel.

Scott: Eventually, you got an MFA at CalArts?

Amy: I made a living as a theater actor for a little while. I trained in New York. I had some small plays I wrote produced. Then I moved to LA, because I felt, “OK, I’ve done the New York thing. I want to try the LA thing.”

I would audition for one‑liners or under‑fives. And when you come from theater, and you’re doing that, it’s a let down. And so superficial, so much about type. That’s when I turned more and more to my writing. And some stories just had to be screenplays.

Then I read every single book on screenwriting I could find. My boyfriend had gone to film school and I read every book he had. I loved them. I think that’s also something a lot of screenwriters have in common, you go through that period where you love film so much, and you love the process so much, you just can’t get enough of it.

But then I was at a crossroads. I was either going to buckle down in my day job and have a career in non‑profit work, or I was going to go to graduate school for writing. I applied to six schools that I liked and didn’t tell anyone. I got calls from three of them.

CalArts called and that’s where I wanted to go, so I quit the day job. It felt really scary and crazy, but, at the same time, it was a huge life‑changing moment of like, “Now’s the time to do it.” Someone said yes to me and my writing so I’m going.

Scott: Let’s jump into your Nicholl winning script, “Addis Abeka.” Here’s a plot summary. “A young Ethiopian boy loses his family and must navigate the world on his own for 10 years, until he can be reunited with his brother.”

As I understand it, your story arises from your experiences where you traveled to Africa, I think it was in 2013. Could you talk a bit about those circumstances, and why Ethiopia?

Amy: My father died in 2013. He had ALS and dementia, and it was a very slow decline and hard to lose him in that way. I know a lot of people have experienced that. It was a rough time that my family had been going through for a few years. My dad was simply the kindest human being I’d ever known and he worked hard his whole life. It felt so unfair to lose him in that way.

At his funeral, I saw my cousin who does humanitarian work. She’s a surgeon, and one of the places she goes back to quite often is a hospital in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I had traveled a lot back and forth from LA to see my family while my dad was sick, I had just finished my MFA. I wanted to do something to honor my dad, but also get out of LA and take a hiatus from my own life and re-ground myself. My cousin encouraged me to join her in Addis, because they need lay people who volunteer and do non-medical things.

I had no expectations. I’d never been anywhere in Africa. I certainly did not go intending to write a script. That was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to be somewhere else for a while. I think my dad and my grief was on my mind and it made me vulnerable to this foreign world. I felt like I had permission to be curious. Almost like a kid again.

Some of the days were long, but working in the hospital was interesting and not anything I could have anticipated. I’ve done some freelance journalism work and I went around and interviewed some of the doctors. I interviewed people I met at the hotel, cab drivers. I would interview complete strangers on the street if they’d talk to me.

We took some day trips into the countryside and I got a different perspective outside of the main city. We spent another afternoon at an orphanage. Somewhere in there the story was born. I sat down in the hotel lobby and started writing the outline. It was the day before I left. That outline is pretty much the script.

Scott: The protagonist is named Abeka, and when we meet him, he’s 10 years old. Is that where you started? With his character?

Amy: I did, yeah.

Scott: How did his character evolve? There were some key aspects to his back‑story, a personality that you knew upfront, or things emerged along the way?

Amy: I was meeting a lot of natives of Ethiopia who had never left the country, and I thought about writing a story about a person from there who simply has hopes and dreams. That’s all. There’s nothing different about this kid than a kid growing up in South Dakota who wants be a screenwriter, as far as I’m concerned.

We would see boys along the roads herding goats or cows. So many of the grown men and older boys would hold hands while they walked. And it’s not a sexual thing. It’s a deep friendship and brotherhood. That’s where Abeka came from as a character. He’s like the best in all of us. He just happens to also be Ethiopian. He’s very real to me.

Scott: He has a brother, Hetu, who’s five years older, and the handholding, same description. There are moments when they do that. They’re a very tight relationship. They have no father and a very sickly mother, so these two boys pretty much have to fend for themselves.

They’ve got some street smarts. I guess that’s reflective of what you were experiencing when you were witnessing these kids herding goats and whatnot down in the streets in Ethiopia?

Amy: There’s a scene in the script where tourists are in a van and the guide gets out on the side of the road. That scene is basically us. We were the American tourists. He brought the teff plant to us from the field, and he’s yelling at the kids, trying to smack them away from the van, and we’re trying to give them money and talk to them.

When we did those drives I sat in the back of the van and would watch everything. At one point there was this pale yellow horse in the middle of the road, starving, standing there, and nobody claiming it. There are people around. There are lean-tos along the side where people live, and there’s this horse. He’s not bothering anybody, but also nobody’s bothering to take care of him. You could see his ribs. It was so distressing to me.

That’s one image that started to spark the story. A lot of the story is about is the luxury of compassion. When you’re in an environment where there is so much struggle for a lot of different reasons, it’s harder to preserve that, and that’s what some of the struggle for Abeka is about. Survival comes first.

Scott: That’s interesting because I pick up on it now, because after a point his mother passes away, his brother gets arrested, and so he’s on his own. He intersects with a couple of people, one is Murali, who’s a medical student, who has the luxury of compassion because of his background, and then Sweto?

Amy: Yeah, Sweto.

Scott: Sweto, who essentially takes him in. Again, luxury of compassion. That idea of fate, was that there pretty early on when you were developing the story?

Amy: I don’t know how it is for you, but there’s a part of the writing process where I just know in my gut what needs to happen and I simply make it happen or drive toward that outcome. The ending is sometimes so clear. I knew this was a story about someone good losing all the people he loved and then finally reconnecting with his brother.

That’s part of why I think the outline came very quickly, I knew what some of these key moments were and the defining moments of his journey. I had experienced the locations. The work of the script was refining and connecting actions to show his growth.

It comes from actions. It’s like you can’t sit down to write a play about alcoholism or you’re probably going to write a really bad play. It becomes…

Scott: Pedantic?

Amy: Yeah, it becomes propaganda of one form or another. Instead you start with a character or a compelling circumstance, and then you go from there. When I got home and started really digging into the story details and actions, that’s when this theme about luxury of compassion came to the front for me.

As an outsider I had this luxury of compassion and I was able to see that other people couldn’t always have it. Because of their circumstances. And the ones who had it, who were born and raised there, such good people working so hard in what could be a tough system. The politics and roadblocks they faced.

What happens with Abeka, too, is when he takes action, it’s a very specific moment. There are a lot of things happening to him where he is actually quite passive. But then there are key moments when he does make an action, especially towards the end when he finally makes the biggest action.

That’s where the power of the story comes from, at least for me, and that was definitely an intentional thing that came to me in the writing process as I was letting the character do his thing. I realized that was something to exploit.

Scott: Interesting you mention that, because I was thinking we’ve read all these screenwriting guru books. The first thing is “Make your protagonist proactive,” right?

Amy: [laughs] Yes.

Scott: He has a little bit of a Forrest Gump in this story, intersecting with people who take him in and do things, which you could look at, as we mentioned, this idea of fate. I think you were cognizant enough, having learned screenwriting, that this was going to be running against the grain of this thing, the active protagonist. Yet it works because at the end, you’re right, it’s a quite dramatic moment at the very end. He’s got a conscious goal all along, which is he wants to save his brother, get his brother out of prison.

Can you maybe talk a bit about that? Were you cognizant of the so‑called screenwriting rules, and saying, “You know what, screw it. I’m just going to tell this story?

Amy: I have a writing group, and we fight all the time. [laughs] I think the smartest thing you can do as a writer is to get smart people in your circle willing to read your work and be brutally honest with you. And some willing to be in your corner.

Because even if you know you’re right, and there are times when I’m like, “I know I’m right. I know I’m right,” it’s really important to get that affirmation, or, if someone doesn’t agree, to hear why, and hear that point of view, and say, “OK, I get your point of view, but that’s not what I’m doing.” I had to tell a few people that with this one. Trusting your gut. No one can teach you that. It’s so hard.

It’s also hard because I think reading a lot of the foundational stuff about screenwriting is really important when you start because it helps you wrap your mind around it, it helps it feel obtainable. It gives you some tools to talk about craft. And helps you break down what can be so overwhelming.

Then, once you’ve done that, the most important thing to do is write, and write, and write, and write, and write, and read scripts. Throw out all the books. I love reading about process. But the struggle of writing is where you make progress.

Some of my favorite movies, like Aliens, I’ve watched Aliens while reading the script with it. It’s fascinating what you learn about what’s on the page. Or see how other people have broken rules, and how it’s worked. I think in some ways that’s the hardest part.

Scott: I completely agree. Rules…they restrict. I look at this script, because it’s terrific, and I’m saying, “Yeah, there’s many choices you make I’m sure some sort of person trained in that kind of formulaic thinking, would critique it for this and that, but to me it works. A, you’ve got a wonderfully compelling protagonist character. He’s imminently lovable and you root for him. B, you’ve got an equally compelling situation, his life circumstance and the arc of his journey. C, you’ve got a great subculture here. I don’t know Ethiopia, and so I’m always interested to learn about places that I don’t know about. I felt like you hit the verisimilitude button on that a hundred percent. It really felt authentic and real.

The main thing is you landed on this very strong emotional core, that there is a strong emotional center there that really is sustained all the way through. Your perspective is very much tied to this kid. It’s the entire way through.

Let me ask you a question, how important is that to you when you’re writing, to find that emotional center and stay with that?

Amy: For me, and I don’t know if this comes from being an actor first, I haven’t acted in a very long time, but I was pretty deep in it when I did it. I loved the homework.

I wasn’t a method actor. [laughs] I wouldn’t starve myself for five days or anything like that to play shipwrecked, but to me the most fun in acting was getting into the skin of somebody else, experiencing life as a different person with a different set of circumstances.

I think some of that is what fuels me as writer. It’s why I enjoy writing more than acting. I would be limited as an actor, but as a writer I can go into the skin of anyone, or at least I can try. I can only rely on other people to tell me if it’s truthful or not.

That’s the other thing I think about this script, is that of course my circumstances were not as extreme as Abeka’s, and I had a wonderful family growing up. I didn’t have any abandonment, any of that. I can’t claim any of that, but I know other people who have.

I still read a lot. I think reading about psychology is important. I’m curious about people. That’s the real art of writing, how you synthesize all those things you experience in life into something compelling and dramatic to others.

I’ll write and I will start crying because I will get so invested in what’s going on with the characters. I don’t know if that’s healthy. [laughs] I don’t know what other writers do. I definitely know the difference between reality and not reality, but I think that’s also part of why we do what we do. We get to go there for a time.

Does that answer your question?

Scott: Yeah, absolutely. I’d like to talk about, quickly, three thematic elements in the script. The first is ping‑pong. Where did that come from?

Amy: [laughs] The other thing that people will say is, “Well, it’s a sports movie, so you’ve got to make it a sports movie. Where’s the Rocky moment?”

Scott: Absolutely. I said the same thing. I had, “OK, I’m going to put my Hollywood producer hat on.” As soon as I saw the ping‑pong I’m going, “Oh, yeah, so this is like a sports movie.”

Amy: We saw kids outside Addis with these homemade ping‑pong tables. Were they playing to the level that they play in my script? I don’t know, but I’m like, “Why can’t they?” There was one table where it looked like it was a broken one that they had put back together with a homemade net.

I saw that and thought, “Huh, isn’t that interesting?” To me that constant juxtaposition of the unexpected is also part of the landscape there, and the thing with the Coca‑Cola signs everywhere.

Everywhere we went you could get a Coke. There are things like that, those juxtapositions. I’m always drawn to the outlier or the two things that don’t fit together, and then I want to see how they would fit together. I never would have thought I’d see kids joyously playing ping-pong along a roadside in Ethiopia.

Scott: It’s a major plot component. Is there anything metaphorical going on there? I was thinking back and forth, batting the ball back and forth. He gets bounced around a little bit. Or is it strictly ping‑pong, it’s a narrative device?

Amy: To be honest, I love that. [laughs] What you just said, I’d like to think I was smart enough to have thought that, but, no, I didn’t. But I also think that’s the beauty of storytelling. That should happen with a good story, it makes me happy that maybe there is something deeper in there and if I were to unpack it I could find it, too, and see what you see.

For me, I saw the ping‑pong and I thought, “You know what, Abeka’s going to be good at ping‑pong. That’s going to be his gift. That’s going to be his superpower, and I don’t know how it’s going to entirely work, but that’s his superpower.” The Chinese factory compound was a real thing I saw, too. And I think seeing that made me also think…ah, ping-pong. The Chinese are good at ping-pong…so there’s a potential conflict there.

I knew I wanted Abeka to be gifted and unusual in an active way, not just, “Oh, he’s wonderful and we root for him because he’s wonderful,” but that there was something else that you could really point to on the outside and say, “This.” It was ping‑pong.

Scott: That plays to your point about juxtaposition, it gives you something specific about the character, and it’s cinematic. Here’s another theme that’s at work in the story, stars. What’s going on there?

Amy: One of the things that’s really wonderful in Ethiopia is there are very lush areas, as well as very dry, arid areas, and that’s what’s really beautiful about it as a country.

We went to a hot spring with trees and water, and then the area all around Addis was pretty dry and dusty, but with some beautiful gardens inside the city.

It reminded me a lot of where I grew up because South Dakota is like that. There are areas of South Dakota that are very lush and there are areas that can be very dry. And there were tons of fields around Addis which totally reminded me of home.

So to me, I think the stars in the story reminded me of South Dakota and the open night sky that you don’t get in LA. I saw stars in Addis. I think that’s where the star imagery came from, me connecting to my own childhood, and looking up at the stars at night, and dreaming or telling stories as a kid with my own brother.

Scott: You may have conveyed a little bit of that desire for home or that connection for home with the boy’s stars. Trying to find a sense of place is definitely part of the journey that he goes through.

Amy: It’s the one constant that he can count on.

Scott: The stars?

Amy: Yeah, you can look up and the stars are still there even though you’re in a different house.

Scott: The third thing I want to talk to you about is the story, the jaguar and the hyena. It goes through its own little beginning, middle, and end. There’s the first version of it, which the brothers tell each other, then there’s a second version that Abeka writes and it has a different spin on the jaguar character, a little more.

Then there’s the third version at the end. Something starts to evolve. I think that that official has his comment where he basically is asking Abeka to rethink his perspective of what a hyena is, that the hyena’s not so terrible.

She’s a scavenger, yes, but she’s resourceful, a survivor. No wonder she’s fierce and loyal, which sounds an awful lot like Abeka. Maybe you could unpack that a little bit. What was going on there with that story element?

Amy: I knew that I wanted a story to bind the brothers. I knew that, and of course the hyenas are part of the culture there. Hyenas are in town. They’re out in the countryside. They’re everywhere. There are stories and legends about them.

But the jaguar is the one who wins, is the one who sits in the tree satisfied without worry, while the hyenas are scavenging for scraps. That was the way the brothers saw themselves, they had this reverence in their story about the jaguar while they were the hyenas.

That’s the self‑loathing of when you grow up poor or you grow up thinking you don’t deserve better. I didn’t grow up with very much. Obviously, not like these boys. But I remember always having hand-me-downs and things like that. I think that sense of worry or shame does develop in us at a young age, or it can.

The evolution of the hyena story is the evolution of Abeka, and that was definitely intentional. Also, the other story point in there is creating that misunderstanding between Sweto and Abeka where Sweto is constantly a little bit suspicious of him because he comes from the country and because he is poor. Abeka sees the jaguar as a hero but Sweto assumes Abeka is saying Sweto is selfish.

To me that was a really important moment, the realities of charity. Sweto has all the power. He holds all the cards. He has money, he has influence, and Abeka looks up to him. But that misunderstanding of the story actually deepens their relationship when Sweto learns that what Abeka has most of all is a good heart. Sweto has underestimated him.

The thing with the official at the end, that final moment about the hyena story was actually a happy accident. I had the hyena story there, but later in the process of the script I was doing more reading on hyenas to really understand them.

I found a video of someone talking and he said all these amazing things about hyenas. Out in the wild they’re very different than how they are in the cities where they’re a nuisance. Out in the wild they’re actually a very resourceful, loyal animal and something that should be respected.

The way that idea tied the three stories together and described who Abeka truly was felt really beautiful for this script. I was very excited that day. I was like, “I’m so rewriting that scene. I know how to do this now.”

That’s another thing about writing. Even after I got back from Ethiopia I was constantly reading about it. About the politics. About the culture. I was reading about all these things I saw and figuring out how that worked into the script.

Scott: The movie, I think you said, is about family. You’ve got a variety of families, your own family, you’ve got creative families, like a writing group, and your fellow graduates from CalArts, and a theater family. Now you’ve got a new family, the Nicholl family. What’s that whole experience like?

Amy: It’s really interesting. I probably learned about the Nicholl when I wrote my first screenplay, one of those screenplays that I don’t want anyone to ever see. I had friends who were writers and they would talk about it, but it was always this thing that I would never, ever be able to do. [laughs]

I’d never really considered myself a screenwriter. I was still barely considering myself a playwright. I was like, “I’m an actor who writes things,” but then as I started to get more serious about it, and after I started the MFA program and I got more comfortable calling myself a writer…

It’s strange to call yourself a Nicholl Fellow and feel like now you’re doing this thing that you’ve thought about, that you’ve known about for so long, and you’ve admired so many of the people who’ve done it and read their scripts — it’s a little overwhelming.

The only thing I can say is they are — from the committee, to the staff, to the other fellows I’ve met — the most wonderful people, so kind, so generous, so relaxed in who they are, and excited for you, and supportive. Now, I’m only a few months in. That could all change. [laughs]

I talked about this in my acceptance speech, that the Nicholl Committee thinks long and hard about these decisions. They read so many scripts. They’re generous people and they make me want to give back in the same way they’re all giving back to this community of writers. They care about story telling. They care about film. I feel really lucky.

Scott: You mentioned in your speech, I’m quoting you here, “I think one of the most important things we do as human beings is we collect and share our stories.”

Amy: Even if you talk about how you went out last night and the crazy thing that happened to you, I think that’s how we develop our compassion. That’s how we can feel for other people and do the right thing. That’s why diverse story telling is so important.

Scott: Let’s jump into some craft questions here if we can.

Amy: Sure.

Scott: How do you come up with story ideas?

Amy: Usually something sparks with a character. Once I get a character that I feel really strongly connected to. I’m going to guess that maybe I do have an emotional connection to a character and that’s what I mean by “spark.”

That doesn’t mean that a character is a nice person. It just means there’s something there. Sometimes, too, I like this idea of rules. I’ve done that with some of my plays. Like with the Bechdel test, I’ve written plays with no men.

I’ve just said, “You know what, there are no men in this play. That doesn’t mean there aren’t men in the world, but there are no men in this play, and how will I handle that, and what will happen, and how does that affect the play.” But I think the spark usually has to come from a compelling character.

Scott: How much time do you spend in prep writing and what are the aspects of that? Do you tend to devote most time to brainstorming, or character development, plotting, research, outlining?

Amy: It depends on the story. I do spend time researching, outlining, and then the writing and revision. I do time on all three of those with everything I write. The better I’ve become as a writer, the more I outline. I love outlines. I love treatments. You get so much work done and solve so many problems.

Everything I write, even if I think I don’t need to research anything, I’ll research something. I’ll find something like a book or…I’ll go and seek something out. I think that’s an important piece of the puzzle. Some stories, I spend more time outlining. If it’s complicated, I’ll spend more time outlining than doing the sit down and writing.

I have a script right now that I’m finishing. The last 20 pages are killing me. I’m actually digging into a writing book and trying to figure out what are some exercises I can do to crack these last 20 pages.

I’m a nerd but, to me, that’s why I love writing. I love the actual process of digging in and making it better.

Scott: You’ve mentioned that often times your story ideas derive from connecting with some character. How do you go about developing your characters? Are there any specific techniques you find yourself using?

Amy: I came from a day-job world as a writer and I know that there are a lot of people out there where they’re trying to write when they can. I still use that mentality.

I’ll make an assignment like when I had a lunch break or limited time to write, and go write a letter as the character to somebody or write a monologue. Or a short scene. Create profiles and histories for characters. Sometimes, it’s the most eye‑opening thing. Writing something simple from the character’s point of view.

I’ve even recorded myself because I live in LA, of course, I’m always driving. I’ll record a monolog and then transcribe it. If it sucks, I just throw it out. Things like that have been helpful for character development.

Scott: I suppose, too, getting you in touch with the character’s dialogue?

Amy: Yeah. Sometimes that stuff evolves into a scene or sometimes it just becomes information about how they feel about something.

Scott: Theme. You mentioned in this process with this script that this idea of the luxury of compassion is something that emerged over the process. Are you one of those people that starts with theme or just themes emerge over time when you’re writing?

Amy: I was taught that theme comes last and I kind of believe it. I feel like theme has to come last if you’re going to be truthful to the characters, because no character is acting out of theme. I just think that characters have to do their action and go after what they want, so I feel like theme comes last.

I think sometimes the best people to tell you what the theme is are the people who don’t know anything about your script. They read it once and then they tell you, “Oh, my God, this is what it’s about…”

Scott: Yeah. In doing some research on you, I’ve found a newspaper feature on you, from the Brookings newspaper, your hometown newspaper and you were quoted…see, I do my work, homework.

Amy: [laughs] You did a good job.

Scott: You were quoted as saying, “The difficulty in screenwriting is you’re constantly making choices of what to include and what not to include…

Amy: Yeah.

Scott: …and it has to be very clear, no room for excess on the page, but at the same time it has to be very clear so the reader doesn’t get lost.”

Amy: That’s the one thing that screenwriters all understand, I think. There have been people who say, “It’s the hardest kind of writing to do in the world.” I think all writing is hard, but there’s a strange intersection of journalism and poetry in dramatic writing.

The poetry part is the economy of it and the beauty, but the journalism part is you know exactly the who, what, where, when, you know all those answers. Beyond that there’s this magical element that makes it wonderful.

[laughs] You know, like it’s, “What’s the part of the script that makes it wonderful?” I think that’s the really hard part. Everyone wants a formula for that but there isn’t one. I don’t know if you’ve read WALL‑E, the script?

Scott: Oh, yeah.

Amy: It’s incredible.

Scott: The Haiku style Andrew Stanton uses…

Amy: Yeah. And even the way you break a line or… This is either where I’m getting better at what I do or I’m just becoming so crazy obsessed with it, it’s unhealthy.

I can get to A point where I don’t like how a script breaks from one page to another or I will change dialog so that I like the look and feel of it on the page better. It gets a little ridiculous and OCD. But the script people read is what has to turn everybody on before it can become a movie.

Scott: Dana Stevens mentioned something funny when she was introducing you at the Nicholl Award ceremony ‑‑ I thought it was funny ‑‑ that you’ve written a zombie script.

Also I’ve learned you have a script set back in South Dakota. Sounds like you’ve got a broad range of interests in terms of the stuff you’re writing. Yet, on the other hand, oftentimes, you’ll hear managers and agents say they prefer writers who come in one genre so they can brand them, and that’s the easiest way to sell things.

What are your thoughts on that?

Amy: I’m sure my thoughts are not much different than every other writer who says, “I write what I write. Leave me alone.” [laughs] But I also understand the business side of that, because you want to know what you’re getting. I’ve been working a lot on that, on the branding and the branding of my writing.

It’s weird, too, because the heart and soul that’s in Abeka, I think that exists in all of my scripts. No matter what I write. I think that is the brand of writer I am. Even my zombie script, it’s really a relationship script. It’s about a marriage threatened by zombies, and people love that script. But that’s what they love about it — the relationship.

I have science fiction scripts. I have dark, creepy dramas. I have some comedies. There’s a biography I wrote with a producer who has the rights to this woman’s amazing life. I think the common element would be they all have a strong emotional core. You feel something. You get emotionally invested. I think that’s what all my scripts do.

Scott: I’m guessing from that that if you were to provide advice for aspiring writers, you’d probably go along the lines of what most pro writers would say. “Just write stuff you’re passionate about.”

Amy: At the end of the day, everyone can tell when you’re not into it. So either be into it…And even if you take an assignment that isn’t your idea, you have to be into it. I’ve done some of that. I can tell when I’m not into it. Everyone else can, too. You’ve either got to find your way into the material or let it go.

Too many times we think, “I’m never going to get this chance again.” I don’t want to say that that’s not true, but a lot of times…that’s just not true. [laughs]

Scott: Maybe we could round it off with this one last subject area. I’m struck by this image of you in the back of these vans or whatever you’re traveling through Ethiopia in. You wanted to be back there so you could just concentrate and look and learn. Dana Stevens, again, when she was introducing you, she made a point about how there’s that old adage. “Writers should write what they know.”

She made the point, “Rather, we should write what we want to know.” Which I think resonates with you. Maybe you could unpack that a little bit, in terms of, again, aspiring writers. You think there’s some truth there that they need to grab onto?

Amy: I loved what she said there. That’s the journalism side of screenwriting. I think that, yes, you can write what you know, but there’s always some aspect of what you’re writing about that is worth digging deeper into. Personally, I’m an adventurer and I want to see the world and meet as many people as I can. So that’s how I write.

Another thing that was said to me early on, about art in general, is that we do these things so we live our lives better. Art is the reflection so we can understand each other better. Be better to each other. That’s why good movies and good stories have such a grip on us.

Or maybe what you “know” is more about what you know in your heart to be true. Not necessarily your actual life experience. I’ve never actually met a zombie…right? But I know how one might scare me. I can imagine how that terror might feel.

This idea that we’re all the same. When you drill down past the skin and the economics, we’re more the same. We all want love. We all want purpose and a community. We all want to be good people. Is that true? I don’t know. I’d like to think that’s true. [laughs]

I feel like I’m saying I don’t know a lot. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s why I’m writing. I write to figure it out. [laughs]

Scott: I like that balance. Write what you know, but write what you want to know, too.

Amy: Her introduction was so beautiful. Some amazing things were said at the Nicholl ceremony. I thought that was a really great piece of advice that night, too. If we’re not seeking understanding of each other, then why are we telling the stories? The two really go together. And it never gets old.

For my interviews with every Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winners since 2012, go here.