Go Into The Story Interview: James Acker

My interview with the 2020 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

James Acker wrote the original screenplay “SADBOI” which won a 2020 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with James about his creative background, his award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl Award has meant to him.

Here is my interview with James.

Scott Myers: You grew up in New Jersey and you wrote in a bio blurb I read quote: “I base my entire personality off that fact.”

[laughter]

Scott: Let’s start with that. How has New Jersey impacted you as a writer?

James: New Jersey is famously very loud. I do think it has given me a bit of my volume, not only as a person, but also ‑‑ I don’t know — I think I’ve given some of that noise to my characters. Growing up, most people I knew had something to say and wanted to say it loudly.

I write a lot of monologues. I write a lot of rants. I write a lot of unloading. It’s a pretty common thing for me. A lot of that comes from Jersey. A lot of call‑outs, a lot of verbal fights.

Scott: That’d be one thing if you weren’t any good at it. But judging by the Nicholl script I read, you’ve definitely got a good ear for dialogue. You go from Jersey. You got a bachelor’s in screenwriting and playwriting from Drexel University. What was that program like? How did that shape your learning of the craft?

James: Well, a big reason I was drawn to Drexel, aside from it being right over the bridge, was that they were relatively newer. Drexel was, by and large, an engineering school. They were more known for engineering or medicine or their psych department and the Screenwriting/Playwriting department was newer. I thought that was exciting.

I feel like if you’re going to college to learn about screenwriting, you’re going to end up learning a lot of the same things wherever you go. The building blocks. Things you can learn in a seminar or online. For me, it’s more about who you’re learning from and what they’re having you try.

That’s why I was always really excited by the idea that Drexel was still figuring out what they wanted their students to leave with. I knew that they would give me my fundamentals pretty early on, but they’d also still be figuring it out with me.

There was a lot of trial and error, but I think it gave me a more diverse learning experience. One day I was learning how to write for graphic novels, the next I was writing a monologue for a MOCAP’d teddy bear. Drexel approached learning to write from a very technical, practical level. It’s the engineering school in them.

But they were trying to figure out how to compete with similar programs in Philadelphia, as well as NYU and the other film schools along the East Coast. They were really pouring a lot of time, effort and money into these big tries. For better or worse. It gave me exposure to a lot of different things very early on in my career.

Scott: What did you come away from college with in terms of your portfolio?

James: This is something I regret because I didn’t do enough legwork on my own. I was expecting going to college for screenwriting, learn my ABCs, and I’d leave with a diploma and a voice. Through the curriculum, I’d find exactly what I wanted to do.

They say college is a lot of learning what you don’t want, which is what I will give Drexel. They taught me a lot of things I didn’t want to do. I didn’t want to do straight comedy. I didn’t want to do sci‑fi or fantasy. But they let me try all those things out.

I left Drexel with a bonkers portfolio. I graduated with a two‑act play set in an Olive Garden. I left with a Southern period drama about a 1960s housewife’s book club that turns into a fight club. I graduated with two Web series under my belt and a few low-budget specs I could realistically make on my own. Basically, Drexel helped me generate a lot of very voice‑driven projects I could try and start a career with. The problem was, nothing was in my actual voice.

If I wanted to hit the ground running and create my own material, these would be great ways to put that out, but that none of them, looking back, were really my voice. There were very loud voices, but none of them were exactly mine.

Scott: You moved to LA in 2016, after you graduated. You did the whole working your way into the assistant‑type thing. I think you wrote two novels out there.

James: Yeah. My partner went to USC. I met him at Drexel, and he went to USC for grad school. The production program. I came out with him. While he was doing school, I was temping and doing as much as I could on the industry on that side of things.

The big plan was to get as much admin and assistant experience as possible, so when I finally came across the possibly a writer’s PA or writer’s assistant job, I’d have the backing to be able to do that kind of thing.

My first three years here, it was a lot of temping and a lot of writing on desks. I filled a lot of my time beefing up my portfolio and trying to find my own voice while answering calls at reception, checking in guests, and handing out water bottles. There’s a lot of sitting down.

It worked for me because a lot of my prewriting, a lot of what I do to break into a story, is more lengthy, long‑form stuff. I write a lot of diary entries for characters. A lot of longhand prose kind of stuff. One day, I was doing that for this feature I’d already written. I was trying to think of a sequel for it. Eventually, I just realized, “Oh, this is just coming out like a book.”

Because I had a temp position that was going to last six months, I decided, “OK, I don’t do anything on this desk, but I am facing this Microsoft Word all day. Let’s try to write a book.” So, I ended up retrofitting this romance spec I’d been going around with because I kept getting the note that it felt like a YA book.

I essentially unadapted it and put it into a book form so I could try to sell the novel and get the movie going. Just in doing that, I ended up writing the sequel. They’re both available online until something actually happens with them. I’m working on the third now.

But yes, the novels are something that I kind of fell into. It started as just a brainstorming, prewriting thing. Enough people liked it that I decided to keep putting them out there.

Scott: I believe one of your novels gained the attention of a book agent via Twitter.

James: Yeah. There’s this Twitter campaign on called DVpit. I found out about it through work. It’s an all‑day Twitter event where you go on and give a brief pitch of one of your completed, #OwnVoices projects. It has to be #OwnVoices and it has to be ready to send. That’s the whole point.

Book agents and managers scour it and see what looks good to them. If they’re interested, they like your tweet. At the end of the day, you check profiles of all your likes for the agents and managers and check their submission rules. If they liked your pitch on DVpit, you can email them a query letter and whatever pages or materials they list in their rules. Everyone’s different.

I found a couple opportunities through that. I think I had 10 contacts to reach out to by the end of DVpit. I sent in my query letters and my bits of manuscript. At this point, I had the manuscript finished and locked, ready to go out. After some sending and waiting and sending and waiting, I eventually narrowed that contact list down and found the right one.

This agent really responded to the material and within the month of DVpit, I signed with her. Her name’s Carlisle Webber. She is wonderful. Fuse Literary, check them out. She’s been wonderful. She’s been taking it around ever since and letting me know how it’s going. That was the first bit of good news of 2020. There was a lot of bad news until the Nicholl. It’s been a real series of highs and lows for me this year.

Scott: You were quoted in an interview about the book experience, “I used that momentum to get some meeting with film/TV agents, unanimously recommended that I try and snag a notable fellowship or contest win, get my foot in the door.” That’s when you landed on the idea of applying for the Nicholl.

James: I’d always gotten the general advice that a fellowship or a contest win is a very good foothold to have when breaking in. Especially something with a name as unarguable as the Nicholl. I mean, any fellowship that’s name has any sort of cache is going to be incredibly helpful to you. I was always told that that’s key.

I just thought I had no shot in hell. Truly no possible shot. To the point where facing that blank application page, whether it was for those writing programs, like the Writers on the Verge or the Disney or CBS one, filling that blank page always felt so pointless to me.

It felt like college applications again. “Well, why would I bother applying to Princeton? I have not invented a sentient robot and I’ve never been to Mars. I’m not going to get into this.”

When it came time, after the book news got out, it was a nice career milestone for me. Through some friends of friends, I managed to book a couple meetings with that news for general representation with TV/film agents and managers. Overall, the resounding thought was, “This is all great. If you sell this book, get back to me. All I can tell you right now is you’re on the right path, but you need some other foothold. The book sale, sure. A fellowship, better.”

So, I decided to finally apply to a couple fellowships. Then when it came down to actually filling in all the essays and stuff, I ended up only doing the Nicholl one because I was incredibly busy and stressed out.

I can’t remember what the initial application for the Nicholl was. I don’t think I had to write an essay, and that was a big part of it for me.

Scott: A big plus.

James: There’s only so many ways you can be like, “Hi, I’m very special, and here’s why.” I don’t have enough formative child experiences that speak to my character as a whole at the ready. I applied to the Nicholl because of that advice and then did not think about it for months. Truly at all. I was hoping to just make the first cut.

I had seen so many people with that feather in their cap. Nicholl Semifinalist. Nicholl Quarterfinalist. I thought, “OK, with these other ones, I only get anything out of them if I win the whole thing. With the Nicholl, I just need to make that first cut and I’ll at least leave with any sort of foothold.”

Even with the book agent win that year, I mean, quarantine hasn’t helped anyone. It really made me feel super lost in what I was doing out here. So, career footholds aside, any sort of light in the dark was going to be so helpful to me.

When the first cut came, and I made it into the Semis ‑‑ I believe the Semis are the first cut ‑‑ that was it for me. I freaked out. That was honestly the biggest reaction I had the whole run of it. It had been four months of trying to forget I was waiting for the huge news so when I finally saw that email over dinner, my brain got this amazing whiplash.

Not to say that the Quarterfinal cut and the Finalist cut weren’t amazing too. But my biggest reaction was the Semifinals. That was the thing where I was like, “Oh my God. I’m not crazy.” This script was something. [laughs] I have the feather. I can put it in my cap and go to bed.

Then the Quarter happened and I thought, “Oh my God. The feather’s getting bigger. What’s happening?” and so on and so forth. Now, here we are.

Scott: You ended up with quite a few feathers in your cap. That’s a natural segue to your script “SadBoi,” S‑A‑D‑B‑O‑I, which I read and thoroughly enjoyed.

Logline: “A coming‑of‑age drama that follows an emotionally stunted high schooler who, thrown out of his house for being gay, has to revisit old friends and repair some burnt bridges all in the name of finding a couch to crash on.” Obviously first question, what was the inspiration for this story?

James: [laughs] Other than my general bad attitude in high school, when you’re writing high school characters or any coming‑of‑age story, it’s a lot of sifting through your memories and trying to find those pockets where you felt the most.

I was a pretty emotional kid. There are big memories in my head that just stick out. It was always an eruption or a breakdown for me. I was constantly ping‑ponging back and forth between not being able to get out of bed or screaming at my rearview mirror. It was a lot of highs and lows in high school.

Once I decided I wanted to do coming‑of‑age stories, it was a matter of picking through those emotions and finding which were the biggest engines. What were the things I was feeling so hard at the time that I could never express? What could I work through now on the page?

For “SadBoi,” that engine came from a four‑year‑long frustration I had through high school of people not understanding why I was upset. [laughs] It became a part of “SadBoi,” but high school was essentially a lot of people asking what’s wrong with me but never what’s wrong.

I have drastic eyebrows, some would say. They’re big. They are, on a scale of No Eyebrows to Eugene Levy, somewhere around an eight. If I don’t do anything with them, they really hang on my face angrily. I look pissed off all the time or on the verge of a breakdown even when I’m happy.

Because of this, all through high school I was constantly getting told, “You look upset. Can you stay after class? Hey, what’s wrong with you?” It was constant. “You look so angry, what’s wrong with you? You look so upset.” But they were just looking at my eyebrows. Which was very frustrating in a way that was hard to put into words at the time.

I felt called out. Or figured out. Because I did have a lot going on in my head. I was a closeted kid in New Jersey, of course I was upset. Of course I was angry. I was constantly freaking out, but I knew these people didn’t actually want to hear that. I knew they were just looking at my eyebrows. I didn’t know how to explain my face or my life to them, and I didn’t think they’d want the real answer. At a certain point, everything just felt like an accusation.

A lot of frustration fueled “SadBoi” and honestly writing it down helped me work through some of that old stuff.

Scott: It sounds like the protagonist character, Edgar…there’s a close alignment there between your personal experiences and his experiences.

James: For sure. I wanted to feel as close to Edgar as possible. I really didn’t want to go overboard with it. I never wanted to him or his story to feel melodramatic. I wanted to show a realistically sad kid who wasn’t unreasonable in his frustration. I didn’t want it to alienate audiences. I know first-hand how alienating an emotional kid can be. But I wanted people to get on board with Edgar, so I thought the best way to do that was by keeping him very real to me.

Scott: You have a really interesting group of characters, young people in particular. I’d like to get your take on them. First, Edgar the protagonist. How would you describe his state of being at the beginning of the story?

James: At the top of this, Edgar is stuck. He is stuck in the middle of what should have been a healthy transformation for him. This was important to me because I wanted to hit a problem I have with a lot of coming-of-age stories. I read a lot of coming-of-age books. I live in that YA space and I consume just about every queer-centric Young Adult story I can get my hands on. When you read a lot of one genre, you get used to the same stories getting told and hold out hope for some interesting remixes.

For example, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope is very present in gay YA, just with a different haircut. These stories center around an affable self-deprecating, self-titled nerd. He likes Harry Potter, coffee, and cardigans. This adorkable little nugget catches the eye of some new boy who’s slightly dangerous because he has brown hair but actually soft because he likes to cook or something. New Boy brings Coffee Dork out of his shell and fixes all these character flaws for him and no one really needs to do much of legwork on their own. The main guy just needs to realize that the answer is within him all along, fall in love, and come out to his mom over a cathartic dinner. That kind of story is all over the YA market, especially with queer characters.

I wanted to see if I could do a story that at least started that way. Something very precious and summer romance, something simple and easy. What if a kid met his perfect match, his soul mate, the one person who’s finally going to bring him out of his shell? Then I’d twist it. What if that magic transformation got cut off at the head? What if that one magic person didn’t get to finish saving him? What happens when your big revelatory summer romance transformation gets interrupted?

So, at the top of “Sadboi,” Edgar is coming off of that. He had his summer romance. He had his big transformative moment, and something has happened that has kept him stuck in development. It’s like when you pull out your power cord in the middle of a computer update. It just shuts the whole thing down.

At the top of this story, Edgar finds himself halfway through his change, then the world smacked him back down again. Now he’s existing in this weird in‑between of not knowing the right way to change on his own.

Scott: That’s a really interesting insight. It helps me understand the character even more. He’s stuck. This idyllic experience he had in the summer on the beach with this character, Peter Dang, I could see now he just feels like a version of a manic pixie girl, that thing. That was pretty early on in your story development process, this character, Peter?

James: Yeah. The relationship between Peter and Edgar, that was the kickoff. That was the first idea. Peter was always supposed to come into Edgar’s life at a formative moment and leave at the worst possible time. That was the core of the story when I started.

Scott: What about Sammy? This is back at home for Edgar. There’s this fellow named Sammy, like a kind of trickster character. He’s like a shapeshifter. They have a relationship, at least sexual in nature, but it turns out that Sammy’s not been telling the truth about a key thing. There’s even a physical altercation between them. How would you describe the Sammy character and what was his role in the story?

James: I’ve seen a lot of relationships like this, especially when I was younger, and namely in queer relationships because pickings are usually so slim. The main thing you have going for you in these early relationships is that you both share this big secret and it seems like that means you guys must have a lot in common.

I wanted Sammy and Edgar’s relationship to be solely that. They only have this secret between them. They have these meetups in Sammy’s shed and they probably don’t talk about much else. Before, during, or after. I wanted Sammy in that way to be as opposite to Peter as possible.

Where Peter had such a strong connection and communication with Edgar, Sammy only assumes they’re going through the same thing. Sammy thinks he struggles just as much as Edgar because Sammy’s only struggle in life is his gayness. But the more we peel it back, we find nearly everything Sammy’s told us is just an inflated version of struggle. His lies are almost competitive so he can act like he’s got more in common with Edgar.

But his parents know he’s gay. They’ve known he’s gay. It’s all a lie. When Sammy tells Edgar he has a place to stay if he ever comes out, he knows he’s lying. When he says his parents can’t know about Edgar, it’s not about being gay. Edgar’s just not the kind of boyfriend he’d want to show to his parents.

For Sammy, I wanted to show someone who is so the main character of their own story that they’ve got tunnel vision. Sammy thinks he’s doing everything right. By the end of it, I’d say Sammy’s the only people who does not grow.

Just about everyone Edgar speaks with over the course of his week-long journey are in some way changed by their interaction. Sammy leaves not learning much because he’s doesn’t think he has to.

This big drama between him and Edgar, he can take it or leave it. Edgar is having the worst week of his life, but it’s just another one for Sammy. At best, he’ll leave with a fun story that he can tell his eventual, more well-suited boyfriend and probably reframe it that he was the victim.

Scott: One character who goes through a pretty significant arc is Ronny. Could you describe the back‑story between she and Edgar, and what you were working with there in terms of that character?

James: With Ronny, I wanted to show someone who is very similar to Edgar in a lot of the worst ways. I wanted him to have someone in his life who, if they could only get out of their own ways, they would be very close.

I wanted to present Edgar someone with his same fundamental issue. To see if he could recognize it in somebody else. Because Ronny is also clearly in distress, quite vocally at times, but no one seems to be asking her about it. It’s the main thing they link on. Edgar seeing his own problem in her is the first step he takes in becoming that better kid.

Of all the friends Edgar reconnects with, I always imagine that they probably end up the closest. Even though Ronny is the complete opposite of Peter. But in a way that’s the point. Peter made changing easy. Ronny made Edgar work for it.

Scott: There’s an exchange I seem to recall between them. This is later on after they process some stuff. You mentioned earlier when people in high school were coming up to you and going, “What’s wrong with you?” She says, I’m paraphrasing, “One thing that I’ve always responded to you, Edgar, is that you never ask what’s wrong with me. You just say, ‘What’s wrong?’” Why is that so significant to her, do you think?

James: A lot of the times, when you’re in distress ‑‑ this is just how I felt all the time growing up ‑‑ you don’t necessarily want the help, you just want people to know you’re in trouble. At least acknowledge it so I know I’m not insane.

Growing up, I just wanted someone to ask, “What’s wrong?” Not “with me.” Not like I had some problem or wasn’t enough, I just wanted a simple: “What is wrong?” It seemed like a really important distinction to me when I was kid. Looking back, it’s all insecurity.

Ronny lives in that space too. Ronny and Edgar both are people who could really use some help but are way too insecure to see a helping hand as anything more than another thing that could slap them in the face.

Scott: Ronny’s from a very, very wealthy family. There is a socio-economic thing going on between, I guess you’d say, have and have‑nots. Was that always part of the story background for you?

James: Yeah. I wanted to ping‑pong back and forth on that. Because the town I grew up in had a real class divide depending on where you were. Truly, one neighborhood to another, you could go from these huge gaudy McMansions to… I mean, we had a literal “other sides of the track” in my hometown in Jersey.

In school, it wasn’t as apparent. You’d go to someone’s house for a project or something and realize, “Oh, you’ve been a secret millionaire this entire time. Weird.” Or the flip side as well. I wanted something like this where you’re going on a tour with Edgar. I wanted to hit the highs and lows.

And I wanted to show the irony in that. Because on one side of the economic scale, a lot of his friends simply don’t have room for Edgar. There’s literally no space for him in their lives. Then on the other side, we see some friends with second, third, fourth guest rooms. But Edgar still can’t find a place to sleep because of how he feels about them or how they feel about him.

Scott: It reminds me of that quote that’s attributed to the Coen brothers where they said every movie is an attempt to remake “The Wizard of Oz.” Your story is very character‑driven. Yet, you do have a hook, which is that he is just trying to find a place. He’s trying to find a home, right?

James: [laughs] Yeah. That was such an important thing for me. I love doing this kind of slice‑of‑lifey, character‑driven dramas, especially coming‑of‑age. I’m always preemptively afraid of the note, “This feels a little too meditative. There isn’t enough plot driving this.”

But once I landed on that engine: “We’re going to tell this in five days. This is going to be essentially real time. He just needs to find a place to sleep. Cool. Objectives. This is a motor that will keep this story going,” the story flowed so much easier. Engines. They truly have changed how I start developing projects.

Because, while I do love a lazy Sunday feel, and I do love something to feel sprawling, you can’t knock a good engine. When something is self‑motivated, when a story can’t not propel itself, it makes writing so much easier.

Scott: Absolutely. The compressed time frame too, because it just lends itself to pace. You doubled down on that goal. Later on, there’s a book which is symbolic of Peter. Edgar loses it, so not only is he trying to find a ‘home,’ he also trying to find the book. That’s another way that you build in that narrative engine.

Let’s talk about that book. I’m imagining it’s fictional, something you made up?

James: Correct.

Scott: OK. What was the inspiration for that? How did that figure in? Was that early on that you knew this is going to be this book, which is basically a play and a whole audition thing for the play, or did that emerge over time?

James: It came in pretty quickly. Originally, it was a book of poetry, but I knew I’d need some sort of timeline built into the story. I also wanted some area for humor. Because I think drama works best when you can rest it. Keeps it from being constantly bam, bam, bam, look how sad his life is. So, the book became a play.

I thought a good way to rest it while still showing Edgar’s inner motivation would be to give him an outlet. Something very counter to what his bigger, more dramatic objective is. So, what if during the worst week of Edgar’s life, it’s also the week of play auditions? I wanted this surprising turn for Edgar where he’s not just worrying about where to hang his hat.

Of course, during all this, he’s working towards the same goal. In life and in the play, he needs to do right by himself and carry that flame that Peter saw in him. Peter encourage Edgar’s dream to be an actor. The play they liked is going onto this high school. He has to try it. He has to keep the flame alive.

The book is something Peter gave him because he knew that the play was coming up. The audition is something Peter wanted him to do. It’s the only thing he thought to grab when he was running away from home.

I wanted to give a very tangible totem for Edgar’s heart in this. Despite all of the sad things that are happening in his life, and all the stress, and all the drama, I wanted the book to be a very clear representation of what Edgar really wants, not just a place to sleep. Overall, what would make him happy is something as simple as auditioning for the school play. Trying.

Scott: It’s that question on the cover of the book, “Are we happy?”

James: “Are we happy?” Yeah. Also, I needed a little vehicle to add some humor in. I needed some glimmers of fun. Because high school theater is inherently — speaking as someone who did it — a joke. I wanted to inject a little bit of levity into the story so it isn’t just constant.

I mean, it eventually ends in a dramatic beat, but I wanted to find little windows of air so it’s not just constant downhill slide for Edgar. It became a great way to find little wins, him getting the callback, him getting recognition.

Then, because the compressed timeframe got me hooked on the idea of stakes, of course the book eventually goes missing. Around page 60 I was like, “OK, let’s amp up these stakes. We’re at Hump Day, something needs to happen.”

Scott: There were several narrative choices you made that I’d like to talk about. In an interview, you said this about the importance of playwriting: “The big ideas and flashy premises will come, but if you can’t make a two‑person, one‑location scene interesting, you’re going to get stuck.”

The script, while it does have that narrative drive, that engine of just trying to find a place to stay to find the book, there’s a lot of what oftentimes are called in Hollywood “talking‑head scenes,” two people in a room or two people standing and talking to each other.

In playwriting, you’ve got to make those interesting. Were you at all concerned about that in this script, or is that just something you feel strongly that you can do well?

James: I’m always aware of my dialogue scenes because I never want to lean on them too hard. They’re something I learned I had a knack for pretty early on in my time in Drexel after they started us out with playwriting classes. I learned that one of my strengths is dialogue and two‑people scenes, those talking‑head scenes.

In a different world, I probably would pursue playwriting more seriously. It is just something I learned as a strength of mine. And with something as open and vague as wanting to be a writer, I’ve found if you can actually zero in on a strength of yours, you might as well lean into it.

There’s so much uncertainty in this career. I’m always second‑guessing what I’m writing. There’s a lot of doubt when it comes to writing.

But if you can find something you know that you are proud of ‑‑ for me, it’s dialogue scenes and being able to write these two‑people, talking‑head scenes ‑‑ it can only help to find your voice and what can set your script apart.

So, dialogue is something I’m very mindful of. It’s also something that inflates my page counts because it’s a lot of people talking to each other. I always give myself that Amy Sherman‑Palladino cushion of, “Yes, when I turn the script in, it’s going to be 30 pages longer than it needs to be, but I promise they’ll say it fast.”

But when you’re writing dialogue, it sometimes helps to go long. Treat it like a little mini play, and then run it back and find what you need. And for what it’s worth, “Sadboi” is a pretty COVID‑friendly script. That’s the power of monologues and talking-heads. You can do them anywhere, anytime.

Scott: To your credit, you do it well. Monologues are actor‑bait. I remember Ron Shelton talking about Bull Durham, and that whole, “I believe…” speech that the Crash does. Ron Shelton put it in there precisely to try to attract an actor. He said, “I never figured it would be in the movie.”

James: That’s interesting. I didn’t know that. Writing for productions is something I try not to do, but I always do anyway.

It was actually a concerted effort to give every character in “Sadboi” that shows up more than once something of a monologue. Something flashy that even though it’s a brief part, I could justify going out to a name. Everyone gets a little something to do.

Scott: If there is a nemesis or antagonist figure in the story, it’s Edgar’s mom. We don’t see her. She’s there psychologically, but not physically. Other than Edgar seeing her through the window, watching TV. Was that a conscious choice on your part, not to show her?

James: Mm‑hmm. This is funny because it took me halfway through writing the first draft to realize I hadn’t shown the mom. Then I decided, “OK, we’re not going to see her.” I didn’t go into my draft thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we never show the mom?”

I really only went into the draft with one emotional anchor. One of the first things we hear about our main character is that he punched his mom in the face and ran away from home. The journey would be finding a way to redeem this character. That’s what I went in with. I didn’t go in thinking, “And what if we never saw the mom?”

Somewhere after my midpoint, I realized, “Edgar is coming up on a full emotional arc, and the mom has still not appeared.” I knew it was going to take a lot to introduce her in the second half and make it make sense pacing-wise. Then I realized it could be a very deliberate choice. I thought there could be something very haunting about his mom never showing up.

You’d think in a story like this, there’d be some big, cathartic moment where he addresses his problems with his mother, especially after what happened between the two of them. You’d think he’d finally stick up for himself or finally get to say what he’s needed to say. Maybe they’d find a way back to each other, and he realized he just needed to go home all along.

But that’s not how this story goes. That’s not how the story goes through for many queer youth, especially unhoused queer youth. Sometimes home isn’t the answer. It’s more about finding a different version of home.

But I wanted the mom to be a constant. I wanted her to be a ghost in the script. Edgar’s constantly checking in with his house, checking to see if she’s going to look for him or she’s going to leave the house. You don’t realize what’s happening until later why he keeps checking in on his old house.

That’s all he wanted. He just wanted his mom to come look for him. Which is why when he eventually finds Peter’s parents and learns that they were looking for him the whole time, they’re not looking to yell at him or ask him what’s wrong with him, they’re just looking for him, it’s what finally causes him to break down. That somebody was looking after him.

That puts him back on the road of being able to accept help. There are a couple of very obvious helping hands in the story that are extended to him and that he is deciding not to take. Morgan, Dennis. Reese Michelle’s whole point is that she could be a great friend to him if he’d just…

Scott: Open up?

James: …get over himself, honestly. Reese is intentionally annoying at first. That was the intent, but she’s not actually doing anything wrong. Nothing about what she presents is outwardly wrong or antagonistic, but you assume that she must be this Tracy Flick, Rachel Berry monster. Sometimes a friend is just a friend. Edgar, his big arc is realizing to just trust that.

Scott: It’s interesting, you say the word “ghost” in relation to the mom. I literally wrote that in my notes when I was reading this. It’s almost like a mythical character in a way. It’s almost larger than life in some respects but not seeing her.

Edgar goes through hell and back in this thing. Obviously, one of the goals we have as writers is to get the reader invested in the story. Primarily, that happens through the protagonist’s character. I think you did a great job. You mentioned earlier avoiding the melodrama. You did find a nice balance point between so much stuff that happens with this kid.

You feel sorry for him, and yet there are these moments of levity. I’d like to talk about this book. You start off with this idyllic summer thing with he and Peter two years ago. Edgar’s reading these series of questions from this book, “Are We Happy?” He doesn’t get it. He thinks it’s dumb.

Then he does find this surrogate family he’s got at the end. There’s Ronny. There’s Dennis. There’s Marlena. There’s Reese, all these people who are like a surrogate family. You come back to the book, and he actually reads the part after that he didn’t read in the beginning.

I’d like to read that dialogue from the book. “Are we happy? You can never tell for sure because happiness is a moment. It takes turns with the sad and the nothing. Happiness is a moment, one moment. So I couldn’t tell you yet, ‘Are we happy?’ Ask me at the end of the day. Let me count my moments.”

What were you going for there? How soon did you have that epiphany that this is what you wanted to end the story?

James: I knew I wanted to do this with the book. Opening and ending with it. I always had that opening in mind that Edgar would be earnestly trying to figure out poetry. Because that was a thing for me as a kid. I’d read these things that seemed so packed full of emotion, but they just read like, as in this case, a series of questions. Like I was taking a quiz.

That was Edgar’s problem. To not be able to connect emotionally to the play or, in a bigger sense, to anybody. He wasn’t able to connect to the material. And I always wanted the ending point to find him finally able to appreciate what the play and those questions were really asking.

The first half of that monologue was truly the first words I wrote down for this story. I wanted to set up his Edgar’s arc from the jump. He couldn’t answer the play’s questions because he didn’t know what he found beautiful. Or he couldn’t articulate it. And I knew I wanted to do the interrupted-romantic-transformation thing but, for Edgar, I wanted his bigger arc to be finding what’s beautiful to him. Being able to appreciate his life and its beauty and not just in a, “Oh, I like the way I look in polo shirts,” or, “I think this music is nice.”

On the surface, it might seem like a cheesy question, “What do you find beautiful?” But to honestly be able to answer that kind of question and to be able to acknowledge, “Yeah, I guess trees are beautiful. I guess having friends is beautiful,” and not writing off something that’s simple as cheesy, or lame, or something to distrust or fear was the arc I wanted for Edgar.

To be able to appreciate the things in this life and not be so focused on the things that he doesn’t have, the idea comes around in that second half of the monologue. At the end, we hear the second half of it and he’s able to emotionally connect to this idea. “Life is sad, but I can be happy.”

There’s no point in trying to declare, “I’m a sad person,” or, “I’m a happy person,” because things will always keep happening. Life will always try to prove you wrong so you need to be able to count up the good and bad.

Edgar being able to open himself up to the more complicated parts of life and find happiness in them instead of just suffering through the hardships was the big sticking point I wanted to land with that ending monologue.

Scott: Well, you nailed it. It’s a terrific script. I can see why the Nicholl judges all responded the way they did to it. Congratulations again on winning. I’d like to ask a few craft questions in the remaining time here.

You mentioned that when you’re writing oftentimes, when you’re getting to know the characters of the story, you’ll do diary, the entries and stuff. What other type of character development and story‑crafting things do you do in the prep classes breaking story?

James: I have a pool of characters that I keep adding to, and it’s not project‑specific. When I’m breaking into a new script, I like to revisit the pool and see if there are any interesting characters or dynamics I have banked that could bring something interesting to the story.

Like for “Sadboi”, Morgan came directly from that pool. Edgar’s former stepmother. Because I knew I wanted this story to be a parade of characters, a tour through a teenage boy’s life, the idea of having an ex‑stepmom was always very interesting to me.

I knew a couple kids like that, growing up. Their parents were divorced. One parent got remarried. They had their new family and it was all very nice. Then those parents got divorced. And these kids had to go to school with their ex‑stepsiblings and still saw their ex‑stepparents all the time. These people that were objectively their family, not that long ago. People they got very close with and now, what? Who are they to you now?

Exploring that dynamic of how you’re supposed to relate to that kind of person in this new environment, that was already something I had in my back pocket from this pool. So, I threw it into “SadBoi.”

Overall, I do a lot of scribble drafts. A lot of focusing on, “OK, so what am I trying to say with each scene?” Picking one‑word themes to summarize and center each scene. Frustration. Misunderstanding. Privilege. Guilt.

Scott: Do you work your way to a scene‑to‑scene outline and prep, or no?

James: I usually just do the scribble draft and take it scene by scene. Here’s a description what happens in this scene. Here’s one line of dialogue that I think will be emblematic in this scene, because I do a lot of dialogue scenes.

Basically, what is the core line? Even if it isn’t going to be literally in the script, what is the one‑line piece of dialogue that sums up what I want to arrive at in this scene?

Doing that scene by scene almost always takes me to the end. But for “SadBoi”, once I got about halfway into the scribble, I just felt a need to jump into writing the draft. I don’t usually like to jump into things blindly but this one felt a little different. Edgar is running nonstop through this story so I thought it might help to just run along with him. I knew I had my characters and the overall structure down, so I let myself just go with it. I didn’t always know what the next scene would be until I got there.

Scott: Do you also think in terms of a central theme? With “SadBoi,” did you have that upfront? Did it occur to you during the course of the writing? The idea of an overarching theme?

James: I would say that “SadBoi” was always more of a feeling I wanted to hit. But the feeling bleeds into every character. This helped me pick from that pool of characters I wanted to use because everybody, for the most part, shares a unifying theme. All the characters he runs into through the story are people tired of getting read wrong. People who are frustrated with their first impressions.

When we meet his old childhood friend Dennis, he seems very affable, kind of goofy, the kind of kid who probably gets casually called “dumb” a lot. He’s one of those friends you probably grew up with, and then you just grew apart from.

Edgar talks down to him a lot even though he’s desperate to crash on his couch. He thinks less of Dennis for being a nice guy. For some reason, that makes him dumb to Edgar. Why would you be nice? What a waste of time. That gut instinct is something Edgar needs to work through.

Marlena, from the jump, is uncaring and unapologetically mean to everyone. But it’s alright because she’s funny. I wanted to introduce someone who shared Edgar’s gut instinct to be an asshole for no good reason. A point they connect on later when Edgar helps Marlena realize how they come off to people.

Then Sammy, as an antagonist, works almost against the theme in that he’s intentionally being read wrong. He’s putting up a very clear image for people to read incorrectly so he doesn’t have to be himself.

And Peter’s parents. The Dangs are perfectly nice, loving people that Edgar spends the script running from. He’s actively avoiding the biggest helping hand in his life because he’s read them incorrectly. In all his grief and trauma, Edgar assumes that the Dangs are looking to scold or punish him for whatever involvement he did or didn’t have in Peter’s passing. I’d say that’s the unifying theme across all these people. Just being misunderstood.

Scott: The impact, it’s almost like predestination. It’s like if people perceive you this way, then how do you gain freedom from that? It’s predestined to be that, right?

James: Yeah. If enough people call you sad, it’s not going to make it happy. If enough people think you’re miserable, it’s going to make you pretty miserable.

Scott: Let me ask you one final question. What advice can you offer to aspiring screenwriters about learning the craft and trying to break into this crazy business?

James: A lot of the old standbys are very true for a reason. My first reaction is to read as much as you can. [laughs] Nothing’s a better motivator than what I feel when I read something I like. Look for the things you like, I’d say is the big thing. Be able to discern what you love. It teaches you so much to listen to what you respond to.

Another thing, some advice that might be a little more specific, is to listen to what you almost love. Almost being the key word. This has helped me a lot. This is something that helps fuel a lot of my ideas.

If you read something or you watch something and you’re like, “This is almost so great.” Listen to that. Pay attention to things that you’re slightly let down by. Look for the B‑pluses and think, “OK, I responded to this so strongly. This was so great for so many reasons. What kept it from being an A for me?” Then unpack that. Listen to the good and the bad.

Like for “SadBoi” in particular, I read so many stories where there were great, cute little summer romances that stand on their own in a lot of ways, but I kept running into that same problem that the characters were not doing the legwork on their own.

They’re being introduced to a person who is solving their problems. Even if that person isn’t magically fixing them, meeting this person is changing everything for them. That’s just not how life works. What if…Then I eventually got to “SadBoi.” What if that person was taken away? What if that process was interrupted? That was the fix in my head, and that’s what got me to this.

Overall, finding what you like and finding ways to make it better is only going to help you be more passionate in what you do because no one knows what you like more than you do. Once you can discern your taste and follow that thread, you’re going to start finding more projects you like writing.

You’re excited. It’s like you’re writing to prove a point. I don’t know. It always keeps me motivated because I’m like, “I loved that. Here’s how I would love it more.” It helps me get to the end of that script.

James is repped by The Gotham Group and Fuse Literary.

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