Interview (Part 2): Lindsay Michel

My interview with 2022 Black List writer for her script Caravan.

Lindsay Michel wrote the screenplay Caravan which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Lindsay about her creative background, writing a Black List script, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 2 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Lindsay explores some of the challenges writing a period piece and how the Protagonist of the story emerged into being.

Scott: I’m imagining the conversation you had with Kate at Bellevue. “Hey, I want to write this story, set in the seventh century in China. It’s a horror thing.” How did that conversation go?

Lindsay: I was surprised that she responded to the idea and that she was interested in jumping into it with me. We knew from the get‑go that it wasn’t going to be something that we were going to end up in a bidding war over. [laughs]

She thought it would be a really cool horror sample to just break into a genre that I hadn’t written anything in before, and show the range of what I can do. Because “Sandpiper” is very much this sleek, futuristic, almost bloodless action movie that’s very commercial. “Caravan” is the exact opposite of a lot of that.

Scott: I guess if you put on the manager‑producer hat, it’s like, “Okay, Lindsay’s going to write something that’s going to show her range, break her into the horror genre. But as important, this story is something she’s passionate about. So I’m going to just say, “Yeah, go for it.”

Lindsay: It does help that it’s just people in the desert with camels. The camels are the biggest line item.

Scott: And there is “Cocaine Bear,” so maybe a camel spinoff.

[laughter]

Scott: Okay, as we launch into the story, I want to read one of my favorite writing quotes because based on what transpires in “Caravan,” I think you will relate to it.

Janet Fitch said, “The writer is both a sadist and a masochist. We create people we love, then we torture them. The more we love them and the more cleverly we torture them along the lines of their greatest vulnerability and fear, the better the story.” Reactions?

Lindsay: Totally. You want to know what hurts your character, and that tells you what you have to put them through in order to force them to grow as a character. You want to see someone broken completely down to the point where you don’t think they’re going to get back up again, because then, when they do, it’s just that much more moving as an audience member.

With Nasreen, obviously, the thing that hurts her is the loss of her father and the fact that her last words to him were these horrible words. She carries so much guilt over and she wishes she could take back and she knows she can’t.

She has to confront that part of her past in a very literal way, where the demon has stolen her father’s face. If she gives into this guilt and refuses to fight, then she dies herself, so she has to accept that this is something she’s never going to be able to fix.

Scott: Because you layer on one thing after another. Just putting this protagonist through hell and back. It’s quite impressive.

Let’s talk about Nasreen, your protagonist. How did that character emerge?

Lindsay: I sort of developed her as I went on. I always knew that I wanted to have a female protagonist. Then as I was looking into the Silk Road, the Tang Dynasty and the specific frontier town of Dunhuang, it was a question of what sort of people could’ve been living there around this time.

That’s how Nasreen sprung up, as a member of a Persian caravan who’d been traveling with her father, and sort of ended up stranded here when he went out on a trip without her and never came back.

I developed her around this central wound of the loss of her father. Then I started to look at how such a huge loss influenced her development as a person, and how has that turned her into the character that we meet in Act 1.

Scott: I’ve been studying Carl Jung for well over a decade, how his theories align with the story-crafting process. So here’s another quote, one from Jung:

“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.”

If Nasreen’s got to deal with this issue of her father, then at its core, the journey she takes has that as its psychological foundation, fair to say?

Lindsay: Absolutely. We all know that character is supposed to inform plot and not the other way around.

If you’re looking at a satisfying character arc and you’re trying to build a movie that feels like you’re going through a complete journey, my belief is that your protagonist has to have this wound that they’re trying to heal and the plot becomes a natural reflection of that, if you’re doing it right.

I think taking what’s going on with the character internally and trying to reflect that out in a horror movie — into the monster, into these harrowing sequences that your characters are going through — is a good way to bring the audience into the internal journey.

Scott: Sure. That whole idea of the shadow, which Jung talks about. Quote: “Everyone carries a shadow and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it becomes.”

If Nasreen hadn’t gone on this journey, she never would’ve resolved the emotional wound she has related to her father. Does that resonate with you?

Lindsay: Yes, definitely. It’s sort of a purge, like lancing a boil. Also, for “Caravan,” there’s the actual physical question of the journey, too. Nasreen’s been stuck in this town waiting for her father for years and years, and in order to get past it she has to literally leave, to go away from civilization, into the desert, to emerge on the other side.

Which is sort of like the pastoral drama, right, where you have to leave the city and go into the woods and figure yourself out and then come back to the city and you’ve become whole again. The woods violently solve your problems for you.

Scott: And a big part of that process is Nasreen confronting a literal demon. Another Jung quote: “It’s a frightening thought that man also has a shadow side, consisting not just of little weaknesses and foibles, but of a positively demonic dynamism.” You can see why that concept sprang to mind as I was reading your script.

Lindsay: That’s a very Jekyll and Hyde quote. [laughs] “Caravan” is about a demon, but it’s also about what people will do to each other when this sort of paranoia sets in. It’s about the demonic danger but also the inherent human danger of not being able to trust anyone and not knowing who’s who.

Scott: You mentioned “The Thing” and that paranoia dynamic. What about “The Exorcist,” did that movie ever enter into your story development process?

Lindsay: Not really. I tried to avoid Catholicism as an influence, but I’m not sure how much I succeeded. Obviously, Christianity is in there a little bit because I have two Byzantines, one of whom is a monk, and I did want there to be this touchstone of one religion we’re familiar with in the modern era.

I wasn’t thinking Catholic for the demon, because I think we’ve seen that so much before. It’s so familiar to the audience, and I wanted this demon to be a little bit more alien and a little bit more other‑worldly, so it fit in the time period and the setting.

But probably unconsciously I was being influenced by “The Exorcist” and other movies like it, because they’re so much a part of the language of horror.

Tomorrow in Part 3, Lindsay reflects on some of the key characters in the script including the female Protagonist.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Kevin is repped by Bellevue Productions.

Twitter: @mintymichel

For my interviews with dozens of other Black List writers, go here.