Interview (Part 3): Laura Stoltz

My interview with 2023 Black List writer for her script Last Resort.

This is a special interview for me: Laura Stoltz is one of my former students. She wrote a complex, compelling screenplay “Last Resort” which was named to the 2023 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Laura about her creative background, the craft of screenwriting, and the challenges of writing a script with such dark subject matter while infusing it with considerable humor.

Today in Part 3 of a 6-part series to run each day this week, Laura discusses how in writing the script, she balanced drama associated with suicidal ideation and humor.

Scott: The script, interestingly, has a lot of gallows humor to it. It’s very funny. So I guess it’s okay for me to say that sounds like a promising business model.

[laughter]

Scott: Particularly with Baby Boomers wanting to go out in style.

Laura: You may be onto something there.

Scott: Let’s talk about the key characters in your story. In particular, the Protagonist, Georgia. We meet her on a private plane and she’s having an unwanted conversation with another passenger named Jared.

Jared says, “Sorry, I know you’re busy. It just helps my flight anxiety if I tell someone I’m a nervous flyer, so I’m a nervous flyer.”

Georgia says, “I mean, we die in two weeks by choice, and you’re still scared of flying.” I’m, “OK, there you go.”

We talked about this at UNC, that you need to do something immediately in the script that provides a hook to get the reader connected to the story. That airplane conversation happens on the top of Page Three. I’m assuming that was an intentional thing on your part, “I’m going to reveal death theme right up front.”

Laura: Definitely. Absolutely. I can’t tell you how many scripts I read over the past 12 years out here just for work, for fun. Sometimes you just want to be excited to turn the page, and so I tried my hardest to get that up‑front without it being too expositionally apparent.

Scott: That’s another thing I want to talk to you because you do such a good job handling exposition and backstory. We’ll get to that in a bit. How would you describe Georgia’s character, her personality, her psychological state, at the beginning of the story?

Laura: She is, I think, confused, a bit depressed. The only thing fueling her is a thirst for wanting an answer to why her fiancé killed herself at this place she’s traveling to. She’s, basically, holding on to life with a question, and has very little patience for anybody who might sideline her finding that answer.

Scott: That language Want and Need, that’s her Want. She wants the answer to this question, why her fiancé Ruby had come to this very same place and, without any forewarning, had decided to commit suicide. That becomes a throughline for Georgia. There’s some variations on that along the way, but essentially, she’s trying to answer that question.

What about Jared, because he’s the other key character in the story, how would you describe him? Quite different than Georgia in many respects.

Laura: He’s somebody that probably was never really predisposed to depression or any suicidal ideation until these things in his life happened to him. Georgia maybe had some of this in her past where she grew up with some depressive tendencies and things like that, but Jared, it’s a product of circumstance.

He’s a gay man who grew up in the South and never felt accepted, and finally had gotten to a point where he felt accepted a little bit in San Francisco. Then he is basically racked with guilt because he accidentally hit a kid with his car after he’d had a couple of drinks.

His wanting to end his life just comes from not being able to alleviate himself of the guilt of this one thing, and then also coming to terms with this other stuff that he never really accepted about himself or his world either.

Scott: He’s also struggles with fear, as he says right off the bat. There’s a deeper fear of actually going through with suicide, so he has his own arc.

You mentioned exposition. This is one of those things, I’m sure you know because you read so many scripts. That’s a sign of a writer who knows what they’re doing. If they dole it out, tease the reader, give them a little snippet here or snippet there, that creates curiosity. Don’t give them the answer right away. Hold back the information and create a question. In the case of your script in Act One, you’re creating a mystery.

I went through and I tracked these little interchanges that you had about every six pages or so. The first time we hear about Ruby is when Georgia says, “Ruby loved Paris. I asked her to marry me there three times.” And that’s it. Nothing more, just that. Leave the reader wanting to know more.

Jared says, “And she kept saying no.” Then Georgia says, “No. She said yes each time. She just liked being proposed to.” Ruby’s like this ghost. We never see her. We don’t hear from her, but she’s obviously this…Not literally a ghost, I’m just talking about metaphorically.

That’s the first thing. You’re, “OK, so she’s there because her fiancé ended her life.” That’s how you reveal that, but that’s it. You create this mystery.

Then she’s in this room where she’s going to be staying. Now she’s saying to Ruby, “Why did you have to pick a place with no fucking television?” Now we know even more concretely that Ruby was here in this location.

Then, there’s another scene later on, very soon, where Georgia says, “Do you remember a guest called Ruby, by chance? She was here a couple of months ago.” Now we’re getting yet more information, “Oh, it was pretty recent.”

I’m imagining that this was intentional. When you were working through the story, you were, “I’m not going to do an info dump upfront. I want to tease this out.” Maybe you talk a little bit about that, your intentionality behind that?

Laura: Absolutely. I guess I watch the movie in my mind. I guess it’s not a movie, but I watch these interactions in my mind. I always think, “Would they say that? Would a person actually say that here?” If the answer is no, but I still need to get the information out there, it’s like, “OK, how can I wrap this in a something that feels natural?” It’s tough.

Basically, my first pass of a draft, I write the worst dialogue that I possibly can because I’m like, “This needs to come out here, and this needs to come out here.” Then on each subsequent pass, it’s like, “OK. How do we make this more fun? Does somebody else say it? Do we learn it visually?”

I make the scene do what it needs to do and then try to…I don’t know how to describe exactly how I make it happen.

Scott: What I’m hearing you say is, and I tell my students this all the time, I say, “Any scene you come into, you’ve got to be thinking of two things.” One, where are the characters emotionally? What emotional state are they bringing into the scene?

Two, in particular with the Protagonist, where are they in terms of their arc, and how is the scene going to facilitate that process? Just like those three instances we had, the first thing where she’s just mentioning the Paris and Ruby thing, that’s really her caught up in her own reverie.

It spills out, it’s not intentional. She’s almost speaking out loud to herself without even thinking about Jared being there. The second one, she’s pissed off. “Why no fucking television?”

You can understand that and she’s had some frustrating experiences, but then that third one where she says, “Do you remember a guest called Ruby?” She’s being intentional. She’s trying to get information. In each of those cases, there’s an internal logic why the character would do that.

Laura: Thank you.

[laughter]

Scott: You deserve the compliment, it’s a sign of good writing. Let’s talk about Margaret. She is a counselor there. There’s like a two‑week period for clients who come to this place. The first week basically is their free time, they can go to any of these fancy restaurants, all of them are like Paris, and United States, India, whatnot. There’s a spa. It’s all very luxurious and feel good.

But they have to meet with Margaret every other day to basically touch base and explore where they are psychologically. Could you talk a bit about that character? I mean, you’re making this place up. Why did you decide to have a Margaret character in there?

Laura: I tried to not have a Margaret character. It makes sense in this kind of…They’re dealing with lots of feelings and also you have to think the Resort’s got to be responsible to some board or something.

What if some family comes and tries to threaten a lawsuit and they’re like, “My family member didn’t want to die,” and they’re like, “Yes, they did, here’s the transcripts, here’s the video.”

Just more of a protection thing, asking the right questions and that kind of stuff. You can understand why a Margaret is there. I tend to get frustrated with therapy scenes and therapists in things because it feels like a bit of a cheat — but I went for it because I think I can get away with it in this circumstance, but I usually try not to.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Laura reflects on a saying which inspired her in writing the script: “Grief is love with nowhere to go.”

For Part 1 of the interview series, go here.

Part 2, here.

Laura is repped by Heroes and Villains Entertainment.

Instagram: @lestoltz

Twitter / X: @yostoltz

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