Interview (Part 3): Wendy Britton Young

My interview with the 2024 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

Wendy Britton Young wrote the original screenplay “The Superb Lyrebird & Other Creatures” which won a 2024 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Wendy about her creative background, her award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl has meant to her.

Today in Part 3 of a 6-part series to run each day through Saturday, Wendy shares her thoughts about the importance of character-driven storytelling and how that’s reflected in her script’s characters.

Scott: You mentioned you have my book, “The Protagonist’s Journey.” One of the questions I ask at the very first stage when I’m working with writers, the Protagonist Character Treatment consisting of eight questions. The last question is critical: “Why does this story have to happen to this character at this time?”

Clearly, Mea has to…she’s got to go through, essentially, sort of a delayed puberty socially, and Ivy’s got to go through her own adolescence, I guess, in a way. Is that fair assessment?

Wendy: Yeah, they’re kind of jostling each other into adulthood, needing different kinds of skills and experiences, but both in that process.

Scott: Again, I mentioned that my family, we have–all children are special and all children are gifted in their own way, but there was a little moment there that I was like, “Oh, yeah.” On page two, “On Mea, the clicks of a pen” — this is the person behind the desk — “are exaggeratedly loud.”

Wendy: Yeah.

Scott: Then also on Mea’s hand, half-open, holding a tiny, wool hummingbird with Velcro feet. I completely understand and get that. It’s like, I think they call it overexcitabilities, where a “normal person” would receive the stimuli from the world at like 100 percent. Well, these people would appear to be at a 110, 120, 130 percent.

So noises like that or textures, tastes, smells, and stuff like that. Also, just the security blanket aspect of having something like that little hummingbird. This was based on some research, I would imagine, that you’ve done or personal experiences from people you know?

Wendy: Yes, both, for sure. A lot of research that really drew me into the subject. I asked people I knew who had family members who were on the spectrum. Also, I’ve known different folks myself. Mea’s character is an amalgamation of them — the hyper focus on animals and the “did-you-know” facts. Somehow, I also must have had the kernels of her somewhere in me because she kept leading me along this path of showing me who she was.

Scott: Character-driven storytelling. If only there were a book …

Wendy: Yes. Exactly. [laughs]

Scott: What’s interesting about this story, I don’t subscribe to the theory that everything’s a hero’s journey, but boy, it just seems like it’s the case.

This is one of those situations where you got these two people, they’ve been going along with the status quo for several years, then boom, here comes the call to adventure, the universe says, “OK. You’ve got to change. You can’t stay the same.”

“Famed Greenwood alum to award Lavish Art School scholarship.” Why does this story have to happen at this time? So was that always there? You knew that Mea was an artist. You knew she’s got this older sister. Something had to happen, or how did that emerge, that scholarship?

Wendy: Yeah. I’m trying to remember. Well, I always knew that there was another art kid even from the very beginning that was kind of an obnoxious, entitled character. I guess I had to devise something for them to compete over that would really be, for them, very high stakes.

Because in that kind of rural town, there’s really nothing for Mea there. She’s going to get lost. She’s going to get forgotten unless something or someone lifts her up and shows her real talent.

By the way, she’s not a savant. She’s a talented artist, but she does have this gift of imagination, and that is her voice, and she knows she has that.

So she has this depth inwardly that a lot of kids her age don’t have, but you don’t get to see it right away because she expresses herself differently.

Scott: Yeah. I like what you said earlier. This specific character is neurodivergent, let’s say, but it really is more of a story about any person or any child who has that — what is it? — the beat of a different drum. They have their own worldview that isn’t perhaps in the mainstream. That’s what you’re going for, or something like that. Right?

Wendy: It’s true of all kinds of artists and writers and people who have been told that pursuing an art is a waste of time and, “You better go learn to do something useful.” My gosh, so many artists experience that in one way or another.

Scott: Nowadays, with education, not to diminish the importance of science, but so much of the money and resources are going towards STEM, and meanwhile, the school districts are cutting back on music programs and art programs. What’s going to feed the soul of society? You know?

Wendy: When my son was graduating high school, this woman asked him, “Where are you going for college?”

He said, “Well, I got a full scholarship to go to Berklee College of Music.” She said, “What are you going to do there?” He said, “Study music.” She said, “So just for fun then.”

Scott: One of the things that I am so drawn toward in characters and stories, and that’s where I tell my students: Character. Care-Actor. You want the actor to care about the character, care-actor, but you want the character to make the audience care.” That’s like a fundamental thing.

Then you did such a wonderful job with all the characters in your story. Let’s run through some of the different ones. So you’ve got the two sisters. You got Ivy, 24, who’s the caretaker. Literally, the money that the parents — I’m assuming their life insurance policies or whatever — that went to Mea.

There’s a weird situation where Mea is essentially paying her older sister to be the caretaker. So it’s a complex relationship between the two of them. Different world views, different mental constructions, but then there’s these other characters.

Let’s talk about Jake, the art instructor who’s the first one to see, “Ah! This is someone that has a unique view.” So maybe describe Jake to us. What do we need to know about this character?

Wendy: He becomes her mentor. He’s an academic, also an artist, part Native American, and he uses Native philosophy to connect with Mea and her animal people. He sees how she uses it, like you say, to interpret her world.

His character doesn’t really change that much, except I hint around that he’s maybe given up some of his painting in order to teach and has lost a bit of that creative drive, and meeting Mea sparks that back in him. That’s a gift she gives him. He’s a great character. I picture Billy Bob Thornton playing him.

Scott: There you go. Early on, Mea calls him Professor Jake Bird Cloud. It’s his tribal name. Did she know or intuit that he’s got this…?

Wendy: He tells her that, but he doesn’t tell everybody. It’s not in the script. It’s more back story.

Scott: Back story.

Wendy: Yeah. He trusts her with that information. He’s kind of a private person.

Tomorrow in Part 4, Wendy discusses other key characters in her script including the meaning of the lyrebird.

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

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