Interview (Part 4): Sarah Jane Inwards (2017 Black List, Nicholl Winner)

My 6-part talk with the writer of the script “Jellyfish Summer”.

Sarah Jane Inwards wrote the original screenplay “Jellyfish Summer” which not only won a 2017 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, it made the 2017 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Sarah Jane about her background, her award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl and being on the Black List has meant to her.

Today in Part 4, Sarah Jane reveals how she made a surprising narrative choice with her script “Jellyfish Summer” and how that plays into the story’s central theme:

Scott: The first 8 pages or so of the script is like a wonderful little historical drama and then, all of a sudden, out of the sky, this space pod… spaceship falls, and evidently, this isn’t the first time. What I’m gathering from your creative process was that aspect of it emerged before the setting of the South and the family. The idea of aliens coming and using that as an allegory to talk about immigration.

Sarah Jane: Yes. I guess the best way for me to describe it in terms of my process is that the intent of the story that I wanted to write was very much rooted in immigration of refugees and what should a person in America’s response be to that, or what I would hope someone’s response would be to that. Maisie’s family had different reactions.

If you look at Zeke, he’s a teenage black boy in 1960s rural Mississippi. He has every reason to say, “I cannot take care of someone else right now.” Basically, he is maybe one of the most disadvantaged people in society. We can understand why someone might say, “I can’t help these people.”

Then, Maisie, she’s young, so she’s impressionable. She’s still deciding her place in the world and, yet, she still stands up for what is right. I guess that’s a very roundabout way of saying, “Yeah, my intent did start with the refugee allegory and then I ended up, through that, finding my way to these characters.”

Scott: These characters from the sky, there are two survivors, Teen Boy and Skinny Boy, and then, presumably, the father who dies.

Sarah Jane: Yes.

Scott: How would you describe these boys when you first meet them? Who are they and what are they about?

Sarah Jane: These boys and their father have gone through a traumatic experience, extremely traumatic. They are being forced from their home and they have no other option but to leap into this great unknown, which I feel is true of most refugees. No one wants to leave their home and you’re forced into the complete unknown.

They are terrified. They’ve already suffered huge loss, you can imagine, and right away we get to see a very specific loss, which is their father has not made the trip successfully. These two brothers, at the beginning, you can see that the older brother is leading the two of them. He’s a teenager, he’s a little older. The younger brother is 9, 10 years old.

As the story goes on, just like Maisie, Skinny also has to start making his own decisions and deciding how he’s going to view the world. I also wanted to show how Skinny also has every right to not help anyone else because he’s just trying to survive, but we’ll watch that he and Maisie are kind of two peas in a pod and they both come to the same conclusion.

Scott: At the heart of the story, in some respects, is the relationship between Maisie and Skinny in that they start off in more of an I/It relationship because they perceive each other as being distinctly different than the other, and moving toward more of an I/You relationship where they have some empathy and understanding for each other. Is that a fair assessment of that arc?

Sarah Jane: Yes, I would say that’s definitely it.

Scott: It’s not an easy process for Maisie. She’s sent into town at one point and on a bicycle, and there’s a creepy scene where there’s a bunch of these fallen, basically a District 9 feel, in a way. It almost feels zombie-like because of the situation. What were you going for with that scene?

Sarah Jane: When she first encounters the detention camps of the Fallen, is the one you’re talking about?

Scott: Yes.

Sarah Jane: There’s a few things I was going for. Number one, it’s a little bit subtle, but she’s mentioned she’s never been to town since the Fallen have started falling, which has been about maybe a month or so. This is her first up-close look at how her society is treating these Fallen people, which is horrifying in itself. This scene shows her that this new little boy, Skinny, who’s maybe starting to become a friend or someone she might care about, that this could be his fate. So that’s scary.

Number two, I wanted to show the visceral kind of scariness that is — this is more of an antagonist point of view, but — refugees appearing on your doorstep that have just suffered a lot of trauma. It might seem scary to some people. Just seeing through her eyes how it’s confusing, it’s scary to see how they’re treated, but also they seem a little scary themselves because they’re the other, the unknown.

Scott: Right, and it’s important to have that upfront so you can really reinforce how far Maisie has to go in terms of her particular transformation and their attitude about them.

Sarah Jane: Exactly, because she’s young and she’s still deciding where she’s going to be. She’s not without wavering on where she’s going to fall.

Scott: Having grown up in the South, there’s a bit of scene description in there where she’s heading into town and there’s a sign hanging above the storefront reads, “Whites Only. No Colored” and under that “And No Fallen.” It’s segregation. As you say, it’s an allegory that allows us to look at that issue, like science fiction does, in a new and fresh way.

It’s interesting because you’ve got scenes with protesters, including blacks, who want the fallen to leave. It really is more of a nuanced type of a situation. Some people are good, some people are bad, some fallen are good, some are bad, most are in-between. There’s KKK people running around.

I think that’s one of the strengths of the script, in that you’ve got these multiple attitudes and perspectives, which the story could come up as quite preachy, like, “Be good to people and be kind to people.” You do service to a lot of different perspectives. I’m assuming that’s something you were quite conscious of.

Sarah Jane: Yes, and thank you so much for that, because, of course, that was my fear is that I didn’t want to be too preachy. I don’t think anyone likes being preached at. It’s hard to do something that’s, honestly, trying to be preachy and not do it in such a strong way.

It was important to show some of the nuance and intersectionality of all these different issues between racism and xenophobia. At the end of the day, there are good people and bad people everywhere, across all creeds. It’s obviously a layered situation.

Scott: Are you much into science fiction? Is that something that you’re fond of?

Sarah Jane: Yeah, I would say some of my favorite films of all time are films like District 9 and Children of Men, these really grounded sci-fis. I think it’s because I really like stories that are talking about social justice issues, and I think some of them that do it in a really non-preachy way are through sci-fi.

Scott: You’ve got several interesting twists in the story. One is that these Fallen aren’t from another planet, they’re from another time.

Sarah Jane: Yes, exactly. At the end of the day, my own personal feeling on why we need to help other people is because they could be me, they could be you. I thought, “What would that mean to people if the refugees really were you and me, literally? How would that change people’s perspectives on how to help them?”

The people in this world, that is what they’re ultimately faced with, is the realization that this person really is me, and my brother, and my sister, because they’re from another plane of time. They’re me from a different plane of time. Yeah, it’s a physical way of looking at that hypothetical.

Scott: It’s a very clever way of driving home that arc from looking at them as the other, and then, instead, by the end looking and finding the shared commonality between the characters.

Sarah Jane: Thank you.

Scott: In terms of your writing, I want to drill down into a couple of things. You have these tiny moments in scene description. For example, early on, “Rebecca slinks to the phone on the wall, wraps the coil cord around her left fist after dialing.” It’s not just a phone call. It’s got this little bit of business. I think we’ve all, for people back in the old days, who had landlines, we’ve all flexed around with the coil, while we were distractedly talking or whatnot. Those little moments like that really added an air of authenticity, but that raises a question.

You see all these stuff in your head. You see the scene playing out. You see all the room and whatnot. How do you know when to include stuff and when not to include it?

Sarah Jane: Yeah. Honestly, that makes me laugh because I feel like that’s what I struggle with. I often want to jam-pack every single thing inside, but, obviously, that makes for a very clunky and slow story.

A lot of what I look at, and why would I include certain things, deciding on what to include and not to include, usually has to do with either world building or character building.

For example, the example you gave of Rebecca coiling her hands around the cord. I decided to start my story really in media res. I believe it’s maybe page four or five when, boom, the fallen people are here, and from then on out we’re running and going.

That’s not a lot of time to set up who these characters are beforehand in their everyday life, so I’m looking for little mannerisms, little reactions within the action that can give you a hint as to who their character is and where they’re coming from.

Something like that, with Rebecca, is trying to show she’s hesitant, she’s wary, and, at the end of the day, that’s her stance of these Fallen people as well, but how does that manifest itself in her action of calling her aunt on the phone? That’s a lot of how I try to filter it out.

I’ve had a lot of fun with it, too, especially with something that’s supposed to feel like a period drama, almost. I wanted the action lines to read like a classic book or something to that effect. I use, maybe, a little bit more flowery language than I might in a different type of story to, hopefully, just communicate the tone that I would like to imagine this type of film would have.

Scott: That speaks to two things. This, what I call Narrative Voice, which is basically what’s the genre plus style? What style benefits the story most in terms of scene description?

Then the other thing, too, is that movies are primarily a visual medium. If you can convey something visually, through a gesture for example, that maybe can help underscore the dialogue or even sometimes replace the dialogue.

Sarah Jane: Exactly.

Here is a video of Sarah Jane’s “Applause for a Cause” initiative at Northwestern University:

Tomorrow in Part 5, Sarah Jane reflects on what her experience was winning the Nicholl and making the 2017 Black List.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Sarah Jane is repped by Verve and Kaplan/Perrone.

For my interviews with 52 other Black List writers, go here.

For my interviews with 26 other Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting writers, go here.