Interview (Part 4): Walker McKnight

My interview with the 2019 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

Walker McKnight wrote the original screenplay “Street Rat Allie Punches Her Ticket” which won a 2019 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Walker about his background, his award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl has meant to him.

Today in Part 4 of a 6 part series to run each day through Saturday, we talk about three sets of antagonist figures in the story, the theme of separation, a comparison to The Wizard of Oz, and how Walker calls the script an example of “fun dystopia.”

Scott: You’ve got these three opposing groups ‑‑ Big Green, Cry Baby, Bottom Dog ‑‑ operating as antagonist‑type figures. Other characters, Breakable Velvet, Gutter Suckers, this incredible world that you’ve created of this environment.

Now, the plot hangs on a couple of things. There’s this ticket to get on of this train to leave this bubble, to go to some mythic, hopefully real, place that’s better.

Allie gets a ticket, but then loses it, and then Big Green has it, and says, “OK, you need to take this item somewhere.” That’s basically how the plot spins out.

There’s a great quote from Joel Coen ‑‑ I’m a huge Coen brothers fan ‑‑ where he said that all movies are an attempt to remake The Wizard of Oz.

I was thinking about this, because you’ve got, Allie is an orphan like Dorothy, and she dreams of going somewhere out there over the rainbow, get out of the bubble and go someplace else.

She has these three friends, like the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow, the surrogate family, and home being so important.

Big Green saying, “You’ve got to go do this thing,” is like the Wizard of Oz saying, “Go get the Witch’s broomstick.” I don’t know if that was intentional or not, or that maybe Joel Coen is right ‑‑ unintentionally or unconsciously, trying to replicate The Wizard of Oz.

Walker: That’s wild! It’s totally unconscious, but what you’re saying makes sense. There are definitely echoes of that. You’re the first person to bring that up, but it’s funny.

It was important to keep the world outside of the Bubble mysterious. We don’t truly know what Allie is going to find out there, but we also have a very real, tangible message from Jammer, the person who’s probably the closest thing to a mother she ever had. And she’s calling her on, saying “Hey, I’m waiting for you. It’s OK. I didn’t forget you. Come on.”

That’s gutting for Allie. Jammer is the most important thing in the world to her. For her to even consider walking away from these kids that depend on her, it had to be something that intense. To your point about Oz, you could say this is Allie’s version of trying to get home, because to her, wherever Jammer is, that’s home — even though it’s a place she’s never physically been. She is trying to get back there, because her home left her.

Scott: I think that separation is one of the most common and important themes that we see, and story dynamics that we see, in movies. She’s got it working on multiple levels. One is, she’s separated from this person who she, as you say, probably is the closest to a mother figure, to this place that she’s imagining in her mind that’s out there, that’s much better than the place where she lives.

Yet, to do that would separate her…If you did that, then she would be separated from this family, this group of girls that she’s not only become close to, but responsible for. That theme, the ticket gets separated from her, and so separation plays out throughout the story quite a bit.

Walker: Yeah, all these girls are terrified of losing each other. It takes Allie half the script to start to realize that she can’t possibly do that. But even once they decide to stay together, you still want to keep throwing separation at them, or the threat of separation.

They have to make the decision to destroy their literal home, the Nest, in order to save each other. So for a section of the script, they’re adrift again. Even at the end, when three of them have been told by their leader to get out and save themselves, they still can’t do it. They have to stay just for her.

Scott: That ending is quite noteworthy, because it’s got so many twists and turns to it, and you write action sequences so well. How many drafts did it take for you… How long did it take for you to hit that ending, because it’s tying all these storylines together in an intricate, and yet a logically and emotionally satisfying way?

Walker: The drafts question is always funny. I don’t know if other screenwriters wrestle with this, but there’s a point during revision when I don’t know what to call an actual draft vs. just fiddling with little bits of the story.

In terms of a page one rewrite where significant things changed, maybe three to four drafts. Certainly not more than four. Then after that, it’s moving pretty minor things around. Toying with dialogue or like changing little aspects of scenes.

I’ve been proud of other scripts I’ve written, but I don’t think I’ve ever come to care as much for my characters as I did for this group of homeless girls. In early drafts the endings were a bit darker, and I just found I couldn’t end things that way for them.

I put them through hell, and then I keep them in the city even though they were trying to escape. Life isn’t necessarily going to be massively better for them going forward. So given all that, I had to let them walk off into the sunset, arm in arm. It took a little bit to get there, but I got there.

Scott: That classic ending: “Give them what they expect, then give them what they want.”

Walker: Which was never my instinct. In my early days of screenwriting, I was very much into the downer ending, or the last‑minute, pull the rug out from them, “oh no” kind of thing.

I’m glad I’ve moved away from that. Not that that can’t be done super well, too, but over time, I’ve come to a more direct emotional connection to my characters than I probably had early on.

Scott: You come back to that point we talked about up‑front, about caring?

Walker: Yeah.

Scott: The last thing I’d like to discuss about the script before we move onto some craft questions is that there’s a sense of humor in it. With all the stuff going on in this ruffian, post‑apocalyptic world, there’s a very specific tone there.

Is that more a reflection of your writer’s voice, or is that something you actually thought about? Because I have written comedies, tone is such a critical thing. This is not a comedy, but there is humor in it. I’m curious about how that evolved, or how that worked for you?

Walker: Certainly it’s voice to some degree. It’s what I respond to. A lot of my stories involve people maintaining their sense of humor in the face of bizarre or supernatural or sci-fi threats. Standing up and staying tough but having a quirky sense of humor about it. I don’t know why that’s such a thing for me.

I probably worried about tone more than anything with this script. I was definitely going for something specific. I’m so impressed when storytellers in any medium manage to nail this incredible mix of diverse tones ‑‑ humor, weirdness, danger, actual stakes, heartbreaking moments, dark moments, light moments ‑‑ and have them all work together somehow in a big soup. That blows my mind.

This example is as far away from this script as it can be, but I just got through rewatching the first couple of seasons of “Veronica Mars.” So good. It does what I’m talking about — having legitimately scary, dark, brutal things happen while also somehow finding the light moments and the weird, slanted, funny take on it.

I’ve often described what I was going for in this script as a “fun dystopia.” Most of the times when you see dystopian stories, they’re deadly dark. The characters are constantly surrounded by and mired in all these reminders of the vanished old world. “Oh, here’s everything we’ve lost.” Everyone is dirt‑caked and struggling. Everything’s misery.

I tried to take this into a post‑post‑post‑apocalyptic place. It’s so far beyond a collapse that the characters barely even care about what was lost or what came before. It’s just become a series of trivia question for them. This is just the reality.

The place might be a nightmare, but they’re still kids and they’re going to find humor in things. They’re used to seeing giant, scary, horrifying monsters loom over them. Sometimes it will be funny to them, or they will naturally crack wise. Fun dystopia! I don’t know if I succeeded in making that, but I tried.

Tomorrow in Part 5, Walker shares his approach to story prep and what he tries to accomplish when writing scenes.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

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

For my interviews with 53 Black List writers, go here.