Interview (Part 6): Harris McCabe

My interview with the 2023 Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting winner.

Harris McCabe wrote the original screenplay “Nat Cady’s Boys” which won a 2023 Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Harris about his creative background, her award-winning script, the craft of screenwriting, and what winning the Nicholl Award has meant to him.

Today in Part 6 of a 6-part series to run each day through Saturday, Harris shares some thoughts on the craft of screenwriting.

Scott: Did you have representation or do you have representation? What happened on that?

Harris: I did not have representation. I do now. Jill McElroy and Brian Levy from Entertainment 360 are managing me now, which is great. Even as a semifinalist or as a finalist, one of their readers had flagged my script as something they were interested in and was passing it around and proselytizing for me. Then after the fact, some other people might have reached out to them and put in a good word for me.

When I finally met Jill and Brian, I just felt like we had a good connection, which is important for a manager. That’s really good for me.

I had not been aggressively seeking management because I felt like that would happen if I ever wrote anything worthwhile. My attitude has always been just put your head down and write. It’s actually my attitude still. I feel like that’s going to be the challenge now, is, “Get back to it. Put your head down and write. I’ve got to produce more and better stuff and keep improving.”

Scott: I remember my first agent, Dan Halsted, he’s a manager now. He always says, “Don’t worry about it. If you write a great script, we’ll find you.”

Congratulations. I got a few craft questions for you. Just trying to crack open your process a little bit. How do you come up with the story ideas? Are you one of those people who consciously generates them or are you like Aaron Sorkin, you take eight showers a day and the ideas flow, or somewhere in between there? What’s your process?

Harris: I try to write down every idea I have. I have a Google doc where I just write down, “Hey, this could be a movie.” I’m a reader, so it could be an article I’m reading, something I see on the news, something somebody says, or something I overhear when I’m out.

Or like Nat Cady’s Boys. I don’t even know where that idea for the kids came from, but that image popped into my head, I wrote a scene, and then eventually, put together the pieces of what could lead to that scene. That was the worst way to do it because that took years to put that together.

When I see something and I’m like, “That could be an idea,” I never know for sure, but there’s something intriguing about a character, or a scenario, or not as often, but sometimes just a broader concept that is interesting to explore. I always try to write that down as well, what it is specifically that is piquing my interest.

The mistake I used to make was I would write down, “Oh, what if this guy invented a time machine and did blah, blah, blah, blah?” Whatever. Then I would link to whatever article prompted that idea. Then I would forget to write down the part about figuring out why I found it fascinating and what the little spark was that made me think that would be worth writing down. I go back and I look at this idea and I’d be like, “Why did I think that would work?”

Like, “What was I thinking there?” That’s the most important part, is very specifically, “Here’s why I think this is interesting. Here’s what’s fascinating to me about that.” That’s usually the key to unlocking what the bigger picture is and what your North Star is going to be as you write it.

Still, those things take a long time to germinate. What I can’t do is, or I shouldn’t say I can’t, but what’s a much bigger struggle is writing on command. If somebody else tells me, “I want you to write about this and that.” It’s a longer process for me.

It does involve long showers, long drives, thinking about it aggressively and trying to rack my brain to come up with an idea and being totally frustrated, and then clearing my head by doing something else. All of a sudden, the answer pops into my head, but that is much more difficult than the things that just spontaneously attack me from the world and say, “I’m a great idea. Write me down.”

Scott: That’s a skill set that everybody who wants to work in Hollywood needs to have. If you want to go up for an OWA, you get a writing assignment. OK, well, you got to find your way into it. What’s your point of emotional connection to it?

Let’s talk about this rewriting process. You were a little different with this particular script in that you didn’t do a lot of prep work on it, but you rewrote it. How many rewrites? What was that process like?

Harris: I rewrote it once, which is…I know that sounds crazy, but this is the exception, not the rule. I rewrote it once. Honestly, I think the original script was even longer than 126 pages, making an unproducible script even less producible. [laughs]

A lot of it was just addition by subtraction of finding the vignettes that weren’t working as well, of getting rid of some things that I really liked that just didn’t fit.

Then fleshing out some of the connective tissue, making sure that the scenes that I kept, that that theme of mentorship and worldviews being challenged and expanded was present in all of it, but never showing too much.

Then it was just a lot of detail work of cleaning up the dialogue. I like to think I have a tendency to underwrite dialogue and have characters say less, but then I reread one of my scripts and I’m like, “Oh, my God. Just have everyone speak their subtext all the time, idiot.”

I was going back through and reducing the amount of explanation that I was giving or the amount of exposition that a character was giving in his dialogue, and finding more nuanced ways to say some of those things.

The Dodd scene where he escapes had to be reworked in terms of the story that he was telling. There were some issues with how he escaped, which was similar, but I don’t think I nailed the action the first time through. I came up with a better way of describing that moment.

There were a few other action scenes that I felt like they just weren’t enough. Some of the stuff that happens in the woods when the martial grabs Heck and escapes back to the lodge, I think that scene originally played out in a more confusing way.

Normally, when I finish a script, my first step is to look at the structure and make sure the scaffolding makes sense. If it doesn’t, I tweak that in a way, and then rewrite the outline with that change in mind. Then look at the scenes that are or aren’t working and correct them, or characters that maybe aren’t working, maybe relationships that need to be re-envisioned.

Then I usually do a page-one blank page rewrite based on the new outline. And I always finish that one, that second draft thinking, “Oh, I wrote a much better version. I don’t even need to look at that first one again.”

Then I go back and look at the first one and realize that many of the scenes were much better in the first one. But usually, the script as a whole is better in the second pass. Then it’s about marrying those two.

I’ve had scripts that I did six drafts of before I felt like it was strong. I’ve definitely had rewrites of other writers’ scripts where I think I’m even more reluctant to make big changes at first. I have to have a couple of passes where I want to respect the original writer and what they were doing.

There’s usually a reason, because people like a lot of what’s in the original script. Nobody asks for a rewrite of a script that’s terrible. So I’ll do some first passes that are very tentative, and then start to realize that I’ve got to take some big swings to fix some of the bigger problems.

There was a particular script that I was working at with Lunacy that is in a really good place now. I loved it. I loved the original writer’s draft. It was one of the reasons I went to work for that company, was because I thought the original draft was so strong.

She did many revisions that were trying to satisfy what we needed to fix, and then she had to move on. Then I did a bunch of revisions. Honestly, it took years and many, many revisions. Usually, by that time, you give up hope that it’ll ever be what you want it to be.

I think we’ve got it to a really good place now, but usually, the revision process is long and arduous. Not for this one. Hopefully, this is a sign that I’m such a good writer that I’ll get a really good first draft every time. But subsequently, I’ve written some bad first drafts [laughs] that I’m not excited about.

[laughter]

Scott: How about theme? You mentioned mentorship and sharing of different worldviews as a theme that was quite prominent in this. Is that something you discover along the way or are you one of those writers who frontload the process? You need to find the theme in order to move forward with it.

Harris: This is probably the biggest thing I learned from both how easy Nat Cady’s Boys came out and also the reaction to it, was that I’ve always heard you have to write to theme. For me, my way in is usually the character.

Because I love thrillers, I usually have to see the plot first and have a really good understanding of where I want the plot to go and then what character is going to be in it.

I’m trying to change my mindset a lot because it was very easy to know what was a right or wrong decision and what I needed to do in each scene when I had such a precise understanding of the theme.

When I started Nat Cady’s Boys, I knew exactly what I was going for thematically. It was very specific. I always try to have a theme before I start writing a script, but a lot of times, the theme is vague or the theme is a couple of themes because I just haven’t figured it out yet.

I can’t remember who said it, so I’m not going to be able to attribute it to them, but somebody said, “If you’re not writing about one thing, you’re writing about nothing.”

At least as far as theme goes, I don’t know if it’s always the case, but it definitely helps if you’ve got one very specific theme in mind and everything you’re doing in the script is…Not everything in the script has to necessarily revolve directly around it, but I think everything in the script has to be keeping that in mind.

Every scene you write, you have to have that in the back of your head, and whether or not it’s doing what you need it to do there.

Eventually, I will have to write another script where I don’t have a good handle on the theme. I’m currently doing rewrites where I definitely had a vague theme the first time and now I’m trying to get more precise and have the rewrite revolve around one theme.

It’s very challenging, but it’s also very rewarding because I think it’s better for you as a writer to have that North Star in mind.

Also, especially if you have a theme that’s somewhat universal, which most are, it’s going to be better for the reader. It’s going to impact them in a better way. Even if it is a stupid genre thing about little murderous cowboy children seeking revenge, it’s going to have that greater purpose that’s hitting people emotionally in a different place if it’s something they understand.

Scott: One last question. What’s the single best piece of advice you would give to someone who is an aspiring screenwriter?

Harris: This is going to sound dumb. Just write. Write, write, write. You can’t be a writer if you don’t write. I know a lot of people, myself included, the whole time I’m in my twenties, hanging out at the bar, looking at shitty movies on TV going, “I could write this crap. I can’t believe they’re giving away money in Hollywood to these bums.”

The truth is I couldn’t. I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about because I didn’t do it. It’s very easy to imagine being a writer. It’s harder to get up every day and write.

You might be right. You might be supertalented. You might be very smart, but you’re never going to improve to the point where it matters unless your hands are on the keyboard all the time.

Also, when you start writing, don’t stop till you’re done. The mistake that I made a lot of times early on was getting stuck. Write through being stuck. Get to page 90 or whatever. Just get to the end, and then maybe go back and try to figure out where you went wrong. If necessary, write the whole thing again.

If you never finish that first draft, it’s dead. It’s just going to vanish. It’s going to disappear. If it’s got any potential at all, you owe it to yourself to keep writing till you get through it.

Here is Harris delivering his acceptance speech at the Nicholl Award ceremony.

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Part 5, here.

Harris is repped by Entertainment 360.

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