Interview (Part 6): Jake Disch

Jake Disch has made the annual Black List two times: In 2018 for his script Gunfight, then in 2023 with The Adults in the Room. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Jake about his creative background, the craft of screenwriting, and the challenges associated with writing a story based on actual historical events.

Today in Part 6 of a 6-part series to run each day this week, Jake gives advice to aspiring screenwriters.

Scott: Let’s talk about your prep writing part of the process, breaking story. Do you use cards, you outline treatments? How do you go about breaking your story?

Jake: Mostly crying.

[laughter]

Jake: It’s different project by project. The one piece of advice I want to give any new writer is don’t panic when you start a new script. We all feel the same imposter syndrome. It’s not because you’re a bad writer, it’s because you’re bad at writing that particular thing because you don’t know how to do it yet.

Every script you write, you’re going to have to access new tools, different tools than you did on your last project. You’re coming to it with the same set of tools that you had for your last script. Then you’re like, “Why aren’t these tools working?” Meanwhile, you just built a bench and now you’re painting a portrait, but you still have a hammer and nails in your hands.

You have to learn what each script wants to be in order to become good at writing it. For example, the first draft of this script was 88 pages long because I got 40 pages in and I was like, this isn’t working, but I knew why it was working. It was important to finish it, so I rushed to the end.

The second draft of the script was 140 pages long because I figured out what it needed, but not quite what it didn’t need yet. Each revision you do and each crack at the egg makes you better at writing that project until you get to draft six, seven, eight, and you’re an expert at writing that thing. Someone gives you a note, and you say, “Yep, exact, I know exactly what to do.”

You can go in and in five minutes, change like two or three lines and two or three scenes, and know that you’ve addressed the note because you know how this script works now.

I think the way into every script is completely different. If it’s a true story, it depends on how complex, how much I need to teach myself.

If it’s completely made up, sometimes I start with the idea, and I’m like, OK, let’s get pure plot and then figure out who the person is at the center of this. Sometimes it starts with a character. Then it’s what’s the worst thing, the worst or most difficult situation I can put this character in, and you build from that.

I’d say, materially, I always start with a 3 or 4 page synopsis, and gradually that balloons until it’s a 20-page thing that no one in their right mind would ever want to read.

Then, I do my first draft, following the outline super closely, and realize that my outline, no matter how long and exhaustive it is, is woefully inadequate. [laughs] Inevitably, my first draft ends up acting more like my outline for my first real draft, which is my second draft.

Scott: What about writing a scene? When you’re writing a scene, what are you thinking about? What are your goals when you’re writing a scene?

Jake: For this script, a lot of my thought process for where to start and exit scenes was, “How do I surprise the audience at the top of the scene and at the bottom of the scene?”

When you can leap around in time a lot, there’s a lot that you can do to, not throw your audience off, but surprise them in a delightful way, hopefully, or an emotional way.

I try to always come in at the moment in the scene that’s going to be best for the audience and leave on a button, on a cliffhanger, or some question that the next thing you read is going to answer.

I also overwrite the hell out of my scenes, especially with people that talk this much. They’ll just talk and talk, and I’ll have one scene that’s four pages with no action lines. It’s just dialogue.

Then it’s, “OK, what are we actually saying here? Let’s go back and put a pace to this,” and give them some business and make it a real scene, and it’ll go from four pages to one and a half.

To me, it’s all about just giving the audience rewards as often as you can.

Scott: Well, I tell my students the same thing. I say, “If you write a scene, it’s great if you can answer a question that had been posed earlier, but create a question that leads them forward.” Sounds similar to your approach there.

Let’s end with this. Given the nature of the business now, because the film and TV business is in a weird place right now, it’s not conventional and where it’s been in over 30, 40 years or whatever, what advice would you give to people who are aspiring screenwriters in terms of learning the craft and trying to break in?

Jake: Just learning the craft or staying alive long enough to build a career? [laughs] The only answer to learning the craft and becoming skilled enough to break in is to write, and surround yourself with people whose taste you trust and whose feedback you trust, which is a lot easier said than done. It can take a long time to find those people.

I would say — and I caution anybody against taking out thousands upon thousands of dollars in loans to go to an MFA program — but one of the chief benefits of it is you have built-in readers who are going to be your friends, who you’re going to grow to trust, who I still send my scripts to now 10 years later.

You need that community because you’re going to fail a lot. You’re going to write bad stuff at the beginning. You’re going to write stuff you think is great that’s only good. You’re going to write great stuff that isn’t what the market wants.

It’s so much about knowing and trusting your own ability, and building a team around you, and relationships and community that support you and also believe in you and champion your work.

I think that’s really it. I do think no one is born a great screenwriter. It takes a lot of practice; a lot of practice. I look at my time at Northwestern as a blessing, in part because I got two straight years to do nothing but write all my worst scripts. Then I got out to LA and I wrote a few more bad scripts.

Gradually, I figured out who I wanted to be on the page. The first script I wrote where I really felt this is what I care about and this is what I’m passionate about was “Gunfight,” and it made the Black List. I wouldn’t have made it that far without community. It’s a marathon, and you need friends. That’s really my best advice.

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Part 5, here.

Jake is repped by Bellevue Productions.

@jake_disch
@jakedisch.bsky.social

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