Interview (Part 6): Kieran Turner

My interview with 2022 Black List writer for his script Black Dogs.

Kieran wrote the original screenplay Black Dogs which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Kieran about his creative background, writing a Black List script, and the craft of screenwriting.

Today in Part 6 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Kieran provides advice for aspiring screenwriters.

Scott: It’s a terrific read. It certainly feels like a movie. I wrote a book about character‑driven storytelling.

Kieran: Character is the big thing for me. It’s number one with me. To have you feel like the characters are solid and are there and somebody that’s important to you as well, that means a lot. I appreciate it.

Scott: The heist would mean nothing if it weren’t for us caring about these characters. You have a directing background, a doc background, and obviously a writer, too. Where do you see yourself going here?

Kieran: Actually, I did have a couple of generals recently. People read the script. It wasn’t necessarily for them, but they liked the writing. They wanted to meet with me. I thought that was great. I’m thrilled to meet with anybody.

Here’s the thing. I love to challenge myself. Just because I haven’t done something yet doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t totally be up for it. I love a challenge. I love trying new things. I never thought I’d ever be a documentary filmmaker, and here I am doing that.

I’ve talked to some of these people. They’ve told me some of the projects. I sparked to them. I can very easily get immersed in a story that I may not have ever thought of. Over the pandemic, I got hired to adapt a series of science fiction novels. Now I don’t know much about science fiction. I love ’70s science fiction, but I couldn’t say that I’m a big sci‑fi fan. I don’t watch it now.

The way that these novels were written, they basically needed to be torn apart and built up from the ground floor. I got the permission from the producers who had hired me to do that. The way that I did it was starting with character and figuring out who these characters were because they were not in the book at all. That just wasn’t what this writer was interested in doing.

I don’t know. I was writing it. I kept working on it and going, “God, this is the biggest piece of shit. I hope nobody ever reads this. I don’t think I know what I’m doing. I don’t know. But I’m also my biggest critic. I always say that.” I gave it to them. They were like, “Wow, this is really good, but here are some notes.” I was like, “OK, yes.” Then I started getting excited about it.

We got a director attached. It’s in no man’s land right now because of what’s happening with the streamers. I’m not part of it. I was just a writer for hire. I don’t know what they’re doing with it. It was a great learning experience.

I came to enjoy working on it and working on it with the director, him giving me his thoughts and me doing a rewrite based on what he felt about it and him also being very character driven. My feeling is whatever comes down the pike, man, I’m willing and able and thrilled to take on.

Scott: You mentioned very early in the conversation, I think it was when you were talking about that radio show that you had, that you came to enjoy rewriting, which is an object lesson for aspiring writers because most of them is like, “Oh god, I have to rewrite this.”

Maybe talk about how does that work for you? How did you go about with the science fiction project? You said characters. What was that process like? Do you go to an outline? How do you go about doing that?

Kieran: I did. Actually, I wrote a treatment because I basically had to reinvent the story from the ground up, as I had said. They wanted me to keep certain elements and certain characters, most of the lead characters. I could basically do whatever I wanted to, otherwise. If they hated it, they would tell me.

I had written a treatment for them to make sure that I was on the same page with everybody and everybody liked what I was doing. There were no characters. Again, I don’t want to disparage anybody’s writing. That’s just not what he (the author) was doing. They were ciphers. That’s a bad way to describe it. I apologize for using that word. That’s what they felt like to me.

I wanted to find out why these characters were doing what they were doing because that wasn’t in the book, and so I did. I wanted to know who these characters were. I wrote down, “This is this particular character. Here’s where he comes from. Here’s why he’s doing what he’s doing. Here’s what he wants. Here’s what he hopes to achieve. Here’s what he’s afraid of.”

When I did that with all those characters, I realized how they interact with each other. I realized who I could get rid of, who I could bolster, who I needed to add in that didn’t actually exist, and figure out how they interacted with each other. There’s a lot of, like you talked about with Black Dogs, with having something happen at one point in the script and then having a callback to it.

A lot of that comes from that character work because you figure that out. You figure, “Oh, I’m writing something about somebody that I want to make sure the audience knows is important. I know I’m going to call back to it at this point, but how can I make that funny? How can I make that scary?” whatever it needs to serve. It’s working from characters and then trying to figure out, OK, these are these characters. Where does the story live now?

How do I make it interesting? How do I make interesting to me but not just me? I’m not a science fiction person. I don’t want to write something for people who aren’t science fiction people. I want to give them more.

Outside of slasher films, because you get that certain kind of charge from them, I think it’s difficult to find a film that’s really good, that doesn’t have interesting characters and characters that you can relate to.

Sure, there are slasher films that do have good characters, but a lot of the time, you know they’re fodder. That’s what you’re going for. You’re going to watch people become fodder. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s fun. It’s cathartic.

Scott: It’s interesting to hear you talk about that process because I tell my students that the interrelationships, you got to figure why the characters are in the story. They’re like a family. You even mentioned earlier that Patrick was the den mother or the dad.

Figure out those interrelationships, what each of them wants and needs, and all that stuff. The story starts to emerge from that, right?

Kieran: It does. I’m probably going to get in trouble for this. Early on, when I was writing the actual script for this, for the sci‑fi thing, I kept getting deadlines. It was like pulling teeth, getting me to write it because I just thought, “I don’t have it. I don’t have it. I don’t have it. I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t do it.”

I kept making excuses. “Oh, I’m going to get to it. I just need an extra week. I just need an extra week.” Finally, when I didn’t have any extra weeks left, I was like, “OK, you’ll have it by X day.” It was three days later. I sat down. I wrote the entire fucking thing in three days.

I gave it to them. I thought, “I’m going to get fired. This is the worst thing I’ve ever written. It’s terrible.” Then for them to come back and be as pleased with it as they were, told me that the large work that needed to be done had already been done. All I needed to do was plug it in.

I love to write dialogue. Dialogue, for me, is easy. It just is. I enjoy it. I enjoy figuring out how people sound and what they’re going to say. That never bogs me down. It’s more story that bogs me down. But now I had it, so I was able to vomit it out and actually make something out of it. But I wouldn’t recommend doing it, taking on that particular practice as a screenwriter.

Scott: Let’s ask one last question. If there’s someone outside the business, they’re trying to learn screenwriting, they want to be a writer, director, or whatnot. What advice do you have for them in terms of learning the craft and becoming good at what they do?

Kieran: I would say the best thing to do is to take some kind of a class. When I decided that I wanted to figure out how to write for television, I took an adjunct class at UCLA. I took one of those 12‑week TV writing classes. I wrote a spec for “Gilmore Girls.” This was way back.

I learned so much not necessarily from the teacher, although I had a wonderful teacher. The teacher did teach, helped me a lot.

Getting to work with other people who are working on the same kinds of things that you’re working on, having a deadline, having to bring pages in every week, having to look at other people’s, having to learn how to analyze their work and give them feedback will help you figure out how to analyze your own work and will loosen you up, I think.

If you can’t take a class, see if you can form some sort of an online writing group, where you get six or seven people together. You read each other’s work every week or every two weeks. You give feedback. You’re responsible for coming in with a certain amount of pages.

I just think getting that feedback and hearing what other people think and looking at what other people are doing in a non‑competitive atmosphere is such a huge help. I’ve even gotten into classes recently just because I knew that I needed to kick myself in the ass to get something written and I wanted that structure.

I didn’t necessarily need to learn from the teacher, not that I didn’t learn from the teacher. I’m not saying that I’ve learned everything I’m ever going to learn. That’s bullshit. You’re always learning. I did it because I knew that it would give me great feedback. It would be a lot easier than just me living in this little box by myself.

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Part 5, here.

Kieran is repped by Bellevue Productions.

Twitter: @jobriathdoc

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