Interview (Part 6): Lexie Tran

My interview with 2022 Black List writer for her script It’s a Wonderful Story.

Alexandra “Lexie” Tran wrote the original screenplay It’s a Wonderful Story which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Lexie about her 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, Lexie provides advice to aspiring screenwriters.

Scott: What’s your prep writing process? How do you break story?

Lexie: I am a structure queen, which means that I struggle more with character. Before I do anything, I have to have a working logline because that will tell me what I’m supposed to cleave to. For me, it’s very easy to veer in tone or theme unless I keep myself honest with the log line, and then I go from big to small.

I have a “Save the Cat!” beat sheet situation where I write out, here’s my act one, act two, act three. I have to know what the midpoint and the end are. Once I know what those are, I figure out the beginning and then I figure out the arcs in between for each act. Then I start to work on the character.

For me, it’s always got to be extremely clear. “What do they want? Why can’t they get it? What’s at stake for them emotionally if they don’t get it?” Honestly, it always ends up being life or death. It’s always a metaphorical life or death stakes.

From there, I can start to craft the story and start to create scenes and I track the emotional development that I’m trying to create from beginning to end. I create my highs and lows. What’s the list of terrible things that will force my characters to experience their worst nightmare?

If my worst nightmare is being rejected, let’s say. There’s a million ways to be rejected. Being rejected by my boss for a promotion is not anywhere near as emotionally gutting as being rejected by my husband for sex because he’s not attracted to me anymore, or, even worse, if he wants a divorce because he’s in love with someone else.

I create a list basically of what are all the things that will cause them to experience their deepest, darkest night and then I see what fits best for my narrative. Then I put those events where they need to fit in the structure.

By the way, this is something I learned from Corey Mandell’s workshops.

Scott: It reminds me of that. I always thought this was such a great insight. Robert Towne said it. He said, “The single best question you can ask a character is what they fear the most.”

Lexie: Exactly, yes. What they fear the most, and also my other favorite way to do it is, what is the lens through which they view life when we meet them and how does it change by the end? That helps me differentiate my characters.

If I have one person who goes around thinking that life is totally fair, they’re going to react differently to adversity than someone who believes life is not fair and always stacked against them, and that helps me create unique characters.

Scott: I like to ask this question because it seems like it’s the one area of screenwriting or maybe writing in general that there’s a lot of liquidity about, and that’s the idea of theme. I don’t even know necessarily what people have a specific definition better than that.

Do you think in terms of theme? Is it something if you do, do you think of it upfront? Do you think of it as something that emerges along the way? Is there a central theme you’re looking for? Are there multiple themes. Generally speaking, what’s at work with you in terms of this concept of theme?

Lexie: For me, theme is whatever idea I’m exploring in all the storylines. I probably cleave closest to Robert McKee’s definition, where in Story, he writes that for every plot and subplot you have, you’re exploring the same theme, and the subplots either prove it or disprove it. Whatever you’re trying to prove or disprove is your theme.

Scott: What about, you sit down to write a scene, what are your goals?

Lexie: My goal is always emotional change in the scene and always a build. It’s got to have a beginning and a middle and an end. I always try to get in at the latest possible stage, which is not hard for me. I’m a chronic underwriter as it turns out, not an overwriter. Really, the emotional change is what’s crucial.

I keep a post-it on my desk with the four basic emotions: mad, glad, sad, and scared. I determine what’s the basic underlying emotion at the beginning of the scene, and which one do we move to by the end of the scene, and that’s how I structure all my scenes.

Scott: You mentioned that the first script you read was Pulp Fiction by Quentin Tarantino. You realized that it wasn’t just character. Anderson does this because Tarantino’s scene description, we all think his dialog is great, but his scene description actually has a personality to it, too.

When you’re writing what we call scene description, which seems so antiseptic, do you try to infuse it with the personality? Is there a specific, I call it, narrative voice that you’re trying to imbue that with when you’re writing a scene description?

Lexie: Mostly, it’s just how I prefer to write things. I read a lot of writers. I find that I really tend to emulate, and I would love to emulate her career, Susannah Grant, who wrote Erin Brockovich and Ever After, the best Cinderella movie ever. She just finished producing Fleishman Is In Trouble.

Her style is closest to mine, in that I like to be evocative but terse. It’s not going to be blocks of text. If you’ve ever read the script for Terminator 2, Oh, my God, talk about the antithesis of whitespace on a page. It’s just paragraphs. It reads like a novel. That’s not what I do.

You know who else? Ryan Coogler, in my opinion, is almost a better writer than a director, to be honest. The man is an incredible writer. His descriptions are incredible. He’s so evocative with so little words spent on the page. I try to go for evocative and — what’s the word I’m looking for — accessible. Evocative and accessible, but not overly wordy.

Scott: That’s right. A student of mine came up with a mantra years ago: “Screenplay: Minimum words. Maximum impact.”

Lexie: Definitely. I have a script that starts with a man walking across a parking lot. He’s white. He’s tall. He’s got a summer suit, fresh haircut. He looks like the jackpot to every guy in this car dealership. That’s how it starts. It’s staccato. It’s beat, beat, beat, beat. It sets a tone.

Scott: What do you like most about writing?

Lexie: It’s thrilling. For me, writing is like watching a movie, but I get to change what I feel at the stroke of my own pen. I’m that person who will watch something to have a good cry because I’m craving a good cry. I watch things to feel inspired, or to deal with bad days. It’s my form of therapy, really.

Writing is just powerful. I discover things about myself. When it resonates with somebody else, it’s an incredible feeling, but when it’s true to you, and you discover a truth that you never quite articulated for yourself before, that’s something indescribable.

I’ll give you an example. Recently, I was noodling with a new idea. I was trying to come at it like, “What’s the fundamental difference between men and women, adolescently?” What I came up with, and this is my personal truth, and it’s in the script as this way of my theme.

My personal truth was, “A boy becomes a man when he realizes he needs other people. A girl becomes a woman when she realizes that she doesn’t.”

That might seem like the most obvious thing in the world to anybody, you included. To me, it was not, until I literally sat there and thought it and wrote it. Moments like that feed me.

Scott: That’s a great insight. I think your mother’s DNA has diffused through you.

[laughter]

Scott: Great conversation. Last question, what advice do you have for people, aspiring screenwriters, people who want to work in Hollywood film and TV? What advice do you have for them about learning the craft and trying to break into the business?

Lexie: The best way to learn the craft, as you said, and you keep telling your students, you do have to read scripts. Read as many as you can. Read them from various genres. I have comedy scripts I read, and I don’t write comedy. I’m not a comic or comedian, but I read them to see what works and because structure is the same, regardless of genre.

It’s also incredibly important to understand the business because success is as much understanding the business as honing your craft. The easiest way to do that, is to read the trades daily. If you scroll Deadline, scroll Variety, every day, it’s gibberish at first, and then slowly it begins to make sense.

Then you begin to understand, and you wonder, “Why did they make this movie?” “What’s the story here?” Then you watch the movie come out and you wonder what the response was. You begin to have an understanding, and you begin to have your own instincts. That, then, further shapes what you want to write, how you write it, and how you position yourself.

That, I think, is something where a lot of people lose a lot of time and they don’t have to.

Finally, and this is for the younger writers… don’t put your life on hold. I didn’t wait for success to live my life. I got married, bought a house, changed day jobs and started a family all before my first paid OWA. You have to build a life. Get that pet you always wanted, move to a new city, learn to play that instrument. A successful writing career can’t be the only goal and the other goals can’t hinge on it. It’s the other things that you’ll fall back on when the writing career falters or stalls. And it will, because that’s the nature of writing professionally. You don’t want to look back on your life and think “wow, there’s so much I could have done but didn’t because I wanted to be a successful writer first.”

For Part 1, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Part 5, here.

Lexie is repped by Agency for the Performing Arts (APA) and Bellevue Productions.

Twitter: @LexWojTran

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