Interview (Part 6): Miguel Flatow

My interview with 2022 Black List writer for his script Viva, Mexico!

Miguel Flatow wrote the original screenplay Viva Mexico! which landed on the 2022 Black List. I had the opportunity to chat with Miguel 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, Miguel gives some advice to aspiring screenwriter.

Scott: Let’s talk about a subject that I think is probably the most nebulous aspect of writing in general, which is the theme. We hear that word a lot. What’s the theme of the story? What are the themes in the story? There doesn’t really seem to be one specific definition that people have zeroed in on.

Do you think about that upfront, or do you think about it while you’re writing? Are you looking for a central theme or themes in your story?

Miguel: I would say I probably do think of theme, but maybe in the sense that I think about what I want to say or explore. Again, my first language was is Spanish. I lived in Mexico till I was 17. Then went to the US for college.

I am writing in my second language, even though now English has become my primary language. I dream in English and think in English. I mostly read in English, probably 90 percent.

It took me a while to even get the confidence to write in English. The prepositions still always get me, damn them! I think you need to get to a point where writing becomes instinctual. I think it was David Foster Wallace who said that you need to write a million words before you can call yourself a writer. You need to get all of the bad writing out of your system. The only way to do that is to write a lot. I wrote a novel before this. It got sent to all the major publishers in NYC. It didn’t get published. That was heartbreaking. It was 200,000 words long. I wrote a novel in Spanish before that. That was just my training.

It took a while to get here, even though I still want to think I’m relatively young. Especially for a writer. But I already feel like I’ve been writing for a long time. I’ve read all the books. I’ve read all the fucking classics. And now that I’m here, and the sun is shining, I’m taking it very seriously.

But I digressed. Theme. Yes and no. Everything has to feel natural to me. It has to be intuitive. I really need to be a little bit outside my mind so that it works well.

I guess I think of it only in very broad strokes, like, “Oh, the shit happening in Mexico is serious. Somebody should…” It’s very basic like that. Then once I get into the writing — and especially rewriting, because as we all know, writing is rewriting — then I start polishing and accentuating the themes.

Again, it’s a little bit complicated for me to talk about things in such a pragmatic way because everything’s just — it’s muscle memory at this point. I think that I’m getting more and more confident in my skills as a writer because I can now almost lose myself on command, to get into a flow state, for lack of a better word, even though I wouldn’t even call it that.

You see it even in acting. Talking as a director, when somebody’s in a scene and kind of loses their train of thought or forgets exactly what they were going to say, that’s usually the best acting they do. That’s my state for writing. People sometimes ask me, “Do you meditate?” And I say, “Yeah, I meditate like four hours a day,” because that’s the time I’m writing. I’m not in myself. I’m not thinking about myself. I have no problems. I’m not thinking about my friends, about my health, about my finances. I’m not even thinking.

When you’re writing, so many things need to be happening at once. You have to be moving the plot forward. Checking the page count. Hitting your beats. It needs to be formatted correctly. The dialogue needs to be interesting. It needs to be dynamic. It needs to flow nicely. The character’s decisions need to make sense. Grammatically it needs to be impeccable. You need to alter your sentence length. Write in an active voice. Be economical with your words. Write exactly what you mean. Add emotion. It needs to be visually clear…

All of these things need to be happening at the same time, it’s so complex, that I think the more conscious you are, the more you’re not going to be able to hit all of the notes, as opposed to being able to lose yourself and let all the training kick it and let the unconscious do its thing.

This is a recent development, but we all know that feeling, we’ve all experienced it at times, but I’ve been training myself to the point where I can now sit down and 5 out of 7 days a week just completely dissolve into an ocean of words and it’s just my favorite thing in the world. There’s no conflict, everything just fades away.

Scott: It sounds wonderful that you’re in a terrific place creatively.

One last question for you, what advice would you have if some young writer came up to you and said, “Hey, how do I develop my craft as a screenwriter and try to break into the business.” What advice would you give them?

Miguel: I guess it’s a two-step advice. First, is to make sure this is what you really want to do, because, boy, is it a hard industry. I mean, I’m still figuring it out, but it’s just so hard to break in. It’s a very competitive and closed industry to get into, and there’s no manual. There’s no corporate ladder. You don’t get promoted after two years. If you don’t come from money, accept that you’ll be pathetically poor for a long time, with the odds being entirely against you that you’ll ever make it. You’re getting paid very well to make shit up. That privilege comes with sacrifice. And when I say it’s difficult, trust me, I’m not being glib. Whatever you think difficult means, multiply that by 10. That’s how difficult it is just to break in. Now I hear that sustaining a career is equally impossible, if not more, so looking forward to that. [laughs]

And in a way I feel like you don’t choose to be a writer, the writing chooses you to be the vessel. I don’t think I was ever like, “I’m going to be a writer,” I just always loved writing and loved words and books and movies and it was one of those things that chose me. I really had no say in the matter. I do remember once, a few years back, when I looked at myself in the mirror and said: “You’re a writer.” But I was already in my mid-20s. The decision had already been taken for me. I just accepted it. It took me that long. I had already written a novel by then.

If you’re one of those folks — which I meet all the time — and you like writing but it feels more like a passion than a calling, or it’s a hobby, or a way to get rich — which is definitely a terrible strategy — then honestly, and this is the capital-T Truth, you’re not going to make it. Maybe at some level, but not at the level that you’re thinking. Maybe you can be a copywriter. [laughs] But you’re not going to be able to compete against people like me, who dedicate their lives to it.

Secondly, when you’re starting out, and you read all these giants, you read the Kafkas, the Hemingways, the Virginia Woolfs, the Aaron Sorkins, all these guys, and you think, oh boy, maybe one day I could do something like that.

The gap between your writing and what you can appreciate as really good writing is just the most frustrating gap there is. And the only way to close the gap — and imagine what that gap is when you’re writing in your second language — is literally just an insane amount of writing that you need to do. You need to get all the bad writing out of your system in order to get to the point where your material is viable in the marketplace.

I would also say it’s not 10,000 hours. I don’t think it is. And this is not my phrase, it’s from a Silicon Valley guy who’s kind of a tech guru called Naval Ravikant, but he says, “Not 10,000 hours, but 10,000 iterations.” That’s 100 percent true. Even in Hollywood sometimes, right now that I’m developing a few things, everybody is like, “Slow down, you’re going too fast. Take a beat. Think about it more.”

I disagree. It feels fast to you because, in my opinion, everyone is a bit slow. Hollywood is slow. So you can spend four days twiddling your thumbs writing 2 hours a day, but if I write 8 hours a day, then in one day I finished the work that took you four days to complete. It’s so much better to be iterating than to be adding fake hours to the scale. You need to be iterating. You need to be like, “Okay, this is the script. Okay, that’s done. Let’s do another one. And another one. And another one.” Instead of like, “Oh, I’ve been writing this script for a year.” Well, it’s going to feel like a year to read it. Also, for me, writing is the cleanest form of thinking. Grammar is the logic of thought. I write to understand and explain to myself what I’m thinking. So not only am I writing more, but I’m also in a clearer mental state. Always in the story. And never in my mind.

But good luck.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Part 5, here.

Miguel is repped by CAA and Rain Management.

Instagram and Twitter: @miguelflatow

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