Interview (Part 6): Tara Tomicevic

My interview with 2021 Black List writer for her script “Thicker Than Ice.”

Tara Tomicevic wrote the screenplay “Thicker Than Ice” which made the 2021 Black List. Recently, I had the opportunity to chat with Tara about her creative background, her script, the craft of screenwriting, and what making the annual Black List has meant to her.

Today in Part 6 of a 6-part series to run each day through Sunday, Tara shares some thoughts about the craft of screenwriting and offers advice to other writers.

Scott: Let’s talk about developing characters. Apart from saying, “Well, I’m going to use the married couple on that TV show for inspiration for the characters.” What tools or techniques do you have in developing characters, or is it more of an instinctual thing?

Tara: It’s more of an instinctual thing. I tend to keep the core of a character extremely simple and then let it grow on the page. Sometimes, and it sounds so elementary, I’ll have one or two words that define a character and that’s what I start off with, especially if it’s in contrast to another character, and develop her from there.

Scott: Are those words more about personality? Are they more about the narrative function that they have in the story, or both, or something in between?

Tara: Something in between. I have to understand the character enough to be able to say, “This is how this person would react in this situation and why, or this is how this conflict would reveal this character and what we would learn about her.” It’s all groundwork and the rest of it comes out on the page, in many drafts, of course, and it grows draft after draft.

Scott: It reminds me of that quote from Francis Ford Coppola, where he says, “Whenever I do a movie, I try to reduce the theme down to one or two words.” “The Conversation” was privacy. “The Godfather” was succession.” What’s interesting, what you’re saying is, you do that with the characters.

Give that concise, simple, touchstone in a way that you carry with you, that speaks to their essence. Is that a fair assessment there?

Tara: Yes, that’s exactly right.

Scott: We mentioned theme. Were you thinking theme upfront? Did it emerge, or do you not think about theme? How does theme fit into your story crafting process, or does it at all?

Tara: It changes project to project. I would say that generally that’s not where I start. I start with what I care about, the story, or what I want to showcase about human potential. That will inherently reflect the theme. I don’t try to articulate a theme beforehand.

Scott: Most of the writers I interview that’s the same thing, because it emerges over time. What about when you’re writing a scene, do you have goals?

Tara: I have what needs to happen in the scene and what my characters want and the rest happens on page.

Scott: I’m curious, when you’re writing a feature script and approaching a scene and you’re writing TV and you’re approaching a scene, is there a difference, or is it pretty much the same thing?

Tara: Same thing. The big picture structure feels like a completely different thing, but within the scene, not at all.

Scott: Because I know some TV writers and one of them told me, “If I wrote a scene that was over page and a half the showrunner is going to call me.”

Tara: I can see that. But I have the opposite problem of most writers in that I write short, so I’d be wrapping up a scene in two pages anyway [laughs].

Scott: Where do you see yourself at 5 or 10 years? Running your own show?

Tara: Yes. I would love to be running my own show and then have a few months off a year to write a feature, if there’s something that sparked for me and I feel close to.

Scott: Let me allow myself to paint a portrait of that future. That also includes a vacation home in Como near George Clooney, and then you can invite your family over there to like, “OK, this is a little different experience than where we were before.”

Tara: So much better than what I came up with, let’s go with yours [laughter].

Scott: Last question. What advice do you have for aspiring screenwriters? To try to learn the craft and break into the business.

Tara: When I signed with my manager, I remember him being very explicit about, “You need to be generating pages at all times. You need to be generating, generating, generating,” because every time you do you have a chance at bat. More at bats, more chances of breaking through and staying in once you’ve broken through. It’s been the last six months that I’ve had success in both TV and film but it’s been many years of creating “at bats” to get here. And now I have to keep doing the same thing. The advice has stayed exactly the same. Don’t wait for things to come to you, create them.

Scott: You did that with those short films that you made too, right?

Tara: Yeah. Anything that’s ever happened in my career was because of something that I set into motion, that I created.

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

Part 2, here.

Part 3, here.

Part 4, here.

Part 5, here.

Tara is repped by Paradigm and Lit Entertainment Group.

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