First Draft Episode #189: David Iserson

David Iserson, screenwriter of The Spy Who Dumped Me, writer on Saturday Night Live, United States of Tara, and New Girl, and author of YA novel Firecracker, talks about micro and macro humor, how unreliable narrators is one of the beautiful advantages of writing a book, co-writing as being in conversation with someone, and the merit of spite writing.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol was one of the only books marketed to boys that David read as a young boy

• Judy Blume, author of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, and Sweet Valley High by Francine Pascal were some of the books David read as a kid, because he wasn’t drawn to the “Boy who only throws strike-outs!” books

• B. Dalton Bookstore, where David would go shopping for books at the mall -- David says, “As a New Jersey pre-teen and teen, most of my memories are mall-related.” RIP B. Dalton!

• David was very, very into comic strips as a kid, like Calvin & Hobbes by Bill Watterson and Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed

• There’s a Bat in Bunk Five by Paula Danziger, a book set in an art summer camp that made David realize he could go to something other than sports camp during the summer Buck’s Rock camp in Connecticut

• Quentin Tarantino, an independent screenwriter and director of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction whose work made David realize that people wrote movies

• Zach Braff, actor in shows like Scrubs and writer and director of Garden State, was David’s TA and freshman year RA at Northwestern

• Miramax, Harvey Weinstein’s film production company, was where David got his first assistant job after moving to Los Angeles. David worked for a producer who played a part in creating The Cider House Rules, Pulp Fiction, and Bourne Identity

• Parks and Recreation, a TV show that I believe shows all its characters being excellent at something, which makes us like them more

• Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon were the anchors on Weekend Update when David was submitting jokes to Saturday Night Live and first got a joke on the air

• “Seinfeld, a show about a stand up comic written by some of the funniest people in the world, but there are very few ‘joke jokes,’” David says. “They are placed in a situation and you see what this situation means to them. To me, that’s the highest form of writing comedy.”

• David wrote on New Girl, where he says he wrote a lot of joke-jokes

• The United States of Tara, starring Toni Collette, was the first scripted TV show David worked on

• UCLA Extension, which offers a lot of continuing education classes for writers

• Susanna Fogel, David’s co-writer on The Spy Who Dumped Me, which David says was written out of a “fist-shaking, ‘We’ll show you!’ energy.”

• David and Susanna’s episode of Scriptnotes, a screenwriting process hosted by John August, writer of Charlie’s Angels, Big Fish, Go, as well as the Arlo Finch middle grade series (listen to his First Draft episode here), and Craig Mazin, writer of upcoming series Chernobyl, as well as The Hangover Part II and Identity Thief.

• “I write jokes for a living, I sit at my hotel at night, I think of something that's funny, then I go get a pen and I write it down. Or if the pen is too far away, I have to convince myself that what I thought of ain't funny.” ~ Mitch Hedberg’s joke about writing jokes

   

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Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works.

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First Draft Episode #188: Ally Condie

Ally Condie, New York Times bestselling author of the Matched series, as well as Summerlost and The Darkdeep, co-written with Brendan Reichs. In this conversation, Ally talks about what inspired her to get an MFA after establishing herself as a bestselling author, always working on two things at once, and how the 2016 election gave Ally enough rage to write her newest young adult novel, murderous revenge story The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• The Planet of the Apes movies, which were filmed near where Ally grew up in rural Utah
• Ally was inspired by a blog post by Shannon Hale, New York Times bestselling author of The Princess Academy and Austenland, where she wrote about writing 1,000 words a day. Ally was inspired by Shannon to commit to daily word goals. She started with 500.
• Lisa Mangum, editor at Shadow Mountain press, which released Ally’s first few books
• Brandon Mull, New York TImes bestselling author of the Fablehaven and Beyonders series, who got his start at
• Shadow Mountain PressChris Shoebinger, publishing director at Shadow Mountain Press, who released Ally from her publishing contract so she could pursue a bigger contract for Matched
• Jodi Reamer, literary agent at Writer’s House, who also represents Tahereh Mafi, New York TImes bestselling author of the Shatter Me series (listen to her First Draft episode here), Ransom Riggs, New York Times bestselling author of the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series (listen to his First Draft episode here), John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska, and Stephenie Meyer, author of the global phenomenon Twilight series
• Julie Strauss-Gabel, publisher at Dutton Books, who has edited John Green, Adam Gidwitz, New York Times bestselling author of A Tale Dark & Grimm and The Inquisitor’s Tale: Or, The Three Magical Children and Their Holy Dog, and Gayle Forman, New York Times bestselling author of If I Stay and I Have Lost My Way
• The Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in writing for children, the program Ally attended
• Emily Wing Smith, author of The Way He Lived and All Better Now, and Carol Lynch Williams, author of The Chosen One and Glimpse, two Utah authors Ally was friends with who also attended the Vermont College of Fine Arts for the MFA program
• Kekla Magoon, author of National Book Award Longlisted X: A Novel (written with Ilyasah Shabazz), Coretta Scott King-honored The Season of Styx Malone and How it Went Down, and was Ally’s mentor at the Vermont program and helped her with an early draft of Poe Blythe
• An Na, author of Printz winner and National Book Award long-listed A Step From Heaven, as well as Wait For Me and The Place Between Breaths, was also an advisor at the Vermont College of Fine Arts
• Martine Leavitt, author of Keturah and Lord Death, and Calvin,  who Ally calls “a stone cold genius.” Martine helped Ally work on a project during her Vermont residency.
• Quentin Tarantino’s advice to screenwriters was to delete the last two lines of dialogue from every scene, which Alfred Gough and Miles Millar--creators of Smallville and Into the Badlands shared with me on their recent First Draft episode. That’s similar to Ally’s feeling that sometimes she writes past the natural ending of a chapter.
• Brendan Reichs, New York Times bestselling author of Genesis, and co-writer of Virals with his mother, New York Times bestselling author Kathy Reichs, and The Darkdeep with Ally. Brendan and Ally fortuitously decided to pursue an MFA at Vermont at the same time.
• YALLWEST and YALLFest, two national young adult and middle grade book festivals held in Charleston, S.C. and Los Angeles. Ally is on the board of the festivals, alongside Brendan Reichs and Margaret Stohl, New York Times bestselling author of the Beautiful Creatures series, Red Widow and Royce Rolls (listen to her First Draft episodes here and here)
• Stranger Things meets The Goonies, the pitch for Ally and Brendan’s co-written middle grade series, The Darkdeep

• Ally’s pitch for Poe Blythe is: “Mad Max: Fury Road meets Firefly meets something really lovey.” I got a distinctly Heart of Darkness (by Joseph Conrad) vibe from Poe when I read it!

• Write Out, the non-profit organization Ally founded as a way to bring authors to kids in rural Utah
• Brendan Reichs, Shannon Hale, Soman Chainani (author of The School for Good and Evil series--listen to his First Draft interview here), and Yamile Saied Mendez (author of Blizzard Besties: A Wish Novel, and the forthcoming On These Magic Shores) are among the authors who volunteer at Write Out
• Ally and I urge listeners to Marie Kondo your fear -- go write that angry revenge novel!!!!

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Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works.

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First Draft Episode #187: Will Hines

Will Hines, improviser and actor, host of the podcast, “Screw It: We’re Just Going to Talk About the Beatles,” and author of How to be the Greatest Improviser on Earth joins me to talk about using his Tumblr to test audience engagement; the delicate nature of writing about a community you are a part of; his thorough approach to making the self-publication process as professional as possible; and his next (fictional) book about improv, co-written with fellow improviser Billy Merritt, Pirate Robot Ninja.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Josh Simpson, an improviser and teacher at the Upright Citizens Brigade training school in Los Angeles, and co-host of The Meat, an improv podcast
• Jimmy Breslin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and journalist, who wrote The Good Rat, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, and The World According to Breslin, and more
• The Upright Citizen’s Brigade, the improv group and school founded by Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh, and Ian Roberts.
• Will’s Tumblr, Improv Nonsense, which gained traction and has been featured on Vulture and elsewhere

• Truth in Comedy by Charna Halpern, Del Close, and Kim “Howard” Johnson, considered one of the premiere books about long-form improvised comedy
• Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual, the UCB training manual
• Improvise: Scene From the Inside Out by Mick Napier

• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions of Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, a writing advice book that Will read as a young computer programmer
• Andrew Sullivan, a conservative author, editor, and blogger who featured Will’s post, “Improv as religion,” on his site, garnering lots of attention

• The Life Changing Art of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
• Repetition exercises as a part of the Meisner Technique study of acting

• Tenth of December: Stories by George Saunders
• “A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room,” by George Saunders, a silly and slightly sci-fi short story that typifies his early writing and is the kind of humor writing that inspires Will
• John Hodgman, author of Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches
• In writing, Will is concerned about what he calls “The Kevin Smith Problem,” where every character sounds the same (a la Clerks, Mallrats, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back)
• Jason Mantzoukas, an actor, writer, and seasoned improviser who Will saw constantly improving his craft
• Offset printing, a style of printing on the page that is “the way to make your book look beautiful,” according to Will, but it is more expensive, and requires a minimum print run
• Artist Maëlle Doliveux, who drew the cover of Will’s book
• Chip Kidd, a well-known book designer of Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton; Dry by Augusten Borroughs; and Naked by David Sedaris (he also has a hugely popular Ted Talk!).
• Daniel Clowes, a cartoonist, graphic novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter. His work is collected in the solo Eightball project.
• The Pirates, Robots, Ninjas theory, coined by Billy Merritt, a fellow UCB alum and teacher

• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho; and

• “Carry On, Jeeves,” by P.G. Wodehouse; and
• Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams are some of the funny books Will recommends
• Without Feathers by Woody Allen, a collection of his writing which Will read and enjoyed as a masterclass on comedy before we knew all that awful stuff about Woody Allen
• Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence by Geoff Dyre, a meta novel about a man who wants to write about D.H. Lawrence but finds himself wanting to focus on anything else
• Steve Martin, who blurbed Geoff Dyre’s book and has written his own, Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life (nonfiction) and Shopgirl: A Novella (fiction)

Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works.

Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s free!

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First Draft Episode #184: Alfred Gough and Miles Millar

Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, the TV and screenwriting duo behind Smallville and Into the Badlands, join Sarah to talk about their debut thriller, Double Exposure. The guys talk about how, even after writing and/or producing more than 300 hours of television and movies, they are still engaged in learning and improving their craft; getting on the superhero train WAY before the MCU; and delivering a satisfying ending in books.

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• Bugs, a BBC One TV show created by UK-based Carnival Films (Agatha Christie’s Poirot; Downton Abbey; many others)  for which Al and Miles wrote two episodes
• The Hardy Boys series of children’s mysteries created by Edward Stratemeyer (who also created Nancy Drew)  and written by ghostwriters under the pen name Franklin W. Dixon
• The Peter Stark Producer program at USC, where Alfred and Miles met and learned all aspects of the film industry
• Laura Ziskin, producer of No Way Out, and Pretty Woman, who was an influential teacher at the USC film production program to Al and Miles
• William Goldman, an author (Adventures in the Screen Trade, The Princess Bride, many, many others) and screenwriter (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid; All the President’s Men, among many others) renowned for writing scripts that entertained the reader -- a trend followed by screenwriters Shane Black (Lethal Weapon; The Last Boy Scout) and Joe Eszterhas (Flashdance; Basic Instinct)
• John August, Al and Miles’ classmate at USC and screenwriter of Big Fish, Frankenweenie, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as author of the Arlo Finch middle grade series (listen to his First Draft interview here)
• Mango, the spec script that Al and Miles sold right out of film school
• Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, the movie that made Al and Miles’ spec script a hot commodity out of film school
• Scriptnotes, the podcast co-hosted by John August and fellow screenwriter Craig Mazin, which is a worthy companion podcast to any writers who enjoy First Draft!

• Bugs, a BBC One TV show created by UK-based Carnival Films (Agatha Christie’s Poirot; Downton Abbey; many others)  for which Al and Miles wrote two episodes

• Homicide: Life on the Street, a police drama based on the work of David Simon (The Wire; Treme; The Deuce)

• 3rd Rock From the Sun, a sitcom in the 90s starring John Lithgow and Joseph Gordon-Levitt

• Lethal Weapon IV and Shanghai Noon, the two buddy comedy scripts that Al and Miles wrote before Smallville
• The WB, Smallville’s network (RIP)
• Lois and Clark, the TV show about Superman that predated Smallville

• X-Men, the 2000 movie that helped bring about the superhero resurgence on film and TV
• Christopher Nolan, the writer and director who rebranded Batman in the well-regarded Dark Knight trilogy of films

• Thor: Ragnarok and Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse, two recent superhero movies with tons of comedy

• Spider-Man II, Al and Miles’ take on Spider-Man, which was a little more serious than the Spider-Man we know today
• Jenette Kahn, executive, publisher, editor-in-chief of DC Comics when Al and Miles created their spin on the Superman universe with Smallville

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dawson’s Creek, some of the teen stories that dominated TV when Smallville debuted

• I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore (the pen name of James Frey, Jobie Hughes, and Greg Boose), and the film of the same name written by Al and Miles, and their first collaboration with James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces and book entrepreneur with Full Fathom Five)

• Hannah Montana: The Movie, which Al and Miles produced, thanks to Al’s oldest daughter, who was obsessed with that TV show
• Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, and Michelle Yeoh are among the internationally respected martial artists and actors Al and Miles have worked with

• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers are some of the epic movies that inspired Al and Miles for the world of Into the Badlands

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

• The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown as a model for the franchise character with a little-known job that leads to globe-trotting adventures--the kind of story Al and Miles were interested in telling with Double Exposure
• The famous transcript of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Lawrence Kasdan talking about Raiders of the Lost Ark

• The Alfred Hitchcock film North by Northwest, The ODESSA File by Frederick Forsyth, and the works of John le Carre are among the films and authors cited throughout Double Exposure
• Last Remaining Seats, a program that shows old movies in downtown Los Angeles
• The Zapruder Film (YouTube link) (warning: depicts a presidential assassination), which might factor into the Double Exposure follow-up novels…
• Mimi Leder, director of Deep Impact, gave the guys some great advice when they were feeling overwhelmed
• “Just cut the last two lines of every scene.” Advice from Quentin Tarantino that Al and Miles swear by
• The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, two thrillers that they admire
• Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies
• James Patterson
• Waterstones bookstore in London

• The Shannara Chronicles by Terry Brooks, which Al and Miles adapted for television

• Al and Michaels loved taking Masterclass online classes from: David Mamet; Aaron Sorkin; Shonda Rhimes; and James Patterson

Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent; Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender; John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; or Rhett Miller, musician and frontman for The Old 97s. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works.

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First Draft Episode #184: Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller (find him on Twitter and Instagram), musician and writer, is a solo artist as well as lead singer of The Old 97s. His first book for children, No More Poems: A Book in Verse That Just Gets Worse, illustrated by Dan Santat (listen to his First Draft episode here).

Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode

• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green being one of the books Rhett has read with his kids as a way to talk about difficult subjects, head-on

• How being inspired by writers like Raymond Carver led to a disagreement with his creative writing teacher at Sarah Lawrence
• “The Messenger,” Rhett’s most recent solo album
• “My Generation,” the song where The Who famously said they’d rather die than get old
• Willie Nelson, patron saint of Americana music
• Rhett’s buddy Mickey Raphael, harmonica player for Willie Nelson
• Other artists giving Americana a moment: Jason Isbell; Chris Stapleton; and Brandi Carlile
• “We Could Have Been the Cowboys,” Rhett’s article for Sports Illustrated
• Rhett wrote a paper about Gustav Klimpt for his then-girlfriend, who was getting a graduate degree in art history
• John Dickson Carr, an early whodunit writer, the inventor of the “locked room” drama
• Ben Acker (listen to his First Draft podcast here), who introduced Rhett to First Draft and, thereby, the illustrator of No More Poems, Dan Santat (listen to his First Draft podcast here)
• Megan Tingley, editor at Little, Brown
• e e cummings, the poet who inspired Rhett’s dedication to non-punctuation

Subscribe To First Draft with Sarah Enni

Every Tuesday, I speak to storytellers like Veronica Roth, author of Divergent, Michael Dante  DiMartino, co-creator of Avatar: The Last Airbender, or John August, screenwriter of Big Fish, Charlie’s Angels, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Together, we take deep dives on their careers and creative works.

Don’t miss an episode! Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. It’s free!

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How do you like the show?

Please take a moment to rate and review First Draft with Sarah Enni in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your honest and positive review helps others discover the show -- so thank you!

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