The Profile Dossier: Aaron Sorkin, the Mastermind Behind America’s Favorite Films

Source: https://theprofile.substack.com/p/the-profile-dossier-aaron-sorkin

Highlights

• He was sharing a studio with several other people in the city. When his roommates were gone one night, Sorkin was left by himself. “It was one of those Friday nights where it feels like everybody’s been invited to a party and you haven’t,” Sorkin says.
• “That was the very first time I wrote for pleasure, for any reason other than a chore,” he says. “Honestly, I feel like that night has never ended. It’s still that night, and I’ve just kept on going.” #Writing
• “I’m proud that when I write something, expectations are high,” he says, “but it’s not an advantage.” He’s under constant pressure to perform, and it makes it hard for him to experiment with new genres. “Whether it’s an episode of television, a movie or a play, I always feel like my life depends on writing something good,” he says, “and in a very real way, it does.”
• “The properties of people and the properties of character have almost nothing to do with each other,” he says. The rules of drama, Sorkin adds, are quite different from the properties of real life. Although he gets inspiration from events in the real world, his writing is romantic and idealistic.
• Even though Sorkin has been writing for decades, the process hasn’t gotten any easier. “I have two gears,” he says. “‘I’m stuck, I’ve got nothing,’ and ‘It’s going well.’” To get un-stuck, Sorkin becomes physical. He reads the lines out loud, paces around, takes a shower, or takes a long walk. He was once so absorbed role-playing a scene from The Newsroom that he lunged into a mirror and broke his nose. “If I get excited about something — which doesn’t happen very often when I’m writing, but it’s the greatest feeling when it does — I’ll be out of the chair and walking around, and if I’m at home, I’ll find myself two blocks from my house,” he says. You can’t get new ideas staring at a blank page. Creativity requires motion.
• You don’t have a story unless you can use the words ‘but,’ ‘except,’ or ‘and then,’ which means an obstacle has been introduced and now there’s Conflict. In other words, you need to ask yourself: “What does this character want, and what is standing in their way of getting it?”
• You never know where your next idea will come from. That’s why Sorkin suggests surrounding yourself with people who have different opinions, beliefs, and perspective from you. When he was writing the screenplay for Steve Jobs (movie), he met with Lisa Brennan-Jobs, and that meeting changed the thrust of his entire script. Research is important, but the best research is done by talking to people and doing in-person interviews. #Conversation
• Sorkin advises against trying to guess what it is that people want. “Don’t ask for a show of hands,” he says. “Try your best to write what you like … The most valuable thing you have is your own voice.” If you’ve found your voice and honed your taste, you can start to trust your own instincts for what is deemed to be interesting, high-quality content. #Writing
• “Stupid people surround themselves with smart people. Smart people surround themselves with smart people who disagree with them.” #Conversation #Compromise