EXPERT ADVICE: JULIANNA BAGGOTT

Bestselling author Julianna Baggott’s work is currently in development with Disney+, Lionsgate, Paramount, and Netflix.

As a fiction writer who also runs a film and television production company (Mildred’s Moving Picture Show), I have a foot in both the publishing and entertainment industries, and I am obsessed with the way words translate into other people’s minds. Right now, we tend to focus on high-concept stories, intimately told. We write and rewrite with lots of different lenses, from spinning a concept through multiple genres to running it through different audiences. But we always— always—consider three kinds of readers first.

1. THE PRODUCER. This is where we really consider the fact that producers must first sell an idea, often a compelling character/plot, in a single sentence or two. We always want the producer to have something to work with, not just something that may be beautifully crafted but something that is compelling in and of itself.

2. THE DIRECTOR. Interest often comes because a director wants to shoot the thing you’ve dreamed up. They are always on our minds. What arresting images can we build in that will speak to that visual mind?

3. ACTORS. Sometimes interest comes through an actor, and they want complexity. We always do drafts to make sure that we’ve truly mined not only the main character but also supporting roles, and if there’s a villain (and I’m defining this beyond the “bad guy” to include the mother in August: Osage County, for example), we want to make sure that we’re treating them as a full human being with wounds of their own.

This practice became very intentional as we started to think more about film and television, but it’s something I wish I’d thought of earlier in my career, especially when solely dedicated to writing novels and poetry. It makes the work richer, smarter, clearer, and more complex.