Questions to Ask a Screenwriter
Questions for interviewing a screenwriter on a panel or a podcast, or for a writer getting a working professional to talk honestly: where ideas start, how drafts really go, notes meetings, rewrites, representation, and the long stretches between paid jobs.
20 questions, each with the reason to ask it · includes a conversation guide
The questions
Open any question to see why it works.
- 1
What were you writing before anyone paid you for it?
The unpaid years explain more about a writer's voice than their credits do. Listen for how many complete scripts they finished before the first sale, because the number is usually higher than audiences assume and it reframes the whole career for anyone starting out.
- 2
How did the first paid job actually come about?
Break-in stories get flattened into a single lucky moment when retold. Push for the mechanics: who read it, who passed it on, how long between the read and the money. The answer is almost always a chain of small relationships rather than a single competition win.
- 3
What are you working on now that you can talk about?
The phrase that you can talk about does the work here, since a lot of professional writing sits under confidentiality. Giving them the escape route means they will often tell you more, and what they can say reveals where they sit in the industry right now.
- 4
Where does an idea start for you: an image, a character, or an argument?
Writers are strikingly consistent about this and rarely asked. Image-first writers describe a shot they could not shake, character-first writers describe a person they could not place, and argument-first writers describe something that made them angry. Their answer usually explains the shape of everything they have written.
- 5
How much do you outline before you write pages?
There is no correct answer and the honest answers are interesting. Ask what happens when the outline stops working, because that is the moment a writer either rebuilds it or writes forward into trouble, and both approaches have consequences they can describe.
- 6
What does a writing day actually look like?
Ask for hours, location and what happens when it is going badly. The romantic version and the real version differ a lot, and the real version is what a beginning writer needs to hear: that most days produce a few usable pages at best.
- 7
How long is a first draft, and how bad is it?
Professionals are usually cheerfully brutal about their own first drafts, which is reassuring for everyone else. Ask what they leave in deliberately, since many writers put down placeholder dialogue or a scene marked to fix later rather than stalling.
- 8
What is hardest to fix in a script that is not working: structure, character, or dialogue?
Most experienced writers say structure and can explain why: dialogue can be rewritten in a week, while a broken engine underneath requires taking the whole thing apart. How they diagnose a script that feels flat is the most transferable thing they know.
- 9
How do you write dialogue that does not sound written?
Expect concrete technique rather than mystique: reading aloud, cutting the first line of every scene, letting characters answer a different question than the one asked. This is where a good interview earns its keep for other writers.
- 10
What actually happens in a notes meeting?
Outsiders imagine a single executive with a red pen. The reality is often several people with competing priorities, a producer translating afterwards, and a document arriving later that only partly matches what was said in the room. Ask who they listen to when the notes conflict.
- 11
What is the worst note you ever received that turned out to be right?
This question gets past both defensiveness and false humility. The answer usually contains a real craft lesson, and it tells you whether the writer can separate a badly phrased note from the accurate problem underneath it.
- 12
How do you protect the thing that made you want to write it?
Every script under development gets pulled toward the average. Ask what they consider non-negotiable and how they argue for it, since the writers who last tend to have a way of defending one or two elements while conceding cheerfully elsewhere.
- 13
What is different about writing for television versus features?
The honest answers are structural and practical: whose voice it is, who is in charge, how fast it moves, whether you are on set. Writers who have done both usually have a clear preference and a clear reason, and the reason is often about company rather than craft.
- 14
Have you been rewritten, and what did you learn watching it happen?
This is a painful question asked plainly, so ask it once and let them decline. Writers who have been through it often describe the strange education of seeing another person solve a problem they could not, or fail to solve one they had.
- 15
What have you written that never got made, and where does it live now?
Most professional scripts are never produced, which is the industry fact that surprises people most. Ask whether they can get one back, whether it still means something to them, and what it taught them, because unmade work is where a lot of a writer's development actually sits.
- 16
How do you handle a year with no money coming in?
Careers in this field are lumpy, and honest answers cover other jobs, a partner's income, savings discipline, and what they cut. This is the most practically useful question you can ask on behalf of anyone considering the path.
- 17
Do you have an agent or a manager, and what do they do that you cannot?
Aspiring writers overestimate representation and misunderstand what it is for. Ask what conversations their representatives have that they are not in, when they got representation relative to their first sale, and what they would do differently.
- 18
What do you read or watch when you are stuck?
The specific answers are more useful than any general advice about influence. Some writers return to one film repeatedly, some read plays or prose deliberately to break the format, and some avoid all of it while drafting.
- 19
What advice do you give new writers that they never take?
Framing it this way gets you the thing they actually believe rather than the encouraging line. It is usually unglamorous, about finishing, volume, or the length of time involved, which is precisely why nobody takes it.
- 20
What would you write if nobody had to buy it?
A good closing question, because it separates the career from the vocation. Some writers answer instantly with a project they have carried for years, and some realise mid-sentence that they cannot answer, which is its own honest moment.
Interviewing a screenwriter
Practical guidance for the conversation itself.
Before the interview
Before the interview
Read the script, not just the film
Produced films are the result of a director, actors, an editor and a studio. If a script is available, read it and you will be able to ask about a scene that changed, which is the question working writers most want to answer and are almost never asked.
Know what they are contractually able to discuss
Projects in development, unannounced casting, and anything with a studio attached are frequently off limits. Ask before you record what is out of bounds. Doing so buys goodwill and stops you burning your best question on something they cannot touch.
Get their credits right, including the shared ones
Screen credit is arbitrated and shared credits are common, so a writer may have done more or less on a film than the card suggests. Ask what their contribution was rather than assuming, and avoid crediting them for a line another writer added.
Decide whether your audience writes or watches
A room full of aspiring writers wants process, money and rejection. A general audience wants stories about actors and how the ending changed. Trying to serve both in one hour usually serves neither, so pick, and let the other come out in the questions from the floor.
Follow-ups that open things up
Follow-ups that open things up
- When they describe a fix, ask what the script looked like before it. The broken version is where the craft lesson is.
- If an answer is about inspiration, redirect to the calendar: how long the draft took, how many drafts, what changed between three and four.
- Ask about a scene you liked by naming it precisely. Vague admiration produces vague answers, and a specific page produces a story.
- When money comes up, stay factual and unembarrassed. How writers actually get paid, in stages and against milestones, is genuinely unknown to most audiences.
- If they mention a collaborator, ask what that person is better at than they are. Writers are usually generous and specific about this.
- Save the questions about rewrites and unmade work for later in the conversation, once they have decided you are not there to make them look foolish.