753 - The One with Aaron Sorkin

Scriptnotes Podcast

Host John August interviews legendary screenwriter Aaron Sorkin to explore the mechanics of his unique writing craft. The discussion delves

Key takeaways

• Sorkin defines the foundation of every scene as 'intention and obstacle'—a character wanting something with an impediment in their way.
• He avoids formal outlines, preferring a method of using index cards on a corkboard to navigate the story like walking through woods with a flashlight.

Main topics

• Screenwriting craft
• Conflict choreography

Notable quotes

I cling like a life raft. I cling to intention and obstacle.

Conclusion

A deep dive into how character motivation and rhythmic dialogue drive

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:01) Hello and welcome. My name is John August and this is episode 753 of Script Notes. It's a podcast about screenwriting and things that are interesting to screenwriters. Craig is off directing his show this week and man, he is bummed because today on the show we welcome a longtime fantasy guest. Aaron Sorkin is a writer, director, and showrunner whose credits include A Few Good Men, The West Wing, The American President, The Trial of the Chicago 7, The Newsroom, Steve Jobs, and The Social Network. His newest film, The Social Reckoning, follows the saga of the whistleblower who revealed the Facebook files. Welcome to Script Notes, Aaron Sorkin. Thanks. It's great to be here. I'm so excited to be talking with you. And obviously, we could spend hours talking about the entirety of your career. You've written so many great things. But with your blessing, I really want to focus in on craft. Because my thesis, which you can feel free to dissect and pull apart, is that... I think what makes your writing so singular is you are so good at choreographing conflict within a scene. You can set up situations in which characters get to wrestle with an idea and we get to enjoy them playing with an idea. And that's what I love to see in your scenes. Oh, that's really nice of you to say. I cling Speaker 6 (1:15) like a life raft. I cling to intention and obstacle. Yes. Somebody wants something, something standing in their way of getting it. I need that before I can write a scene. Speaker 4 (1:26) Great. So I want to talk into your approach, like when you start writing a scene, when you have enough information about a scene or a project overall. We're also going to look at two of your scenes from previous films to talk about that sort of choreography that's happening within those scenes of ideas and intentions colliding to sort of make those scenes work. And of course, we need to talk about this new movie because it's the second movie you made about Facebook. So we're going to talk about why and what's new and sort of how. different your approach was between the two versions of Facebook and the characters within it. And in our bonus segment for premium members, I'd love to talk about, you have such a giant resume. You've done so many things, but there's also things that you haven't shot. If we were novelists, if we were painters, we would see the entirety of our career, but there's stuff that we've done that's kind of frozen in 12-point career. So I'd love to talk about what's on Aaron Sorkin's shelf. Speaker 6 (2:14) This isn't going to win me any friends in the WGA. but I don't have anything in the drawer. Nothing. Not a one. Just so I can win back some friends in the WGA. It's just because I haven't written that much. I've written 11 screenplays and made 11 movies. Social Reckoning is my 11th. That's incredible. If I was more prolific, if I had written more, I'm sure that there'd be plenty that wouldn't be shot. Speaker 4 (2:38) Great. So in the bonus segment, let's talk through... why there's not more stuff up on the shelf and sort of the loss that we have for historians, that there's nothing else to sort of go and dig up. Okay, we will. But my sort of first question for Aaron Sorkin, do you enjoy writing or is writing a thing you have to do to get through to get to the next stage? Speaker 6 (2:56) Yeah, I know that there are some people who, you know, they say they don't enjoy writing. What they enjoy is having written. Yes. I enjoy writing. What is agonizing is not writing. And if you were just to sort of Take a section of time where we could say legitimately that I began here and I finished here. Yeah. Most of that would be time not writing. Most of that would be climbing the walls, pacing around. I don't know how to start. I haven't found the intention or an obstacle. I'm Googling how to fake your own death. But when I am able to write. Yeah. When I do have that intention and obstacle, when I'm kind of loaded up and can write a scene with energy, it's not coming out like ketchup. It's really, I've got it now. That feels great. Yeah, it Speaker 4 (3:47) does feel great. When you're in that flow and it's like, it's all clicking. Speaker 6 (3:50) So Speaker 4 (3:50) I want to distinguish between all the time you're pacing around. Do you consider that writing or do you consider that the mind storm that's happening that is not the writing? I Speaker 6 (3:59) consider that writing. At least that's what I try to convince my... friends and family of, and certainly the people I'm working for, that this counts as writing too. Pacing around, I drive around a lot and listen to the music I listened to in high school. For some reason that does something for me. So that not writing time is contributing toward writing the screenplay, the episode of television, whatever it is that I'm writing. But it's... So many nights you go to bed without having accomplished anything. Speaker 4 (4:34) Yeah. Those nights when you've not accomplished anything, is it that you didn't have the key to unlock how to start the thing or that you knew parts of the scene, but you didn't know the central core thing? Can you diagnose what was it that didn't get the work done that day? Speaker 6 (4:48) I didn't know. Again, somebody wants something, something standing in their way of getting it. Usually the conflict is a conflict of ideas. Yes. I need to get two people in a room who disagree with each other. It can be about the correct time of day. But it's because I don't have that. Speaker 4 (5:07) Has your process changed a lot over the course of your career? Like the Aaron Sorkin who's writing A Few Good Man versus the Aaron Sorkin who's doing The Social Reckoning, are they the same writer? Speaker 6 (5:16) Yes. Speaker 4 (5:16) Okay. In Speaker 6 (5:17) that I don't write an outline and I hope no one hearing this is taking this as a recommendation. If you can write an outline, yeah, sure, go ahead. What I do is when I can get there, and this is after a long period of time of not doing anything, but when I can get there, index cards and a cork board. It's kind of like walking through the woods at night with a flashlight. You can only see as far ahead as the beam will go, but the further you walk into the woods, the more you can see. So if I know what the first three scenes are going to be, I'll put those index cards up. I don't kind of dip my toe in. I really have to know what that first scene is. Almost to the point where writing it is kind of an afterthought. It's almost secretarial because I've got the scene. When that happens, again, it's a joy. I'm very physical when I'm writing. I say everything out loud. I'm the first person to play all the parts. I'm up and down from my desk. I'm that kind of thing. And you start adding a couple of index cards and a few more. And, you know, there are going to be points where you say, OK, I hardly ever at this point know how it's going to end. I'm not waiting until I have an ending. I don't have that kind of patience. The difference between being on page one and page nothing for me is life and death. So I want to. I want to write that first scene, not just because I want to get started, but because I want to show off a little bit. I've written that first scene. I really like it. And the only way anyone's ever going to see it is if I write the hundred scenes that come after that. Yeah. And that's how it Speaker 4 (7:02) goes. So you're writing that first scene with a few cards up on the corkboard. Have you read it? Is it the whole? No, no, no. I'll start writing Speaker 6 (7:10) there a few cards up on the corkboard and then a few more and a few more. And suddenly. Yeah. somewhere in the middle, the dam is going to break and I will be able to put up almost all the cards. Somewhere in there, I'm going to be able to put up the last card. You know what it's like if you do a jigsaw puzzle with a lot of pieces and you're looking for the corners and the sides, and now, ooh, this is going to be a part of the horse's head. That kind of thing, you can start to see things and those index cards go Speaker 4 (7:40) up and that's a good feeling. So let's reverse your jigsaw puzzle metaphor though, because the... classic way to do a jigsaw puzzle is you find the corners and you do the full outline first. You do the edges first. And that doesn't seem to be your instinct. Instead, you're like, I find these pieces that fit together that form this part of this picture. And now I'm excited to see what the rest of it is. Yes. What I can't do, if we're going to stick with the jigsaw puzzle metaphor, Speaker 6 (8:02) I can't skip around. I know what this scene is going to be in the middle. So go ahead and Speaker 4 (8:07) write that and then fill it in. I will absolutely skip around. And so I tend to write very much like how we shoot movies. So just you don't shoot them in sequence. You write them. I write them with what appeals to me that day to write. And it's worked for me, but it's not. I Speaker 6 (8:19) envy that. Yeah. That Speaker 4 (8:22) you can do that. I can't. Yeah, it's fine. Which is all different and good. Craig Mazin sent a question. And so I'm going to read Craig Mazin's question for you. Okay. Do you ever get intimidated by yourself? Meaning when you start something new. You're thinking about all the great things you've done and feeling the burden of that. Because I, Craig Mazem, am intimidated by Aaron Sorkin and all the great things he's done. So is there any sense of competing with yourself? Well, first of all, my Speaker 6 (8:49) thanks to Craig. That's a nice compliment. No, I don't think so. Not the way he means. I've done things where there have been high expectations. Speaker 2 (9:01) And Speaker 6 (9:01) those high expectations aren't an advantage, but I'm proud of them anyway. Speaker 4 (9:06) Yeah. So your name has become associated with a style. Like people talk about a Sorkinism or like it feels Sorkin. Is that flattering or frustrating? It's flattering. It's very flattering. Speaker 6 (9:18) Though I haven't been able to figure out what they mean. Speaker 4 (9:21) I haven't been able to figure out what the Sorkin style is. We'll figure that out in this podcast. We'll get there. We're Speaker 1 (9:26) going Speaker 4 (9:26) to get there. One of the things I've noticed about your scenes is that you tend to... in the middle of a scene, you'll introduce an idea that is orthogonal to the main point of it. It doesn't seem to be related. Speaker 1 (9:36) And Speaker 4 (9:36) yet the characters will keep grabbing onto that as a handle to recur. And sometimes that idea will also recur later on. It'll be a recall later on in the show or in the movie. That feels like a sorkiny kind of idea where like, where did that idea come from? And it did not feel germane to necessarily the conversation we're having. And yet people are doing it. Is that a thing you recognize in yourself? Speaker 6 (9:57) It is. Yeah. I recognize doing that. Here's something that I don't do. From time to time, I get a chance to speak to students, screenwriting majors in college. They'll talk to me about theme. Theme isn't really something I think about until the end. It sort of presents itself. When I go in, I'm not thinking. Well, the theme is, and how do I, I don't know how to write a theme. Again, I can only write intention and obstacle. But as I go, as you walk through the dark woods with the flashlight and you can see more as you go, I will see that a theme or themes have presented themselves. And I'll decide that's. I like that theme. So I'm going to, when I go back now and write the second draft, I'm going to hang a lantern on that, cut away the stuff that didn't have anything to do with that. By the way, the other thing that I don't do is I won't start rewriting until I get to the end. Okay, Speaker 4 (10:59) great. Speaker 6 (10:59) Here is a recommendation. I really encourage young writers, get to the end, get to a fade out. Even as you're going, if you realize that wasn't good, that wasn't good. Get to the end. You're going to know a lot more about what you're writing when you get to the end and then go back to the beginning and write it knowing what you know about the piece. Speaker 4 (11:20) As you sit down to do a day's work, are you reading the scenes before this? Are you like running your fingers through the scenes before this or are you starting clean on a new scene? Speaker 6 (11:28) I'm going through the couple of scenes that come before. I don't have to read them. I know them. So I really believe in writing with energy. It becomes physical energy. If you are... mentally prepared to write the scene, which is to say, if you know what this person wants in the scene, if you're really prepared, then the energy that you write it with, it can make its way onto the screen. Yeah, absolutely. It really can. Mike Nichols, I wrote the last movie Mike Nichols directed before he died. one didn't have anything to do with the other. He didn't die because of the screenplay. Speaker 4 (12:02) But at least he got to direct one of your movies before he died. Oh, I got to spend Speaker 6 (12:06) a couple of years with Mike Nichols, which was like, yeah, you're just getting paid to go to grad school. He says that every scene has to be one of four things. And I just want to remember what they are. A negotiation, a fight, a seduction, or a discovery. That every scene has to be one of those four. And a discovery. That's either a discovery for one of the characters or a discovery for the audience. Oh my God, there's a bomb under the table. Speaker 4 (12:31) Those seem like the right instincts behind a scene. So I introduced this idea of like, you know, within a scene, you'll throw in some new ideas. Like, wait, how does that tie into what we're actually doing? I'm going to try to do this in this interview and see if this actually works. You wrote the adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway. Congratulations. It was fantastic. Thank you. Tell me about Harper Lee and what is your theory on Harper Lee and why Harper Lee wrote exactly one brilliant? Interesting. And I see what you Speaker 6 (12:57) did. I don't know Harper Lee at all. I've never met her, spoke to her. She, again, it's not related, but she died shortly after approving me as the person who was going to write the stage play to kill a mockingbird. Why she, she wrote a classic American novel and nothing else except this other book, which. Probably she didn't want published. Yeah. Go set a watchman. Speaker 4 (13:25) And there's discussion whether it might have actually predated To Kill a Mockingbird. It did predate. She wrote that. Speaker 6 (13:32) A publisher read it and gave her notes. Yes. The notes resulted in To Kill a Mockingbird. There's some dispute over whether she ever wanted it published and whether it may have been published against her wishes. But I don't know any more about that than someone who reads the newspaper. Speaker 4 (13:51) Do you have a theory of what it's like to be a person who was capable of writing something so great and never could do that again? I have a couple of theories. Speaker 6 (14:00) One is that simply she was not happy with the fame and the noise that comes along with publishing a book that is that successful that gets turned the next year into a movie that's that successful. I think she wanted her small town life. I suppose it's possible she had one story to tell, but it doesn't seem like it because To Kill a Mockingbird is a series of stories that she's telling that all add up to something. Speaker 4 (14:29) So I don't know. No, it's fine. If anyone had a theory of the case, Aaron Sorkin might have a theory of the case behind it. You Speaker 6 (14:37) know what? I've thought a lot about To Kill a Mockingbird, but not that. I Speaker 4 (14:42) haven't put a lot of thought into Harper Lee. I just put a lot of thought into the story. Let's go back to writing the script. So you have done some cards on the corkboard. You've started writing. You're going to write all the way through and finish first before you show it to somebody else. Who do you show to first? Who now in 2026 do you like to show that first draft to? Speaker 6 (15:05) It depends. In the case of The Social Reckoning, David Fincher was the first person who read it. He read it the day after I finished. His response was fantastic. And David has been a great... a great supporter. Often, it's been Scott Rudin is the first person to see it. And there are just a couple of people in my life close to me. I'll show the pages to you. What are Speaker 4 (15:27) you looking for in that first read? Are you looking for validation? Are you looking for praise? Are you looking for point out the flaws? What helps in that first read? I want to know in that first read, have I successfully completed Speaker 6 (15:39) the pass? The story that I told, did you get it? I'm not talking about... or I'm talking about the once upon a time, if at all. Did you understand that story? I once got in trouble. It was the newsroom. You'd made the pilot of the newsroom. We were doing press, and it was one of these speed dating press sessions where I sit in a room, and for five minutes apiece, reporters are brought in. Brutal. And at that point, very, very