Screenwriting : The moment a story stops feeling fictional by Gabrielle Mahrez

I usually don't plan putting things about my past and life in my scripts, Gabrielle Mahrez, but sometimes I add them, and sometimes I don't realize I did it until later. If those things help my scripts, I leave them in.

I've honestly learned not to fight it, even though I personally don't find myself interesting enough to fictionalise/write about. Ever since learning to truly appreciate what my uncle said about my own maturity being closely tied to my growth as a writer, it makes less and less sense to resist it. My art is where I feel most like myself, after all, and I have complete freedom to explore or not explore whatever. It depends on my own interest level.

That being said, though, if writing a scene starts affecting my mental health, that's a good cue to stop.

When I scripted DNC Chairman, Mike (who's the Chairman, played by Bradley Whitford) was very autobiographical. I had no problem putting my psyche and my problems, such as my diabetes, which acts as a huge obstacle to Mike in terms of doing his job, running his campaign and keep his relationship intact with Alice (she breaks up with him in the middle of a trip to Ireland because a tiff between the two leading candidates in his party cause such concern that party leaders insist he come back or he won't have his job, so faced with that choice, even Alice says go because she knows this will always come up with him; certain things you don't have to be told). I have no problem putting myself into my scripts. After all, we always do that all the time because what can we draw upon when we write? Only the life we know. You can see fantasy worlds but it's your vision of them that goes onto the page or screen.

Now I am scripting Chrysalis - The Family Adventure(s), a third-gen sequel to All In The Family. Watching episodes of All In The Family, particularly the gun control rebuttal by Archie Bunker, I was drawn to how identical the words of the fictional man everyone laughed at in the 1970s were to the real-life man everyone (the majority, okay?) voted for in the 2010s and 2020s. In order to shine a light on these many Americans, I decided to script this third-gen series in the style of Norman Lear's original in which Mike's son, Joey, in response to Mike having abandoned him and his mother to go live on a commune in the 1980s (this is the actual sequence of the last two episodes of Archie Bunker's Place), became a conservative. And while, with the family squabbles in the Stivic household which are updated 2020s versions of much of the dynamics of All In the Family back in the 1970s (I even had lines in a tentative theme song, "Mister we could use a man like Richard Nixon again" and "Didn't need Obamacare...") Having written the show for 7 seasons and now having to shelve them and restart again with Episode 65 because the part of Mike can no longer be cast, it has become amply clear to me that every single character in that show is me or a part of me. I find myself losing my temper easily the way Joey does, feeling persecuted and undermined the way Giselle does, very bright and intelligent yet always ending up getting severely punished the way Josh does, and feeling pushed out and wanting to find fun people as friends instead of killjoys as Samantha feels about her parents, and when Mike said to Josh during one of the tutoring sessions, "Oh there goes the bladder again; my advice to you is don't ever get old." and then takes a bathroom break (during which Josh, like a speeddemon, roadrunner like the cartoon, conducts of a Bitcoin transaction), I obviously as a person getting older and having some of the problems seniors are encumbered with, have myself in this aging family elder, who now is no longer with us, not because of old age but because he was shot by a radical extremist while shopping; I varied the circumstances from the news item about the only actor who could play Mike because that felt appropriate and fit with the story's political theme, whereas the real life event gelled a lot more closely with real events). I don't think I can write about people who don't have something of me in them. I also know that what we live and experience is not detached from life and everybody goes through the same thing. So I am not troubled by similarities with characters. What instead concerns me is your block of allowing your characters to just be who they are. They are people in situations and how they react to them has to be convincing to an audience. If identity and characteristics are a problem for you, I sense that you are not ready to tell your story. Either you don't know what it is or you're too fixated on traits and characteristics. My suggestion is throw that all away and let your story sing. If you're still uncomfortable, you can still write but you will be limited. There is something powerful in your life so why not let it become what is on the page? Are you afraid of disclosing too much personal information. I never had that problem. Everybody knew Mike Greenbaum was me but he was living in Washington while I live in New York. As a writer, I am needing to tell my story to the world. If people in my inner circle have a problem with who I am, that's their problem. I'm way over embarrassing myself. Being creative and true to myself matters so much more to me. I don't want to be just another person just like everybody else. I want to be me. And that's a unique person. I hope you get liberated in that same way and enjoy being who you are and sharing it with the world.

Maurice Vaughan Thank you for this, Maurice. I really relate to what you said about sometimes not realizing you’ve put parts of yourself into a script until later. I think that’s often when it feels the most honest — when it’s not calculated, just present.

I’m learning to trust that if something personal appears and it genuinely serves the story, then it belongs there. Not everything needs to be intentional to be meaningful. Your perspective is very grounding.

Banafsheh Esmailzadeh Thank you for sharing this so openly. What you said about not fighting it really resonated with me. I think writing is one of the rare places where we’re allowed to explore who we are without having to justify it.

I also really appreciate what you said about mental health. That boundary is so important — knowing when to step back is part of caring for both the work and ourselves. Your message felt very honest and reassuring.

Marc Ginsburg Thank you for taking the time to share your experience so generously, Marc. What you said about not being able to write people without some part of yourself in them really struck me. I agree — even in fantasy or highly fictional worlds, what ends up on the page is always filtered through who we are.

For me, the challenge isn’t putting parts of myself into characters, but allowing them to exist without over-controlling or over-explaining them. Letting the story “sing,” as you said, and trusting that the audience will recognize something true in it.

Your insight about liberation as a writer is powerful. I think that freedom — to be honest, even when it’s uncomfortable — is what ultimately gives a story its strength.

You're welcome, Gabrielle Mahrez. Thanks. And looking at your past and life is a way to come up with script ideas.

I tend of add things from my life, but not always experiences I've had. Often it's ones I heard or read about which is basically one big pool of potential story details.

For me, the moment a story stops feeling fictional is when it no longer feels written, but revealed.

I don’t always know what belongs to the story and what belongs to me while I’m writing. In fact, when that line is clear, the work often feels flatter. The moments that feel “too close” are usually the ones I didn’t plan, a gesture, a silence, a line of voice-over that arrives without explanation. Those are the moments I pay the most attention to.

If something appears unexpectedly and carries weight, discomfort, or quiet truth, I tend to follow it, even if it makes the story less comfortable, less clean, or harder to categorize. Pulling back to protect the narrative often feels like a form of control that distances the work from its emotional core.

That said, surrender doesn’t mean losing structure. I think the work lives in the tension between the two:

control gives the story shape,

surrender gives it life.

When something feels darker or more intimate than intended, I ask myself one question:

Is this honest, or is it indulgent?

If it’s honest, I keep it, even if I don’t fully understand it yet.

Some stories aren’t meant to explain where they come from.

They just ask to be listened to.

"a story stops feeling fictional is when it no longer feels written, but revealed."

I really like how you put that, Minh Nguyen. Quentin Tarantino also said (my paraphrase): "you don't create characters, you meet them."

The character tells you. If it is close, let it get closer. The best stories are steeped in personal experience, love, pain, tragedy and farce. But don’t write the latter because America thinks farce means being stupid. Here a question to respond to a question - do you want to make the audience uncomfortable, if so, be sure you mean it - remember ‘entertainment’’. example - I watched Schindler's list many times, was horrified, interested, enthralled by the efforts of good people, excited in a dramatic way, and very well informed - but I was never uncomfortable with the telling of it, or felt that the writer wanted me to be. It is a true and horrific story which should inspire anti-Nazi sentiments and deep abiding sympathy that such horror occurred. I feel more often that somebody wants me to be uncomfortable for the sake of discomfort, which then does not pay off.

It also backfires sometimes when you write a character and people think it must be you because it’s real. I’ve been accused of all sorts of things because of character writings.

Much more could be said.

I create my characters as well as the intentions the scenes.

Then my characters create the scenes.

it never “feels” fictional to me.

Michael Dzurak I really like the way you describe it as a “pool” of story material — that feels very accurate.

For me, lived experience is only one layer. What resonates just as strongly are things we absorb: stories we hear, moments we observe, emotions we recognize even if we haven’t lived them directly.

Sometimes those second-hand experiences feel strangely more cinematic, because they’re already filtered through imagination and empathy.

Do you find that those borrowed experiences ever reveal something personal about you anyway, even when they didn’t originate from your own life?

Minh Nguyen This resonates deeply with me — especially the idea that a story feels most alive when it’s revealed rather than written.

I recognize that blur you describe, where the boundary between the self and the story dissolves. When I can clearly tell “this is me” and “this is the character,” the work often feels safer… and flatter.

I’m very drawn to what you said about tension:

control giving the story shape, surrender giving it life.

That balance feels essential, especially in psychological or gothic work, where the most truthful moments often arrive uninvited.

I also appreciate your question — honest or indulgent. That distinction feels like an ethical compass for writing, not just an artistic one.

Thank you for articulating this so precisely. It’s rare to see it put into words so clearly.

Jack Vincent

I really like this way of putting it.

There’s something reassuring in the idea that once the intentions are set, the characters take over.

I relate to that feeling — when the characters are clear enough, the story stops feeling constructed and starts unfolding on its own.

At that point, it doesn’t feel fictional anymore either — it feels observed.

David Taylor

I really appreciate this perspective, especially the distinction between discomfort that serves the story and discomfort for its own sake.

That question — do you want to make the audience uncomfortable, and do you truly mean it — is something I think writers don’t ask themselves enough.

Your example of Schindler’s List is very telling. The film is devastating, but never manipulative. The discomfort comes from truth, not intention to provoke.

I also find your point about being mistaken for your characters important. When something feels real, people often assume it must be autobiographical — which can be both a compliment and a misunderstanding.

For me, the challenge is letting characters be honest without turning the story into a confession, and letting the audience feel deeply without forcing them into discomfort.

Thank you for this reminder — it’s grounding.

David Taylor, I can relate to your comments. I adapted my unpublished novel HELL AT 30 BELOW into a screenplay. A compelling, romantic (60s-70s era) drama based on a true events in my past, in the town of Duluth, Minnesota. A town notorious for its cold winters. It was emotionally hard to expose the truth, but as they say, "The Truth Will Set You Free..."

In the winter of 1972, before there were shelters or support for women in crisis, an emotionally broken, injured, young woman, ROSE, entangled in a turbulent love triangle with two brothers, commits herself to a state mental hospital, to escape her abusive husband, DYLAN. In her bizarre surroundings, she must find the courage to leave her abusive husband and, eventually, find her way back to the man she never stopped loving; Dylan’s older brother, TROY, who holds the key to Rose’s passion, her heart, and the future.

The story centers on an abused woman, but covers a lot of ground, about her life. A story about one woman’s loss of innocence, love and heartbreak, troubled teen years, drug addiction, passion, betrayal, redemption, and the strength to overcome what seems impossible odds, as she bravely faces the ultimate battle for her life and her dangerous escape to freedom.

More information (not the script) on my web page for HELL AT 30 BELOW www.angelfire.com/film2/kinsman

yeah now you literally understand what you meant it has happened to me before I have a script that I wrote I'm falling for you that script in anywhere I was writing it I wasn't writing it for myself but I find myself explaining everything that has happened to me you know this script writing is based on emotion and the guidance of the heart sometimes you plan to write another thing why another comes in so you flow with it you don't stop or pause because you think you're going to value you're getting dark on the way but you just allow it to flow that's the spirit that's what makes you righter righter don't write because you want to create it to you right because is deep than the the character is hidden already like that particular Seems has been there for a long time and once a way out so through your right thing with friends it's way to be actually

When what I create stops feeling fictional... That's when I find the emotional or psychological truth behind the story. And that usually happens before I start drafting. I create my characters and story around that truth, so they feel honest to me from the beginning.

My family loves me. A lot. And my adult children can be very smothering. My grandchildren are absolutely overwhelming. Even the dang dogs. I feel very much like a celebrity when I visit.

I spend 6 hours a day on the phone with my adult kids. Sometimes more.

Even they know it's too much and give not shit one haha. And I honestly couldn't live without it or any of them. I do my best living while being smothered, I guess.

But it's honestly quite funny and yeah, I wrote a show about it. The pilot episode centers around a night I went on a first date a couple years after my late S/O had passed away. My date ran longer than my kids thought it should and I had a cop show up to my date.

I was 40. And my kids have me on life360. Just a touch on the side of crazy to call the cops, I think. I was only gone for 3 hours.

It was hilariously the only date I got with that guy. I never figured out why. Hmm. He probably didn't like the fact that I have cats. That's gotta be it.

But beyond that show, I tend to not write about my own life or experiences. My life is mostly mundane with odd shots of weird. My worlds, characters, and fictional settings are all curated, specifically, to explore one aspect of the mind and human emotion.

Victor John Victor, what you’re describing really resonates with me.

That moment when you realize you’re not “inventing” anymore, but uncovering something that was already there — waiting — is exactly where writing becomes alive.

I agree with you: when emotion takes the lead, stopping to control or censor the flow often feels like a betrayal of the story itself.

Sometimes what comes out is darker than expected, but it’s honest — and honesty is what gives a character depth rather than decoration.

I love the idea that the scene has existed for a long time and simply finds its way out through us. That’s when writing stops being an act of construction and becomes an act of listening.

Elle Bolan Elle, I really love how clearly you distinguish emotional truth from autobiography.

That idea that the story becomes “less fictional” the moment it touches a psychological truth — not necessarily a lived one — feels very accurate to me.

Your example with LOVE HER TO DEATH is fascinating, especially because it shows how comedy can sometimes be the most honest way to process intimacy, grief, and family dynamics.

What strikes me is that even when the material is personal, you’re still using it as a lens to explore something larger — attachment, boundaries, love, identity — rather than simply recounting events.

I think that’s where stories stay alive: when they’re rooted in truth, but shaped with intention.

I'm writing a fictional story called White Wind of the Atlantic about Madeiran Portuguese whites soon to be called Luso Jamaicans or Madeiran Portuguese Jamaican that came to Jamaica as indentured laborers in the late 19th century 1890-1930 by the British to work on sugar cane estates and the fishing industry. Many stuck around when Jamaica gained independence in 1962. They influence the island through food, music, and lifestyle. Portuguese is one of the foreign languages in that English speaking nation.