I’m curious to know if my fellow screenwriters experience this as well. Perhaps it stems from how deeply we immerse ourselves in character creation, humanizing the psyche even of a predatory Alien, mapping out intentions and motivations in every dialogue and action, and building narratives from the most mundane to the most fantastical to ensure they flow organically.
Do we develop this knack for observing, or rather assuming, people's intentions and motivations in real-life conversations, especially when the 'narrative' of the moment differs from our everyday lives? Or did we already possess this perspective, which is why we chose to write? For instance, sensing someone’s insecurity behind an embarrassing question.
Many moments in my life felt like movie scenes as they unfolded, yet I was unable to discern underlying intentions and motivations, likely because I was the character in the scene. I understand that audiovisual media feeds our imagination to the point where we sometimes feel like we're in a constant film. There's a term for it, 'Protagonist Syndrome', but in my case, it was more of a 'Supporting Character Syndrome.' Now, I think I’d call it 'Filmmaker Syndrome.' In my everyday life interactions, the ones that are not in the auto mode, the ones that has some importance, on those, I’m constantly searching for motivations, eye contact, pauses, and word choices; I analyze the dynamics, like is a scene happening, If you think about it, ours is a strange profession. Does that happen to you?
