731 - Avoidance and Other Anti-Quests

11:20Craig Mazin:but there's no chapter on theme.

11:22John August:Yes, it's true. Nor is there an episode specifically dedicated to theme. I mean, Craig's How to Write a Movie episode looks at thematic arguments, which is super insightful.

11:30Craig Mazin:But I'd love to hear both of your thoughts on theme and the many different interpretations of exactly what theme is in a story. Oh, and they included this beautiful picture of where they were in Mallorca with the book and a glass of, I'm going to say beer. Yeah. Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, beautiful.

11:51John August:You know, I think as we wrote that sentence, as I probably wrote that sentence in the first chapter, there probably was a chapter on theme that was pieced together and it all pulled apart into different things. Drew, you're nodding. I think there was a theme chapter at some point. I think there was. It just got broken into other pieces. We have a page in the Notion about the Scribdnest book of things to fix in second printing. And so I think the sentence about the theme chapter will probably be updated in a feature printing.

12:19Craig Mazin:John, you and I read the classic Choose Your Own Adventure books as children.

12:25John August:Yes, so amazing.

12:26Craig Mazin:And I remember one, I think it was one where you go to like some new civilization in space or something where there were two pages, like there was a point where you would open the book and on left and the right, it was a place that you couldn't get to by choosing. And they're like, we don't know how you got here. You're not supposed to be here. This is the secret place of blah, blah, blah. And I was so like, oh my God. And yeah, maybe that's what's happening. There is.

12:50John August:There's a secret theme chapter. You just haven't looked, you haven't found it yet.

12:52Craig Mazin:It's not listed and you haven't found it. I will say, Luke, the how to write a movie thing, that is basically how I think about it. That's so, you got my two cents in there. Yeah, mostly when I think about theme, I try and get rid of that word as quickly as I can and come up with something that's more useful. Yeah.

13:08John August:So if we update that sentence, I'll say like, you know, you can skip ahead to Craig's chapter on how to write a movie, which is his analysis of theme. Finally, we have a question about free work. Yeah. Brian writes, in episode 727, Craig mentioned that, per working rule 8 of the WGA contract, if you're a member of the WGA, you cannot write for anyone without an employment agreement. I hope this isn't a stupid question, but as someone who has currently written two freelance scripts for television and is about to join the WGA officially, does that mean I cannot work on a project on spec, which I later intend to pitch?

13:44Craig Mazin:No, it does not mean that. No. So when we say you cannot write for anyone, anyone means any employer. Yeah. It means anyone who could pay you. You yourself can write anything you want for yourself, of course. What happens if you sell something on spec is a little bit of legal jujitsu where the employer says, yes, you wrote this, but really you wrote it because we wanted you to write it. And now we own copyright and here's a bunch of money and you now employed on a thing that you in fact created and then everything is fine but no it you are free to write on spec to your heart's delight so there's this like interesting thing that happens and there used to be a lot of this i don't know if it's going on as much anymore where producers would ask writers to write things on spec and that is a funky territory we know that for instance a studio cannot ask you to write something on spec, obviously.

14:42John August:That gray zone of like, you know, a producer saying, I'm really looking for inexpensive horror that could be, you know, shot in this sort of schedule or in this location. And so in those situations, you're writing this thing that you actually own. You have no agreement with that producer. It's the idea that that producer will then be able to set that thing up for a thing.

15:00Craig Mazin:Yeah. I mean, really, Brian, the rule is there so that you don't take money from people under agreements that are not WGA agreements. That's really what the rule is there for.

15:11John August:Yeah. One of the best things about being a writer is you can just create your own stuff and actors have to wait for someone to hire them. Directors need material. You can just self-generate, which is great. So in the time that I've been a WGA writer, I wrote Go on spec. I wrote the nines on spec. It's a thing that writers are often doing. So that's absolutely appropriate. And in TV, you're often writing your, you know, new samples for yourself to get yourself considered for other projects. So yeah, you're always writing your own stuff and never stop that. All right, let us get to the marquee topic today.

15:44John August:I want to talk about avoidance. And here is - I don't, I don't want to talk about it. Exactly. Craig has the spirit already. I'm reading this book called Indistractable by Nir Eyal. And there was one bullet point that just sort of stopped me cold. His quote was, all motivation is a desire to escape discomfort. All motivation is a desire to escape discomfort. And I said, well, that's not true. I feel that's fundamentally not correct. And yet it feels plausible on some level. It's provocative. And so I wanted to pick this apart because Craig, we're often talking about motivation. That's what's driving story.

16:25John August:You have a hero that wants something and that's what's causing the story to begin. Craig, do you mind like talking us through like the basics of like the hero's journey kind of thing we're usually talking about with motivation?

16:36Craig Mazin:Sure. This goes to the simplest thing. What do I want? And we do want things all the time. And whatever we want could be something like winning a race or getting the girl or defeating my enemy or saving my village or keeping my child safe or it doesn't matter or going faster than the speed of light. Whatever it is, it's the thing we want. And typically in these stories, and this goes back to the most ancient of fables and mythology. Typically, what a story is, is somebody trying to get what they want. Yeah. And other things or people trying to keep them from getting what they want. And if they do get what they want, their life will change for the better.

17:27Craig Mazin:And if they don't, their life will change for the worse in significant ways. that's the most basic plumbing of a story I can imagine.

17:34John August:Part of the reason why it's so important to think in terms of what a character wants, what a character is trying to get to is that as the reader, as the audience, we lock into what they want. We want them to get that thing that they want. We understand what the story is about. It's like the contract that we're setting with the audience is, okay, this character is trying to get this thing and we will see the character work to try to get this thing. And at the end, they will either get it or not get it. But that's the journey that we're going on. And so we often talk about the freeze frame. You should be able to watch a scene and freeze the frame and point to the characters like, what are they trying to do?

18:08John August:What is their goal? What are they aiming for? And so what I'd like to talk about today is so often you can actually reframe that as what are the characters trying to avoid? Like reframing that positive motivation, what they're aiming for as the negative motivation. What are they trying to escape from or get away from? Generally, the characters are running from something. And so, you know, sometimes that is built into kind of a classic hero's journey, which is the denial of the call to adventure, that they want to sort of stay put and stay at home. But often it's just they're trying to just avoid anything unpleasant and they want to stay in the place that they are.

18:48Craig Mazin:Yeah. So very often a character will want the right thing, but for the wrong reason. Yeah. And I don't think all motivation is a desire to escape discomfort, but I do think a lot of it is. And I think really there are only two real basic motivations that humans have. Fear and love. Those are the things that drive us. One of them is generally viewed as positive. One is generally viewed as negative. But what we often find in stories are that characters are moving towards something or away from something out of fear. and then are taught to elevate themselves and change their motivation to a more positive love that is a higher motivation based on the well-being, not just of themselves or anything selfish, but everyone.

19:41Craig Mazin:Or sometimes it's a higher spiritual state of being. Luke Skywalker wants to get off his stupid planet. He wants to be a pilot. He wants to fight in the war, But he's doing all these things because, in a sense, he's afraid of being meaningless. He's afraid that people around him will die, like his uncle and aunt, who are all crispy there. And then, of course, in the end, he has to change that so it's not fear, but rather this higher, you know, I'm sort of stretching love here to embrace the force and join with everybody as one consciousness so that he can commit an act of violence that kills many, many, many, many innocent people.

20:26Craig Mazin:Indeed. And it's a war crime.

20:28John August:Yeah. Yeah. So you're talking about fear and love and like those core emotions are driving a lot of the avoidance here. So fear, loneliness, awkwardness, all of the things that sort of keep people at home, keep people from like stepping out of their comfort zone. It's understandable. And our brains psychologically are kind of hardwired to sort of try to get back to homeostasis, that we're going to like go back to this thing that we recognize, the thing that we feel safe in. And so sometimes what looks like a lack of motivation is just someone just trying to avoid that discomfort. They're making choices that are unproductive, either for story or for themselves, because it's understandable why they're trying to stay, stay close, stay at home, keep things normal.

21:13Craig Mazin:Well, they could be productive in the sense that they are staying safe and it's working. It's just not the best life they could live, you know?

21:21John August:Yeah. And so the idea of avoidance, of course, goes back. It's always been part of philosophies. You know, you see it in Buddhism that, you know, dissatisfaction or suffering is the source behind craving. So, you know, craving being ambition or a call to action to do things. Schopenhauer talks about will comes from a lack, that you're missing something, that you're suffering and that's what causes you to go out and try to do a thing. And so again, a positive motivation is often really just an expression of this thing you're trying to avoid.

21:56Craig Mazin:Yeah. There is the pleasure principle, which would argue the opposite, that what people go for are the things that make them feel good positively. And I think it's both. I do.

22:08John August:It's both.

22:08Craig Mazin:What we forget, I think we tend to overlook how important avoidance is for us and how important fear is for us and how much of what we do really is secretly about that.

22:19John August:Well, let's get some concrete examples. And so the first thing that jumped to mind was Carl in Up. This is a man who has shut himself off from the world after losing his wife. And he's an almost entirely avoidant character. He just doesn't want anybody to do anything. And his quest and the balloons and going to Paradise Valley is about shutting himself off from everything else. And the movie is constantly creating obstacles and forcing him to confront these things he doesn't want to confront and step outside of his comfort zone. We talked about your chapter in the book. And you talk a lot about Marlon in Finding Nemo.

22:54John August:This is, again, an avoidant character. It looks like he has a quest. He's going to see his son. But really, he's driven by fear. He's driven by trying to avoid the pain of the loss and acceptance of what's actually happened. Yeah.

23:06Craig Mazin:This duality of fear and love was something that I think I made as concrete as I possibly could in the Bill and Frank episode of The Last of Us. Bill is avoidant. He does not want to deal with the world. Anyone locks himself behind the fence is theoretically thrilled. Doesn't matter. Yeah. He's also, even before the world ends, he avoids expressing his sexuality or experiencing connection with other people. And Frank is about love. Frank's goal is to make the street look nice. Yeah. And to have friends. And to enjoy things as much as he can while he's here. To make the world around him better.

23:52Craig Mazin:Yeah. And we do find typically that when we have a choice of a character, we want to choose the guy who's avoidant to be the protagonist because they're the ones who have to change. Like so much of the story of avoidance is face it, face the thing you can't face and deal with it. Because after all, I think that's what 99 % of therapy sessions are. can you face the dragon, slay the dragon, or are you going to continue to get eaten by the dragon?

24:23John August:Yeah. We've referenced two Pixar movies, but a third, which one is also iconic, is Inside Out. And so in the real world, you have Riley, who's trying to avoid uncomfortable situations. And then the inner world, we have Joy, who's just trying to keep things happy and avoid the reality like, oh, there's other emotions too who need to have their turn at the wheel. Toxic positivity. Toxic positivity, for sure. Paul Giamatti in Sideways. This is a character who looks like they have a quest. They're going to go on this road trip to encounter all this great wine. But really, he's just trying to escape his failures, his failed marriage, his book, his life.

24:56John August:He's avoiding confronting the realities and situations. And the movie is forcing him to encounter those along the way. Whiplash. This, again, looks like a kid who has a quest to become a legendary drummer. But when we see his home life, we see like, oh, no, he's actually just trying to avoid being the normal kid. He's just trying to avoid this being ordinary or nothing special, which is what he gives.

25:19Craig Mazin:Great example, because there, throughout the movie, you do sense he is driven by this avoidance of that life. So his move towards something is really move away from something. And he is punished for it over and over and over. and in the end of the film it is clear that he is no longer motivated by fear he is motivated by love he creates something spontaneous and outrageous because he's not afraid anymore he just is experiencing love he doesn't care what that guy does to him anymore and in that moment the caterpillar becomes a butterfly of bloody hands and there's a whole lot else going on there but basically fits into this dynamic.

26:03John August:Now, when we talk about the Bill and Frank episode, they're partnering up two characters who are an avoidant and an outgoing one as often successful. But you look at Lost in Translation, there you have Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. They're both essentially avoidant characters. Neither one is trying to, wants to confront the reality of their situation. And together they kind of do, which is an interesting dynamic that you don't see very often.

26:25Craig Mazin:Yeah. So in that case, This is a wonderful story of two people in limbo.

26:31John August:Yes.

26:31Craig Mazin:They will not see each other again. They should not have seen each other this first time. This is an ephemeral moment in which they can both take comfort in each other's fear and loneliness. And two lonely people getting stuck together is fascinating because they're no longer lonely. Yeah. But you're right. The dynamic of the avoidant and the, I'll just call them the loving person. Yeah. is classic. Planes, trains, and automobiles. John Candy, just outwards. All the movies that David Spade and Chris Farley did. Spade, avoidant, Farley, outward and loving. And it always ends up where the one changes the other.

27:11Craig Mazin:And it's always the avoidant one who must change, always. You never want to see a movie where an outwardly loving person goes, yeah, you're right, we actually should think this is a little crazy.

27:21John August:Well, you see the same dynamic in Groundhog Day. So you have Bill Murray's character, who is super avoidant and then becomes trapped in a situation and Annie McDowell's character is the one, even though she doesn't realize she's doing it, is the one who's pulling him out of this thing and making him see the love in these moments.

27:36Craig Mazin:Yes, yes. With very little agency, by the way. Yes, for sure. There's a better version. I love that movie so much, but it does suffer from the very specific 90s era woman as morally perfected human syndrome. And it's just this sloppy man trying to reach the already perfected height of a woman who was created perfectly and will exist in such perfection. And you're like, no, what's interesting about people is that they are not. But it's still awesome movie.

28:11John August:Yeah. And so the opposite case of a morally perfect woman is Lydia Tarr in Tarr, who is the most complicated woman. And we find her already at the peak of her career. and then she's avoiding about everything crumbling around and the bad choices that she's making that is causing it all to unravel. Tart, I just love Tart so much. And I just love what an incredible character is there because obviously she was, she had a goal going into this, but we're coming into this moment where she's avoiding all of the negative repercussions of the things she's done and love it. It's just the right moment to see.

28:45Craig Mazin:It's also one of the best character names possible in general, but also specifically for what is happening to her, Lydia Tarr.

28:55John August:Tarr. And it has to have that... The little slashy. The little accent. Yeah.

29:01Craig Mazin:And the movie just being called Tarr with the little slashy. I mean, it's wonderful. So good. Yeah.

29:06John August:I want to talk about sometimes avoidance can become the quest, which is I think actually a probably natural pattern. Legally blonde. Elle, she's going to Harvard, but really to avoid the pain of heartbreak. She doesn't have a vision for what her positive version of her life is going to be. It's like she wants to get back to homeostasis. She wants to get the guy back. And that's motivating her initial quest to Harvard. Mad Max Fury Road. Max is trying to stay out of everything and sort of ends up getting dragged into it and then becomes the reluctant hero in it. A classic pattern. And I guess what I'd ask, you know, people who are thinking about this for their own characters is does the character know they're running away from something or do they think they're running towards something?

29:45John August:And how does the audience react to this? Is the character self-aware or not self-aware of what they're trying to avoid can be helpful.

29:54Craig Mazin:Yes. You need to at least understand what they're afraid of. And I don't care who the character is. If you are a loving character, you're still afraid of something. And if you are a fearful character, you still have the capacity to love something. Han Solo can just keep saying over and over, I'm just in this for the money. I'm just in this for the money. I'm avoiding being part of the fight. I'm avoiding giving crap. I'm avoiding falling in love with that lady who's kissing her brother. And then in the end, he comes back and does something loving.

30:25John August:And I think what you're talking about is there's a pivot. There's a moment in which the character, what they're running from, someone else needs them to face it. And so basically, it's the thing that they've been avoiding is a thing they actually need to address in order to help something else. And so that pulls them into, it brings them across the barrier into the positive quest.

30:43Craig Mazin:They will inevitably get called out. Somebody at some point in a story where the main character is avoidant will call them out. Yeah. And say some version of, are you going to run away like you have your whole life? Are you going to pretend to not carry your whole life just to protect yourself? Or are you going to give a damn about something because we need you? There will be that moment always. And inevitably, at the end of that little speech, the avoidant character will say, screw you, I'm going home. and then they'll just think about it for a while and then they'll come back. And we like that.

31:17Craig Mazin:We love the rhythm of it. We love it as much as we love verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, break, chorus.

31:24John August:Yeah. And so let's wrap this up by talking about so often we'll get notes about making sure the character has agency and the character is driving story. And some of those are good, well-intentioned notes. But I think it's easier to imagine characters who have a lot of agency and a lot of vigor and vim and zeal and they're driving stuff forward, but they don't feel real because real characters have fears. Real characters have things that are pulling them back from moving forward. And it's those, the avoidance things are what we as an audience recognize in them. The fact that Indiana Jones is terrified of snakes, that's a reality.

32:00John August:If he didn't have that, he wouldn't feel as real to us.

32:04Craig Mazin:Yes, Indiana Jones also avoids the religious spiritual implications of the things he engages in. They're simply objects that belong in a museum. He needs to be avoidant of these things so that at the end, when there is something that is about to happen that is supernatural, he must embrace that in order to save himself and Marion.

32:25John August:So takeaways for our listeners is that, yes, you should be thinking about what characters want and being able to articulate what they want and to what degree the characters understand what they want, which would be the audience understands what they want. But that doesn't mean that they aren't running from something as well. And it's finding that balance between what they're running from and what they're running towards. So it feels like a continuous arc. It feels like, oh, this is the journey that I'm seeing these characters on. Obviously, we're talking largely about movies here where there is a clear arc and trajectory.

32:53John August:But even in series television, there's a sense of seeing both aspects of a character to make them feel real. So they're both driving story, but they also feel like real human beings.

33:04Craig Mazin:Always. And sometimes it switches. You know, as characters go through things, somebody may be on the rise where another person is. And for ongoing series that are meant to keep going, like soap opera, drama, whether it's daytime or primetime, they kind of need people to cycle around each other where one is avoiding and one is creating and moving toward. It just, it's inevitable. Yeah.

33:33John August:All right, let's answer some listener questions. Drew, help us out. Trepidatious Boyfriend writes, My girlfriend and I are both early career TV writers in LA. We're a couple months into our relationship and she wants to write something together with me. Wondering what the pros and cons are of writing with your romantic partner. What sort of feedback have you received over the years from writing partners who happen to be dating or married to each other?

33:57Craig Mazin:Well, the ones that we know that are married to each other or writing are only the ones that were successful. Exactly. The rest of them broke up in all possible ways. So we didn't even know.

34:09John August:There's a strong aspect of survivorship bias in the things we would cite. Exactly. So a couple of first instincts here is basically, do you want to write the same kinds of things? If that's not the case, you should definitely not write together. Are you, trepidatious boyfriend, a person who is a good creative roommate? Do you share well? Do you like having that second brain? Would you write with a partner if it was not your romantic partner? That's a good question. There are big advantages to writing with your romantic partner because you see each other more and that can be great. And it can be a problem too if you need some space from each other, but it can be really good.

34:44John August:And we know so many teams who, it's great they're working together because they'd like to be together and they get to stay together and they get to do the stuff they love to do. Craig, what other instincts do you have? What's the checklist you would give them in terms of yes or no?

34:59Craig Mazin:I think the most important thing would be that you both fill slightly different roles in the process because from the married couples that I know who work together, and we know a few, it does seem like one of them fills a different role or capacity than another. That typically, while they are both imagining and thinking, one stays more in dream town and one is more in typey town. Not like I'm only typing what you say, but rather there's one that generally is a little bit more constructive on the page while the other one is more imaginative, outlining, conceptual. That's just my impression. But for you, Trepidatious, the thing that's concerning to me is you were a couple of months into your relationship.

35:46Craig Mazin:You know, give it a little more time maybe. Yeah. I mean, because man, this could kill it fast.

35:54John August:It could. I'm thinking back to some of the writing couples I know who've lasted. and in some cases they were writing partners first and then they sort of fell in love over it. That's different. And that tracks and makes sense. That's fair. I think your love life, your emotional happiness, your finding a partner in life is more important than finding a writing partner. And I would say prioritize that.

36:16Craig Mazin:I agree. Yes, you don't need a writing partner. No. Clearly, because you're both writing individually anyway. But finding somebody that you can love and live with. Yeah. Much. Worth everything. Honestly, it's like so much. And you just, what's the point of, you know? Yeah. And God help you. The day you guys break up is the day you get a call that you just sold a script as a writing team. I guarantee you. It's a nightmare. I just, give it some more time. Get a little more of a basis.

36:49John August:So friends of mine were a married writing team who were staffed on a TV show and they broke up during the... Of course. It was really, really hard. It's hard for them emotionally, but then they also have to have a professional relationship split up and that's so tough. So don't go into anything expecting like catastrophizing it, of course, but these are just things to think about.

37:08Craig Mazin:But I'm guessing the odds are low. You know, I'm guessing the odds are low here. I mean, the odds in general are low. 50 % of marriages end in divorce, I think. I'm not suggesting marriage here, but that's the funny part is writing together is sort of marrying somebody. Yeah. It's an entwining you may not be ready for.

37:27John August:All right. Another question here from JP. With the recent passings of so many Hollywood legends, I can't help but wonder, what happens to a person's residuals when they die? When a person's no longer around to collect those checks, who does? So the setup of this question, like recent passings of so many Hollywood legends, this probably came in around the time of the Oscars. And wow, that In Memoriam segment was so long. And there were so many iconic people who passed away this last year. And it made me realize like, oh God, Like, that's only going to continue. Like, I'm going to know more and more people who show up in the In Memoriam section.

38:03Craig Mazin:This is good news, John. Yeah. Yeah. Because the more people that we know that die, the more comfortable we will be when it is our turn to die. Maybe so. Because we'll be like, yeah, that's what's going on these days.

38:20John August:So. That's what we're doing. So, Craig, true confessions here. I cannot help but like watch the memoriams. I've been thinking like, if I had died in that group, how much notice would I have gotten in that group? Like, would I have been a slide that goes past? I think so. Probably? Yeah.

38:34Craig Mazin:Yeah, I think you would. I think when the screenwriter slides come by, my expectation is that when they're creating the death montage, they are orchestrating for swells of emotion. So when you know you want a big swell, put the screenwriter into lower.

38:51John August:Yeah, I think so. I'm in the middle of a beat. It's a dip.

38:56Craig Mazin:It's a dip to set you up for an actor. It really is. Let's face it. You don't end the thing on the screenwriter.

39:05John August:Whereas, Craig, I think you would be in the Emmys memoriam more likely than you'd be in the Oscar memoriams.

39:11Craig Mazin:That's correct. I think I would be in the, currently. Do people normally show up in both? Is that a thing? For sure, yeah.

39:20John August:I feel like, yeah, like a... Rob Reiner would show up in both.

39:23Craig Mazin:Yeah, that's true. That's true. Yes, I do. It's funny when I watch the thing. I just do think like, oh, okay, they just put that. He's like a camera operator. He worked a really long time. I think I got a shot at getting into this thing. Totally. Yeah, but I'll never know. That's the thing. That's it. You will never know.

39:44John August:So there are unanswerable questions, JP, but this is a very answerable question you asked about residuals after you die. So I looked it up. This is a thing you could have Googled, but I'm actually happy to ask the question because I actually can have an answer for you. So I'm going to read you from the page that I found. In 1977, the Guild negotiated for the member's right to receive residual compensation in perpetuity. As a result, even after death, a writer will continue to receive residual compensation if their material is reused. Your residuals will be dispersed pursuant to the terms of your will or trust document or under intestacy law.

40:17John August:Did I say that right? Intestacy?

40:19Craig Mazin:Yes, if you are intestate, it means you died without a will. It sounds dirty, but it's not.

40:26John August:As well as under the terms of community property, as may apply. So yeah, residuals are forever. And they go along with your estate. And in some cases, it can be meaningful. So that's some good stuff. I looked it up and SAG-AFTRA is basically the same thing. So the bottom line is there's no expiration date on residuals. They follow the worker. And so therefore, they could pass on to estates.

40:48Craig Mazin:It is important to actually, for so many reasons, to have your stuff in order. Even if you are not, say, ready for the Emmy post-mortem montage, you're a young person, it's still important to have some sort of arrangement made. There are very, very cheap ways to do this. but what does happen sometimes is when someone dies and there's no arrangement and no nobody tells anybody anything the guild tries to figure out who to give the residuals to but in the end a lot of money ends up in the unclaimed residuals pile yeah and that money eventually i believe starts to filter back into the general fund of the writers guild but they do try to distribute those funds as best they can, obviously you want to make it easier on them than harder.

41:43John August:Absolutely. All right. I think it is time for our One Cool Things. My One Cool Thing feels like a Craig One Cool Thing, but it's delightful for both of us. Oh, yes. So Josh Wardle, who created Wardle, he came on the podcast many, many years ago. We celebrated Wardle as a great product that he'd made. He has a new thing out called ParseWord. ParseWord is a cryptic crossword puzzle game that Craig directly inspires. So it's based on his conversation with Craig on this podcast, and Craig extolling the virtues of Cryptic Crosswords that got Josh thinking about like, well, how could I make a game for Cryptic Crosswords that would actually be accessible and playable even by someone like John August?

42:22John August:And he succeeded. Parswords is delightful. It's just parseword.com. And it walks you through how to think about these things because it's complicated. It's not as simple as Wordle is, but I see Craig smiling. You've got to be delighted.

42:36Craig Mazin:Oh, of course. So what parse word does is in its own way teaches people how to do this. It's a very specific format. So typical crossword clue will just give you some prompt and you have to answer it like river in Egypt, Nile. And the cryptic crossword will give you both a straight clue and a wordplay clue within the same clue in a way that's funky. like let's say winding river in Egypt leads you to straight okay well what is that well in Egypt it's not a very good crossword it's not the bad cryptic clue but it's the it's Nile and then you anagram it to line so there's all these like actually what I just did is illegal but regardless the point is this teaches you all the tips and tricks of how to do these things and I have to say, once you get into cryptic crosswords, you just don't care about the regular crossword anymore because it's just sort of like, do I know a thing?

43:36Craig Mazin:Sure.

43:37John August:It's why like after you started skiing blacks, you don't want to ski like by any slopes anymore.

43:42Craig Mazin:You're kind of, you leave it behind. Checkers was fun. This is chess. Yeah. And then there are so many levels and it goes, you know, I go deep into, as I've mentioned before, like the Kevin Wall cryptics, which are insane, but even beyond those there are the cryptics from the listener in the uk which are borderline impossible and and it's all fantastic it's just such good brain work i mean i this is doing a cryptic crossword is my night routine to go to sleep like i spend 20 minutes or so and then when i feel like i made some progress i put the ipad down and i go to sleep yeah if i didn't have that, I don't know if I would sleep.

44:25Craig Mazin:I think I would just stay up all night. Yeah. Yeah.

44:28John August:So people should check out Parseword. It's a really well-executed version of a difficult thing to do. And so it's just so smartly done. So check that out. Parseword.com. Parseword.com.

44:39Craig Mazin:I have a book review. So I've not read the book, but I've read the review and it's in the nation. So, you know, it's, it's quite thorough. The book that is being reviewed is The AI Paradox, How to Make Sense of a Complex Future by Virginia Dignam. Side note, when did books have to be title colon explanation of title?

45:01John August:Oh, yeah, that's interesting. I don't know when that started.

45:04Craig Mazin:It just never, everyone, there's no way to not do it.

45:07John August:I think it's within the 2000s, but if you just called it The AI Paradox, it wouldn't be meaningful at all.

45:13Craig Mazin:That's how books used to work, though. Yeah, that's true. You know? Anyway, The AI Paradox, How to Make Sense of a Complex Future, by Virginia Dignam, and this review is by Ben Tarnoff. And what she seems to be digging into per his analysis, which I think is really fascinating, is that we seem to be caught between either fearing that AI will destroy us all or fearing that AI is a huge scam and our economy is about to collapse because it's just a sham. Yeah. And what Ms. Dignam sort of takes the philosophical position that actually artificial intelligence isn't really like our intelligence, but it is something that cooperate with our intelligence and that we ought to be, rather than running away from it or elevating it instantly to replace us, we should be actively figuring out how to work with it by its side and make it work for us.

46:14Craig Mazin:I liked the review mostly because I think it was sort of positive about, and I thought a very reasonable approach. Like, hey, what if everyone on the extremes is wrong here? What if there's just this messy middle? And I remain generally in the, I think this might be a scam camp, but I was somewhat hopeful that this could be a really, really good version of a calculator and work like that is of value.

46:42John August:Yeah, so I'm looking forward to checking out the review and possibly the book itself. It is tough because you have to hold multiple things simultaneously in your head. It's like there are genuinely useful things that people are using it to do, which is great and applications that seem valid and like, oh, that's a thing you couldn't do without this kind of technology. And disruptive and dangerous, just this last week, the security implications of the new Anthropic model that basically break everything. And that's why they can't even release it until they find all these patches for stuff. And the fact that it's like all the money pouring into it and the weird side deals, it could be Enron, but also be real.

47:28John August:And so it's very frustrating.

47:30Craig Mazin:It is frustrating. It's hard to tell if people are in so deep financially that they have to just keep shoveling crap at us to make sure that we don't notice that it's just sort of bland. But then again, maybe this is, in its best version, a great new tool like the computer. I mean, the computer changed. And it wasn't like when the computer came along, people were like, oh my God, so many people are going to lose their jobs. A lot of people did lose their jobs and had to retrain doing other jobs. But it notably created a billion jobs.

48:05John August:Yeah.

48:06Craig Mazin:The notion that artificial intelligence must replace us, that seems like that's the toxic point of view.

48:13John August:Yeah, an article I was reading yesterday was talking about, are humans horses or coal when it comes to AI? Basically, we used to have so many horses in the world and we don't need the horses anymore. So all those jobs for horses went away. Or is it like coal where it's just like, we are still necessary for actually figuring out how to implement it and do all the things with it. And by being able to do stuff, if we can actually grow things bigger. I don't think we know yet. It's probably both. It's a very different thing. I think the rise of computers and the rise of the internet are directionally similar, but it's just a different force than we've had before.

48:48Craig Mazin:Yeah, she makes the argument that part of what makes human intelligence different is its cooperative nature with other human intelligences, that we are constantly relating to each other, learning from each other, and changing our minds because of each other in an inventive, creative way, including people whose minds don't work quite right. Yeah. So, for lack of a better word, mentally ill people have had an outsized impact on art and culture forever. Yeah. And that part of things, I don't think AI knows what to do with. Yeah. I don't think so. Yeah.

49:24John August:We'll check in in several hundred episodes to see where we're at, if we're still around. We're at, yeah. Yeah, the bots. We got Craig Bot, John Bot. Craig Bot, John Bot. It's all working.

49:33Craig Mazin:One final one cool. I have an extra one cool thing this week. My daughter, Jessie Mazin. Yes. Was asked by the Indigo Girls to open up for them. She will be opening for the Indigo Girls on all of their Western dates. So if you go to their upcoming concert, it's, you know, Portland and LA and all places in between. And I think Boulder. I think Colorado. Great. is her first, you know, she's put this, you know, song out and it's, you know, attention and this is going to be her first like real thing. I mean, we're all very excited and very proud of her and she did this all on her own. I don't know the Indigo Girls, but she is, she will be opening for the Indigo Girls and we're all very excited.

50:21Craig Mazin:So if you want to buy a ticket, check it out.

50:24John August:Absolutely. Every father is so proud of their child's first national tour.

50:30Craig Mazin:I never expected that I would ever say, like when I was in college listening to the Inugo Girls, I never thought, you know what's fun? Maybe I'll make somebody. I'll make a person and that person will open for these ladies one day. Yeah. Did not have that on my bingo card.

50:44John August:Life is full of surprises. Indeed. That is Script Notes for this week. It is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Cilelli. Don't know him. Our outro is by James Ashley McLaren. If you have an outro, you can send us a link to ask at johnhox.com. That's also the place where you can send questions like the ones we answered today. You'll find transcripts at johnhoffs.com, along with a signup for a weekly newsletter called Interesting, which has lots of links to things about writing. The Script Notes book is out and available wherever you buy books. You'll find clips and other helpful video on our YouTube.

51:12John August:Just search for Script Notes and give us a follow. You'll find us on Instagram at Script Notes Podcast. We have t-shirts and hoodies and drinkware. You'll find those at Cotton Bureau. You'll find the show notes with the links to all the things we talked about today in the email you get each week as a premium subscriber. Thank you, as always, to our premium subscribers. You keep the lights on and make it possible for us to do this each and every week. You can sign up to become one at scriptnotes.net where you get all those back episodes and bonus segments like the one we're about to record about video and other changes coming to Script Notes.

51:42John August:Craig, it is a damn delight to have you back in my little Zoom window to record another episode of Script Notes.

51:49Craig Mazin:He's back. Thank you, John.

52:09We'll see you next time.