Unveiling Jeffrey Lieber: The Untold Secrets Behind His Masterful Storytelling
Scott: I always thought there are three groups of people in Hollywood. There’s people who really don’t understand story very well at all. There are people who can tell you what’s wrong with the story, but they don’t really know how to fix it. Then there’s that third group, who can tell you what’s wrong, but also know how to fix it. That’s that last group that you want to be in as a writer.
Jeff: Right. That’s correct. And the ability to hear when various people give you the same basic idea even in different form, and to be able to say, “Ah.” A lot of times, you’ll get notes that are specific, like “I don’t think that character should die here,” right? And the trick is to be able to say, “That’s actually not the problem. The problem is not that the character dies here. The problem is that there’s no one else in the script to jump into the void to become the menace once that character dies.” So you have to be able to both hear the note and then say, “OK, well, hang on.” Some of it, the note is the problem, but a lot of times the note is pointing at something which is not the thing they’re actually pointing at.
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