You Asked ... Simon Kinberg, "X-Men: The Last Stand," "Jumper"

Simon Kinberg's gift for action, graphic novels, and genre films has kept him one of the busiest - and most prolific - screenwriters in Hollywood.

The screenwriter of films such as X-Men: The Last Stand and Jumper, among others, wrote the original script Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie) as his final thesis project for Columbia University's Film School. While still in film school, Kinberg sold an original pitch to Warner Brothers, and went on to write scripts for Disney, Sony, and Dreamworks, working with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Jonathan Mostow, Stephen Sommers, and McG.

This year, Kinberg has Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr., opening Christmas Day. Plus, he co-wrote Date Night, starring Steve Carrell and Tina Fey, and is producing the prequel X-Men: First Class.

Kinberg believes that building good habits as a writer is a key element in the path to success.

"Set times, set spaces, make hard rules about staying off the internet or taking calls," he says. "Just be disciplined. I really do think that's one of the biggest challenges of being a writer: discipline."

Kinberg shares more of his experience and techniques, answering questions from the StoryLink Community. Those whose questions were chosen will receive The Dialogue: Learning from the Masters DVD (Winner's Choice) from The Writers Store.

On top of having several character threads moving through your stories, some also have elements of fantasy or the supernatural. How do you gain and maintain the necessary distance to hold your stories together while sufficiently immersing yourself in very other worlds? Are they that tightly architected and outlined at the start? Do you just have a good sense of direction? - Jonathan

I outline like crazy. Writing would be too daunting to me without an outline. I need the blueprint before I start building. In some ways, the vast majority of the actual writing takes place in the outlining phase for me. I’m finding the architecture of the movie, but also the architecture of sequences and scenes, so I know how the central characters, relationships, and storylines evolve. There are still plenty of surprises along the way, but they tend to be happier surprises.

If I’m working on a movie with multiple storylines (like an X-Men movie or something like Fantastic Four that has four evenly balanced heroes), I create outlines for each story. Then I mix and merge them together before fading in.

You have a knack for writing Action/Romantic Comedy without clichés. Can you give advice on how you incorporate love and adventure into the screenplay? - Young

You are kind. I’ve been very lucky to work with actors who have a strong allergy to clichés. There were plenty of times on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith that Brad or Angie killed a line for being cliché. Robert Downey was the same way. But I think the trick (if there is a trick) is just to be honest. Write romance and comedy from personal experience. You’ll find specificity and texture from your own life. And start with the romance before you add action. Action should be an expression of character. Great action sequences should work like musical numbers – they explode when the characters can’t contain their emotion in dialogue alone. I had a chance to work with John Woo early on in my career, and this is one of the things he taught me. He looked at action as music and dance. It’s just another way to articulate emotion. And every action sequence should tell us more about the character – from the way they hold a gun to the way they run or fight in the face of danger.

It's said that you can turn off the audio on any good movie and still understand what's going on in the story. Since writers often suffer from verbal diarrhea, how do we know when we've said enough, in dialogue, and should move on before we bury the point in too much on-screen talking? - Marcus

I’m not sure you ever completely “know” this. Some of it is instinct. Some of it is learned from working with actors. I do think it’s incredibly useful to table-read your scripts, so you can hear it out loud. You’ll get a better sense of where you’re overwriting. But as a rule, I would say: study your dialogue. Ask yourself what every line is doing. If the lines aren’t progressing character or plot, then they probably don’t belong in the script.

When you first get one or more ideas for plots and characters, how do you process these toward a structure? Sticky-Notes, story boarding, blocking into a format such as Christopher Vogler's Hero's Journey, linear formats, or a legal pad with stages laid out in an outline form? - Philip L

I take notes on any possible surface. Then I input those notes into the computer at the end of every day. It starts with random ideas, maybe scenes or moments for the characters. Then eventually I turn that list of notes into a detailed outline, which can run anywhere from 15-50 pages, depending on how intimidated I am by the script (the more intimidated I am, the longer the outline, so I feel like I have more support). When I actually start writing a first draft, I have a very strange and inefficient process: I write everything by hand on blank white pieces of paper, front and back. I keep those pages in a folder, and don’t input anything into the computer until I’m done with the whole script. I don’t know why I started working this way, but I find it does a few things for me: first, I never have a real sense of what page I’m on, so I’m a little freer to experiment; second, I can’t really go back to rewrite (since it would get messy), so I end up moving forward without looking over my shoulder; and third, I end up writing a very, very long first draft. When I input the script, it’s almost invariably 40-50 pages too long, which forces me to be ruthless about cutting. I eliminate anything that isn’t absolutely necessary, because I’m fighting page count. It’s a good exercise. It forces me to justify every line.

Have you written or would you ever want to write a 'small personal film', and if so, how would you approach it differently than a Hollywood blockbuster? - Ed

I would love to write a smaller film, if only because I think it would come with a different set of challenges, and teach me new lessons about filmmaking. But honestly, I am writing “personal” films. These are the movies I grew up loving, these are the movies I dream about, and these are the movies that come out of me when I sit down to write. There is very little strategy to the subjects I choose. I just write what I love.

Do you take a different approach when writing something that already has a history and fan base like Sherlock Holmes or X-Men? How different is it from something you thought up all on your own? - Chad

The only difference in approach is research. When it comes to something like Holmes or X-Men that has generated so much literature, I try to read everything humanly possible to immerse myself in that world, to learn the rules of the universe and the essence of the characters. Then I put the books away, and do what I would do with an original idea: I build the story from the ground up. I start with the characters and try to find the emotional journey of the story. Then I build scenes and sequences to dramatize that journey. For instance, with Holmes, the whole movie was about Watson getting married, moving on, and Holmes needing to come to terms with that fact. Of course, there’s a big murder mystery and supernatural elements, but the core of the movie is about a friendship that will either evolve or end. And that’s the tension of the film. On X3, we started with the idea of Dark Phoenix. The central emotional journey (for all the characters) was how they dealt with the loss of Jean. The movie is really about coming to peace with the death of someone you love. That’s Wolverine’s journey. By the end of the film, he needs to let go of Jean, so he can move on with his life.

On an original script like Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the process is not that different. I start from the emotional journey of the characters, then I build out the action and plot. That film is very simply the story of a broken marriage that heals. It’s all about the things that debilitate a marriage – secrets, lies, separate lives. And when those things are exposed, a couple is forced to deal with each other, and they either break up or come together. The movie could have been Kramer vs Kramer or Ordinary People, but it just so happens I’m an action writer, so I dramatized their marital conflict with fist-fights and guns and explosives.

What are your thoughts about getting your work seen through web content? To what degree is it possible to leverage that kind of experience in a more professional context? Some examples are Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog" or Felicia Day's "The Guild"? - Matthew

Honestly, I know almost nothing about this. I saw “Dr Horrible,” and I watch Josh Schwartz’s show “Rockville” because I’m a fan of his work. But I don’t know how the business or machinery operates. It’s certainly a good platform to capture eyeballs, and production value is less critical, so you can break through with a micro-budgeted project.

What would you say are the differences in character development between a character driven comedy like Date Night and an action film like X-Men? - Tim

I would say there isn’t much difference. I really do believe that good action films start with great characters. I grew up in a particularly rich era for character-driven genre films (the 80s). I grew up with Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Terminator, Raiders, Star Wars, Jaws, Alien, 48 Hours. Those films all had classic, specific, nuanced characters that were as indelible as any drama. I actually think we’re going through another great period for character-driven genre films. Look at Star Trek, Iron Man, Batman, the Bourne series. They all have incredibly well-crafted, sophisticated characters.

I really believe all good stories start from the same place: interesting characters in an emotionally charged situation. For me, the difference between drama and genre is this: in dramas, you have relatable characters in a relatable situation, whereas in genre films you have relatable characters in an unrelatable situation (fighting ghosts or robots or giant sharks, etc…). But you have to relate to the characters. Even if they’re spies or jedis or globe-trotting archaeologists, they need to be as flawed and human and vulnerable as you and me. If they’re not, then the movie can never be great. All the bells and whistles in the world can’t hide weak characters.

I will say one difference between Date Night and X-Men is that a lot of the comedy in Date Night comes from just how absurd it is to have a boring suburban couple in an action movie. That tension doesn’t exist in X-Men. Actually, the inverse is true for something like X-Men or Mr. & Mrs. Smith: the tension and comedy come from having these extraordinary people in a boring suburban context (like assassins talking about the drapes, or a mutant superhero having to teach a high-school class).

Do you envision specific actors in the rolls of your characters as you are writing your stories? - Marilyn

Well, sometimes I have no choice, like if I’m writing a sequel or a film that’s already cast (as in the case of Downey and Sherlock). But when I’m writing an original script from the ground up, I don’t visualize actors. I may visualize certain aspects of actors for different facets of a character – like a character who has Tom Cruise’s intensity or Will Smith’s swagger. Those actors are points of reference for me. Like colors of paint, I guess. You can use different colors to create an original character. But I also think about people I know.

How do you determine both the timing and quantity of a character's backstory to reveal, as well as those key tidbits of info that serve as the setup for important developments in the 2nd and 3rd acts? - Akai Draco

I tend to overwrite backstory in first drafts, then slowly and surely trim it down in subsequent drafts. I do an exercise before I start writing a script, where I write little bios for the main characters. Nothing elaborate. I just think about major moments in their lives. Their first kiss. Their first love. The first time they experienced death. Life-defining moments. Sometimes I’ll write these scenes. Most of these moments won’t ever end up in the script, but they help me get to know the characters. The more you know your characters, the less you need to be explicit with their backstory in the script. It should infuse everything about them; we should intuit it from the way they act without somebody having to stop the movie to give a monologue about how they felt when their mother died. For me, the best movies are told in present tense, not past tense. So I try to find ways for the character’s history to inform their present behavior.