In an interview with The Costco Connection, Will Forte – an eight-year vet of Saturday Night Live – talks about his experience working with Bruce Dern in the movie “Nebraska.” When asked what he learned from Bruce Dern, Will answered, “Bruce would always give me this advice: ‘Be in the moment. Just find the truth of the scene.’ I’m not a trained actor, so that just seemed like drama school hogwash, but the further we got into the movie, it really made a lot of sense to me, and then I started thinking, maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do in comedy too. The truths might be very different, the levels of reality might be different, but you have to commit 100 percent either way.”
Note from Marlene: I think this is true with writing also. When “the truth of the scene” is conveyed, writing is strong and readers feel a visceral reaction.
Excellent resource book for writing good scenes: Make A Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld.
