284 | Oh.What.Fun Writer Chandler Baker On Going From Novel To Screenwriting

Chandler Baker joins us to talk about her hilarious and heartfelt Christmas adventure, "Oh. What. Fun."

Chandler has worn many hats in her life. She walks us through her journey of being a lawyer turned New York Times Bestselling novelist, and now an acclaimed screenwriter.

To finish off the episode, Chandler reveals to Lorien her devout listenership to TSL!

Episode Transcript

Lorien: Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Lorien McKenna, and today I'm joined by Chandler Baker, a corporate attorney turned New York Times bestselling novelist, turned screenwriter, showrunner, and producer in 2024. She was named one of Variety's 10 screenwriters to watch. her first feature film.

Her first feature film, “Oh. What. Fun.”, adapted from her short story and co-written with Michael Showalter premiered on Amazon Prime Video last December. Chandler is also adapting her short story, Discretion, into a series for Paramount Plus, after a five network bidding war with Nicole Kidman and El Fanning attached to star and A24 producing. Chandler will serve as co showrunner and executive producer alongside Susanna Grant.

Chandler's additional projects include the feature adaptation of her short story, Big Bad, for Chris Landon, the HBO adaptation of her Reese's Book Club Pick novel, Whisper Network, and the Amazon MGM Plan B adaptation of her novel, The Husbands, with Kristin Wig attached to star and produce. Her novel, Cutting Teeth, is being developed for series at Bad Robot and Warner Brothers and her first spec pilot landed at Apple through Sony TV.

Welcome to the show, Chandler.

Chandler: Thank you so much for having me. This is really such a treat for me.

Lorien: What I. So love and admire about your story is that it wasn't an overnight success. You didn't just write a movie and then boom, there it was on Amazon. And that it's about discipline and curiosity and how you've had to learn the craft sort of.

From the ground up on your own in a little bit. So I wanna talk about that. But before we get into that, we're gonna talk about our weeks or what we like to call adventures in screenwriting. And I'll go first. Today, my week, today, my week. That's a great start, right? I'm clearly in the present right now.

So my week had, did not turn out like I expected at all. I had big plans at the beginning of the week to get a certain project done, and then I got. Another project in unexpectedly that I had to do notes on and I have to deliver, and then something else came up. And the last couple of months I've been in this space trying to figure out how do I move forward and maybe that's what's next, or is there a shift or a pivot?

And I haven't really been able to figure it out. And I've been doing all the exercises focused on optimism. Like, what do I wanna be doing and how do I see myself and who's there? And I realized that doesn't work for me. I needed to go back to what don't I wanna be doing? What makes me uncomfortable and I could do that and be successful if I learned this whole new thing that disrupts how I see myself and where I'm uncomfortable.

So I was like, okay, I just made a big list of all the things I don't wanna do. And it was a sort of shocking and upsetting realization about. The direction I wanna go into. And I'm very scared and I know you've been there.

Chandler: Mm-hmm. Yes, of course.

Lorien: I love that this came together when I'm talking to you and I feel like my identity is disrupted, my priorities, how to communicate this to people if I want to, and how do I actually do it?

And so I'm, it's not that, I mean, I'm still a writer. I'm in a write, but it's big and I'm scared. Excited, which I know is the right feeling, right, but scared.

Chandler: Did you feel like you were accident? Like when you made that list of things you don't wanna be doing, did you feel like you had accidentally been like moving in directions that you had not intended and so now you're trying to pivot?

Lorien: I feel like I was like so committed to doing something. I was like, this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm doing. This is what I need to learn, and this is how I need to get better at it and how I'm gonna focus and how I'm gonna get the skills. And then I realized I don't like this whole section of it.

It's not me. Right. I will feel. Inauthentic and it will be more of a struggle than it will be the joy of doing it. Is that familiar?

Chandler: Yeah. Yes. That's tough. Uhhuh. Yeah, I mean, I've done my third career, so.

Lorien: Yeah. So I wanna get into that, but how was your week?

Chandler: So I have been in a writer's room since beginning of December, and we have been in person, which has been so lovely.

But last week was our last official week of the in-person room, and this week we moved. To zoom. So mostly it has been really great to be back with my family. I have been commuting between LA and Austin, Texas where I live. I have two small children and a husband. And so it's been really good to like tap back into our normal life and be there.

And that's been really wonderful despite this like huge freeze in Texas that has kind of thrown us all off.

Lorien: Yeah.

Chandler: But also like we had such a special. We have such, such a special group of writers and it's been such a great time, and being in person has been so lovely and we miss being together. So this week I've been, you know, finding, I guess my new rhythm of how that's gonna be.

We're at this stage where outlines are coming in sort of at a clip and I have multiple drafts to read and respond to. And this is my first time show running. So I am finding out what works for me. What doesn't, trying to bring things like exercise back into my life.

Lorien: Oh yeah. That's the first thing that goes right.

Chandler: Oh my gosh. First thing that goes.

Lorien: It’s like, I'll just get started. I'll just answer this one email and then I'll jump on my bike or whatever. And then you're like, oh, it's five o'clock. Shit.

Chandler: I did it. I did it today again. So, you know, so easier said than done, but that's my goal for myself, I guess going into next week is.

To keep working on finding some balance.

Lorien: Just start with one day. One day next week, you're gonna do it. And if you don't do it that day, you'll do it the next like one day. I mean, that's what I always, that's what I tell writers too, that are struggling 10 minutes for one day next week. That's all you're gonna do.

That's what you're committing to. Anything else is a bonus, right? Me doing that for myself though is a bonkers idea. Why would I need to do it every day or I'm a failure.

Chandler: Right, right. I, at least being home, have gotten back my walking treadmill. So I always walk while I write when I'm, you know, here at my home office, which I love.

Lorien: How do you walk and write p like logistically, practically? How does that work?

Chandler: It is an acquired taste, I think. I really think it is meditative, like in the way that you come up with the best ideas while you're in the shower or driving and your mind's like a little bit occupied on something else. I actually think it kind of works like that, is that I walk and I just have my computer up on a stand and do it.

So yeah.

Lorien: All right, so you started as a corporate attorney. Went to law school, all the things what drew you to that when you were younger? Like, I'm gonna go to law school. What was the push into that for you?

Chandler: I mean, I certainly didn't know that being a writer was something that one could grow up to be.

I don't think I had a very expansive view of careers that were open to me. I. A very good student. I think in general I am quite risk averse, so it felt like this very safe career that had very clear, logical steps that I could. Check off and do, I also, my parents always really drilled into me that they would love for me to have something to fall back on, even if I stepped away from work for something.

So they always liked the appeal of a professional degree for me. And I just kept following the steps all the way through, you know, college, into law school and yeah. And then that's how I found myself as a corporate attorney.

Lorien: And how long did you do that before you were starting to like, ooh, there could be something else?

Chandler: Oh, immediately, yes, I was looking for an exit ramp, I think pretty quickly, but I don't know that I had a sense that it could be a viable one. I just wanted to be able to do both. So I started writing my junior year of college. I graduated. A semester early to try to write full time while I taught the lsat.

And I got a book agent my first semester of law school. So I was sort of following the steps to trying to figure out how to get published. And going through law school simultaneously. And I started ghost writing for existing middle grade series while I was in law school. And that was kind of how I earned some extra money, which was just a really great sort of boot camps on how to write a lot with a limited amount of time and.

How to work off an outline and do all of those things.

Lorien: So that takes though, like writing is a thing I wanna do, doing an investigation, finding it, tracking down those opportunities. So when did you want to be a writer but dismissed it as a career? Like to make money?

Chandler: I was always a huge reader growing up.

I wasn't a huge writer, though. I was a huge journaler, and I think I did something in college called National Novel Writing Months which is a thing that happens every November. It's an online community where, you know, you try to write a novel in the month of November. My, I had a girlfriend that said that she wanted to run a marathon before she graduated.

I said I wanted to write a book before I graduated. We both committed to doing that, and it was really just once I had written that book, which was terrible and I never looked at again that I thought, okay, I really want to just do the research of like, what would be the steps of, you know, how does one get something published?

And then started to kind of piece together as I went, how it could be an actual career.

Lorien: Wow. So how many books have you written?

Chandler: I have published nine in my name, and then before that I think I ghost written four. Okay.

Lorien: Do you have a pen name too?

Chandler: Well, I don't have a pen name, but when you write for these, like they're called book packages a lot of those really long running series like sweet Valley High type series have an author's name on it.

That's not anyone. They just have the name and everybody writes under that name.

Lorien: Like VC Andrews, right?

Chandler: Yes, exactly. So, so I was writing like installments in existing series for a fictional author. 

Lorien: Okay. Oh, that's cool. And then you're writing books and it just magically happens.

Chandler:  Oh, magic.

Lorien: Get on the New York Best Times Seller list and you're like, oh my God.

And book Talk is in love with you. Write that whole thing. And then when were you starting to think and like, do you remember the moment like, I wanna write for the screens.

Chandler: Yeah. Well, I mean, to back up, it certainly wasn't, I mean, I know you're saying it tongue in cheek.

Lorien: I know I'm being very glib.

Chandler: But to be fair to people listening, my book that hit the New York Times bestseller list was marketed as my debut novel because it was my adult debut, but it was my sixth book that was published. And so, you know, a lot of times when they're marketing these big pushes for people, they wanna make it sound new and like you just arrived and you know that it happened like that.

And I'm like keenly aware that I had, you know, I had published a lot of novels before I had that breakout novel. And then after that, after I had that I didn't immediately know I wanted to write for the screen. I was always interested in it. Again, kind of had to learn the steps, but I was in the process.

That book had been optioned, the one that first hit the New York Times Best Seller List. That book had been optioned. And it went through sort of a lot of writers. I was not very involved in the process, but my understanding was writers came in to pitch, writers knew were attached, fell off and ended up, you know, selling to a streamer and still, you know, not kind of, kind of landing the right take.

And at one point I thought, well, I could adapt it. But. It was for series, which is much harder for somebody that has never done it. 'cause you would still have to get a showrunner. It was also a different time. This was many years ago. So it, there just wasn't a path forward for me to adapt it myself.

But I did think, okay, next time that I have a book that's going to be optioned, I am going to make sure that I am attached to it from the beginning because I would just rather. You know, die by my own hand than like waiting for somebody, you know, waiting for nothing to happen. And I trust myself to at least do the work and get it done right.

So, so that's what I did. So when I had The Husbands which is still in development at Amazon now, I just made sure that I was attached from the beginning to write it. And that's really how I got my start.

Lorien: That's awesome. And then your movie, Oh. What. Fun.. Which has an amazing cast, by the way.

Chandler: It does have an amazing cast.

Lorien: What is happening over there? So that was awesome. And that was your f So your debut film, feature film, is it the first feature film you wrote though?

Chandler: It was not, I had already written the script for The Husbands. I had written, I think it was my second feature that I had written though.

I had written another pilot for sure on spec. And then it was probably my second feature that I had written.

Lorien: Well, congratulations. It's amazing, right?

Chandler: Thank you. Yes, it was great. It was a great experience. It felt like it all came together really fast. I mean, at least in this world, you know, fast is…

Lorien: Under 10 years, then it's fast, right?

Chandler: So fast.

When did Michael Showalter come on as a co-writer on it with you? Because it's based on a short story. And as we all know, short stories and novels are not movies. So they changes have to happen. So when did he join you on the project?

Chandler: He came on really early on. We had, I had the short story, I had a pitch, but we met with him very early and he just really got it instantly and we just really got along just brainstorming together what it would be.

I think we both move at like a very similar clip. We liked to work fast and very intentionally, and so we just really enjoyed the process of like. Breaking it together and drafting quickly, and ended up writing that script on spec together.

Lorien: That's awesome.

Chandler: Mm-hmm.

Lorien: What did he bring to it that you were like, oh, like I know you've written before and you'd written other things, but was there a point where you're like, oh, that's how it's different than a story or, oh, that's why we have to make that choice that I don't love or something about that like structure in a movie.

Chandler: Yeah. I think I was surprised, not surprised, but just how intentional he is about structure. I mean, we weekly talked a lot about even like save the Cat, like we talked about, you know, what marks we were hitting and win at least to start out with. And of course, you know, we moved away from that as it went.

I think. He was really helpful and great about thinking about the ensemble nature of it because that was, I mean, it's one thing to write a feature, which I had done before, but when you're writing something with a lot of spinning plates, and that's kind of one of the things that attracted to him about to the project in the first place was creating this family.

Christmas movie about a family where there was going to be this big ensemble cast and giving everybody a goal and servicing all those storylines and keeping them, you know, all in motion and up in the air. And that comes with a really high degree of difficulty and a certain ambitious to it. And he was just really he's very quick minded.

And he was a huge asset in that regard.

Lorien: So awesome. There's that moment in your movie when it's after the TV show and the spoiler alert, don't listen to this if you haven't seen the movie yet. She goes, she's on the TV show and her family comes to join her and it's all happy for the cameras.

And then she walks away and she's like, mom's out. Fuck you. That doesn't count. And I was like, yes. That you don't get just to show up and say, I'm sorry, you have to. You have to recognize that is a real thing. That moment really spoke to me. 'cause I was like, oh no, is they're just all gonna get back together 'cause they, you know, I was like, no, she needs, and then I was like, oh, thank God she's still doing it.

And it was, it's so important to have movies like this and TV shows like this that show the reality of that like emotional labor and. It's just hard. I'm having a particularly emotionally laborious week myself, so you know.

Chandler: Me too!

Lorien: The point is that moment when Michelle Pfeiffer is like, no, and like that's not enough.

You know? Showing up isn't enough. You have to show up and prove it. 

Chandler: Yeah.

Lorien: We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show.

Chandler: To show up and prove it. You have to actually appreciate what happened and why it bothered me so much like what it is underneath, because obviously being forgotten. Is symbolic to Michelle Pfeiffer's character of a larger issue. It's not the being forgotten itself, it's that it speaks to a larger, you know, thing of being overlooked for her.

Lorien: I also think it's what's important in the story and how it relates to women writers, not all writers, but women writers, is that she. Was, you know, invisible because she allowed herself, it was like an expected thing and then she found comfort and safety in that role until she didn't. Right. That we allow ourselves to be small or do all the emotional labor because it feels good, 'cause we're good at it.

Chandler: Yeah.

Lorien: And then there, there becomes a crisis point where it's like, wait. This isn't enough or working, I don't, do you agree with that or do you disagree with that?

Chandler: Oh, I absolutely agree with that. I mean, yes, I think the point to me was never that she doesn't like doing it for her family, that she, you know, absolutely finds joy and serving her family and making moments special.

But you know, we all need to see our efforts, you know, appreciated and, to feel like they're noticed and seen, and to your point, sharing with each other and having these moments of true connection where we see each other. I think that in my work, you know, gender roles and what it feels like to be a woman today are just big touchstones, thematically for me throughout all my projects.

And when I started out writing you know, the first six books I wrote did not touch on all that, any of that at all. They were not that I don't love those books, but I felt like I actually found an audience when I was really putting personal feelings about motherhood and being a working mother, and being a woman and just trying to be as specific about sharing.

You know, my, my deep dark confessions and putting them in my work and and I feel like that's when I really started to see a response and get some traction is by being willing to do that.

Lorien: There's such a, an interesting arc to your journey, right? It's like. Safety satisfying other people's expectations then, but wait, there's this other thing I wanna do.

I'll try this out. Okay. Then you said you were risk adverse at the beginning, but I think you're the opposite. You just are doing it in a way that's. Feels safer for you at the time. It's like a slow go in, right? I'll write five novels and then I'll show myself in my book, right? I'll try a movie and then I'll do, right.

That, that is that you have a strategic way to do this so that you aren't just jumping off a cliff. Although it may feel like that to you, but I, it's such an interesting way to which I think is good for a lot of emerging writers or people who have those full-time jobs and they're like, when should I quit?

It's like, you don't, you squeeze out the time and you sort of slide your way into it. It's just another path. Which I admire that a lot. It's hard.

Chandler: I think that's such a good. Reframe. Yes. 'cause it obviously is a risk. Anytime you're putting yourself out there at any time, you're doing something creative.

But I think for me to be creative and to take creative risks, I've had to feel safe, financially, and safe, like with my family and know that we were taken care of. Otherwise, I think I would have been risk averse in the wrong areas. It would've been risk averse in the actual art I was trying to create.

As opposed to, you know, with our sort of stability. So yes, I am a big proponent of the day job and holding onto it as long as physically possible. I know not everyone works the same and not all of our brains work the same. It doesn't work for everybody. But I always feel like I hear a lot of angst from people about like, oh, well I still have a day job.

I still I'm like, that's great because. There's that Elizabeth Gilbert quote, I think from Big Magic. Have you ever read Big Magic?

Lorien: Mm-hmm. Yes.

Chandler: Yeah. It's so great about like how we should support our art. We shouldn't expect our art to support us, and for as long as we can do that, I am in favor of it.

Lorien: Yes. I think the most terrifying time of my life is when I became a full-time writer and I didn't have a job, and now I'm like, oh no. What do I do with my. Oh no. All these hours I'm supposed to be filling it with writing time and I found all kinds of stuff to do instead. Still do, right?

Chandler: Oh my gosh, yes.

Yes. I mean, that was a huge thing for me is after I left working, practicing law full time and to write, I said, you know, I'll give myself two years and if it doesn't work, I can go back. But it was really more about creating the, like once I didn't have the structure of a day job. I was like, am I getting more done or am I just getting the same done?

Like, like how do you create the structure in your day to make this feel like a job that fits inside certain parameters and is sustainable and all of those things. It's very tricky.

Lorien: So now that you are a full-time screen writer, showrunner, producer, right? Do you carve out time now to write novels at all?

Chandler: I'm trying for the first time in my life, I have a novel that's late.

Lorien: You kind of have a good excuse though. “Hold on. I'm doing six different projects in Hollywood.” I mean, maybe?

Chandler: I like to think it's a rising tides lifts all ships situation, I hope. But yes, I am just, I'm someone that like always meets my deadlines and always.

Always have take them very seriously. So, you know, I it's just not happening this time, but I am gonna write another one. Also, I just, I, as part of my process, I tend to like write a full book that I throw out basically, and then write a different one between each book. And so I did go through that process of basically writing a novel that I just don't think was the right thing.

Then sort of in the interim of going to the next iteration, I, a lot came up.

Lorien: You didn't sit down to write that novel that you were gonna throw up, throw out. You just wrote it. Yeah. So you wrote it with the intention of like, this is a book I'm writing, or did you know I'm just getting this down and out?

Chandler: I think it's I mean it as I'm writing it, but when I'm on, when I am. Being really honest with myself, sometimes in those situations I like, there's something about it that's not quite clicking or that's not quite exciting me the way that it really should, even from the outset. I don't know.

I've become a lot more gentle with myself over the years of like just not feeling that creativity is supposed to be optimized for efficiency and just accepting that. Sometimes I write full books that I don't wanna look at again, and that's okay.

Lorien: Wow. What are you using from what you've learned about screenwriting and show running, and how do you turn that off so you can focus on the novel as a format?

Do you?

Chandler: Yeah. I mean, I think you're an outliner. Yes?

Lorien: No.

Chandler: No. You're not an outliner? Okay. I should know this. I should know this.

Lorien: I mean, I'm trying, I keep getting, I keep bullying myself to do it, and I, I. But I'm writing a cult horror feature right now and I have to outline it because it's a, it, you know, and then I'm halfway through a book and I had to outline it 'cause it's complicated and I had to get to the end before I could write, but it's hard.

Chandler: Yeah.

Lorien: So, yes, I guess I am, which is annoying 'cause I always thought of myself as not. So, go ahead.

Chandler: Novels. I have never been an outliner. I just start and I write, and then if I have to throw things out, then I throw it out and I just, I learn from having written it. And then I think 'cause screenwriting is so much more collaborative and there's so many more, you know, people that want to be involved in the process earlier, outlining is necessary to share with people.

So I am right now, like with novels, my instinct is to carry over the outlining process to the novels. And I'm not I can't tell whether that is the right instinct or not, or whether my process is just different for each medium.

Lorien: It works for you or not. Then you know if it's right, right?

Chandler: Right! Yes.

Lorien: Do you, are you writing your books now or the, like with a, this could be adapted, so I'm gonna put things that would work in a movie?

Chandler: That started to be a process really. With my first book that was optioned that I didn't get to adapt. I really started trying to think with an eye towards adaptation and just thinking a little bit more serious cinematically in scenes that I could see on screen.

So certainly that's. Everything that I write in the prose is something that I want to consider being able to adapt for screen a hundred percent.

Lorien: Oh, well that's a lot to think about, but then you just sink into it and you write. So it's kind of like there.

Chandler: I have always been drawn to sort of high concept commercial hooks in either medium.

Like I just like a one-liner that. Has an engine. So that part hasn't changed a ton for me just in terms of what I'm drawn to naturally.

Lorien: So how do you come up with those high concepts? When you're walking on your treadmill and you're writing how do you know when it hits, when it clicks, when it's like that's a high concept?

Chandler: Well, I often come at my ideas, I think a little backwards. I often come at about, come at them through same and something that I'm interested in talking about. So a big part of my process is. Talking to my friends about what they're thinking about and I'll do it like sort of across points in my life.

I will text my high school friends, I'll talk to my college friends, I'll talk to my law school friends, I'll talk to my mom friends and really just have conversations with people. The Husbands, for instance, was, you know, is a gender flipped Stepford wives about the division of domestic labor and modern marriages.

And-

Lorien: I haven't read it, but now I'm going to. It sounds delicious.

Chandler: And it was really about conversations that came out of my previous book, whisper Network. It was really about women feeling their glass ceiling is not necessarily their workplace, but instead their domestic responsibilities. And they couldn't shirk those.

So they found themselves stepping back from work responsibilities to focus at home. And then I worked backwards into like, okay, if I wanted to find a high concept way to explore this issue, what would be like the most fun way to do it? And that's how I came up with. With The Husbands and out of those conversations around The Husbands, I started asking moms, okay, what's like your highest points of stress?

Where are you feeling like these pain points at home? And so many women told me. The holidays, like the holidays are the most stressful thing for us. We feel so much pressure to make the magic happen. And then I started thinking about, okay, what's a way that I could have explored that? Well, what if a mom is the one that gets home alone from, you know, an event that she planned around the holidays and she goes missing, so even though I work sort of across genres, I feel like they all stem out of each other. Just natural conversations I'm having with my friends and peers.

Lorien: I love that it's such a beautiful way to explore what you've already done and pivot into the next step of that story. So I don't know, it's a really lovely way to think about your process and creativity and connecting with other people who are not necessarily writers.

You're just talking about things you care about with other people, and then finding the pain point and the comedy and how you can really explore that story in a grounded, realistic way that speaks to people. It's really lovely. So, what did you think was the most surprising thing going from being a writer, writing novels by yourself, essentially, to being in a showrunner of a TV show? Surprising good and surprising bad.

Chandler: Really, so far it's been pretty surprising. Good. On this show you know, as a novelist, you are really in the trenches by yourself. And if there's a problem, you have got to fix it with your own. Brain. So I think to me it's been so lovely to just have more collaboration.

To have all these writers in a room that want to help you figure it out, that have the same questions and you know, want to really drill down on answers and are willing to spend a lot of time on it. That is such an incredible gift. Joy and I think allows for such deep thinking. And I mean, it is so much to hold in your brain, a TV show.

And I think when you're show running, you have to be the person that is holding it in your brain the most and constantly. Asking yourself. I think as a novelist, the whole vision is yours, right from start to finish. Your editor comes in, gives you notes but as you let ideas in and running a TV show, you're hearing wonderful ideas from people all the time, but you kind of.

I've found for me, just have to keep asking myself over and over going, is this the show? Is it not? The show? Is this idea the show? Is it not? It could be a good idea, but is it the show? And just learning how to be, you know, decisive about that and check in with my gut over and over again about what feels right for the show.

And thankfully writers, you know, working on this show are just very supportive of that process and of that vision. And want to make sure we have the voice in the show too. But, it's a different skillset.

Lorien: So you're working with Susanna Grant?

Chandler: Yes.

Lorien: Showrunning with her.

She's awesome. We were lucky enough to have her on the show. What have you learned from her? Like, like something that you were like, oh wow, that's amazing. I mean, other than that she's amazing.

Chandler: She is amazing. So many things. Let's see. I think. I very thankfully, I think she is somebody that does not like to work in chaos and that is the type of person that I wanted to work with.

She is like as cool as a cucumber at every moment when we have had, we had a very tight turnaround to pitching the show and selling it when she came on. And she was just like, it's okay. We can do it. We'll get it done. Like every step she is just like, yep, we'll get it done. And that's just a really nice North Star to have.

Lorien: Sounds dreamy.

Chandler: Mm-hmm. And then I think just on a craft standpoint, sometimes, you know, we both have different little tricks for us. Her trick that sometimes she turns to is you know, if you have a character doing something or we would expect their reaction to be one thing, have them do the opposite

Like what happens then? And that's, that's gotten us unstuck.

Lorien: That's great advice. Because it's, 'cause we think, oh well this character would do that. When you're writing, you think, okay, well what if they don't turn away when there's no one there? They bust down the door.

Chandler: Yeah, exactly.

Lorien: Figure out why later.

Chandler: Yes. Yeah, exactly. Figure out the reason why. Have them bust down the door. So it's great. She has such like a wealth of. Knowledge and institutional knowledge about how to do this job.

Lorien: How did you connect with her?

Chandler: A24 connected us. Oh, awesome. So, and I think it was somebody that Nicole Kidman's company Blossom that they had been very excited about trying to find a project with for a while.

So they felt really good about it, about her, about Susanna and I, she was one of the people I met with and I just really felt very calmed by her, which is how I wanted to feel.

Lorien: We will be right back. Welcome back to the show.

So at the beginning we talked a lot about, well, your career has been these transitions. You said you're on your third career and I feel like I'm in, I'm bridging something to go somewhere right now, but I need to be able to say, I'm doing this, not I'm thinking of doing this. So when you were exploring doing these different pieces, there was probably a crisis point where you were like, okay, I am doing it.

Like I'm quitting my job as a lawyer. I'm putting my novel career a little bit on the, you know, I'm doing the books, but I'm also gonna focus more of my time here. Who did you talk to? How did you know in the knowing place that it was the thing you were gonna do? When we talk about the lava and how to protect yourself from it is you have to be in a safe place in order to access the lava so you can have the safe place to come out of.

So like having money in the bank having the support of your family, being in an environment you feel comfortable in, right?

Chandler: Yeah. I mean, I really do know that feeling so well of like needing to speak it and to keep saying it. For it to be true or for you to be okay with maybe making it true? I too am a verbal processor, so I spoke to everyone.

I mean, I feel like anyone that I could talk to, I would just hash it out with them because I have to know when I'm making a move like that, that I'm really, that I understand the reasons that I've made it so that when it doesn't go well, if it doesn't go well, if something happens, if I hit a road bump.

That I can look back and say, wait, these are the, I thought through this. These are the reasons that I did this. My husband and I are intentionally very slow decision makers and that we like to wait until a decision becomes clear. And for me, I was, you know, when I left being a lawyer, I was about to go out on book tour.

I was. I believe pregnant with our second child. I was working full-time as a lawyer and it just became totally untenable. And we had talked about it and we had talked about it and I was driving up to, I worked for a satellite office, so I was driving up to Dallas from Austin to go tell my bosses I would, I need to work.

I need to reduce my hours. And on the way up, I just called my husband. I was like, I think I just need to leave. Like, I think this is just it. This is, you know, we can't do this. And because we talked about it so much and because we'd verbally processed it so much, that felt okay to be able to reach that final conclusion on the road, on the way up to have a certain conversation with my bosses.

So I get it. I think like there's nothing wrong with wanting to really talk it through with people being slow to make the decision, because it'll just make you feel more confident in it when you make it. But at some point, I also realize you have to just jump and then it's just, it's a little bit like free fall, and when it's done, you'll feel okay, but it's tough.

Lorien: How do you manage or do you care that other people's expectations about what you're doing, like their attachment to what you were doing, their attachment to you being a lawyer…

Is that it concern for you at all? Has it been when you've been doing these things?

Chandler: I wish it wasn't a concern for me. I think it took a really long time to identify as a writer after I left to being a lawyer.

I think when people ask me what I did, even after I'd left, I think I might've said lawyer for. Quite a while until it felt completely inaccurate and I didn't know, you know, what else to do because I think there is that fear. I think you only care about what those expectations are when you're feeling a little unsettled in, in the decision.

And I think everyone's gonna feel un unsettled at the beginning of that journey, regardless. There's just, there's a transition period. So I'm not sure that feeling can be avoided. I think you just have to embrace that feeling is going to be there and that you have to live side by side with it until it goes away, and then eventually it becomes normal and something that you worry about less. I think. That's my experience.

Lorien: I love this. Having, listening to your story and your process, I, it's do the work. It's always do the work. Dammit.

Chandler: I used to be very scared. I think even I wanted to be a novelist so, so, so badly. Like with all of my being, I wanted to be published and I wanted to figure it out and it just, it was.

I could not imagine a future where that wasn't like my number one goal in life. And then now here I am. And then when I started to really become interested in screenwriting, I felt this like, wait, am I changing as a person? Am I like, am I leaving something behind that I thought was completely core to who I was and.

If that's true, does that mean I'm going to eventually be the feel the same about screenwriting? And I think the great news about storytelling in general is that for me, at least, as long as I could make a career as a storyteller, and you know, doing something in the vein like that all feels like it feeds off of each other.

It feels like a deepening of knowledge of a subject matter, not, you know. Just skipping around and not having a commitment. So, but I do recognize that feeling of what does this mean about who I am?

Lorien: So obviously I could talk to you forever. We have to wrap it up with our questions, the end of our episode questions.

So here's our craft question for you. What are the elements of a good scene?

Chandler: Well, I am working on a legal show right now, so maybe. This Mike Nichols quote is looming more largely in my mind than usual, but Mike Nichols has the quote that every scene is one of three things, you know, a seduction negotiation or a fight.

I find that to be very helpful scaffolding when I'm looking at like what will make a scene tick. And I think the reason is because when you pick one of those three buckets, a seduction negotiation or a fight. It ends with some kind of shift of dynamics, a power shift of some sort which is always kind of what I want out of my favorite scenes.

Ideally I'd love for something unexpected to happen, which is not random, just a line that lands harder than intend Did someone answers, you know, a question with honesty when you'd expect them to do a lie? Like it doesn't need to be big, but. I think most importantly for me, there was this novelist when I started writing named Susan De, and she taught, she teaches writing, and she always talked about how every scene should have a magic cookie, and which just means like, what is the thing in that scene that makes you most excited to write it, right?

Like, what are you writing tour? What's like the little reward, whether it's like witty banter or like a moment of violence, like whatever gets you really excited to write towards it. Like that's your dangling reward, the magic cookie. So for me, I'm just always asking myself, what is the magic cookie of a scene, which could be a million different things.

And until I have the magic cookie, then I don't feel like I'm ready to write the scene.

Lorien: What brings you the most joy when it comes to your writing?

Chandler: Finishing a project for sure. Like be anything, A novel script like I just think it is. Such a euphoric feeling that you like climbed this mountain. Even if you might be standing at the bottom of it again tomorrow.

Like, I just love that we get to do something where you get this sense that if you work hard and you chip away at a pro, a problem, like eventually you can get there. It's just, it's great. It's a really great feeling.

Lorien: What pisses you off about writing?

Chandler: The opposite? I guess? when I begin a project, that first moment that I get stuck, I experience such blind panic.

Like I feel that I have tricked multiple layers of people into believing that I should write said project. It doesn't matter how many times I have been there before. I remind myself that it's okay, that I'm fine, that I'll figure it out, but like the panic is there and it's completely sincere, and then I get to the end, I'm like, wow, that was dramatic.

Like why was I so dramatic about that?

Lorien: Totally relatable. If you could have coffee with your younger self, what advice would you give her?

Chandler: I guess just that you never know, which thing you write will be the thing that propels your career forward. I feel like I've had. Disappointments and successes, and you just, you can't engineer sort of either one of those.

And so to me that is just being able to keep writing what interests you, because every piece of writing, I think that you complete is such a gift, and it's an opportunity and it's a seed that gets planted that you actually don't know when it will sprout. So I've definitely had things that like, felt like a failure, like felt like a seismic shift in the moment that I was so.

Sad about, and then, you know, something can come of it years later and you're just so glad that you took the time in that part of your life to do that piece of writing. So yeah, I would just say, just don't worry about one project in particular too much.

Lorien: What is your proudest career moment to date?

Chandler: When Oh. What. Fun. came out we had an Austin screening that both of my kids got to come to.

And they just loved the movie so much. My son watched Oh. What. Fun. every day of December. I think he would like turn it on the television, like just genuinely. He's six, just genuinely from his little heart, he just really loved it and I just think that is so special to have had something that I could share with them.

I know it's not a hundred percent appropriate for kids. Like don't come at me. But-

Lorien: He's a writer son. Look.

Chandler: He's a writer son. Exactly. He really is. And this is great too. I was saying before we started recording that as part of my process of going from novelist to to screenwriter, I just really wanted to be like a good student about all of it and treat this as a medium.

In its own right. I listen to every single episode of the Screenwriting Life. I listen to every episode of script notes, like those were my two. Took notes like I was just an avid student of this podcast. I belonged to the Facebook group, like found a writer's group, found my first writer's group through the Facebook group.

Lorien: You did?

Chandler: I did. And found critique partners there, like workshopped with people. So it's been really lovely.

Lorien: What? I'm just so, I'm always so astonished to hear these stories. It's so validating and special that all the communities that have built themselves up around the Yeah. The podcast that Meg and I and our team have been able to provide a platform for that because it's you guys are the ones who are putting it all together, but that's so awesome.

Chandler: Oh, yes. No, I'm so thankful for it.

Lorien: That's fantastic. So obviously, you know, this means you have to name a pet, a baby, or you know, a project after us, and thank us in your Academy Award speech.

Chandler: Okay, perfect. Done.

Lorien: Okay. I do wanna ask you one more question though. Okay. So, for a novelist that wants to become a screenwriter, what advice do you have for them?

Chandler: Treat it as its own medium, something that you have to I don't know, treat with like a healthy dose of fear and respect. I think all the things that we do to learn the craft of novels, I think we should do here. It's a, it people are natural readers as novelists novels are things that people just grew up reading.

So I think you actually do have to seek out reading a lot of scripts. I tried to read. A script, probably a day for quite a while. Logged it on a spreadsheet. Like I said, listened to the podcast, joined a writing group. Just do like, really do all that you can to try to figure it out. I think is was a great way for me to feel confident moving into it and like I had done the work to be there.

Lorien: That's great advice and very respectful of the craft of screenwriting. Thank you.

Chandler: Well, thank you.

Lorien: All right. Well thank you for being on the show. It's been a pleasure.

Chandler: Thank you so much.

Lorien: Thank you so much to Chandler Baker for joining us today. Oh. What. Fun. is streaming now on Prime Video and we can't wait to see Discretion once it comes out.

The Screenwriting Life is produced and edited by Alex Alcheh and audio engineering and mixing by Urban Olson. For more support, find us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. And you can also head over to thescreenwritinglife.com to learn more about TSL workshops, where we have a growing library of prerecorded workshops covering everything from core craft, like character want and outlining a feature, to the business side of writing, including how to navigate the elusive general meeting.

We also host two live Zooms each month where you can talk with me and Meg about what projects you're working on. The link to sign up is in the episode description, and if you have any questions, you can always reach out to screenwritinglife@gmail.com. Thank you for listening, and remember, you are not alone and keep writing.