BRIAN BAKER
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 PictureBRIAN BAKER
Where do you live (City, State, or Country)?
I live in Virginia.

Your script stood out among hundreds of others. What was the inspiration for your story and why did you write a script instead of a short story or a novel?
For Atonement, I wanted to showcase the intersecting stories of three men that each respond to their burdens of guilt and loss in different ways. I chose to write that action/thriller in a screenplay format because it allows us to focus on the visual experience while paring the dialogue and text narratives to an essence of thought. Even when I intend to write a short story or novel, I begin that process by first writing a screenplay because the format allows a better focused plot generation. A well-honed feature-length script is a 20,000 word corpus of everything essential for a successful 80,000-100,000 word novel.
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How long did it take you to write your script...and what is your writing process? Do you outline...use index cards...white board...or just start with FADE IN?
My writing process: I’m a plotter. Before I type “Fade In”, I have a robust outline with three key things: 1) a beginning; 2) an ending; and 3) at least one powerful visual moment. For the last thing, I’m talking about an image that demands you grab pen and page and write to get there. The image is my personal driver for the story. It doesn’t have to be the end, but it has to be an emotive scene. I’d heard once – though I can’t find the source now – that Alfred Hitchcock would use that same demand for a visual driver in his stories: “I want a guy dangling off the face of Mount Rushmore.” Or “Birds! MORE Birds!”
How long: I wrote Atonement in 60 days, and have been evolving it ever since. To help gauge the time costs, the first version of a feature-length screenplay is routinely 2 months. After that it evolves through the feedback of beta readers and contest critiques. Generally, the run to
maturation is 12-14 months, but even though a script can become mature, we can consistently improve it as we learn and improve as writers. In the spirit of improvement, and because this interview is a stage of sorts for Atonement’s award as best feature screenplay, I want to thank the souls that provide feedback to Wiki contestants. Their analysis is informed, creative, and actionable in a way that makes it perfect for the kind of refinements that can help any script read faster and hit harder. Where Atonement is recognized by the Judges for this win, they are seeing the impact of other Wiki contests where bright minds shared thoughts that allowed me to improve as a writer work. Thank you to the readers at Wiki. I am in your debt.

What is your ultimate ambition as a writer?
There’s somebody out there that needs to see these stories. They’re in pain and at the end of a long and brutal fight for everything that matters and amid the chorus of voices and portents and forces arrayed against them, for these few pages, my ambition is to give them the solace that comes from seeing characters that are recognizable for their courage. My ambition is to write stories that mirror their hardships in order to remind them that their courage can prevail, and that despite their scars, they can survive and thrive.

Was your entry at The Wiki Screenplay Contest a full script or “the first ten pages”? Why did you make that choice?
Though I know writers that take the tactical approach of submitting just the first ten pages, it’s my preference to have a reader’s thoughts after a holistic read of the entire screenplay. It eliminates the need for the reader to make inferences about the work, and is particularly valuable where the story straddles multiple genres (e.g., your hard action opening doesn’t reveal a story-arc with thriller scene sequences).
What’s your all-time favorite movie or television show...and why?
“Emissary”, by Michael Piller. I found a copy of the pilot for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and was absolutely enthralled by the elegance of the writing and the freedom of the format. I didn’t take screenwriting as any formal educational path. Instead, I studied Piller’s script until it looked like a prairie bible with pages smoothed at the edges, and ink faded by my touch. Piller’s writing is so crisp that it allowed me to apprentice at a remove in time as I read and reread and I wrote. I have a profound respect for his work, but it took years for me to move past some of his stylistic choices, and then only after others would sometimes shout: “Why do you have SO MANY ellipses!?” Well, because Piller did. Kid-you-not, the only punctuation on page 2 of Emissary is 13 ellipses and one period. The man’s fetish for three dots became an inherited kink that was tough to break…

What advice do you have for writers hoping to win a contest or place as a finalist as you have?
1. Workshop not to be seen, but to read and to offer help within your expertise. If you can successfully provide professional and uplifting analysis for others, you’re better positioned to spot and remedy those same problems in your own work.
2. Take classes and pick up new techniques because as we learn and grow our craft, our stories evolve for the better.
3. Don’t forget why you write. If you’re like me, writing is essential to life. Turning off the ink is as senseless and destructive as halting a pulse or refusing to inhale.

What else are you working on that the world needs to know about?
I just finished a pilot for a time travel TV series called “Blue Acres.” A physician, cop-turned farmer, barrel rider, and former OnlyFans performer are neighbors - each searching for their own answers - as they explore the mysteries of the Hollows, a pastoral 50 acre stretch where temporal rifts deposit visitors from the past and the future with unfinished business on the eve of their deaths. But the cast and the extended community living beside the Hollows only have 36 hours before the visitors must return or their absence could change history. [Fantasy Island meets Quantum Leap.] Next up is a TV pilot about a penniless Civil War Union officer that assumes the identity of a dead US Marshal he finds in the badlands with a letter offering him salary and a ranch if he’ll bring law to the gold mining town of Dragoon.