Visit Jen Grisanti's website for more, including her upcoming workshops at Story Expo. Jen's books from Michael Wiese Productions are currently listed on the Disney ABC Talent Writing Program.
Dave Watson: Hi Jen, thanks for your time. I understand you teach a class at NBC.
Jen Grisanti: Yes, it’s called, “Writers on the Verge.”
DW: What is it?
JG: It’s a diversity program with the goal and intention of preparing students to write TV Spec. scripts and Pilot scripts. We have a June 1 deadline and over 2,000 submissions which we narrow down to eight. Over the first 15 weeks we review Specs and Pilots, then we review, and the last 2 weeks we do read-throughs of all eight.
DW: You were just at a conference in DC on Women in film. Do you look for good roles for women in scripts?
JG: I love when writers write stories with strong female leads. I think that the female driven drama and or procedural is very big right now. Unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t allow me the time to independently produce, so, I am not looking for these scripts from this perspective. However, I do appreciate a strong female driven story.
DW: It sounds like a great experience with all the story ideas. I want to talk about both books of yours. Congratulations on the book, Change Your Story, Change Your Life.
JG: Thank you!
DW: I’d also like to talk about your previous book, Story Line, which was structured with set up, dilemma, action, and goal. How did Change Your Story come about?
JG: One evolved into the other. Both were sold on two moments. One was the end of a long relationship that resulted in a short marriage, and the other was losing my job. Story Line was about extracting truth, and you know, it’s the unconscious versus the conscious. You have to move through one to get to the other, and move through healing and grief to rebuild.
DW: And you’ve rebuilt.
JG: I have. It’s taken six years to get to be an international speaker.
JG: That implies it’s a long process.
JG: The first year after I lost my job, I had to take a step back in pay. The second year I was comparable to what I was making as an executive. The third year I moved beyond that. You also always hear that 85-95% of small businesses fail. You have to utilize your personal story and recognize there’s a gift in the fall. When I sold my first book Story Line, I was thinking about how to be and stay active rather than a victim.
DW: It’s easier to be a victim.
JG: Absolutely. It takes much more courage to stay active. My inspiration came from others. Each of us has a role in being a messenger. When the universe lets us in, and lets us know when it’s ready to come through us. We also have to be open to the message. Over six years I own my own company, teach and empower others to tell their stories. This can happen if you’re open to the message.
DW: Yet being open can hurt, and you have to push through that.
JG: Yes.
DW: Is being unable to push through a common barrier to writers?
JG: Yes. As artists, writers have to be ok with digging deep into their personal wounds. This is where their gold lives. This is how they distinguish their voice from the masses. Once they are able to push through the barrier of the fear with utilizing their emotional truth, things will open up. Success happens when you are willing to go places internally that will make your message resonate on a universal level.
DW: Are there barriers you see that are more common to female writers? Male?
JG: I believe that barriers are dependent on the life experience of the writer and the scars that they carry versus their sex. Although, I think that some women are able to dig deeper than some men with their pain. However, I’ve definitely seen some male writers find the same kind of depth if they have the willingness to go there. It all comes down to our ability to absorb and interpret life and pass it forward.
DW: Change Your Story is reflective. In your work, is this where many stories come from?
JG: Yes, when you move into the writing world, I learned I had to give context. We as writers have to absorb life and let it move through us. I get ideas from different things: the news, clients, family…we work that into arcs. We all borrow, and as we go through turning points we face obstacles. As we face these obstacles, chances are I’ll go through more before I see the next goal, and this sets up a deeper place of growth.
DW: Were the two big obstacles you talk about in your books close together?
JG: No, they were very far apart. My divorce was in ’98 and the job ended in ’07. It was hard because I had to say, “I’m Jen Grisanti and work with Aaron Spelling” for a long time. He was my mentor, and the marriage equaled a death. All our pain, though, is how we connect with our audience. The “Who” is you in the story, and you have to create empathy. When I think back to ’92, each obstacle has been different as I’ve gotten older, and each one presented a tool to use with age. It’s an ongoing story and we live ongoing stories. We look at what’s working, what’s not working.
DW: How do you use this in your work?
JG: TV series will have two arcs, an episode and a series. In the episode, there is an external goal in the A story that does get resolved. The series arc is a closing arc. House of Cards, Mad Men, and take Dexter. There’s a killer per episode and the ice killer series.
DW: The first chapter of Change Your Story is called Turning Points. Would you ascribe to the theory that every scene is a turning point? I believe it was Robert McKee who led a seminar, I read somewhere, on the movie Trading Places and how every scene is a turning point.
JG: I do in a way. When I look at Ray Donovan, in the first fifteen pages there are ten to fifteen dilemmas. It’s a story about circumstances. With House of Cards, you exit a scene with a question.
DW: Even if that question is quickly resolved in the next scene or episode.
JG: You leave with that arc to be closed and exit a scene while opening up a story.
DW: You discuss moving from ego to spirit, which is sometimes a navigational tool in life. Do you see this in TV or feature films?
JG: (Laughs) Daily. Art imitates life. We’ve all had a path interrupted. In my case my spirit no longer connected with the path. My ego was fed, and when my job ended, I had to recognize “Wow! I can create a niche in the market.” I went to Robert McKee’s seminar and realized he had a short-lived career and built a career from almost nothing.
DW: And it’s fulfilling. We should embrace our turning points and obstacles.
JG: When I work with writers, we discuss emotional well being, and do the emotional work to heal. Sometimes I meet with writers and we’ll talk for the first ten or fifteen minutes of an hour about what’s going on with them, in the world and in a spiritual way.
DW: Fear can be a powerful tool, as is control. When did you realize this? When you hit rock bottom?
JG: When my job ended there were seven months before I realized what I wanted to do. I had to keep digging to move past my fear and use that as fuel. I read a lot of books.
DW: Why? What kind?
JG: Oh, many. I love Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, A New Earth. For business I read Anthony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, Brian Tracy, and Jim Rohn. They empowered me to become an expert and a messenger. Now, after six years, my staff of forty and I have sold twenty-three pilots and several features. We see results, and when we see results, then we know something is connecting. Aaron Spelling said, “I can show them the door. They have to walk through it.”
DW: I can’t remember who said “The greatest talent in Hollywood is recognizing talent.”
JG: Someone did, and when we connect with an audience, then we know it’s working.
DW: What is your favorite cinematic moment? IS there one that inspired you or continues to inspire over years?
JG: I LOVED The Imitation Game. I think that there are an endless amount of cinematic moments in this film that truly made me feel this story. I feel like the parallel between the computer being named Christopher and the story of his unrequited love for a classmate who died was one of the many moments that I really connected with.
I also LOVE Birdman. In this story, I loved the cinematic moment of when he got locked out of the theater in his underwear and had to go around another way to get in. I love the symbolism of what we’ll do to bare all for the truth to come up in our story. I also loved when his daughter looked up at the end. Despite there being many interpretations to this ending (which I love when this happens), I love the idea of the daughter finally seeing him in the light that he wanted to be seen.
DW: Thinking of the Future of Story conference, is there a great moment in film for women?
JG: I just saw Ricki and The Flash. I wanted to see how Diablo Cody was going to tell the story of a woman who left her family, since this is such a counter-intuitive life experience yet it is happening in the world. What I took away from this story was that despite deep dysfunction and mistakes made, family is family. No family is perfect. We can find meaning in the imperfections. In life, we make bad choices that often lead to negative outcomes. The debate I felt was that can we still find redemption through fulfilling a role that we left behind and find peace in the process? I did expect that the story would go deeper into the why behind this choice. There were parts of the story that I felt could have been stronger. However, I did feel the story. I felt the regret. I felt compassion for Ricki (played so brilliantly by Meryl Streep). I teared up at the end. I felt the transformation. This is what story is about.
There were two moments that stood out for me in this story. One was the moment between Ricki and her daughter at the end the wedding. I LOVED how Ricki was able to have this moment to speak to her daughter in only a way that a mother would know. Then, I loved the scene between Ricki and the new wife about what it is to be a mother.
Clip: Ricki and the Flash
Dave Watson is the Editor of the web site “Movies Matter,” http://www.davesaysmoviesmatter.com. He lives in Madison, WI.
Dave Watson: Hi Jen, thanks for your time. I understand you teach a class at NBC.
Jen Grisanti: Yes, it’s called, “Writers on the Verge.”
DW: What is it?
JG: It’s a diversity program with the goal and intention of preparing students to write TV Spec. scripts and Pilot scripts. We have a June 1 deadline and over 2,000 submissions which we narrow down to eight. Over the first 15 weeks we review Specs and Pilots, then we review, and the last 2 weeks we do read-throughs of all eight.
DW: You were just at a conference in DC on Women in film. Do you look for good roles for women in scripts?
JG: I love when writers write stories with strong female leads. I think that the female driven drama and or procedural is very big right now. Unfortunately, my schedule doesn’t allow me the time to independently produce, so, I am not looking for these scripts from this perspective. However, I do appreciate a strong female driven story.
DW: It sounds like a great experience with all the story ideas. I want to talk about both books of yours. Congratulations on the book, Change Your Story, Change Your Life.
JG: Thank you!
DW: I’d also like to talk about your previous book, Story Line, which was structured with set up, dilemma, action, and goal. How did Change Your Story come about?
JG: One evolved into the other. Both were sold on two moments. One was the end of a long relationship that resulted in a short marriage, and the other was losing my job. Story Line was about extracting truth, and you know, it’s the unconscious versus the conscious. You have to move through one to get to the other, and move through healing and grief to rebuild.
DW: And you’ve rebuilt.
JG: I have. It’s taken six years to get to be an international speaker.
JG: That implies it’s a long process.
JG: The first year after I lost my job, I had to take a step back in pay. The second year I was comparable to what I was making as an executive. The third year I moved beyond that. You also always hear that 85-95% of small businesses fail. You have to utilize your personal story and recognize there’s a gift in the fall. When I sold my first book Story Line, I was thinking about how to be and stay active rather than a victim.
DW: It’s easier to be a victim.
JG: Absolutely. It takes much more courage to stay active. My inspiration came from others. Each of us has a role in being a messenger. When the universe lets us in, and lets us know when it’s ready to come through us. We also have to be open to the message. Over six years I own my own company, teach and empower others to tell their stories. This can happen if you’re open to the message.
DW: Yet being open can hurt, and you have to push through that.
JG: Yes.
DW: Is being unable to push through a common barrier to writers?
JG: Yes. As artists, writers have to be ok with digging deep into their personal wounds. This is where their gold lives. This is how they distinguish their voice from the masses. Once they are able to push through the barrier of the fear with utilizing their emotional truth, things will open up. Success happens when you are willing to go places internally that will make your message resonate on a universal level.
DW: Are there barriers you see that are more common to female writers? Male?
JG: I believe that barriers are dependent on the life experience of the writer and the scars that they carry versus their sex. Although, I think that some women are able to dig deeper than some men with their pain. However, I’ve definitely seen some male writers find the same kind of depth if they have the willingness to go there. It all comes down to our ability to absorb and interpret life and pass it forward.
DW: Change Your Story is reflective. In your work, is this where many stories come from?
JG: Yes, when you move into the writing world, I learned I had to give context. We as writers have to absorb life and let it move through us. I get ideas from different things: the news, clients, family…we work that into arcs. We all borrow, and as we go through turning points we face obstacles. As we face these obstacles, chances are I’ll go through more before I see the next goal, and this sets up a deeper place of growth.
DW: Were the two big obstacles you talk about in your books close together?
JG: No, they were very far apart. My divorce was in ’98 and the job ended in ’07. It was hard because I had to say, “I’m Jen Grisanti and work with Aaron Spelling” for a long time. He was my mentor, and the marriage equaled a death. All our pain, though, is how we connect with our audience. The “Who” is you in the story, and you have to create empathy. When I think back to ’92, each obstacle has been different as I’ve gotten older, and each one presented a tool to use with age. It’s an ongoing story and we live ongoing stories. We look at what’s working, what’s not working.
DW: How do you use this in your work?
JG: TV series will have two arcs, an episode and a series. In the episode, there is an external goal in the A story that does get resolved. The series arc is a closing arc. House of Cards, Mad Men, and take Dexter. There’s a killer per episode and the ice killer series.
DW: The first chapter of Change Your Story is called Turning Points. Would you ascribe to the theory that every scene is a turning point? I believe it was Robert McKee who led a seminar, I read somewhere, on the movie Trading Places and how every scene is a turning point.
JG: I do in a way. When I look at Ray Donovan, in the first fifteen pages there are ten to fifteen dilemmas. It’s a story about circumstances. With House of Cards, you exit a scene with a question.
DW: Even if that question is quickly resolved in the next scene or episode.
JG: You leave with that arc to be closed and exit a scene while opening up a story.
DW: You discuss moving from ego to spirit, which is sometimes a navigational tool in life. Do you see this in TV or feature films?
JG: (Laughs) Daily. Art imitates life. We’ve all had a path interrupted. In my case my spirit no longer connected with the path. My ego was fed, and when my job ended, I had to recognize “Wow! I can create a niche in the market.” I went to Robert McKee’s seminar and realized he had a short-lived career and built a career from almost nothing.
DW: And it’s fulfilling. We should embrace our turning points and obstacles.
JG: When I work with writers, we discuss emotional well being, and do the emotional work to heal. Sometimes I meet with writers and we’ll talk for the first ten or fifteen minutes of an hour about what’s going on with them, in the world and in a spiritual way.
DW: Fear can be a powerful tool, as is control. When did you realize this? When you hit rock bottom?
JG: When my job ended there were seven months before I realized what I wanted to do. I had to keep digging to move past my fear and use that as fuel. I read a lot of books.
DW: Why? What kind?
JG: Oh, many. I love Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now, A New Earth. For business I read Anthony Robbins, Brendon Burchard, Brian Tracy, and Jim Rohn. They empowered me to become an expert and a messenger. Now, after six years, my staff of forty and I have sold twenty-three pilots and several features. We see results, and when we see results, then we know something is connecting. Aaron Spelling said, “I can show them the door. They have to walk through it.”
DW: I can’t remember who said “The greatest talent in Hollywood is recognizing talent.”
JG: Someone did, and when we connect with an audience, then we know it’s working.
DW: What is your favorite cinematic moment? IS there one that inspired you or continues to inspire over years?
JG: I LOVED The Imitation Game. I think that there are an endless amount of cinematic moments in this film that truly made me feel this story. I feel like the parallel between the computer being named Christopher and the story of his unrequited love for a classmate who died was one of the many moments that I really connected with.
I also LOVE Birdman. In this story, I loved the cinematic moment of when he got locked out of the theater in his underwear and had to go around another way to get in. I love the symbolism of what we’ll do to bare all for the truth to come up in our story. I also loved when his daughter looked up at the end. Despite there being many interpretations to this ending (which I love when this happens), I love the idea of the daughter finally seeing him in the light that he wanted to be seen.
DW: Thinking of the Future of Story conference, is there a great moment in film for women?
JG: I just saw Ricki and The Flash. I wanted to see how Diablo Cody was going to tell the story of a woman who left her family, since this is such a counter-intuitive life experience yet it is happening in the world. What I took away from this story was that despite deep dysfunction and mistakes made, family is family. No family is perfect. We can find meaning in the imperfections. In life, we make bad choices that often lead to negative outcomes. The debate I felt was that can we still find redemption through fulfilling a role that we left behind and find peace in the process? I did expect that the story would go deeper into the why behind this choice. There were parts of the story that I felt could have been stronger. However, I did feel the story. I felt the regret. I felt compassion for Ricki (played so brilliantly by Meryl Streep). I teared up at the end. I felt the transformation. This is what story is about.
There were two moments that stood out for me in this story. One was the moment between Ricki and her daughter at the end the wedding. I LOVED how Ricki was able to have this moment to speak to her daughter in only a way that a mother would know. Then, I loved the scene between Ricki and the new wife about what it is to be a mother.
Clip: Ricki and the Flash
Dave Watson is the Editor of the web site “Movies Matter,” http://www.davesaysmoviesmatter.com. He lives in Madison, WI.
