Charles Sutter sits down to write a blog entry...

The differences in the three things that we read are fairly apparent, and if you don't mind editoralizing Adaptation is the best by far. Adaptation makes cleverness its style and forces directly into the mind of the author by making him the main character of story. It breaks the rules of screenwriting purposefully to make a point. Wilder and Diamond reveal themselves almost exclusively through their characters. Their most important, and probably clearest, contributions come to us in the form of very unique speaking rhythm and word selection. In “A Boy's Life” the writer makes herself known through the use of tone.
I think that way an author makes a script their own is by hitting a note that most others can't get to or by combining some unique notes in a way no else has before. The sentimental tone of “A Boy's Life” is fairly unique to that script. I don't know how much of that was the producers and how much of that was the writer, but nonetheless its what makes the script different. The dialogue of “The Apartment” masks the deeper social questions, which is something Wilder and Diamond did better than anyone at the time. Kaufman takes a tired broken story of a writer that can't write and gives a modernist look inside that writer's head.

Questions

1.Does the character of McKee in “Adaptation” make you think less of our textbook “Story”? Why or why not?

2.Outside of “Adaptation”, which was making fun of the rule that people must do something for a story to be good, can a story's characters do nothing and still be interesting?