In this engaging conversation, Michael Arndt, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter behind Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3, discusses the resilience needed in screenwriting, having penned ten scripts over a decade before his breakthrough. He shares insights on crafting great stories by balancing audience feedback with creative vision, and the importance of unconventional endings that surprise viewers. Arndt emphasizes that storytelling is a learned craft that benefits from systematic analysis and revising, making it accessible to anyone eager to improve.
01:08:59
forum Ask episode
web_stories AI Snips
view_agenda Chapters
auto_awesome Transcript
info_circle Episode notes
question_answer ANECDOTE
Inspiration for Little Miss Sunshine
Michael Arndt found the inspiration for Little Miss Sunshine's ending by watching a child beauty pageant.
This single moment sparked the idea of a "worst-case scenario turning into the best."
volunteer_activism ADVICE
Balancing Originality and Expectations
Balance originality with audience expectations in screenwriting.
Create a false binary at the climax, then introduce a surprising third option.
insights INSIGHT
Creating Memorable Characters
Memorable characters often emerge as antidotes to their world's negative values.
Consider the world's problems and how your character reacts to them.
Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode
Want to write a great screenplay? Little Miss Sunshine writer Michael Arndt shares secrets from Pixar, Hollywood, and a decade of script doctoring!
What We Discuss with Michael Arndt:
Success in screenwriting often requires extreme persistence and resilience — Michael Arndt wrote 10 screenplays over 10 years before selling Little Miss Sunshine, and even then did about 100 drafts of that script before it was ready.
The best stories often create a "tilted universe" where the protagonist is a response to or antidote to the negative values of their world (like Robin Hood emerging in response to an unjust system, or The Dude's laid-back nature contrasting with an aggressive world in The Big Lebowski).
Audience feedback is crucial but challenging to balance — as Michael quotes Billy Wilder: "Individually they're idiots, but collectively they're a genius." You have to respect audience intelligence while still maintaining your creative vision.
Great endings often work by creating a false binary (win/lose) and then revealing a surprising third option that exceeds audience expectations — like in Little Miss Sunshine where Olive neither wins nor loses but creates something entirely unexpected.
Anyone can improve their storytelling by studying great stories and breaking them down systematically — Michael's own journey shows that storytelling is a craft that can be learned through careful analysis, practice, and continual refinement of understanding how stories work. His video essays on screenwriting (available on YouTube) offer concrete tools for developing these skills.
The Jordan Harbinger Show