Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman says the most important lesson for aspiring writers is to learn how to have a strong vision, but also to be flexible enough to hear all notes.Rachel Idzerda/The Globe and Mail
After giving us one of the most successful sitcoms in history, Friends co-creator Marta Kauffman left the land of the laugh track to pursue her passion for documentary filmmaking. Now she's back in the comedy realm with Grace and Frankie, a new Netflix series starring Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as two women thrown together when their husbands come out as a gay couple. Kaufmann relishes the chance to write for women of a certain age. Here, she shares some of the secrets to her success, including how to solve conflict without throwing plates.
Seek the note beneath the note
The most important lesson for aspiring writers is to learn how to have a strong vision, but also to be flexible enough to hear all notes. It's not always an easy balance. When you're writing that first draft you want to be very clear on your vision and take it as far as you possibly can. When that's done, though, you have to open up to other people's thoughts and feedback. With criticism, I always say, "You look for the note beneath the note." Maybe somebody reads your work and says, "I have a problem on page 24, because this character would never do this thing." You cannot, at that point, use your vision as a defence mechanism. Even if you disagree with the critique, try to figure out what the person is actually saying. Maybe it's "I don't care about this character" or "You haven't earned this moment." The note beneath the note is the one that matters.
Don't worry about what your audience wants
When I'm developing an idea for a new show, I don't think about what audiences want or what's trendy or current. I do think about the story that I want to tell. What are the things I want to explore as a writer? I can't know what an audience wants and, really, even an audience doesn't know what an audience wants until they see it and think, "Oh, wow – I never even thought I would like that." I remember when we were developing Friends, we were told that we had to come up with an older character to pull in audiences over 20 years old, and then, of course, that wasn't true. You can't go by any rules that have been set up – especially in network television. That's part of the reason I am not writing for network, where there is still so much emphasis on that 18-34 demographic. Even though we have this huge, aging baby-boomer demographic, so much of television is still made for young people. I am hovering around 60 and I wanted to create a show about this stage of life – it's what I'm interested in. And of course, when you have Jane [Fonda] and Lily [Tomlin], that's pretty great motivation to write something worthy of them.
Talk about the tension
David Crane and I were partners for 27 years. He is my dear friend, my soul brother. People always want to know how we maintained that partnership and I tell them that we had a very simple rule: We always have to be kind to each other. I swear, in this business, you hear people speaking to each other in a way that is just so awful – "You f-ing idiot" and that sort of thing. This is not an exaggeration. I think the worst thing, David and I, we ever said to each other was "fine." We were very careful to avoid those big blowouts. If we were having one of those days where we weren't agreeing on anything, we would just acknowledge it. It's amazing that just by giving words to that tension, by letting the steam out, it evaporates. It works and it's a lot better than throwing a plate.
When you peak, find another mountain
When I was doing Friends, I remember somebody said to me, "Be careful, you might be peaking too soon." It's funny to think that that can actually happen. I think in coming out of that show, what was important for me was to reinvent and to create new measures for success since the success I had with Friends is not something you're going to duplicate. I went all the way to documentary-making and five short films about breast cancer and mental illness to prove to people that there was more to me than the 21-minute sitcom, and also just to try something completely different. Even though it is a comedy, Grace and Frankie is also a very different challenge. We don't have to do a joke every page, which I absolutely love. We allow the show to get very real.
This interview has been condensed and edited by Courtney Shea.