“Movies and television are always what I wanted to do,” says Eric Martin. “I don’t remember a time when it wasn’t the main interest in my life, but screenwriting is something I was a little bit late to. I was a latchkey kid and I viewed writing as work, something to get done to go watch movies.”
“But there were a series of teachers who kept pulling me aside and said, ‘You’re a writer, do you enjoy this?’ It kept happening so the message finally got through to take it seriously and put in that kind of effort.” Looking back, Martin says he understood story structure just from watching so many movies. He also had a teacher teach him the hero’s journey to write essays.
“I don’t actually think about structure when I write. Use the hero’s journey. Don’t use it. I personally hate screenwriting textbooks. Any book that tells you how to write is bullshit. I think you pick it up and inherently understand it. I think it’s baked in even if you think you’re following it. It’s just there. It’s part of the western storytelling ethic.”
Rather than obsessing over screenwriting books, Martin would tell you to, “Go live some life.” He adds, “Don’t try to read a bunch of things and use a theory on anything. Live some life and I think you’ll understand [life] on a deeper level. I see a lot of stuff out there and it feels hollow. People who do depthful work live interesting lives.”
This has led Martin to focus on “character and story.” As a screenwriter, this is always the focus, whether it’s his TV movie The Other Mother, the Starz series about professional wrestling Heels, or his latest project, the newest installment of Loki for Marvel and Disney.
Eric Martin. Photo by Katie Martin
“I just go on long walks or runs and think about the person in this world. I don’t write anything until they sort of tell the story to me. I put them in situations to test their worldview.”
Writing Heels
In the show Heels, created by Michael Waldron (Rick and Morty, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness), two rival brothers — one a villain or heel, the other a hero or face — as they war over their late father’s wrestling promotion.
“That started back in our grad school days. I remember he came back from Christmas Vacation with an idea. It started with character as well. These two brothers are in professional wrestling and it’s a legacy for them. The Spade family, Ace, Jack, and King was their dad.”
The two brothers have personas in the ring that do not match their personas in real life. “He told me that and I immediately got it, where it would go, and what we were saying about the human experience. I think you just start from character and everything else sort of just makes sense.”
With his own work, he actually comes to the logline much later. “The logline is something I come to a bit later after I’ve already gotten the idea out of my head. I’m not thinking about theme or any kind of lesson. I’m just thinking about the character and world, who this person is, where they came from, what do they want, and what do they actually want.”
“I write from the subconscious and I’m just letting myself find the story. Inevitably, I will find little beats I know I’m going to use. I usually have an ending and I know what’s where I’m trying to go. From a business perspective, it’s much easier to say ‘this is about X,’ but for me, I don’t find that’s the best path. I don’t think the world looks like that.”
Instead, he looks at his own work much like a psychologist in session. “I’m trying to understand what issues I’m working through. That makes sense. I haven’t dealt with that. Then, on my next path, I start to bring up those levels, but I want to do it organically, not preach it. I want it to be an exploration of a thing.”
Personal Stories
By writing personal stories with hidden themes that reveal themself in the process, the writing is much more therapeutic than those chasing the market. “You always hear, ‘Why are you the person to tell this story? Why is this important to you? I hate answering those questions because I want the work to speak for itself. Every story is important for me in that way. I’m trying to get something out.”
“Whether it sells or not doesn’t matter. Actually, it can work against me. It’s so cathartic to get it out that it’s like I’ve actually already achieved this thing and I don’t have to worry that I’m going to die before I get this story written. There’s a relaxation that can happen after that, but it doesn’t count until it’s been produced.”
“I think there’s a market for everything. You just have to be realistic while writing the thing. If you want be super personal and esoteric, you probably shouldn’t write in a tapestry that’s going to take $200 million dollars to make it, right? You can make something on that level and it be personal, you just have to gear it properly.”
As a viewer, it’s about asking, “Who is the person that lives in that world?” For Loki, where Martin was also hired by Waldron, the writers had to think about the transaction between Marvel phases. “WandaVision and Falcon and the Winter Soldier had started their rooms and were up and running by the time we started. We had quite a bit of freedom because everyone was focused on those things.”
Writing Loki
With attention elsewhere, the writers could work on their “weird show” somewhat in the shadows. “So much of the work was done and so much care given to making something different. By the time people started looking at it, they thought we were doing something interesting and could see where we went with it.”
With Loki – and WandaVision and later Moon Knight – audiences were somewhat invited to sort of root for the bad guy. “We were feeling that out in the early days. There were iterations that were more comedic and we pulled that down a little bit. We started looking at things like Zodiac and leaned into that realm and ground it into this investigative, noir-ish tone.”
“Zodiac (written by James Vanderbilt) is interesting because like a lot of Fincher’s stuff, it’s hard to say it fits any genre. It’s investigative but we’re not even following the cops. We’re following this illustrator. It’s also funny and there’s this quirky humor in there. It’s this weird, non-genre thing that we imprinted on in an interesting way.”
For Season 2 of Loki, the goal wasn’t to make something different, but Martin took to his strength and leaned back into character. “In character terms, if I’m thinking of a scene, I’m always thinking, where is this person’s head… right now? Everything, I’m filtering through character first and emotions trying to let the characters tell us the story rather than force stuff upon them.”
“I really wanted to have a sense of tension and weight to it all. A certain gravity. I think we had that in Season 1, but it felt like we could go even further and have a sense of dread to it. There was a big pivot point at the end of Season 1, so we needed to listen to that and let it change things. There’s a vacuum of chaos and I wanted to follow that. Let it evolve naturally.”
Trust Your Audience
With a focus on character, Martin and the team doesn’t spend much time tailing about “who this is for.” He adds, “I see a lot of stuff getting made that doesn’t trust the intelligence of the audience. I think we have a very smart audience. Let’s challenge them with some of this stuff but also make sure we’re entertaining along the way.”
“The way I approached time travel, it’s not the first thing. It’s part of the toolbox, part of what we have to paint this picture, but it isn’t everything. I’m always started from character, but when I get into a certain situation, maybe there’s a device we can use for this.”
In the first episode of the new season, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) is having a conversation with OB (Ke Huy Quan) across two moments in time, they wrote it as if OB was remembering a previous conversation in real time. “We just play that scene as if OB is having that realization as he’s talking. I’m sure there are faults, but we’re following the story progression rather than adding a time travel set piece.”
When Martin isn’t in the Writer’s Room, he does spend a great deal of time writing specs and working on other ideas. “It’s a little hard to take what I do in my head and bring other people into that process. I’m a writer because I’m not necessarily a great verbal communicator. I’m still figuring it out to be honest as to how to interface in that way. With that scene, I had to write it. There wasn’t a way to explain it, I just needed to write it.”
As Martin shifts from staff writer to show runner, this is a tool he’s currently working on. “I need to let others take the ball and run with it. Something tangible is that I’m looking for common ground. What’s our shared language? What can we talk about that we’ll all get? When we talk about things and explain things in our heads, what’s the movie we can go back and reference? It’s easy to focus on differences, but what do we agree on and let’s build out from there.”
This interview has been condensed. Listen to the full audio version here.
[More: Michael Waldron Talks “Loki”]
[More: Bisha K. Alin on “Loki” & “Ms. Marvel”]
[More: Jac Schaeffer Talks “WandaVision”]
[More: Malcolm Spellman On Writing “The Falcon & The Winter Soldier”]
