Write On: 'The Order' Writer Zach Baylin

“I find action scenes really hard to write, I usually save them
for the end. I need to get very caffeinated and then just try and
get into the adrenaline of what they should feel like. With
this [film] in particular, those robberies and the heist… I kind
of like to really understand an environment and a landscape
before I can write an action sequence. Because if I can’t figure
out when a car is overtaking another car or where characters are
in relation to it, then it’s impossible to write dialogue. I
really try and map out the choreography of things and when to
have those spikes of violence. I think you just feel it. You feel
it on the page where hopefully you’ve built the tension. There
needs to be some kind of release. And that’s maybe a gunshot or
maybe it’s a line of dialogue that pulls someone in another
direction. I’m pretty prescriptive in the way I write action and
I write it in the way I hope it will be shot and it’s not just
like an overview of a scene,” says screenwriter Zach Baylin on
writing action sequences in his new film, The Order. 


The Order stars Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult and tells the true
story of an FBI agent (Law), who’s determined to bring down a
group of domestic terrorists in the Pacific Northwest in the
1980s. 


In this episode of the podcast, we talk with Zach Baylin about
writing action sequences and also his film King Richard, for
which he was nominated for an Academy Award. He also shares this
advice for writing a period film that might have parallels to
today’s society:


“In terms of keeping things entertaining and not wanting to be
preachy and didactic, I think that the approach that I took
was just to try and tell the story of what happened in 1983 and
‘84 accurately and not to over relate it to today. The parallels
to today are so obvious that if we were to throw in lines
about things that felt like they were alluding to the
present, it would totally take out both the veracity and the
intention, which was, I want to tell this story correctly. And if
I do, then you’ll walk out of it, both having been entertained
and informed,” says Baylin. 


The Order is in theaters now. To hear more about Baylin’s writing
process, listen to the podcast.