Writers’ Interview Series | Ep. 6 | Bob Dawson

From pharmaceuticals to feature screenwriting, Bob Dawson has taken an unconventional path into script writing. A relative newcomer to the craft, he has already completed four feature length screenplays and earned recognition on the festival and screenplay competition circuit.

Bob approaches writing with the same discipline that defined his previous career. Research, structure, and preparation come before the first page, an approach that has shaped both his process and his early success.

His latest screenplay, Peace, Undone, is a period true crime drama set in early 1900s Alberta, Canada. Inspired by a real six person mass shooting that remains largely unknown outside the region, the script is grounded in solid historical research, bringing forgotten events and overlooked lives back into the spotlight.

In this episode, we discuss making a late career transition into screenwriting, building a repeatable writing process, and balancing historical accuracy with cinematic storytelling. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Good morning, everyone. My name is Matt. I'm very happy to be back for the Script Awards Los Angeles podcast. We've done a few episodes already, and my guest today is Bob Dawson. Is it Bob? Is it Robert? How should I call you?

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Thank you for having me. It's this is a great opportunity. Officially Robert, um, but um please call me Bob.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Bob will do. Okay, sounds good. So I know that you are fairly new to script writing. You wrote a bunch of a few projects already, uh, I think four of them, but you describe yourself as on your profile as a later-in-life writer. So my first question is not going to be about writing, it's going to be what was your life before you started uh writing? Where do you come from? What job did you have?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Yes, uh, this is a new hobby and pastime for me. In 2025, I retired from 25 years working in the pharmaceutical industry in the health policy and government relations area in Canada. It's a great job, loved it. I had the opportunity to take some courses as a hobby for screenwriting. And um, I started to develop that. And it's and then now that I'm retired, I had more time to really sort of spend some time on it. So that's why I'm sort of a later in life script writer, still writing amateur, still rookie, still looking for feedback, and um that's brought me here.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Tell me just a little bit more about your job in the pharmaceutical industries, because it has nothing to do with script writing, I guess. And nothing I've seen browsing your script, nothing is connected to that. So, script is really a new venture, a new endeavor.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

That's right. I know you're supposed to sort of rule number one is write what you know, but I just having worked in the farm school industry, I didn't want to write about it. And uh maybe that time will come, and also half most of the good script work that I would be able to do, I probably have to get legal approval anyway. So uh but no, it's um for me, the work I was doing was in uh very specific health policy and um government relations work at a team that I worked with across the country, and um it was really around bringing the um innovations to the marketplace, and in Canada, it's a uh it's a publicly funded healthcare system, and so the relationships you have with the governments are really important because they're up here in the marketplace. Nothing to do with script writing.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

How do you transition to script writing? Is it something that you loved before? Is it something that you just discovered later in life? Because we all watch movies. Fairly simple, okay? But to move on to actually write some scripts and buy a final draft or whatever um tool you use to write, just doing that, you are in a top 2%, I guess, something like that. What decided uh on the move? What motivated you? When was the moment that happened? Like, oh, I'm gonna write now. Great question.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

The same kind of question I got from my family when I started to say this is something that's the looks at some of the faces I got from friends and family that I was doing script writing was almost worth uh with always almost worth doing it for me. My sort of journey was during uh COVID, we were in the world of the work that I was in, it was an extremely busy time because we were in the race for bringing the vaccine to to uh the world. And um, but the types of activities that I had available, like most people, were really shut down. So the I'm you know, the social activities, sporting activities, interactions. And what I did is I picked up a book. It was it's called the um screen coffee writer screen book or something. It was by Polara Alexandra, and really what her uh she's not about her, it's about the art of and the craft of script writing. Yeah, and I just found it really interesting. I mean, um, you have there's there's poetry, there's creative writing, there's playwriting, you know, there's different types of uh formats, and I really found the script writing just an interesting uh discipline within uh creative writing, and there's rules and there's structure and there's there's pieces of it. And I kind of I like that um challenge. And so what I did was I signed up for coursework with her and other novice learners. And each Saturday during COVID, we would get on a Zoom call and we work on these scripts, and it was a it was a uh process where you got to present and review, get and looked at and build these scripts. And uh I just found it very yeah, that's relaxing is not the right word, but you know, at that time it was just it was a great opportunity and it was something to do, and I kind of piqued a real sort of a knowledge interest for me to do something outside my comfort zone and it's a safe environment. I mean, it's just a it's an opportunity to learn. Yep. Then um we got back out of COVID, back to normal sort of life and busyness and other social activities, and sort of put that aside. Uh, that was sort of an episode. And then when I retired, I had more time and I sort of went back because then it was only wasn't that long afterwards, and I went back to some of the projects that I was working on and I sort of touched them up a bit.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

And I just found that uh you realized that there was something there, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

And as it turns out, I've done three features in 12 months, so I'm trying to get something off my system at the moment. So uh, and I I this recent one that I've submitted to the uh script awards for Los Angeles is uh I'm really kind of getting that stage now where I'm I'm I'm looking for where does my work fit with other uh international interesting?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

So you use that that kind of learning curve, uh that that time to learn the craft, read the books, practice, create, write multiple scripts, and now you are kind of the next step. Like are you feel you're ready to go get some outside um feedback in a more professional way? Contest, competition, all that kind of stuff. It is interesting. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Yeah, that's you that's exactly where I'm sort of at that stage now. The first uh works that I did were clearly um student type projects, you know, they were they had a lot of they weren't ready for prime time. And and I was even sharing them with my friends and family. This was very much sort of a work in progress, and then I did um I got into sort of a the area of interest that I have found for me, and it may change, but where I'm at right now is I'm doing um screenplays based on historical events. So there this they involve uh research into an actual event that might be well known and in in the so I did one on was based on real world war two. Okay, I did one that was based on um uh constitutional slavery, and um this one that does with the script works loss and is a true crime based in Canada. So they're very different, but the one the similarity all have is that this the the characters are real, the story is real, and uh based on uh actual events, yes, yeah. So these are these are the this the script is an adaptation of a historical event that's not well um no well illustrated or hasn't been talked about before, and it's sort of taking the personal, the human stories of those historical events and then coloring them between the lines to develop a story that is, you know, there's lots of um interpretation, there's you know fictional components of it, but the events that take place and the characters in the script are all true.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

I want to go back on something that you mentioned. Uh, the first scripts you wrote, you said they were kind of a student pieces of work. Um, you still get some recognition. I think you went to the big Apple um script or film festival. Uh, you get some accolades. So you really what I find genuine in your path to script writing is really that you took the time, even if you wrote a lot in a limited amount of time, you went through all the steps to learn, produce, uh, adjust your craft, go to friends and family, and then go to the next circle, and then now going to the film festivals. Um, you sound like someone who's pretty organized and grounded. Um, going in like, okay, I'm ready, I'm going to the next step. The step after that, this is what I need to learn, and this is my to-do list. Am I correct in my assertion?

SPEAKER_01 9:57

I think you're very you're you're flattering me, Matt. Thank you so much. But uh uh it's it may sound more organized and more grounded as I tell it to you. It's been uh, but for me, it's just a it's just a joy. It's just a it's a right now it I'm I'm I'm finding that the gratification I get is increasing the level of the competition and the and the and the quality of the screenwriting. I think the one that I have submitted, Peace Undone, which is the name of this feature for the um uh script awards in Los Angeles, this festival, I think is better than the previous two. And I hopefully my next one is gonna be better than to improve. Yeah. And um but I I'm spending more time on it. But it's also I'm I feel like the the uh quality is getting better is because the feedback from festivals like this one and others provide you very useful insights to do other drafts, and you so it's not just you're submitting and walking away, you're submitting and and you're getting feedback.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

You're putting yourself out there, and the discussions, the networking, the actual feedbacks sometimes you receive, um, talking about the project and the way you approach the craft, all of that, it's it helps. It helps um getting out of your bubble and getting again outside of it in the next um area, and then say, okay, how am I gonna navigate to the next step? How am I gonna fit? Is there anything I need to adjust? And that's what's beautiful about script writing, I think. It's that most script writers are in a constant open-minded state of mind. You're constantly accepting feedback, you're constantly rewriting in your mind, you're constantly rewriting on the computer, and that usually is a sign of intelligence because you are open to the world and you it's difficult, but you let your ego aside to let the story talk. So I think I think it's always fascinating to talk with script writers. Uh, you are in Canada, the script takes place in Canada, and the real events you mentioned were also in Canada, correct?

SPEAKER_01 12:25

That's right. It's a uh the the time frame for this uh historical event is in 1919 in northern Alberta. Alberta is one of the big provinces in Western Canada. Um, I live in British Columbia, but I did grow up in Alberta. And it's a it's a mass, it's a it's a mass murder that took place in 1919 in Grand Prairie. And Grand Prairie is a small town in what they call the peace country, and um uh it's an interesting period because 1919 is post-World War I. So you have a situation where there's you know service men and women coming back from World War I, and there's a and a lot of issues related to PTSD that you know really was not clarified and understood. There's also um in this type of in this time of Canadian history, a lot of immigration was had taken place in the at the turn of the century. So there's a lot of Europeans in the these frontier towns who were setting up homesteads that was more affordable, and there's a real mix of of um ethnic backgrounds from different parts of the world, primarily Western and Eastern Europe. But that creates a little bit, that was created some tension because uh not everyone went to fight in World War I. So you have that kind of community tension. Yeah, you also have the introduction of the Spanish flu of that time frame. It was coming into Canada, and it was devastating for the world from a uh and it changed how people lived. And so you have this tension of post-World War I, the introduction of a pandemic, a frontier town, and an unexplained mass murder of six people. So that's the setting. And the story uh it's never was solved. So when I was working on this, yeah, so when I was working on this script, uh really trying to find primary sources and reference sources of of what happened, and it really was not it's not well documented. There's bits and pieces of it. And as I was doing the research, I found out that over time different people were telling different versions of that story. So it became sort of a not an urban myth because it was all acting. Kind of a legend, something that it did, and then but the actual history, but the but there wasn't the forensics, the police work wasn't. I mean, the in those frontier towns of that time, the sheriffs essentially were looking after you know rustlers and bootleggers. They weren't look doing murder investigations, plus a lot of the able-bodied um police officers had been in the war. So the ones who were actually available were, you know, was different types of individuals who may have been available to put their name forward to serve in the armed forces, or in Canada, that time it's called North Northwest Mounted Police. So that's the that's the setting.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

And um and I think So that's the setting, it's it's kind of a period of peace because it's early 20th century. Yeah. Um, you gave us the setting, the landscape, the tension around that period of time. What angle did you choose to write this story in in the form of a script? And how much did you digress from the reality or the documented reality?

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Great, great questions. The um I started with the actual the actual details of the murder, because that that of all of the components of the case that was documented, how the bodies were found and where they're found, and the type of weapons that were used. Where I took it, so I'm not just I'm not just doing a script on the on the murder. Um, that's that's the premise. Yeah, the angle I took was really about the three officers who in their own, and this is where I created it for them, they have their own uh struggles, they're they have their own um pain and um life stories, and the three of them work together to s to solve this case. So one of the characters is uh he's sort of the lead uh inspector, and he just returns he had just returned from war one as a vet. So he's and what uh you read and you uh as the uh audience sees is uh that inspector has uh brought home some trauma that he's hiding from from the war. Um the second, his the second officer who's uh the sergeant, uh they used to work together and they're friends in Grand Prairie, but he was older, so he didn't go to war or one. So he was basically managing the police force in Grand Prairie through the war. So he can't he knows people, he's aware of the the individuals, he kind of keeps track of things. Um and the third uh officer is a young, yeah, a young guy, and he didn't serve because he's a uh pacifist, so he's from um he's a Duke of war, which is a very in the in Western Canada community that immigrates, but they they're um conscientious objectors. So he's uh serving uh as an officer, but doesn't really believe in violence. So those those are the three characters who are uh solving the mystery, and that's and I and so it's really about the the the journey that they take together to try to solve the character. And those three are real individuals.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Real individuals? Did you contact the families? Did you have access to family pictures? Um there was how um how deep did you go into the research?

SPEAKER_01 18:52

There was um there's one book written on this case by a local person, uh local Albertan. Um, and it was not it was self-published. Okay, and so there's that account, and in that account, the author had went did the investigation on his own, sort of followed things up, and he surmised who he felt was the the criminal at the end, who the person who done it. But that was never but yeah, and so yeah, and so there's there's there there were a number of suspects that were, and they are in the script as well. Um, but none of them were convicted.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

So I I use that that source. There are periodicals of from that time online, okay. So there's the Grand Prairie Tribune, and there's and there's so there's reporting of the events. So you do have the the the sequence of events and how the how the media at that time reported it. And and the angle of that was kind of interesting reading the primary sources from the media coverage of 1990 murder case was they were really frustrated with the police. They felt that they weren't doing a very good job. So that was I brought some of that into the into the script as well. Um, sort of a micro version of what you might get in media coverage today for murder crime, but it had it took place in this case. So those are um those are the main sources. Uh there are each online, you know, when you I was most of it was done online. There are other links to pieces. I had some support from uh about the Spanish flu and about you know World War I. And so there's other pieces of it I was able to piece together. And um, it's not perfect, but I feel like that's I tried I tried my best to keep the integrity of the story, and that was actually turned out to be a challenge for me because the actual murder scenes are really confounding in terms of motive, and uh so I did I you know it would have been tempting to kind of change the murder scenes that were discovered so that I could build up a motive for for one of the suspects, which makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

I mean, you you're working with uh source material that's available and that exists, and then you still have to make a script out of it that that's gonna have enough entertainment and enough um coherence, so there's a story to tell. And that's it's always that's always the challenge. Like it's just it's a script, it's a work of fiction based out of actual events.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

And the challenge I had, um actually had a lot of challenges, but you know, you could read the script and say, well, that that would never happen. But in this case, it did. Like the the the the the part of the storyline, the core um premise of the murders is accurate. So um, you know, it's possible someone could go through the script and sort of say, I don't like the ending. Well, that that's kind of how to end it.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Do you watch true crime documentaries in a different way now you you've written that script?

SPEAKER_01 22:29

I do admit. I don't watch or follow a lot of um true crime podcasts. This was a the first for me in terms of an area of interest. Um, but I do realize how important it is when if you know who did it and why. And this one was I don't know, was having as an unsolved murder to come up with sort of a solution to it so that wasn't completely unsatisfying to the reader. That was that was new for me.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

So we talked about the settings and the background and landscape, we talked about the characters. Uh, one question I had for you um, it's 105 pages, it's rather short in today's industry for scripts, which I think is very good. Was it something that you had in mind, like you wanted the script to be accessible, or is it just that the story fit in that amount of pages?

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Um, script length, you know, there are um targets for feature scripts. And 120 is generally the the the record. There are some festivals that won't take them over 120. So I've had my first uh what are my first grips? I've done this is my sort of third, fourth one, um, was I think 130, 135. And um, to get into one festival, I actually had to uh limit it. And I actually found that process of kind of uh editing it better made it stronger too. So I took away from that experience that really make sure each scene is meaningful, the dialogue is telling part of the story and not just uh rambling a bit. And you do get kind of close to these characters, and I think it's um understandable. So you sound like add additional information that you think is kind of interesting that really doesn't make that much difference to the plot. So with this particular one, I was very diligent on trying to um keep it succinct and and to the story. And I knew it was gonna come in a little bit one of my as a lower um script. But my next challenge, I'm gonna actually work on a short script. I'm gonna try one that's even shorter, like you know, there's that category for um shorts, and I've never done one like that.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

So I'm gonna I'm gonna push myself into that for my next uh it's definitely another way to um not another way, it's a different challenge to compress and still be meaningful. It's a very different uh what's that movie like that? I've done a movie inspired by real events, and uh the shorter it is, I want to say the easier it is to kind of discard the rules. Um, because if you make a five-minute script or movie, you don't necessarily have to do three-act structure or five-act structure. There was no question in that, but I want to uh kind of fall back on my feet.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

It reminds me of it reminds me of that old saying that um I'm sorry I'm writing you a long letter because I didn't have time to write you a short one.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

True. And it's keeping things not short, but can concise, specific, sometimes more difficult than just laying it all out there and having someone read your because you you're forced to make choices when you have to trim it down, you have to choose what you keep, and even sometimes you're gonna remove stuff that makes sense, but maybe they weigh less than other elements you're gonna keep at the end. So it's all about a balancing game of what's the most important, everything is important, but what's indispensable? And that scriptwriter's logic is like is my dialogue adding something? Is my dialogue adding something to the story, to the character, to the scene? Is that scene moving the story forward? Uh is that flashback really necessary uh for the view from the viewer's perspective? All that kind of stuff. Um, what's your what we are getting to the close to the end? I want to ask you a couple of questions. Uh, what's your structure? Is it a very um kind of academic three acts, uh, or did you differ in some uh aspects?

SPEAKER_01 27:09

I'm still at that sort of but more structured academic approach. I I I do an outline, I do an outline uh to start with uh once I've got the idea and the plot, um I do the outline in three acts and um for for these for a feature, and then double confirm that there's a there's a script here. Okay and with the with the arc of the plot for each of those acts and the beats of the scenes, I really try to make sure I'm flushing that out. Then I start the writing and following the outline. And like I'm sure you've interviewed many writers, you play around with it a bit. Sometimes that outline doesn't, you know, it's you're not I you know, I'm not bound to it. I just it's I try to follow it. And then and sometimes you have ideas and you wake up, you go, oh that's a I can add that and you put it together and you you piece it. But generally, that's my um approach is uh do the research on the topic, work on an outline, think about the characters, and then break it up into three acts, and then start writing.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

I like it. Um the structure is always good to have, and the more you have it, the easier it becomes to kind of walk away from it or walk around it, uh, and give that freedom to your characters within the frame of moving the story forward. Last question for you. Uh, the title, peace and done. Can you explain it to me?

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Um, so the peace uh is a double entendre. So there's the like um peace being you know, harmony. Um, so there's there's a community of which where that harmony is broken up because there's a murder. So this is a it's a peaceful town, and uh the peace is is broken because of this uh uh heinous crime. It's also takes place in a part of the province that's known as the Peace Country. Oh so is the P there's a Peace River, there's um there's a town of Peace River, which is not too far from Grand Prairie, and it's also known as Peace Country. So that's the double meaning. Okay, both both senses of the word are undone. I I kind of liked it. I could have said, you know, murder on the prairie or yeah, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

The title may change over the course of the life of a script and of a movie because at some point, usually when you reach the distribution phase, a distribution company may change the title to become more appealing to a certain demographic, whatever. But definitely you have a title that's um original, it's it's kind of unique.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

I've never a lot of time script titles are kind of all the same, and yours is not, so it's uh I I could I could defer to the Los Angeles experts of what my title should be. I think there's a lot more experience in um your festival and the people who are looking at it than I have.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

So I that was the title I came up with, but uh it's I think it I think it works for that story, and that's what's important because it's uh it's part of the message, it's part of the the vibe, the the the the color you wanna you want to talk about. So uh it has to make sense, it's not just a generic title.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

And and hopefully it drives a little bit of interest, and maybe maybe it creates a little bit of interest.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah, definitely. Uh Bob, thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Uh very uh very interesting discussion. Uh, you get me to travel a little bit to Canada today. I appreciate that. And um yeah, I wish you the very best for that script and for your next steps into script contests and film festivals. I I think it's a solid project, and I'm pretty sure you'll have uh more and more success coming your way.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Matt, thank you for your kind words. Uh, thank you for the opportunity to be on this uh podcast, and uh it means a lot to me. And uh I I look forward to you know the next step and see what the feedback comes from this submission for the feature screenplay. Thank you very much. Fingers crossed. All right, take care. Have a very good rest of your day.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Bye bye.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Very good day to you.