This was the final article from Mystery Man that I posted on GITS: March 4, 2010. The piece was featured at The Story Department, a blog hosted by Karel Segers (TSD has been featuring notable MM posts from the past):

MMOF’s latest is an appreciation of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”:

“In the midst of my absence last month, I managed to squeeze in some time to read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It was only 1000 pages of very fine print – no problem! I had been meaning to read the book for years. I once knew a certain female executive whose passion for work knew no bounds and who once admitted to me that the source of much of her passion came from Atlas Shrugged. I once played Bioshock on my laptop. The entire backstory and characters involved in the underwater city of Rapture were based upon the ideas of Atlas Shrugged. There are many references in the game to Ayn Rand’s story and characters and even Ayn Rand herself. I also read Francis Ford Coppola’s unproduced years-in-the-making epic script, Megalopolis, which Coppola said was influenced by Atlas Shrugged.

“In any case, I could not put the book down. I flew through the thousand pages without a sweat. It’s amazing to me how on the one hand, some 120-page amateur screenplays require monumental acts of willpower to get through them and yet, on the other hand, there are giant, thousand-page books that are hopelessly addictive. Why is that? What is it about one story that makes it addictive and another one arduous? How can a writer hold a reader’s attention so intensely for so many pages?” [emphasis added]

MMOF derives 8 pieces of ‘wisdom’ per screenwriting from having read the book:

1) The stakes were raised sky high

2) The obstacles grew increasingly monstrous over the course of the book

3) High drama

4) Rand makes her points by showing what’s wrong with the world

5) I loved the symbolism

6) Effective use of flashbacks

7) Rand was always thinking big

“Who is John Galt?”

For more, go here.

“Why is that? What is it about one story that makes it addictive and another one arduous? How can a writer hold a reader’s attention so intensely for so many pages?”

I highlight this part of MM’s post because I think it gets at the heart of what MM was about re screenwriting: He was fascinated and curious to the extreme why some stories just worked. If you read through any series of MM posts where he analyzed movies, there is an overriding sense of appreciation and sometimes even joy when the story worked well. Of course, when a story did not work well, MM was quick to point that out. But I think it’s important to remember MM’s excitement and enthusiasm about the story-crafting process. It’s so easy to burn out as a writer, to become cynical. Mystery Man managed to avoid that due to what I suspect was his fundamental love of movies and storytelling.

On Friday night when I passed along the information here I had received about Mystery Man’s death, I re-posted a Q&A I did with Mystery Man. Let’s look again at how that Q&A ended:

My favorite article has to be the one I wrote on John Michael Hayes. I had just finished reading about him when he passed away. I couldn’t believe it. So I told his story and how he became a screenwriter. Get this. John Michael Hayes left his family, who never once supported his writing aspirations. He snuck away while his family was at the movies, no less. He hitchhiked his way across the country from Worcester, Massachusetts, all the way to Hollywood while hopping on two canes (recovering from a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis) and with only $15 in his pocket! Can you believe that? I wrote, “Yeah, all you aspiring writers out there think you have it so rough? Tell me you want to be a writer as badly as John Michael Hayes. Tell me you would’ve done what John Michael Hayes did.”

So I posted the article, and his son, Garrett Michael Hayes, commented, “I’ve read a great number of the recent JMH obits and online mentions. Thus far, yours comes closest to capturing a sense of his life.” Then John’s daughter, Meredyth, wrote, “It made my heart full today to read this and I thank you.”

How can you surpass those highs?

I’ll tell you how. Screenwriting. Making films. Nothing beats it.

“I’ll tell you how. Screenwriting. Making films. Nothing beats it.“

That, friends, is the voice of passion. And throughout the years, Mystery Man’s writings were infused with that passion.

And so a final salute to Mystery Man. Wherever you are, may they have unending movies for you to screen and great stories for you to read.