252 | Creating a Complex Protagonist with a Simple Goal ft. Kim Rosenstock (Dying for Sex)

This week, we’re joined by Kim Rosenstock (DYING FOR SEX) to explore how a complicated protagonist with a simple goal drives interesting, rich, and emotionally resonant storytelling.

Through the lens of her deeply personal and genre-blending show, which she co-created with Liz Meriwether, Kim shares how clarity of objective gave DYING FOR SEX its emotional depth, tonal range, and narrative momentum — and why writers shouldn’t be afraid to keep their characters’ goals simple, even when the journey is anything but.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Meg: Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve, and I'm so lucky to be joined today by writer Kim Rosenstock. She's the co-creator of the incredible TV show, Dying For Sex. It's a limited series based on the hit podcast of the same name. This show is based on a true story and follows a woman named Molly, who after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, decides to leave her marriage and embark on a series of deeply personal, hilarious, and sometimes heartbreaking sexual adventures.

Kim is an Emmy and WGA nominated TV writer, producer and playwright whose TV credits include New Girl, Only Murder in the Building, Glow, and Single Parents on ABC. Before transitioning to television, Kim began her career in theater and playwriting her plays and musicals had received critical acclaim and been produced around the country, earning an outer Critic's Circle nomination for her play Tigers Be Still, and a Drama Desk nomination for her musical Fly By Night. So I'm gonna first say, welcome to the show, Kim.

Kim: Thank you. Thanks for having me, Meg.

Meg: I can't wait to talk to you about this incredible show Dying for Sex. But first we're gonna do our opening segment Adventures in Screenwriting, AKA, how our week was.

I'll go first. I am still in the continuing saga of holy shit, maybe this doesn't work. Step in the process of writing. Last week I was sure with my writing partner that we had to throw half the script out and, you know, on deadline. But the truth is maybe this doesn't work. I thought it did. Your writing partner reads it.

No, it doesn't. They have huge concerns. But then as always, 'cause I think it just turns and turns. We come up with all these huge changes from the midpoint on in order to make that third act work. But now my collaborator's in there and he is no, what you had does work. It's just this. And somehow I think when you've written pages, sometimes it takes the other writer a chance to get into the pages and turn them and move them.

And suddenly you realize we don't have to change all of this. We just had to change one scene and this one scene changing that suddenly changed the context for the other scenes. And suddenly you can do all of that. So I'm, but listen, I know that in a minute it could all go back again to, yeah, no, it doesn't work because we're not finished.

And until you get to that third act in a feature, you don't know really if it's working or not. So it's one of those, it's changing every day. And I happen to be married to my writing partner. So it creates another level of, you know, I wanna talk to my husband, not my writing partner right now, or I wanna talk to my writing partner.

And here's the hardest thing when you're married to the person that you're writing with is I know what he's doing. So I'm like, oh my God, he's outside raking leaves. Why we have the script is due. Why? But of course, please, every writer has their process. So we just had to make a deal.

You'll have your pages by this day and this time, and I have no business how, when you do that, 'cause it, it is not any of my business how or what his process is. But, so, you know, tomorrow could all blow up again in TikTok. TikTok, it's due. But that was my week. Both emotional highs, lows, you know, the whirlpool of writing and how you can just, it can change on a dime.

But Kim, how was your week?

Kim: First of all, I just wanna say I that is amazing. And I like, because I feel and we could get into it more, like sometimes my process is so shameful to me. Like I wouldn't want anyone to see it and to actually be like literally in the same space as the other person that I'm writing with.

I feel like I don't even know how how much I would have to like love and trust somebody to be like you, you are going, we're gonna just see each other's every moment of yes, each other's like life and process. And I hats off to you. You must have a deep great love.

That's all I can say. I don't know anything about anything.

Meg: 30 years we never tried it. I think you, the 30 years of marriage to even try it.

Kim: I think it's gonna Oh, really? That's amazing. How did, wait, can I, how did you, why now? Am I allowed to ask you that?

Meg: No. Yes, of course you can interview me. I'm only joking.

Kim: Can I interview you?

Meg: You no know what. It's just you reach a love of maturity. You did it with kids. There's a lot of collaboration that happens and you go do it long enough that suddenly you're like, well, we've each matured enough. And this one idea came in and I was like, wow, this is half me and half him.

It's half kind of character theme, juicy, and it's half big genre. So I just said, why don't we try? And then it worked and it was fun. Oh my God. That's so, and there were moments, there's always moments. Yeah, no, of course. But I can't wait to talk to you about the collaboration, talk about collaboration and the show.

But tell me about your week first.

Kim: Okay, well, first of all yeah, I think this week in terms of writing I feel like. Right now we are in, we're doing a lot of press gearing up for award season for our show, and it's actually my first time going through this. So I it's it's talking about the show over and over again in a way that almost feels like speed dating, where I feel like.

I'm like, did I, was the date good? Did we do it? But now I also feel like, okay, I wish I could go back to the terrible way I said this two months ago, because I feel like now I've got it, I've got it down to a type five. I could talk about this. But I, you know, I'm working on so, and it's also kinda like a full-time job, which I didn't realize like the press and that I'm not really a I feel like I am.

It's, I've, I'm a not necessarily, as you hear right now, I'm somebody who kind of rambles and finds my thoughts as they're coming and I'm adjusting to this idea that no, you only have a certain amount of time with this person who, and so you actually have to find your thought very quickly.

Otherwise, like you're kind of like. You're, yes. You're not gonna be able to ask all their questions if you take 10 minutes to answer the first question. So, I'm like, learning how to talk, I guess, is is this a talking podcast? Because I would love to go onto a podcast, how to talk. So I, but I, writing wise this week so we were, we had got them awards for this show, which was so exciting 'cause I got to actually go, you know, celebrate Jenny Slate who got an award, which was amazing and so exciting.

And then last night we did the Variety Writer's Room, where I also got to talk with all these other amazing showrunners. Sounds good. You know, you don't always get to, I've worked with the same people a lot, so it's, I can still be at this point in my career, like where it doesn't matter. Like I'm still meeting new people Yeah.

Who are like, oh, you're, I love you and you're so cool, and maybe one day we'll work together. It's nice that can continue to happen. You know, you just, you never know everybody. And it's so cool to hear other people talk about, you know, their jobs and then, you know, writing wise I'm actually in a room right now, which is so fun.

It's a Ryan Murphy show, American Love Story, and it's the JFK Junior Carolyn Bessette love story. And I am just having the best time. First of all, I'm back in the nineties, which I love, and I, it's my first time ever writing an hour long, on an hour long. And also writing Dying for Sex, it's inspired by a real story, but this is like a historical, like we have to do a lot of research and there's a lot of reading time that goes into the job. And so what's interesting is I'm still figuring out like, it, we can break whatever story we want that emotionally makes sense.

But also there are, there's the research and there's the facts and there's like thousands of pages. We have amazing researchers that like, that go into every episode. You have to like, like part of the writing process is also like heavy research that like you've got, because you can't fudge it.

Like you have to get it. Like some things you just have to get right and you have to read it all. I'm a slow reader, so, I just discovered that I can listen to some I'm, so, forgive me, I'm gonna sound like the like dumbest person in alive, but I just realized that you can listen to these audio books. Like I knew you could increase the speed, but I didn't. I'm learning that like I can listen to 2.5 speed and it's still I'm like, I'm, I feel like I'm, listen,

Meg: Superhero, not dumb. Superhero.

Kim: No. But I was like, oh my God, I could crank it up to 2.5 and I'm like, I'm just absorbing all this information about Carolyn Bessette.

And it's very it's a really cool experience. And I also wanna say I am working with the most amazing group of people and I just wanna quickly say, when I told them just now, I had, I'm in the room right now, I had to step out. I was like, okay guys, I gotta step out. I'm doing this podcast.

And when I mentioned this podcast, our incredible writer's assistant, who's also an amazing screenwriter and is, and I'm gonna shout out her name is Juliana Jonas. She had the most emotional reaction and she's you are going on. You're, she's you're going on that podcast. And she was like, that is my favorite podcast.

It for me and my friends. Oh it, it gives us, whenever we're in a dark place, we turn it on and we listen and we hear something that makes us keep going, that brings us out of that pit of despair. And I was like, I she was so, it means this podcast means so much to her. So I just wanna give her a huge shout out.

Meg: Oh, thank you so much. No, I love that.

Kim: So anyway, I'm doing, I like working on a bunch of things at once. I love being in a room with people, and I think sometimes there's this idea that once you have run a show or you've created a show, then you can never go back to like just being, working with, you always now have to be the leader.

And I like to believe that things are more fluid than that, and that you can, it's nice to, like I heard somebody once say it like. There's a campfire and sometimes we're the one getting up and sharing the story, but sometimes we're the one listening and sometimes we're the one playing the guitar. And I like to love that.

Think of the career in that way where you don't, oh, this, there's this tendency, I think especially in television to be like, okay, are you what's next? What's next? What did you make next? What And it's or what, you know, you have to just keep going up. And I actually think of it as more of a wave.

And so, I know that might, but like it's, I think that kind of pressure is something that like breaks people and makes you feel a little crazy. And I think for me what's always grounding is to go back into a room full of really great writers and talk about a new story and new characters, and then also see how other people work.

I love learning about a Ryan Murphy show gets made. You know, I didn't know that. I, and I have never, it's like a new universe for me. So I love that. I think you can just keep learning. So Yeah,

Meg: I know. I love that. And I do love that about television. Yeah. I do that in the feature version where I like to bring pro writers together to read each other's work in like a round table and you can just, and you know, throw, just get so inspired by watching how they think or the, how they attack a story or, I just think it's so inspiring for our own work to be around other writers, you know, moving through a story.

So I totally get, and I love the metaphor of the campfire. It's so good.

Kim: It is. And I think it's a collaborative, I'm very collaborative. So I think I think it's great to remember like you are, other people are actually a strength like that. Like it's good. It like invigorates me when I'm around other people and like kind of what, to your first thing that you were talking about.

It's great to sometimes someone will come in and they'll see it so clearly and oh, if you actually just change this. And like you, it's oh, that's it. And I could have never seen that 'cause I was so deep in it. Exactly. I needed another person to be there to come in with their eyes and brains and just see the solution that I couldn't have seen on my own.

Meg: Yeah. I was in once with David Hemmings and he said character, attitude and action. And I was like, oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Put that on the wall. I just love that helps me so much. So I come I'm a hundred percent with you and I'm a feature writer, so I have to create it myself.

Okay. So I have talked about this show I said before we started when we were off that I just am enamored of this show. I am floored by the show. I think I very rarely watch things twice just 'cause life is so busy. But I actually think I'm gonna go back and watch the whole show again. Because what you're doing is to me, magic magical writing.

I don't even know how you're doing what you're doing. I'm just, I love the show so much. So I have so many questions for you, so I just have got to get into it.

Kim: That's such an amazing thing to say. Thank you. That means so much. And I, yeah I appreciate It's

Meg: Truly everybody has to watch it. It's amazing. I wanna say once in a genera-. It's just so good. Oh my gosh. So, okay. I know it was inspired by a podcast. Yes. What drew you personally to it, or how did you and your co-creator come together to do it? Just give us a little bit of the background of it so that everybody can kind of start in the same place.

Kim: Yes. Well, Liz Meriwether who is the brilliant mind behind New Girl and the Dropout and is a very old friend of mine. We've known each other since we were playwrights in New York, in the early aughts. And, we've worked together a lot. She found this podcast and, had her last meeting, she'll say her last meeting right before everything shut down from COVID was with Nikki Boyer.

And and they, she optioned it. Nikki had a lot of people who wanted to make this podcast into a TV show. And I think she just connected immediately with Liz and trusted her. And so, and then Liz called me and was like, would you wanna make this show with me? Will you listen to this podcast and let me know what you think?

And so I listened to the podcast and I had just, I had never heard anything like it. And I kept thinking I knew what it was, and then it kept changing and it kept expanding. And I just, that feeling was so unique. I had never, I had just never had that emotional journey. I'll also say, I think at that point we had all been trapped in our homes and isolated for you know, five or six months.

And it was and there was so much emotion that I had stored up about so much despair and sadness and fear that I was alone with my 4-year-old working. And you know, like many people just very like afraid of what was happening and not knowing, feeling helpless. And I think this podcast opened up channels for me to have an emotional, like catharsis about kind of everything. And I, and by the end, I was just literally lying on my back on my floor, just listening to their voices and just sobbing. And I realized it was about it, it was about Molly, it was about Nikki, and it was also about like everything.

And I was like, anything that to me, like can reach in and just make you feel like that is, is worth pursuing. And the story, you know, was just one that I, I felt like, okay you know, this. If we could, what a gift to be able to have that material and that, that story to adapt. And so the thing that scared me honestly, was that it was so beautiful and kind of perfect on its own as this audio experience like that, the voices, it was all about their voices and their relationship that I was almost like, well, could we do this justice?

You know? And how do we capture this now? How do we make it our own thing for television? And you know, how do we,

Meg: Because you did have to invent right? Meaning it's not, oh, yeah. It's not a true story. It's inspired by, which I even know from the legal disclaimer that comes up very largely at the very end. Right?

Kim: Yeah. Well, but it's an interesting thing because I mean like a lot of it was. It's a mix, you know? And even to the fact that we're, we kept being like, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna rename them. It's not gonna be Molly and Nikki. We're gonna find their names. And then it was like, every time we would, we're like, I don't know, Samantha and Jen no what are we doing?

It's Molly and Nikki. It just felt like this will sound a little woo or whatever, but I felt like the real story kept like coming. It's like the show, and I feel like this about all things. They, it teaches you as you go, like it'll resist.

And we kept trying to change the names. It was like, those names don't wanna be changed. I like, and you just at some point you're like, okay, I'm gonna stop pushing here. That's and so,

Meg: That's a real thing. I have that too, where you're like, this story is telling me what the story is, and that's just what it is.

Kim: And I can't fight it. And every time I try to change it, it just comes back to this. And I just, it is it, the story wants what the story wants sometimes. And so, I think. I think that you know, one thing that we had was Nikki Boyer, who is you know, who made the podcast. And it, this podcast is a deep act of love and friendship and care for her.

Her best friend Molly you know, was an EP on this show and is sort of the, you know, the one who brought this story out into the world. And so she was a collaborator with us, which was very honestly humbling and just very special to have her be part of it. And the thing that struck me was how open she was to us making our own thing.

She was not, you know, at first I was scared. I was like, oh God, are we gonna give her a draft? Is she gonna be like, this never happened. This, we didn't do this. This is nothing. Never nothing like that. It was so. She was so, interested in the process, honestly, of how we were making it. Like she was, she's so curious.

And you know, I think you hear that on the podcast. It's her curiosity and her sense of wonder that opens up the story in Molly. Like she really is just so interested in people and how people work

Meg: And that curiosity and wonder is at the center of their friendship and the whole That's right. The whole story.

Kim: That's right. And I think so she we really had her as like a resource whenever we needed it. 'cause you know, there were times where it was like, hey, like we wanna make sure we get this right, that we're like portraying this experience accurately. And especially the caretaker experience because, but you know, Nikki was not with, she wasn't like, again, in the real story, it wasn't like Molly got this diagnosis and then Nikki was instantly her caretaker and like her life partner.

It was a much, it was, you know, many more things happen. And actually in making the podcast is what really brought them together. And especially towards the end of Molly's life, Nikki was, Nikki did end up in her hospital room, and she did end up really being there in her final moments. Because, you know, partially because they were best friends and they loved each other, and that's who Molly wanted there.

But also because she was continuing to record, Molly really wanted to keep like, telling her story and talking about what this experience was. And so there was this intimacy, this incredible intimacy. And so Nikki made herself really available to us, especially for the last episode. In terms of what she would send me photos of. Molly's hospital room and tell me like exact, just real like granular details of what was in there, like what, where was the bed was in the center of the room, you know, she, and she, and this blanket was like all these details and it was so beautiful just to see how she was willing to like, you know, go back into these really painful memories, but so brave, go there for us and share these details with us so that we could, you know, tell this story really truthfully.

And then at the same time she was able to completely let go of, you know, some of these, the things that really happened and let us just invent and make whole new characters, make whole new story, you know, when we needed to. And just her flexibility and her willingness to just. Trust us and let us, we would, she would wait for us to call her in.

And then there were times where we were like, we need to kind of go away and do this now with our writer's room on our own. And she was like, absolutely. Like it. It was like, she just so great. She was there when we needed her, and then she came to set. And that was amazing to have her there. And I will say, for both Liz and I, the moments where Nikki would tell us that it felt like Molly, that the show felt like Molly or Michelle, it felt like Molly.

That was like how we knew we were on the right path, where it was like, okay, we, you know, because you are, we are like, you know, this is all inspired by a real person's experience. And that those moments felt like very it felt like a hand on the shoulder being like, keep going. You're doing this right and you're honoring this person.

And she would love this. She would love this. I loved also, Nikki was like. It was like, yeah, Molly was a writer, so she would have some thoughts, she would have some notes, you know, which I loved. I was like, great.

Meg: Well, what's so great about Molly's character is that, 'cause when you talk about, you know, being in COVID and letting the emotions up, and we're talking about the, we're using the set of a hospital room, and it would be very easy to think about and like this as some sort of like tragedy upon tragedy, right?

You know, cancer dying show. But like you also said, it just keeps opening up and surprising you because Molly as a character is so unique and she's approaching it. This diagnosis with such a unique point of view and curiosity and wonder and reality and authenticity. So the first thing, there's so much to unpack right there from a writing standpoint, and I just wanna first start with tone.

Yeah. 'cause I think it's really important for everybody to know who hasn't seen it, that the tone is so unique and special because it is authentically painful and heartbreaking. It's also really funny. And it's not like black humor. It's just honest humor, the way that people can be and situations can be oddly funny.

So can you talk a little bit about finding that tone and how you did it? Did you have to write to find it? Did you talk it? How, just in a practical way. Yeah. Because you have to lead a room of people towards a tone. Yeah. How did that come about?

Kim: I mean, again, I think everything starts with the podcast and the tone of the real people.

The real we took our cue. I think both Liz and I were drawn to how funny this story was. How the way that they, these two friends kept making each other laugh throughout this really painful, devastating experience and how how humor was it was their language. It was their love language.

It was arguably like why they wanted to be around each other. Like the joy of having somebody that just always makes you laugh when you're in the depths of despair. You know, that's so important. And I think for us, I think the tone. Was it's tricky. I think when people say tone sometimes you are like, are we all talking about, what are we all talking about?

What is this word? And I think it's also one that people can throw around really easily and be like, I don't understand the tone. And you're like, okay, let's drill down. But what do you mean? It's not funny enough like what do you like? I think it's something that can feel really vague and like just this word that just hangs over everything.

And I think actually one, I think at one point we were like, I think we need to liberate ourselves from the concept of a genre right now and of comedy or drama or tone. And I think what you just said is that like it, the, everything just has to be based on what feels right in this moment and what is, what feels like the most truthful version of this story.

And so the truth is that. And we talk to so many people with cancer, with breast cancer, with chronic illness. Like when you get a diagnosis like this or when you and or you are sick your life does not become all about being sick. It is not what defines you. It is part of your life.

It is, it can be a very painful, dark force that drags you down at times. But it does not define you. And I think that was something that we kept talking about along the way of how do we honor the real experience of having this disease? And to do that, it's like you, your life doesn't suddenly become a tragedy.

Your days don't just become a drama and the experience of being human is not just one thing or the other. It's every, it's everything. And like you can, I think in that. In that, in our pilot, it's like you can get this diagnosis and then you go into a bodega and you're like, I want a weird green soda.

And then you see your best friend and she makes you laugh. And then you're getting like, like lot life keeps happening and you keep, and you find joy and you find humor and you're not defined or limited by now this illness. And so I think it was really important to us to make sure that the show honored that.

And I think, but because we are, Liz and I both come from comedy and I think we are people that are always, look, we're trained, wired to look for where's the joke, where's the set piece? And you know, the real story has so many jokes and set pieces like the real, the story of her, like peeing on somebody and then realizing she was in doing that.

She had just come from chemo and that chemo might be in the pee and he drank it. That happened. And the truth is. The real, the funniest stuff, most absurd stuff comes from the truth. And we, I think we all know this, but like it's always from something very real and honest. And so I think for Liz and I, it's like we have all these comedy tools and it's we don't need to bust them out necessarily.

We don't. Right. 'cause it was right there and at the same way the reflex of oh, this is getting sad. We need the joke. We need to make sure, like somebody's there's like a somebody, there's like a somebody farts or somebody falls like, you know, it's it's there for us, but like knowing when we don't need it and when to not be afraid of just letting it live

Meg: It was very much in the show that yeah, they were. At the same time that you under, I understood very quickly that these two women share emotional intimacy in a way with each other, that they don't with anybody else.

Kim: Yes.

Meg: I also understood that was also gonna get tested and pushed. Meaning sometimes the joking could be a way, or with your main character, Molly, sex could be a way to escape.

And at some point Yeah. Like at what point the joking is support and love and at what point is now it's obscuring a pain or deflection. Yeah, deflection. And at what point is the sex a true exploration of herself? And at some point it's a running away. And I thought that was such, just finding those two pockets for the them as a relationship to work through together was so powerful.

And as a friendship you know. Did you guys bring anything? You have such great source material, as you said, right? But as writers, of course, we have to bring ourselves to it. Right? So in terms of friendship your personal friendships, what you love about friendship, did you bring anything to it that you felt was really what you could relate to?

Or did you really just really stick with the source material?

Kim: Oh, no, I think we you always bring your own experience into something. And I think absolutely. I think we talked a lot in our writer's room again about the intimacy that you have with a real friend and with someone who's known you for a long time and somebody who's known a lot of versions of you, that there's kind of nothing like it.

You can't manufacture that, you can't replace that and the joy and pleasure of being with somebody who understands. Understands you and accepts you and really just gets you where you have a shorthand and you don't have to, you don't have to like, explain things and the ease of that and how that is so much of the show is about pleasure and like leaning into the where the pockets of pleasure in your life and about.

Again, this person, Molly. What could have been the most painful, like moments of her life seeking out pleasure? And how do you do that? Where do you find that? And I think for so many people, it's with it's with a friend. It's with your, it's with a friend who's known you and loved you through good and bad.

Who know who's not afraid to call you out, who's not afraid to, you know, sit and see you at your worst and still who you know, who you just trust and know is gonna love you there. Any one moment isn't gonna matter against the whole friendship. Like the fabric of this whole thing that you've lived through together.

It's stronger than any moment where maybe you piss each other off. Like it was also, it was so important to us to make this show. There's incredible. Things like that have been created in every art form about female friendship. We are by no means inventing this. And so I think we were, we talked a lot about what are the thing, what are what are the things that we love to see and how can we be in conversation with that?

And so I think one thing that we decided really early on was we don't ever want the story to be about conflict between them. They are always a team and there's one episode where there's conflict. There's one moment where they split apart, but then it's that rupture and repair. It's like they need to r because we're like, okay, they have to have some but like we were like, we were very careful to make it sure it was only this one moment.

And that in the repair is actually this moment where the, our character, Molly is able to finally connect to something that she has. She has a huge emotional breakthrough in that moment through repair, that repair in this friendship. And the other thing I wanna say is like this idea that and I think this is true, this is something I brought to it, Liz brought to it.

I think every just that idea that all relationships. It's like you see and friendship, a romantic relationship, anything. It's like you're seeing yourself reflected through the other person how they're a mirror for you. And our identities are kind of just like this amalgamation of how other people see us at times you know, and so it's like, what is the reflection that feels good to you?

And how can you put yourself in that reflection? How can you see yourself through the eyes of the person who sees you the way that you love being seen? You know? And who are those people that when you leave them, you feel exhilarated and you want more and you can't wait to get back to that?

And how does it feel again? Like we all have those people where we leave the dinner and you're like, Ugh, I'm exhausted, or, oh God, I feel I'm anxious. I'm thinking about everything I said, I feel bad. And what are the, who are the people that you make you feel alive? I think a great, again, in the face of so much of this show is about death, but it's about what are, what makes you feel alive?

Like it's a show about living and who are the people that make you feel like the truest, most alive version of yourself? And I think a great friend who just reflects to you the best version of your or not even the best, but the version of you that feels aligned with who you actually see yourself as is such a huge gift.

And I think that is who Molly and Nikki are to each other. Again, Nikki's side of it is she could be seen as a hot mess, not a serious person. She's the fun friend that you know, you hang out with, but you're never gonna call her if some, if shit gets real. And the fact that Molly is the only person that sees her as someone who is capable of showing up.

Consistently at this level, at this extreme level changes her and lets her see herself in a way that she maybe never would have seen herself. If no one ever sees you that way, how do you, it's if a tree falls, you may believe you're capable of something, but if no one ever, we all exist in relationship to each other.

So we don't exist, we're not isolated, you know, like we. And so if no one ever allows you to see that version of yourself, you might not ever experience it. You know, you might, she might have never known. I love that she would be an incredible caretaker. 'cause no one would've given the girl with the purse.

That's always exploding the responsibility. But Molly gives her that and I think that was

Meg: she sees it. I just, I love that so much and it's so clear and beautifully done in the show. And I also love what you said about Molly seeking pleasure. And I think we, I would love to talk about, 'cause a big part of the show is the want she has.

I don't remember if this is a tagline or something I saw about the show that it's never too late to figure out what you want. And we talk a lot. You just made that up. It's amazing. I don't think no. It's somewhere, it's on one of the press things. It's on. I didn't make it up. But I, it's so important because we talk a lot on this show in terms of writing craft, how a main character in a feature or in this case, in a show, being driven by their want and how it's so hard for a lot of female writers to think about that because we're enculturated.

To not want, we're enculturated to know what everybody else wants. And this is such a bold character as a female because she is very clear after the pilot and she's starting to figure out what she wants. And to do that, she's gonna have to go against societal norms because it's about sex and different kinds of sex.

Correct. And exploring different kinds of sex. So already we're way out of cultural norms because she wants something clearly, she's going for it. What she wants is not appropriate, quote unquote. Right. And then, and but of course your best friend is the one who's yeah, go for it. In terms of, I just love her driving, want into pleasure and then finding herself there and how f free it is.

Can you talk a little bit about working with that level of sexuality, both on the page as her character, but also practically on set? Because I know this is maybe a strange question, but I. There's different directors coming in and out and these scenes are so sexually charged and intimate for the actors.

I'm wondering how it changed once this, these sexual scenes on the page versus they're getting to set and you're working with different directors, you know, who's there kind of monitoring that in terms of the story and your character.

Kim: Oh my gosh, I have so much to say about this. Thank you for asking those amazing questions.

I think, yeah, like there's it, okay, so both Liz and I, again we had mostly written things for network sitcoms where even to show like a bra strap, you're like, that indicates like now they're gonna have sex and we're gonna cut to the next morning. And so it actually was sort of new territory for us.

And even how to write the stage directions. And I, we always give a shout out. There was this very fateful WGA Zoom, shout out to who I forget. Honestly, I wish I could remember the person who hosted this. 'cause she was amazing. It was a Valentine's Day Zoom and it was like, I think it was supposed to be like on, because it was Valentine's Day.

It was like how to write sex scenes. And our whole writer's room was like, should we go to this? And so we all went and I will be honest, I was kind of, I was like, this will be funny. But again, 'cause we're like, haha it was so inspiring and pivotal for us that we went to this because it was so instructive In practical terms, again like the idea that when you're writing these stage directions, and this seems obvious, but.

You wanna think about the people on set who are going to have to do this, and you wanna be as clear as possible about what you expect, what is happening, so that there is no confusion. So that it is not up to any actor to try to figure out like. And create in an uncomfortable way have to figure it out on set in that moment.

And so how can you do as much work as possible so that the people who are going to have to do this feel like they, they are extremely clear on technically what is needed. And once they are on set and they're in various stages of undress, there's all these people around. It is not, everything has been figured out for and that, and they have had, and they have had conversations and they and nothing is happening in that moment.

That was not planned for. That is the goal. I think that it is it, once you are in that vulnerable situation on set and you are filming it you are just, now, you know what's going to happen. You are not inventing new things in that moment, which can create I think, a lot of uncomfortable situations for people.

And so in the writing of it, it was like. Be really clear, like what is happening? 'cause it all starts with that. And then I can tell then we hired an amazing intimacy coordinator. Her name was Claire Warden. She's actually worked on a lot of shows. She had just come from working on three women which had a lot of, she knew a lot about penis prosthetics.

Like we, she knew a lot about everything. And when Liz and I had our zoom with her, we could have cried because it was like, oh my gosh. There are so many things that she was gonna think about that maybe we wouldn't have thought about for us. Like a how to make sure all the crew members feel really safe and taken care of how to make sure we, we let them know we're gonna be shooting this.

You know, this is coming up. If that's something that might be upsetting for you, like you have the ability to like tag out and not be there on that day. If you maybe have experienced trauma you know, you now have a, and you can come to Claire like, and talk to her about it. Like she's a resource on set.

She's a huge resource for the actors and a huge resource for us. So we had like spreadsheets for every single moment in the show that was going to be a sexual moment. We had, she had all these spreadsheets and we had meet so many meetings about all of them and we talked about them and if she had questions about what our stage directions were, we would rewrite them before.

So this is before we shot anything so that we can make them clearer. She helped us make it clearer and that

Meg: is the network is. The network getting involved at any point in terms of it's showing too much or it's too sexual? I mean, it's amazing to me that this is a network, right? So I mean, how did that,

Kim: I mean, we definitely were you know, FX is not afraid.

They are not afraid of, you know, showing things. And that what we were told at first was like, don't worry about that. You can show anything you want. And we were like, really? Okay. And we did test the limits of that because they were like, we are looking at this flying penis for 20 seconds, and can we get it down to the essential 10 seconds of a flying penis?

And we were like, Ugh. They were like, can we not be like close on it for as long? Hulu isn't like soup. And we're like, Ugh. And we're like, oh, we have if we can ever release the extended cut of that flying penis, I think it would be a gift to a lot of people. It had a whole personality. It was like Coi, it was like coming close to the camera and like teasing it.

Then like it, it had a fake out, like it was. So we had a much longer sequence. Ultimately it ended up, you know. 10 seconds, but we still got to show it. And we, you know, I think we, that was really one of the only things I think that we were told we couldn't show.

Meg: It's so great. It's so great because I'm hoping, and it seems like they understood that the whole story depends on the authenticity of sexual exploration.

Not judgment, not as something weird or bad. So you can't then pull away from it and cut away from it. 'cause it implies in the cut something to be afraid of or don't look. So I just thought it was so amazing. I have so many other questions to ask. You have move on.

Kim: The shame is in, but the shame is in the cutaway and I think it was like, let's, we're trying to make a show that will hopefully release people from shame and release about a character who has radical acceptance for all of these ways that sex can look like and things that you can do and that, and she's. Open to all of it. And so the show has to be open to all of it, which means visually we have to be open. It has to be accepting of these things. Yeah. And we cut away or to not show it to and to not, or to, you know, for us, another big thing was like, to not make a joke of it. Is that's the whole point.

And if we're not gonna do that, then we shouldn't be making it. Because if the show if the visual if in the edit, if in the if you feel the shame and the fear, we have undercut the whole story. And so we have to show these things because

Meg: And not make fun of it. And she takes it very seriously and so therefore you do, you know, you know, there's fun in it. No, don't get me wrong. There is fun in it. Yeah. She's having fun, but it's not making fun of Exactly. Okay. I have a very quick question. So to me throughout the episodes, there's two plot. Balls in the air.

Not to have a pun here, but one is the obvious one that she is got stage four, she is going to die. We know kind of where we're moving towards, so that must give us a ticking clock of sorts for these eight episodes. And the other thing that is, which I think is the true hat trick, the true kind of tight white high highwire you guys are walking on is as writers, is, you know, her goal is to orgasm with someone else because of her own past trauma to be able to orgasm with another person versus on her own.

And that you're gonna go seven so many episodes not doing that right in terms of exploring all the different ways and the intimate and intricate steps that she takes to get to that. That just felt like such a great and yet very challenging narrative. Goal to not over so many episodes. Can you just talk about how you, even in the room, did you lay it out?

Like how did you approach that?

Kim: We did. I think we knew, it's a very simple story actually. She has a goal. You hear it in the first episode. I literally, we say it, my goal is to orgasm with another person. And that is the journey on some level that we are following. But, and it seems like a simple goal, but the truth is, in reality for many people, that is not a linear path.

That is not an easy, easily achieved thing. That is a hard one thing. And I think we wanted to show that and to show that it is it takes a lot for her to get there, to trust herself, to know herself, to feel safe enough. A lot of it is about how she doesn't feel safe in her own body and she doesn't trust her own body because of what happened to her when she was seven, and that, you know, that sex was the thing.

The real woman, Molly Cochen says on the podcast, sex is the thing that split her off from herself. And she realized, honestly, she says she realized it honestly till the end of her li that sex, the reason why she sex was the thing that she was so focused on at the, was because sex was the thing that was gonna, sex was the thing that had split her apart.

And sex was the thing that was gonna put her back together. And so it is not a it sounds like such a simple goal, but it is not. It is not by any means linear or simple. And it involves actually tapping into every part of herself, every part of her fear, every part of her shame, every part of you know, her vulnerability.

It's at first a lot easier for, to her to accept other people. Not. And then how does she put that view onto herself? How can she see, how can she love herself in a way, and again, that sounds so cheesy. It sounds so cheesy, but the truth is, it is almost, it's so hard to actually learn how to love yourself and how to listen to what you want and how to learn, how to articulate it then, and how to advocate for it and how to, like you.

Meg: Talk about advocate for it. The other amazing thing you guys do in this story is it would've been very easy as she's going on her sexual journey to have kind of a male archetype wag his finger at women. Right? But that's not what you do. You do something such, so much more interesting, which is the people who are challenging her as it being weird or ugly, or debase, or which are all judgements against her.

And her journey is another woman, her mother, and a guy who is her husband, who are. Saying it as if it's loving her, which I thought was so sophisticated. They're trying to quote unquote, help her love her by saying, and, but they're only talking about themselves and she keeps trying to say to them, you're not even talking about me.

You are talking about you're in the judgment is just kind of a, kind of narcissism. It's like a, it's like a giving narcissism. I just thought it was so sophisticated.

Kim: Gosh, the generous narcissism of these characters. Yeah. I think that's exactly right. And it goes back to what I was saying earlier of how who sees you the way that you wanna be seen.

And her husband, I think her husband really loves her, but he sees her as, as not a sexual person and as a sick, as somebody who's sick, who needs to be taken care of. And so how are you ever gonna have a sexual awakening with someone who fundamentally doesn't see you as a sexual person? And her mother loves her, but her mother sees her as broken.

So how are you ever gonna heal and become whole if you're around somebody who sees you as broken? And so it's again, putting yourself in the path of the eyes that see you, the way that you wanna be seen. And I think that, you know, it's for us. The other thing, we talked to this amazing sexual research.

Em, a sexual researcher, Emily Nagoski, who wrote this amazing book, Come As You Are. Did I already talk about her? Okay. I've talked about her so much. I feel like I'm a, I No, you did not. I think giving her book is called Come As You Are Giving that book to people is like my love language. I literally give it to everybody because men, women, ev, everyone should read this book.

Every Human Being it is so. It is so educational. It is so eye-opening. But she, we talk to her a lot. She does a lot of work around sexual trauma and healing from it. And she talks about how we were interested in writing a story about sex and about trauma that was focused on the healing process.

So many things are focused on learning about the trauma or the trauma is the 11th hour reveal? That's why this was all happening. We were interested in writing a story about somebody who is very aware of her trauma. She knows it happened. It's not any mystery her that this has shaped her, but what she hasn't done is faced it and tried to move through it and tried to heal from it.

And healing is not a linear process. And he, we were like, how could we actually put healing on screen? And kinda what you're saying, it's it could take eight episodes, we could watch eight episodes of her. And something that Emily said was sometimes you get. It's a process of getting closer and then falling back and then getting closer to the fire and then falling back again.

And with each time you get a little bit closer, you know, and that, that was the journey we kind of wanted to show. So, you know, she is, she knows that she wants to have the, have a relationship or somehow heal her relationship with her mother. But it is too soon. When it happens in five, she is not ready yet because she has not learned how to be, and her mother has not learned how to be in the same space, in a safe way with each other.

So we watch her walk up to that and then back. And then through her sexual journey, she knows she has hit a limit and she articulates it. I don't want you part of this to be part of this story. And she knows now because of all of her sexual encounters, how to say that to her mom, how to say, how to express a limit and a boundary to her mom and to say, amazing, I can't have you around me right now.

And then she knows when she's ready to call her mom back into the story when she is ready. So beautiful. It's so beautiful. And so that was, again, we were really interested in integrating the sexual journey with the healing journey, with the dying journey. Like how they're all the same, they're part of the same thing.

And it's not just. And again, it feels, it's, it can feel really simple from the outside, which I actually think is helpful to have to be like, it's perfect that it's simple.

Meg: No, it's great because it's a very simple thing for you to follow through all this complexity. 

Kim: It was so helpful to have a goal just, yeah. And it's a spoken goal. Yeah.

Meg: Yeah. Please have a goal. It's gonna make your writing so much easier, because then you can go do all this other stuff. And I want our emerging writers to hear her thinking and the thinking that went into this in terms of, a lot of times as an emerging writer, like the wound, it's the wound.

It's the wound. Well, it's also comedy. It's also, yeah. All the thinking about the character and how she's gonna move in the back and forth and the research. It's just, I really listen to and that just takes time. It takes drafts, it takes a lot of work to get that kind of depth. I have to ask you one more question.

I know I'm gonna lose you in a minute, but, so dialogue, we get lots and lots of questions about how do you write great dialogue. The dialogue in the show is amazing, stupendous, spectacular, sparkly. Love it. You come from playwriting. What advice would you give to an emerging writer trying to learn dialogue because yours is so good.

Kim: Oh, I mean, what, that's such a great question. And you know, I think obviously you know, Liz and I both again, come from playwriting. We both come from comedy. And I think I think what advice would I give with dialogue? I mean, it's very it's you know, when it's flowing, I think, and it, when it's right.

And then again, it's kinda what we were talking before, like when it's not, when you're not feeling it. That's a, that's kind of. An indication that maybe you don't, you need to go back and. Think about who these characters are a little bit more

Meg: But did you study anything for the sharpness? Your dialogue is so sharp. It's so economic and there's so much packed in and yet it sounds on the ear. So almost like music.

Kim: Well, I will say I have always just loved dialogue and I, it's just I talk to myself all the time. I'm a crazy person. I would go into, I would go into coffee shops. It's my favorite thing to do to just literally write down the conversation.

I mean, sorry, to all these people that I've done this to, but just to write down the actual conversation of the people next to me and then to look at what human speech actually looks like and sounds like. I also think, like I spent so much time I went to playwriting graduate school and what we would do all day is just sit around and read each other's plays.

So I'm a big believer in say things out loud because that's how, you know, like what you've got. And so it's about how it sounds. I always, I never I never understand how someone can know what they have by just looking at it on a page because it's human speech. And so I think you learn so much by.

By saying it out loud. And if you can just find one friend who will just say it with you, you know, like just the opportunity to hear it is so instructive. It's how I like to if I meet and I love meeting with young writers and talking to them about the work, but honestly what I will say is we're gonna read your script to each other right now.

And then I'll be like, just, it's okay. It's I don't care if there's 20 characters. Like we'll just figure it out. And it is more instructive than almost anything to be able to hear it. And I do think that's that's how I have, I. Experienced every story I think is through, I took a fiction writing class in college with this great novelist, Claire Massou, who I'm one of my favorite writers and all my stories.

She was like, she's these are great, but you're just writing the dialogue. I was like, I hate writing. Literally, I'm so bored of every other part of, she's might be a playwright. I was like, yeah, definitely. And also when I started reading plays was like I'm the slowest reader on the planet. I think there's and I, but I love reading.

So I took a Russian lit class in college and nobody saw me for a year because I just was reading every moment, every day. And then I discovered reading plays and I was like, oh my God, it's flying. Because right. I just love reading dialogue and I love writing, and I was like, oh, this is what I'm connected to in, in anything like human speech, how are people talking to each other?

That's just my way into every part of life, honestly. I'm so good. So, I think so.

Meg: Great advice.

Kim: I don't know. Yeah. Say it out loud. Like find, say it out loud. Say it out loud.

Meg: Listen to other people. Write it down.

Kim: Yeah. And read. And read a lot of plays. Read a lot of plays and read a lot of scripts because that's I think that's where it gets in your head.

Meg: Like music. 

Kim: Yeah. If you're ever stuck. If I'm ever stuck, I go back to some of my favorite Christopher Durang plays because he is like one of my favorite playwrights. And I'll just get, I'll just read a couple pages and I'll get so excited. I'll go back to writing. It gets me like, it, it makes me keep going. It keeps me going.

Meg: That's amazing. I could talk to you for hours. And I might have to have you back on the show because I just love your brain and how you see the world and think but I have to wrap it up. You're in a room. We always end our episode asking our guests the  same three questions, so I'm gonna ask you now these questions.

Okay. The first is, what brings you the most joy when it comes to your writing?

Kim: Oh my gosh. What brings me the most joy is connecting to the audience and hearing is people. Laughter a sadly, I really, laughter brings me a lot of joy. When you can hear a group of people laughing nothing, it's like a drug.

And then but writing something where somebody will just write me out of the blue and that I don't even know and just tell me that they felt seen and less alone. Making anyone feel less alone and feel less crazy brings me a lot of joy.

Meg: I love that. What pisses you off about writing?

Kim: How there's only 24 hours in a day and there's such a thing as deadlines and time and I get really pissed off about having to, oh gosh, what pisses me off? That's such a good question. I what I think, yeah, just that sometimes it feels like when I can't find it, it doesn't matter. Because especially with television, it's just time to go and there isn't enough time and so to really spend time with, to really get there.

Meg: Well, you do well under pressure because this show is spectacular.

Kim: Deadlines. Deadlines piss me off. Deadlines, but I also know they're necessary and that's the only way anything gets done.

Meg: If you could have a coffee with your younger self, what advice would you give to your younger self?

Kim: I'm gonna cry, what does that say about me? It would be to trust that you will find your people, and also to not be like a freak for delivering your own eulogy in the mirror all the time because there is something in there that is tapping into your creativity and you're not weird for doing that.

I would give my, I would just eulogize myself in the mirror all the time as a child and I didn't understand why, and I would give speeches and I didn't understand why. I didn't have a ton of friends, and I would just talk to my grandmother on the phone, and she was the best storyteller. And I would just listen to her stories.

And I, her voice, my, my grandmother shout out to Judith Fisher from Long Island. We lost her a while ago, but she was the funniest person I've ever met in my entire life. And I would just listen to her stories or I would go to the mirror and I would give, I would eulogize myself or I would give an acceptance speech for, or I would just give speeches.

Meg: Fantastic.

Kim: And I feel like, I thought that was like the weirdest thing in the world. And now I'm like, no, that was all. I was like, just, no, you're not. It's all, it's, you're not crazy. And also, it's okay to watch ungodly amounts of television. Don't worry. Like it's leading you somewhere. It's not, it's okay. It's not rotting your brain. Don't feel bad. Don't shame yourself, don't shame yourself.

Meg: Which is in the show. That is in the show too. 

Thank you so much for being with us today. What an amazing show. Just a huge fan.

Kim: Thank you and thank you for having me on your amazing podcast.

It's really inspiring and helping so many people and it's changing people's lives. I heard it firsthand from, again my friend Juliana, who just was like totally fangirling out there that I was gonna talk to you, so thank you for what you're doing.

Meg: Thanks to Kim so much for being on the show and for bringing us such a moving, bold and beautiful story.

Dying For Sex is now available to stream on Hulu and to our listeners, remember you are not alone and keep writing.