A Circularity to the Narrative: A Conversation with ‘Franklin’ Writers Kirk Ellis and Howard Korder

In December 1776, Benjamin Franklin is world famous for his electrical experiments. But his passion and power are put to the test when he embarks on a secret mission to France — with the fate of American independence hanging in the balance.

When it comes to writing historical fiction – sure, artistic liberties are to be taken – yet the history that resonates and that feels timely is in the details. They can be minute and certainly, right under your nose. It takes a lot of gumption couples with patience to get to the core of it, but when you do, it’s incredibly satisfying. And certainly that could be said for both writers Kirk Ellis (John Adams) and Howard Korder (The Right Stuff), the writers behind Franklin.

Seemingly, both have mastered the endurance, strategy and story fundamentals to tackle historical fiction. Their individual approach are happily married, giving the show a singular voice, and never veering. And that could also be thanks to the visual language of the show helmed by Timothy Van Patten.

Both Howard Korder and Kirk Ellis shared with Script their initial attachment and interest in adapting Stacy Schiff’s book, A Great Improvisation, building and finding the emotional core of the series, balancing historical accuracy and drama, knowing when to withhold information, and how to keep an audience engaged. 

These interviews have been edited for content and clarity.

Interview with Franklin Writer Kirk Ellis

Sadie Dean: When did this book initially come across your desk, and what drew you to that world?

Kirk Ellis: I knew the book many years ago, because it came out in 2005, it won the Pulitzer Prize for history that year. And it was the same time I was actually doing the original treatment scripts for John Adams, for HBO. And so, the book became a really wonderful secondary resource to the David McCullough book. And it was one of about 100 books that I used for the combined research on that project. So, when Tony Krantz and ITV brought the book to me, and apparently it was Stacy Schiff, who suggested me as the writer of the show, based on the work on John Adams and her relationship with David McCullough. So, I was intimately familiar with it.

I don't have the book with me, I'd love to show it to you. I still had all my original post it notes from that era, literally, like every page had a different color, depending on whether it was a note about scene setting or a particular character. It wasn't like I had to reinvent the wheel. I had already immersed myself in this particular part of Franklin's life.

But obviously, the focus was very different. It was on Franklin, not John Adams, it was a complete reversal of the point of view. And so, it was a chance to get back into it. And again, discover how rich that material was.

As with the earlier project, John Adams, people who aren't familiar with what we do as screenwriters, they will constantly ask about, or they'll say, it's not even a question, it's a statement, ‘You must love the limited series format, because it allows you to do the entire book.’ And of course, that's just not true. There's a massive amount of material that we didn't use from Stacy's book because it would have taken the narrative in direction we didn't want it to go. So as always, it's a matter of not what you're including in your adaptation, it’s what you're executing from it.

Sadie: You could have easily done 30 seasons for this series.

Kirk: As I've gotten better at what I do...I've learned that the more you can compress the time of the narrative, the more effective you can be as a storyteller, because it's not this vast canvas that you have to paint in full of a life. This is not a Benjamin Franklin biopic. It's the story of his eight years, which we sort of reduced to six if you think about it in movie time to try and secure the French Alliance. And as you say, even that story could have other repercussions. I've been on record as saying all of the supporting characters, whether we're talking about Bancroft or Beaumarchais, or Madame Brillon and Madame Helvetius, all of them deserve their own show. And you could easily do eight or 10 hours with those characters themselves.

Sadie: How do you condense all that and really pinpoint what are the events that are important to focus on what will move the story forward, and what to reveal and withhold? Obviously, it's a very heavy character piece and Franklin is the anchor.

Kirk: Well, one of the advantages that we had going into this was that this is a part of Franklin's life that very few people know about. I would say almost nobody knew about it, until Stacy resurrected the story for her book A Great Improvisation. We discovered shooting in France, they don't really know it there either. America's first and greatest and arguably most important alliance was with France, yet the story has fallen into a kind of undeserved obscurity. So that was already an advantage, because whatever we told, would be surprising with these true life stories, whether they're roughly contemporary, or a little further back in time like Franklin. I always try to play against what people think they know of a subject.

And you make that part of the story, and then you flip it. So, you go this is what you think you know about John Adams for that show, Benjamin Franklin for this show, we're going to show you something that you don't know. And you do that right at the outset.

And I think that casting Michael [Douglas] was a real masterstroke because you don't need to have exposition about what a rock star Franklin was in Europe. Because of his previous visit, Michael sells that because of who he is. And so that combination of elements, and the sooner you can get those in place, the more it helps you to determine how you're going to structure and develop that story.

That makes a big difference. And so, with this show, it was all about what Franklin says in episode one, 'Diplomacy must never be a siege, it must always be seduction.' And I think that's a lesson that the current world situation tells us. We have not heeded in recent decades.

Sadie: As for the characters, and giving them these individual voices, and their values are, particularly with Franklin. He is this master at the game of chess. He's always 10 steps ahead and how that coincides with all the other characters, like his grandson Temple.

Kirk: Temple was a bit of a godsend to us really, because we know enough about him, but not too much. There's not a long historical record about how he spent his life there. But it became an opportunity to have this transgenerational story. And so many people have gotten to me, colleagues and old friends in emails about that whole grandfather-grandson tension, they really love each other, but... So, we see the blandishments of the French court from two very different perspectives. And how Temple really falls for that world as he did as we know he did, based on others reminiscences of him and his own letters to people like Jaques le Ray, his hosts son, and to the Marquis de Lafayette. So, we were able to build that out.

But the other great thing about the show, was the chance to bring so many characters to light, who were so instrumental in helping us win our independence, who in both America and France, whatever spotlight they once held, its long dimmed in the end. I'm thinking specifically of the Comte de Vergennes, the French Foreign Minister played wonderfully by Thibault de Montalembert, who is Franklin's equal, maybe not quite his equal, but he is a skilled diplomat and negotiator. And the real sort of heart of the story on a political level exists in those dialogues between them, even the ones that are happening surreptitiously that are non-meetings. 

But then also, the women in Franklin's life, Madame Anne-Louise Brillon, was one of the most accomplished musicians and composers in all of Europe. But she was also really well connected to the French Gentry, and she was Franklin's door, or window into that world. And of course, he took advantage of that in the fact that she was attractive, and in a loveless marriage and somebody who was flirtatious, sweetened the bargain for him. So, she's wonderful.

And actually, if you didn't know this, and didn't see it in the credits of episode four the music that she plays the so-called “March of the Insurgents,” that's actually her composition. It's written into the script and our wonderful music coordinator, Michael Hill, found a few measures of it, and brought on a classical ensemble to reconstruct the music. And so, in our show, you're hearing some of her music for the first time since it was ever performed in the American Revolutionary period.

Sadie: That's incredible! That just gave me goosebumps. In terms of keeping the tone consistent, what were those conversations like with your director Tim Van Patten and co-writer Howard Korder?

Kirk: It was a blessed production in terms of the collaborators. Tim, not only set the visual tone for the show, but he also set a tone for the story, and how it should be. And I can tell you a couple of things about that. But let me speak about Howard as well. Our styles are different, our approach to writing is different, yet there's something about the scripts, and Howard was an invaluable new pair of eyes to really look at the original architecture of story and go, ‘OK, this is working. We can probably pull this. This needs more addition.’ And to really enrich the elements that were there, particularly in terms of the humor. Yet, there's a singular voice to the scripts. You can't really say, ‘Oh, well, that's a Kirk Ellis scene. That's a Howard Korder scene,’…which is what you want.

And when Tim came aboard, all in, and thank goodness he did because he brought so much unity to everything. We were really far along in the process. He really wanted to get into how the sausage is made of it all, really take that leap. ‘We're six episodes into the show, you’re invested in the story. We can afford to go small we've been big and epic enough already. We should do something like 12 Angry Men, about negotiations, we should put these Brits in the room with the Americans and leave them there.’

I really appreciate those episodes because you see the work that goes on and that's all Tim. So that was a production rewrite that no one anticipated until the director came aboard and it was so great he did that, because it makes those last two hours wonderfully compelling.

Sadie: As a writer, what is it about historical fiction that draws you in as a storyteller?

Kirk: It's only by revisiting the past, no matter how recent or removed it may be from our current era, it's only by revisiting those prior worlds, that we get some sense of how far or how little we've moved on as a civilization, as a culture, as global humanity. So, I'm never bored by what I discover in research, and I always try to find a way to make it entertaining and relevant. And we've been lucky with the timing of the show, because it's airing as we go into an election year, where the fragility of democracy is at stake. And you're seeing how fragile it was from the very beginning. So, nothing much has changed.

Interview with Franklin Writer Howard Korder

Sadie Dean: What attracted you to want to be a part of this series?

Howard Korder: I've worked a lot with Tim Van Patten. And it was a welcome opportunity to do that again. Anytime you're dealing with history or some nonfiction story, it's always an opportunity to learn something that you didn't know. And since I really don't know anything at all, it's always [laughs] an education. And I think like probably most Americans my knowledge of the ins and outs of the American Revolution, and what it took to win the War of Independence was pretty vague. So this was a great opportunity for me to actually learn some startling truths, the first of which was, there would be no United States without the alliances that Benjamin Franklin forged with the French monarchy.

And that seemed really relevant to me at the time I started working on it, which was a few months after the invasion of Ukraine - the parallels were inescapable to me. I'd say Ukraine is in a worse position than the nascent United States was, in terms of what the potential effects of a loss will be. But nonetheless, this nation, looking to make an alliance with a European superpower, to fight off the incursions of another superpower, and finding themselves a pawn in this game of nations was really fascinating to me.

Franklin himself. I think, once again, like most Americans, he occupies a vague and mythic spot in your head, and on the $100 bill you might have in your wallet, but in terms of the range of his life, the extraordinary amount of work he did in so many different fields, and simply his quirks of a human being were all revelations to me, and was really exciting to delve into.

Sadie: There’s a specific line from Franklin that pretty much frames the whole series and his motivation, at least for me, he says, ‘Diplomacy should never be a siege, but seduction.’ And it's through this, a beautiful game of chess you guys are playing with all these characters. Yet, there's a consistency in tone and character voices. How were you and Kirk able to pin down those voices and how that kind of propelled what that next chess move was going to be to get actually what Franklin really wanted at the very end?

Howard: Well, thank you for that. Obviously, the voice, first and foremost here is Franklin's. And I guess for me, it was a question of inventing a voice for him that was convincingly close to the man you see in the letters and the aphorisms that he's famous for... But you can't make a character out of quotations. You've got to find a voice that seems real and truthful, but also as intelligent and witty and complicated as the man was.

The opening line of the Odyssey, which has been translated in many different ways, but the one I like is, 'Sanctity and the use of the man of many twists and turns.' This idea of Odysseus as someone who is willing to change himself and alter himself, for whatever the circumstances demand. He's wily, he's clever, he's not always truthful. That seemed like a good model for this version of Franklin to me. He was there for many reasons, but the official reason he was there was to get France to cough up money, arms, and soldiers and sailors to win American independence. And to do that, he was willing to say and do anything that would get to that goal. It was purely provisional. What was true today didn't necessarily have to be true tomorrow. He would change it if it got him closer to what he was there to achieve. And I found that really fruitful, it allows him to be charming and clever and hard to pin down.

The idea of chess comes out very early. And without beating that metaphor to death, it is that sort of game of strategy and skill. And that was a lot of fun to write for him. And on the other side as well, his French counterparts are playing the same game, both inside Versailles and in the salons of the various women who he flirted with shamelessly and returned that flirtation. But to me, it was all a very sophisticated game, with very clever people, none of whom found it useful to be truthful to each other.

Sadie: How do you know when to withhold information?

Howard: I think one of the challenges for any writer in any script is when to hold them and when to show the cards. And some of that is instinctual. And some of that is blind coincidence, where you go, 'I can make this fit here.' But obviously, you need some kind of vague plan in your head about when's the best time for this truth to come out. Where will it play most effectively in the storytelling?

One place we're sort of at now and in TV - I experienced it personally - there's a lot of pressure to tell the audience everything in the first 10 minutes. And this is less an artistic concern than it is an eyeball concern. And that if they don't know everything that's going to happen in those first 10 minutes, they're not going to watch. I know for me as an as an audience member, as someone who really wants to be brought into a world and transduced, hypnotized, shocked, amused - I don't want to know everything up front. I want to find this out in the journey through the story. I want to delay those revelations. We shouldn't know that Bancroft is a spy in the first episode. Because then there's no pleasure of discovery three hours later, when it is revealed, and you think back to everything you've seen, and see that in a new light. That's to me, really fulfilling for the viewer.

Sadie: Was there a favorite episode that you wrote that was maybe challenging on the page, but creatively fulfilling once you typed fade out and got to see it come alive?

Howard: Well, for me, it's all challenging. [laughs] Writing the first word of the day is challenging. And as they say in the stock market, 'Past performance is no guarantee of future results.' So I would say my favorite episode is probably the last one, episode eight because it has the most emotion in it. It's about triumph and the aftermath of triumph. How does that actually feel when you've accomplished the thing you've been working on for eight years? What is that feeling? Is it celebratory or is it something else?

And then it's all tinged with Franklin's regret, knowing that he's leaving France, and also knowing that he will never come back, that voyage home is the last one he's ever going to take. If you read his letters, the reality of his age, was very real to him. He's always going on about whether he will see this or that event come to pass. So, all this is tinged with a real kind of, to me powerful melancholy. And I just think that works nicely for me.

I also do like the scenes of negotiation between the English, which to be fair, are highly compressed, as is everything on the show, those negotiations took place longer than a year. And obviously, from the episodic point of view, that's just not going to be possible. But I really like that the fact that there are six men in a room, and they're going to decide what the shape and structure of the United States of America is going to be. They all have their agendas. Some of them are pure, and some of those agendas are not. But they're just sitting there and that's how it got done. It was interesting for me to write it and was fun to write. And I hope it's fun and illuminating for the audience to watch.

Sadie: How did you found yourself writing historical fiction and why?

Howard: Truthfully, if you said, 'Do you want to be the history guy?' My answer would be ‘No.’ [laughs] Although, I have a great interest in history. And I love when it comes alive on the page or on screen. It's really, as is most things in life are, a series of accidents. If we're talking about being, quote, a working writer, almost all that work is the work you are hired to do not the work you may most want to do. And having done one of these, it tends to lead to another one of them.

And it's a double-edged sword to me, it really is interesting to go on these journeys. They're always a bit fraught, I think, for me, and I think for most writers, because you are torn between wanting to give the closest depiction you can of what really happened to the extent that is known. But you are inevitably driven by the exigencies of having to make it dramatic and watchable. Those two things usually don't go together.

And I'm sure plenty of historians are tearing their hair out about liberties we took with Franklin's eight years in France, and I go, 'I can't blame them.' There's a line of Kubrick's that I came across in a book about the making of 2001. And the story, at least in this version, he was filming Full Metal Jacket, and Matthew Modine came off a take and said, 'That was good. That felt real to me.' And Kubrick said, 'Yeah, real is good. Interesting is better.' And that's kind of where I come down on and I would guess most writers do.

Life unadorned is structurally very messy. It defeats a shapely structure. People come and go in very dramatically unsatisfying ways, they disappear, they drop the main thread of the narrative. All that's very bad for storytelling. So, I find wrestling that stuff challenging. It's satisfying when you find a good solution, but part of me is always going, 'It's not really what happened.'

So, if you're going to give me a choice, I'd say I'd much rather be in my own fictive world, I'd much rather be free to tell a made-up story that follows its own logic and emotional necessities. Which is not to say, as a viewer, I hope I would watch something like Franklin and go, 'Oh, this is great. It's taking me into this world that I didn't know anything about.' I'm engaged, excited and maybe more than anything else, I would love to come away going, 'I need to know more. I'd like to know more about this.' Because anytime you see the words based on a true story, it's kind of your guarantee that a lot is going to be made up. And I always think all these shows should end with, 'If you want to know more, go read this.'

Franklin is available to watch exclusively on Apple TV+.