With Peter Tolan, writer of Rescue Me, getting seriously burned recently while talking about his show on a message board, I’ve been thinking about how far a writer should go towards interacting with fans.

Indeed, Denis McGrath argues that writers should never ever talk to their audience.

So it’s with great interest that I’d like to point you to the Wordplay forums where, in the section marked Movies Message Board, the two screenplayers of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest are responding to various critiques of the movie and clarifying plot points from the writers’ perspective.

Their posts are reasoned, well-argued, and more to the point prove that They Thought About The Bizarro Structure Of The Film. Quite deeply, as it turns out.

Perhaps even more interestingly, the majority of the posts from others come across as polite and well-thought out as well. This may be because the forums are Ted & Terry’s own, rather than (as in the Tolan case) held on a third-party website, and it’s considered impolite to insult your host.

Whatever the reason is, I find it immensely pleasing – and helpful to my own work – that two such high-profile screenwriters are able to spend some time talking about their art and craft in a public forum regardless of the danger.