Chris Viscardi remembers snow days as a child growing up in Auburn.

“You'd wake up one morning to see your entire world blanketed in snow,” he said.

The white horizon outside his window was a blank canvas onto which the young Viscardi could smear a day's worth of carefree activity. It's that sense of sudden, boundless promise that inspired Viscardi to co-write “Snow Day,” a 2000 film starring Chevy Chase that told the madcap story of children who hijack a plow to prolong their school's shutdown after a snowfall.

Along with his writing partner, Ithaca native Will McRobb, Viscardi regularly draws upon his childhood memories from central New York in his work as a screenwriter. His and McRobb's voices can be traced in “Tale of Despereaux,” the computer-generated adaptation of Kate DiCamillo's book about a castle-dwelling mouse (voiced by Matthew Broderick) who falls in love with a princess (Emma Watson).

Viscardi and McRobb were brought aboard the project in late 2004. With then-director Sylvain Chomet (“The Triplets of Belleville”), the two spent part of that December in Edinburgh, Scotland, weaving the book's four narrative threads into one screen story. After a few drafts, Viscardi and McRobb did with “Despereaux” what they often do with their scripts: They handed it off to another writer.

“It's always hard because it's your baby; you were the first ones to write the draft and make the characters come alive,” he said. “It's the hardest part of being a screenwriter.”

The pair fell on the opposite end of the script relay process with their last high-profile project, “Alvin and the Chipmunks.” The two were hired to “bring the movie home,” Viscardi said, after its first two acts had been built. When he and McRobb approach an already-baking script, their perspective enables them to address problems in characters and logic.

“I'm sure other people weren't happy with our work, but you have to chalk it up to the creative process,” Viscardi said. “You have to have thick skin to be a screenwriter.”

Though he enjoyed reading and writing stories in English class, Viscardi focused more on football, basketball and baseball as a student in Auburn. He would grow to regret not committing to more activities that would have augmented his storytelling skills.

When the time came to choose a college, he selected Niagara University in large part because of its then-new film and TV department.

“I knew I could play with all that new equipment,” he said.

Viscardi and McRobb began working together after finishing a graduate program in TV and film at Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 1985. Independently of one another, they each moved to New York City to work in the promotions department of Nickelodeon.

At the children's network, Viscardi and McRobb enjoyed a loose budget with which to create original programming between shows. They soon produced a series of one-minute films featuring the offbeat hijincks of two red-haired brothers. The concept would grow into “The Adventures of Pete & Pete,” a half-hour show that earned Viscardi and McRobb a CableACE award for Outstanding Children's Series in 1995.

Set in a nameless small town in upstate New York, the show gave Viscardi a chance to translate his experiences as a young Auburn boy into coming-of-age fiction. It was also the first time McRobb read a script Viscardi authored solo. Before “Pete & Pete” became a show, Viscardi mostly brought order to McRobb's creative chaos.

“When he started writing scripts himself, I was sad to see that not only was he really organized, but he's a brilliant writer,” McRobb said. “His script blew mine off the stage.”

The rigid structure of producing a regular TV show toned down the pair's raw creative instincts where they might have run roughshod. Sometimes, Viscardi learned, a screenwriter's desire to do something with a character or a situation would damage the audience's connection to it.

But Viscardi also believes part of “Pete & Pete's” charm lies in the purity of its strange yet heartfelt portrait of childhood.

“We knew nothing about storytelling; we just wrote what we felt,” he said. “Part of its charm is that it's not written like anything else.”

Following “Pete & Pete's” third and last season, Viscardi and McRobb continued writing together, even after Viscardi moved to Santa Monica in 2001. His relocation prompted a shift away from TV and toward more film screenwriting. But with “Snow Day” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” the duo retained their focus on child-friendly material.

No matter the subject, people close to Viscardi - such as his mother, Pam, of Auburn - still hear his writer's voice through the people speaking it.

“It's his sense of humor,” she said. “I'm always amazed at the different stories he's working on.”

Pam often points Auburn residents eyeing careers in Hollywood toward her son, who gladly gives them advice about the business. With “Despereaux” and other projects in his and McRobb's pipeline, including a children's film slated to star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Viscardi continues to strengthen his standing in that business. And he'll continue to for as long as his memories of Auburn motivate his writing.

“I just remember adventures, games, sporting events - I look at those coming-of-age moments and see if there are stories,” he said. “It's best to write what you know.”

Staff writer David Wilcox can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 245 or david.wilcox@lee.net

“The Tale of Despereaux”

1:34. G

Fingerlakes Theatres: 5, 7, 8:45 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 22 and 23; 1 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 24; 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 25