Time to Write

What to do when your writing (or you) are rejected

Unfortunately, rejection is part of the game for every writer or free-lancer. Knowing that doesn’t always make it easier, though. One way to turn it into something that has a positive element is to follow these steps:

 1: Take some time to lick your wounds. There’s no getting away from the fact that being rejected can be depressing or painful. Acknowledge that and allow yourself a day or two to experience those feelings. Putting a limit on the time that you’ll spend on this phase tends to make it pass more quickly.

 2: Consider what, if anything, can be learned from the experience. Ideally the person doing the rejecting will have given you some feedback, but especially with publishers that’s not always so. But replay what you did and brainstorm whether you could have done anything differently or what changes might be worth making before you submit the work somewhere else.

 3: Don’t take it personally. I know this is difficult but much of the time it’s just a mis-match. To give you an example, a few years ago I was casting actors for a short film. The two main roles were a grandfather and his grandson. We cast the grandfather first, so whoever we chose for the other role had to look like he could plausibly be his grandson. That meant rejecting some fine actors who just didn’t have the right look for that part. If your manuscript is rejected, it may simply be that the publisher already has something similar in the works. Or his or her taste may just not be similar to yours.

 4: Get back on the horse as soon as possible. If submitting a manuscript, get it out to the next place on your list. Consider the whole thing a game of hide-and-seek. Somewhere out there is the person or the company that will appreciate your work and be eager to have it. Your job is to weed out the people who don’t. Mixing metaphors, you may have to kiss a bunch of frogs before you find the Prince!

 (More advice about the psychological side of writing is found in my book, “Your Writing Coach,” published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

How to make today the day you write

I received an email the other day from someone who wants to write and keeps resolving that tomorrow will be the day they start, but so far it hasn't happened. I suspect the problem is the fear of the blank page--some people put so much pressure on themselves that what they write, even in a first draft, must be really good and that keeps them from going forward. Here is the advice I gave--maybe it will be useful for you as well:

I'd suggest that you decide on a project you might want to write, but instead of making starting such a big thing, just take a few minutes each day to brainstorm any aspect of the project and jot down your ideas (don't judge them at this stage, just write down everything and put the notes into a box or folder).

For instance, if you want to write a novel , you could brainstorm who your protagonist might be and what he or she is like. From there you might have decided who some of the other characters might be, and do the same for them. You might have an idea for how it starts, or maybe just for something that might happen in the middle. Again, jot them down and put them away. Even ten or fifteen minutes a day on this is fine.

After a while, I think you'll feel that you have a lot of material and then you can sift through it and see what fits together. Based on that, you might feel ready to write the opening, or maybe a scene from the middle or the end. Just write those without being too worried about whether they'll end up in the final version.

I suspect that when you are at that stage, you'll feel more and more motivated, and writing will come much more easily.

(for more help with your writing, get my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey, and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers. You can find out more about it at www.yourwritingcoach.com.)

Federico Fellini on staying true to yourself

The great Italian director, Federico Fellini, had many offers to work in Hollywood. Here's what he said about why he didn't do it:

"What good is giving up my independence, my friends, my Roman restaurants, my crazy Italian people, traffic at rush hour by the Coliseum? I would have made money and lost my joy of life. And that's all filming has been about for me: joy of life, battle of life, comedy of life, fascination of life. Life! Life! Life!"

(If being creative is part of your enjoyment of life, subscribe to my free monthly Brainstorm creativity & productivity e-bulletin. Just send an email request to BstormUK@aol.com)

How to rewrite your novel, script, or other writing project (part 4)

In other posts on this topic we’ve looked at how to change from the state of creating to the state of critiquing, how to look at the big picture, and how to improve dialogue.

This time I want to offer a few tips for doing something you’ve heard before, namely “show, don’t tell.”  To some extent, this overlaps with improving dialogue, because sometimes you can describe an action that eliminates the need for some dialogue.

 Here are some elements to look for:

•  A character’s emotional state. Rather than telling us that Bill is angry, describe his body language or let his dialogue reflect (but not spell out) his mood.
•  A character’s actions. Instead of using adverbs like “cheerfully,” “forcefully,” or “eagerly,” describe actions that are inherently forceful or eager or cheerful. A simile or a metaphor often is more powerful than a descriptive word by itself.
•  The mood of a place. If the setting is scary or depressing or old-fashioned, describe what makes it so.

The goal of showing instead of telling is that when you do it well, the reader or viewer feels much more involved. They are the ones who put the clues together and realize that the setting is scary or that the character is angry.

 More rewriting tips coming up soon.

 (For equally useful tips on how to write your novel, script, non-fiction book, articles or other projects, get my book, “Your Writing Coach,” published by Nicholas Brealey and available on Amazon and other online and offline retailers. Also see my site, www.jurgenwolff.com for news about my new 60-day Writing Breakthrough coaching program.]

How to rewrite your novel, script, or other writing project (part 3)

In previous posts on the rewriting process, we looked at how to get into the best physical and mental state and how to start with the big picture. When you’ve followed those two steps, you should have a list of any major changes you want to make.

 First, return to your creative state and make those changes. Write the new opening, flesh out the weak characters, plant the information that will make the ending make sense, etc.

 Those are all the big components of the story. When those are in good shape, you can start to look at the smaller elements that make up your novel or screenplay. One important step is fine-tuning your characters by taking a closer look at their dialogue. Each character should sound unique. Some of the things that make each character sound different from the others are:

•  Jargon related to their careers;
•  Their vocabulary—often this is related to their level of education;
•  How articulate they are;
•  How they speak to people above and below them in terms of social status;
•  Whether their dialogue reflects a sense of humor. And, if so, what kind? Bawdy? Witty? Sly?;
• Whether they have accents or dialects. (Warning: if a character has a strong accent or dialect; don’t write all of their dialogue phonetically to reflect this, because it’s very hard to read. Only give a slight indication of it and, if necessary, refer to it in the character description the first time we meet the person.)

Another thing to look for is exposition that doesn’t reflect the way that people really speak. For instance, brothers wouldn’t really say, “Hal, as my brother you should be standing by me, not fighting me.” It’s clunky. Also try to avoid that old chestnut, “How long have we known each other? Twenty years?” One way around this is to introduce a character who wouldn’t know the information but has a legitimate reason for being interested.

 More rewriting tips coming soon--and also see my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available at Amazon and other online and offline retailers.

How to rewrite your novel, script, or other writing project (part 2)

In the previous post I suggested that when you’re ready to critique your own writing, first you should change your state. Now let’s look at the first step of the actual process:

 Start by reading the entire work. Don’t make any marks on the paper even if you spot typos or other things you want to change. Instead, try to get a feel for the whole thing and at the end jot down your thoughts.  Here are some of the big points you might address:

•  Do you start with something that immediately makes the reader curious about what’s going on?
•  Does the story flow or did you notice points at which it was too slow, too fast, or confusing? If so, indicate where those were.
•  Are there story strands you started but never finished? List or describe them.
•  Are there characters who seem one-dimensional? Specify which ones.
•  Are the relationships interesting enough? If not, write down which ones are lacking.
•  Does the ending flow logically from what has gone before—without being totally predictable? If not, jot down the problem.

 It’s tempting to jump right in and indicate small changes at this stage, but if it turns out, for example, that you’re going to replace the entire opening, it’s a waste of time to correct the one that’s there now. Also, focusing on the small stuff may distract you from the big things that need to change.

 Equally important, at this stage don’t change anything! Otherwise you will get back into the creative state and lose your objectivity. At this point, you’re still just writing down what needs to change, not yet how to change it.

 In the next post we’ll look at the next step of rewriting.

(There's lots more advice in my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available on Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

How to rewrite your novel, script, or other writing project (part 1)

I’ve had several requests for some tips on how to approach rewriting your work. As we all know, it’s a lot easier to see the flaws in someone else’s writing than in our own, so here are some strategies that can help.

The first step is to change your state. Have you ever heard the Einstein quote: “We cannot solve a problem at the same level at which it was created”? That applies to rewriting as well.

When you write, you are in a creative state. That’s different from the state you need to be in to critique your own work. In order to get into the critiquing state:

•  Print out the material in a different typeface or on different color paper.
•  Reread your writing in a different location. If you write at your desk, move to the living room or the kitchen or to a café to reread and evaluate your work.
•  Use a different posture. Sitting back in a chair feels more connected to critiquing than sitting at a table.
•  Pretend that what you are critiquing is not yours, but a colleagues work that he or she has asked you to critique

In the next post in this series, we’ll look at the actual critiquing process and how to make it as effective as possible.

Larry Gelbart's advice to struggling writers

  I’ve posted several quotes from an interview I did with comedy writer Larry Gelbart, who passed away recently at the age of 81, and here’s a bit more from him—this time from an interview conducted by Mike Sacks last year:

 Any advice you'd care to give to those writers out there just beginning their careers?

"When you're writing and come to a rough spot and the ideas just aren't flowing, put down dummy text and keep on moving—especially if it's at the end of the day and you're going to stop. Your brain will never stop for the day, even if you have stopped working, and there's a very good chance you'll come up with something better. Also, at the very least, you'll have something to come back to the next day, instead of a blank page. That's important.

 But in general terms, just sit your ass down in a chair and hope your head gets the message. Isaac Bashevis Singer's advice for the struggling young writer was to stop struggling and write. As for me, I don't have any other advice. If I did, I would have had a far more trouble-free life and a much, much better career."

 In that interview, Gelbart also has a few choice words to say about Dustin Hoffman regarding the film Tootsie:

 “Tootsie is my vision, despite Dustin Hoffman's lifelong mission to deprive anybody of any credit connected with that movie, except for his close friend, the writer and producer Murray Schisgal. I say that because Dustin appeared with James Lipton on Inside the Actors Studio in 2006 and declared that the Tootsie idea sprang from Schisgal's intestines. I don't know much about gastroenterology, but I do know that the central theme for Tootsie came from me. And the central theme was that Dustin's character, Michael Dorsey, would become a better man for having been a woman. That was the cornerstone of the film. All of the other details are just floating around that idea.”

(Want to write your own script, novel, or nonfiction book? For guidance, get a writing coach in a book: "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available at Amazon and other online and offline retailers)

Larry Gelbart's only rule of comedy writing

In my interview with the late Larry Gelbart, the writer of the film “Oh God,” the play “Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Forum” and the TV series “M*A*S*H,” among many others, I asked him about comedy writing. Here’s what he said:

 “I think the only thing I learned about being consciously funny was on M*A*S*H. There it was possible every week to examine a specimen, so to speak. It wasn’t something where you went away and had to wait sixteen or eighteen months before you saw another one, as was the case with features. I saw that in the editing process we were losing a lot of stuff that I thought was funny. We had to, for time reasons, technical reasons, performance reasons, or even writing reasons.

 "What I began to realize was that the only thing that never went away was exposition. And so, in almost the only conscious rule I’ve ever given myself, I’ve made a point thereafter to make the exposition entertaining. Not necessarily funny—if it can be funny, fine; if it doesn’t want to be funny, don’t try to force it. But those parts of your script that are essential for your story to be told had better be terrific. A large percentage of the other material is expendable.”

 This applies to novels, too, of course and even non-fiction.  I asked him how you do it:

 “One thing you can do is give your character an amusing piece of business to do, if what he’s saying sounds like the reading of the rules of the Academy Awards. If it’s so technical, you hide the nuts and bolts. But other than that, just break your head to say it in a way that’s diverting, so that you’re coating the medicine.”

 (for unique right-brain methods for making your writing come alive, see “Your Writing Coach,” published by Nicholas Brealey and available at Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)

What Larry Gelbart told me about screenplay structure

When I lived in Hollywood I started a modest publication called The Hollywood Scriptwriter, in which I interviewed successful writers, agents, producers, and network and studio executives. One of the nicest people I met along the way was Larry Gelbart, who passed away recently. He co-wrote one of the best comedy films ever, "Tootsie," as well as one of the best TV series ever, "M*A*S*H."

I interviewed him at his home. He said, "I've got a little office above the garage, let's talk there." So we went from his Beverly Hills mansion out past his pool and tennis court to a very large garage (I think it held four or five cars) and upstairs to a home office that was larger than the entire apartment I was living in at the time. And with warmth and generosity he shared advice about screenwriting. I'll post a few of his observations over the next few days.

Here's one of his thoughts about structure: "I know when you're in trouble at the end, it's because you were in trouble at the beginning. There's no point in writing the end over and over again; you have to go back and see how well you've given yourself the opportunity to finish successfully. That's why the theater is really the most marvelous place for a writer, because the vacuum is gone. You know from night to night, in rehearsals and try-outs, where you're making it and where you're not."

RIP, Mr Gelbart.

(My interview with Larry Gelbart appears in "Successful Scriptwriting," which I co-wrote with Kerry Cox. It's now out of print but you can find used copies on the internet pretty easily.)