Time to Write

Writing: Judging a Book When There's No Cover

Penguin is releasing six of their classic titles (including Emma, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Crime and Punishment) with blank covers that are art-quality white paper so you can draw or paint your own cover image. On their web site they have a gallery in which they display the covers that readers come up with. (You can see that here.)

I don't know how many people will actually be interested in doing this (although making your own cover would make the book a much more personal Christmas present, for example). But I do know that this is getting Penguin some valuable press coverage.

In this case, the idea came from within Penguin, presumably the marketing department, but it could just as easily have been proposed by an author as part of his or her book proposal, especially if it were relevant to the topic of the book (e.g., a book on creativity, print design, or interactivity).

It's a great example of my mantra, 'do something different.' In fact, it has given me an idea for a promotional contest to help drive people to my website (www.timetowrite.com) and let people have some fun as well. You'll be the first to hear about it here soon, with an invitation to join in.

The Care of Introvert Writers

Thanks to Ben Mack's blog, I recently read an interesting article written by Jonathan Rausch published in the Atlantic Monthly back in March 2003, called Caring for Your Introvert (subtitle: The habits and needs of a little-understood group). This is of particular interest because a lot of writers are introverts. Here are a few of his insights:

*  Introverts are not necessarily shy
* Introverts are also not misanthropic
* Rather, introverts are people who find other people tiring
* Extroverts are energized by people and will fade or wilt when alone

He says, “After an hour or two of being socially ‘on,’ we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn’t anti-social. It isn’t a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating. Our motto is, ‘I’m OK, you’re OK—in small doses.’”

If reading that makes you sigh with relief—you’re one of us. Just don’t expect to be understood by extroverts. Rausch writes, “Extroverts have little or no grasp of introversion…they cannot imagine why someone would need to be alone." He also points out that extroverts dominate political and social life and set the expectations, which means that introverts are considered abnormal (loners, arrogant, anti-social, guarded, withdrawn, etc.).

If you want to read the full article, you’ll find it here.

I think this is such an important topic that I’m going to research and share with you some ideas about how we introverts can be more effective in an extrovert world. It’ll be too long to put on the blog itself, but I’ll announce it here when it’s done and give you a link to it.

Appealing to a Jaded Audience

Film critic Owen Gleiberman commented in Entertainment Weekly on why movies like Pulp Fiction and Memento are able to use showing scenes out of chronological sequence to such good effect. He said this technique "...has evolved in no small part because audiences today are so attuned to the detours and ruses of conventional storytelling. When a story is told out of order, it's far easier to conjure up that surprise, that 'what's going to happen next?'...what started as a novelty has now edged into the mainstream..."

Of course another way to appeal to a jaded audience is to come up with an unusual premise. That's what Stranger Than Fiction does. Will Farrell's presence and the trailers led me to expect it to be a lot funnier, but it's not bad. However, it does feature a voice over of a supposedly talented novelist reading parts of her book--and they are so boring that I can't imagine anybody ever reading past page one. Fortunately, the V.O. is used much less in the second half. Also, writers will find some unintentional humour in how the life of a writer is portrayed.

Diary of a Non-Fiction Book -nov 06

Yesterday I made a presentation to the UK sales reps who will (I hope) be trying to convince booksellers that they should stock my new book, "Your Writing Coach" when it comes out in April. I had about ten minutes, which sounds like a pretty long time but zips by. The publisher feels that my  background as a writer in Hollywood is a good hook, so I came up with a few anecdotes. The reps seemed to  enjoy them and I hope they'll remember the book when the time comes.

The US sales reps are having their meeting this week as well, in Boston. I can't go, so I made a video on the beach in Santa Monica when I was there a couple of weeks ago, and emailed it to the publisher to play for them. The idea is to somehow stand out in their minds when they decide how much time to spend pushing each of the books on their lists.

This brought home to me the fact that all writers have several audiences. Master scriptwriter William Goldman made the point in one of his books that the first script you write has to captivate the money people and therefore it should read beautifully and should create vivid pictures in their minds. Later, the shooting script can be a much more stripped-down version.

With the book, my first audience was the publisher, now it is the sales reps, next year it will the producers of radio & TV shows that we hope might be interested in having me on to talk about the book, and journalists and editors who we hope will review it, and the managers of bookshops where I might give a talk.

The reader--the person for whom we think we are writing all along--is actually at the end of the line. Writing for the audiences that precede the reader requires a different mindset. The publisher's concern is whether the book will make money, the sales reps want books (and/or authors) that will stand out from the offerings of their competitors, the journalists and editors want an entertaining story, and the bookstore managers want something that will pull people into their establishments.
One size does not fit all. 

Forgetting the Oldest Rule

Last week I gave a presentation to a large group of people who work for Fremantle, one of the largest international TV production companies in the world. It went OK but could have gone better, and the reason was that I forgot the oldest rule in the book for presentations (which also applies to articles and non-fiction books):

tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them.

My talk was a slightly eccentric look at creativity and how we can be more creative intentionally rather than waiting for inspiration. I assumed that the audience would see how it all fit together, but I think some of them didn't--my fault, not theirs.

The following day I presented a workshop and was careful to specify exactly the purpose of each of the 3 exercises, and that went much better.

It's frustrating to still make basic mistakes when I've been doing this kind of stuff for quite a while. But then another mistake is to expect not to make mistakes...

Writing: Using Mind Maps to Control Your Material

I had a writing coaching question recently, from someone who has developed writer's block because she is afraid that she will inadvertantly reveal too much about her own past in the material she's writing. While it's rare for this fear to actually block a writer totally, it's just one example of feeling that one is not in control of one's material.

The solution I recommend is doing a mind map first. If you're not familiar with mind maps, have a look at the illustration below, which is a rough mind map of the central part of this post. If you want to learn more, look at any of the books about it by Tony Buzan, or search 'mind map' in Google. You'll understand the concept instantly: write the topic in an oval in the middle, and let lines radiate out from there, starting at the one-clock position and going clockwise. On each line you write a word or phrase that indicates the sub-topic. Each line, or branch, can have sub-branches coming out from it to carry additional details, and even those sub-branches can have more coming out of them.

You could start with one general map for an entire book, then a separate map for each chapter. Sometimes the first version just gives you a place to dump every idea you have about a particular topic. When you have that overview, you can organize it and do a new mind map that reflects that order.

If you have any questions about the process, let me know at [email protected]. Good luck and let me know if this strategy helps you.

How Much to Write?

I often hear the question, "How much should I aim to write? How many words per day?" Obviously this depends on your circumstances and how easily the words flow for you (sometimes the words that come the fastest are the best, other times they require the most revisions later). But it was interesting to read what John Updike said about this recently, in an interview at charlotte.com, the web site of the Charlotte Observer:

"When I set out, I decided that about 1,000 words a day would be a good quota. ...Maintaining this modest demand on myself has produced a fair number of books."

That's an understatement...he's written 22 novels and more than 100 short stories,and he's won two Pulitzers, two National Book Awards, and a huge following.

At 74, he still delights in the process of writing: "Covering blank paper with new thoughts or new visions is not easy and doesn't get easier...But nevertheless, I can still get excited [by it]."

Gold Medal Writing

One of the basic strategies for non-fiction writers is, “When something interesting is happening, use it as a hook for your writing.” I see that the Chinese know this, too. According to People’s Daily Online (can you tell I spend too much time browsing the Internet?), there are already hundreds of books out relating to the 2008 Olympics, including I Sing Children’s Songs to Welcome Olympics, and quite a few collections of English phrases for locals to learn. 100 Sentences of Olympic English includes not only “nice to meet you,” but also “I am afraid.” Hmm.

Then there’s Olympic Security English, which includes this exchange:

"Policeman: I'm afraid you can't get in without a ticket.

"Foreigner: Here is the money for the ticket. Take it and do let me in.

"Policeman: We don't collect any cash. Please leave here, or I will have you removed.

"Foreigner: All right."

It might sell better if it had alternate scenarios, like “Policeman: Give me more money or I will break your nose.”

Or, “Foreigner: Will my cell-mate be from Tibet?”

Hmm, there’s a book idea in there somewhere…

Old Master Gets into New Media

You can always tell at what stage a new medium is by who is getting into it. Generally, when people who are making lots of money in the old media start coming on board, it’s a sign that the new medium is getting serious.

That’s why it was interesting to hear that top TV producer Steven Bochco is getting into the online video business. He is getting into an alliance with Metacafe, a video-sharing site (like YouTube), that pays producers based on how popular their content is. They pay $100 for every 20,000 page views. They get more than 3.5 million visitors a month, so reaching 20,000 views may not be as hard as it may sound (and I bet Bochco will be getting more than the standard rate).

Bochco will have his own online channel, but has not yet revealed exactly what kind of material will be on it.

Bochco pointed out both the similarities and differences of using this medium. “It’s still sitting around a campfire telling stories.” But he also said, “[In the past] people were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. They were trying to impose our old entertainment model on their new platform. You’re looking at a vastly different medium.”

It’ll be interesting to see what Bochco, who made his name with “L.A. Law” and “NYPD Blue,” comes up with.

Is Dialogue Important?

One more quote from Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez, whose new film “Babel” I haven’t seen yet but am looking forward to. In his interview in Venice magazine, this is what he says about dialogue (and maybe it’s no accident that apparently he and the film’s writer, Guillarmo Arriaga have been having some differences lately):

“Now, I have to say that, for me, I don’t really care too much about words. Cinema is a visual medium. And obviously good dialogue can reveal a lot about the characters, but the characters are what they do, not what they say. In my experience with actors, once you find the right emotion, once you set up the right emotion, and then you have the objective of that scene and what the character wants and how he wants to achieve it, the actors just add the words. It doesn’t matter if they make a mistake with one word, the emotion will be there. The emotion is like a huge river going into the ocean and the words are like little boats that will be floating wherever you want. The hard part isn’t about the words and language, the hard part is understanding the emotional range. The words I don’t give too much of a damn about as long as I felt it in my heart.”

On Story Construction

Venice magazine (www.venicemag.com) features an interview with Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (“Amores Perros,” “21 Grams,” and “Babel”) conducted by Jose Martinez. By the way, all three films were written by Guillermo Arriaga. Here’s what the director said about the stages of film-making:

“As you know, films are made in stages, and the first one is the script where you dream.  And it’s an abstract territory that is essential to the film-making process. The second stage is when you confront the abstract to the concrete world, and the third stage is the editing where you sculpt all the stones and find the elephant inside.” (The latter is a reference to the idea that a sculptor knows there’s an elephant inside a block of stone and then chips away all the bits that are not the elephant.)

He was asked what he enjoys about telling a complex or multi-layered story: “I think Latin American literature has a lot to do with that. ..My father, too, is a great storyteller who always starts at the middle of the story and goes to the ending and then drops in a little bit of the beginning.”

However, he doesn’t disparage linear story construction: “People say it’s more difficult telling a fragmented story but I don’t think it’s more difficult. I think linear, chronological storytelling is entertaining and super difficult.”

Rewrites and timing

Here are a couple more insights from Christine Vachon's book about independent film-making, "A Killer Life":

"I think it usually takes three drafts for a script to get there. The first draft of a screenplay has energy. The second draft, by trying to fix all the problems of the first draft, tends to be a muddle. The third draft corrects the overcorrection and hopefully improves what works in the first place."

"We have a saying at Killer [Films]: it’s not the length that’s the problem, it’s the perception of length. A short film can feel long when motivations aren’t clear, transitions don’t match, or the proportions of the story are off. It doesn’t matter if your movie is ninety minutes. If people feel like it’s two hours, then you’ve got to fix something."

Novels and the Media Mix

The blurring and blending of media continues. Author Michael Connelly turned the first chapter of his new crime novel, "Echo Park," into a ten minute film and posted it on You Tube and other video sites. According to his statement in the Los Angeles Times, it worked: "I do believe this was a tool in getting people excited," he said. "I do know that statistically the first week of sales for 'Echo Park' was the best first week of sales I've had."

The film cost about $10,000 to produce, and it has another motive--to show Hollywood that this book and others in Connelly's series featuring cop Harry Bosch would make good movies.

The Times article says that the publisher (Little, Brown and Co.) produced the video as part of an extended prmotional campaign that also used podcasts and downloadable audio clips as elements of the marketing effort.

Looking a bit more closely: on YouTube it says that it has had 9,653 viewings, which isn't exactly earth-shaking (my very primitive 'Snakes on a Plane' animation cost $4 and had over a thousand...). Also, it starts off with a big chunk of narration (bad idea) and the editing is oddly jumpy at times.

I like Connelly's writing and probably will read the book at some stage, but I don't think watching this would have made me want to get the book if I wasn't already a fan. That would work only if the story were so intriguing that a taste of it would make me anxious to see what happens next. In my opinion, Connelly's strength is characters, not plot. HIs stories are OK, but not that different from a good episode of "Law and Order."

I'm not sure that Hollywood will be impressed, either, by a film whose production values, not surprisingly, are not up to the standards of an average prime-time TV drama.

The bottom line: mixing media is an interesting concept but may not be as straightforward in its effects as it seems.

 

Solving the First Act Problem

I've been reading "A Killer Life," producer Christine Vachon's entertaining account of how an independent film producer survives deals and disasters in Hollywood and beyond. In talking about "One Hour Photo," she mentions one of the difficulties that a lot of writers have with the first act (or the first pages of their novel). Namely that we need to establish the 'normal' life of the protagonist before something happens to interrupt that life. Otherwise, it's hard to feel the impact of the change. Here's what she writes:

"Originally, the story was told in linear fashion. We meet the Yorkins. They take birthday pictures. They bring the film in to the mall. We meet Sy Parrish (Robin Williams) at the photo counter of the Sav-Mart, etc. What I didn’t anticipate was that the studio’s marketing would fill the audience in on the basic premise of the film (as it should). This rendered the first act a bit draggy, so all this setup seemed a little belabored to them.

At the test screening, the audience knew they were doing to see a dark “thriller” (a term I was loath to have the studio use in the recruiting of an audience), so they were a step ahead of the story, which causes unrest (of the bad kind). So now I had a first act that seemed interesting and necessary but somehow useless at the same time. A conundrum.” 

She asked Francis Ford Coppola for advice. “He suggested something that would get the thriller aspect of the film going from the very start… We bookended the film with Sy already having been arrested for having done something awful and criminal. The audience doesn’t know what he’s done, exactly. This one change suddenly rendered the first act more compelling. The first act played out almost as before, but now the audience is paying closer attention. They’re now put in the position of trying to discover clues as to what Sy might’ve done. They’ve gone from passive viewers to detectives of a sort. And the first act came alive again."

In novels, a prologue often serves the same purpose. Of course the trick is to be sure that the story lives up to the expectations you arouse--that's the hard part!

Talking About Creativity

Go to the following site for an interesting videotaped discussion of creativity, with a panel that includes TV producer/writer Stephan J. Cannell, inventor Ray Kurzweil, and entrepreneur John Kao. Don't let the cheesy little intro put you off, and try not be distracted by the fact that the host's black turtleneck sweater at times makes it look like his head is floating in the air...

http://www.researchchannel.org/asx/usc_ctt_creawor_250k.asx