Time to Write

Are You Writing the Right Thing?

Sir Sean Connery apparently has given up writing his autobiography. He said, “It was giving me nightmares. I don’t think I’m cut out for introspection.”

It underscores the fact that not every creative person is cut out for every kind of writing. A woman who attended my sitcom workshop a few years ago came up to me afterward and said, joyfully, “Thank you so much! This has been so helpful!” I said, “So you’re going to go ahead and write a great sitcom?” “No!” she said, “What I’ve learned this weekend is that I never want to write sitcoms, they’re not me at all. You’ve saved me a lot of time—now I can go ahead and find what it is I DO want to write.”

If you’re feeling frustrated with your writing, or keep intending to do a certain type of writing but never actually get started…consider whether maybe you’re not cut out for (fill in the blank). You may be much happier writing in a different genre—why not try something else? (Note to Sir Sean: how about a nice novel, maybe about a famous actor from Scotland?)

Will You Kindle?

Have you seen Amazon’s Kindle, the wireless reading device? It has overcome some of the drawbacks of earlier devices (better resolution, better battery life, cheaper downloads) but I’m still skeptical that a huge number of people will want to spend $399 on one of these. An interesting side note is that master marketer Seth Godin wanted to distribute his book and blog on the Kindle—for free. Amazon said no, we want to sell stuff. I can see their point—they want to train people to pay for the books rather than perpetuating the feeling that the internet is only about free (as in no-cost) information. On the other hand, it would make sense to give people some motivation for shelling out the four hundred dollars. A good compromise could have been to make it a time-limited download, maybe free for a week and then a fee if you want to keep the file forever.

So far I’m not tempted (anyway, as I understand it, at the moment it works only a wireless network in the US, not the UK where I spend most of my time). But if you succumb, let me know what you think of it, either in a comment here or at [email protected].

Is This a Record for Padding a Book?

Is this the most outrageously stretched book ever? I’m referring to “Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing.” Published by William Morrow for $14.95 for 96 pages, with lots of white space. I mean LOTS. If printed normally, the ten rules would take up two pages. Maybe three, tops. Of course then you’d miss out on the caricatures of Mr. Leonard and a few others (when he mentions Hemingway, sure enough, you get a big cartoon of Hemingway).

That’s not to say that the rules are bad—far from it, they’re an excellent encapsulation of what makes his writing so good. I’m just not sure you want to spend fifteen bucks on it. If you want to read the rules before you decide, you’ll find them here, in their original form as an article in the New York Times:

A Writing Prompt to Help Spark Your Creativity

Once in a while, our creativity needs a little push to get the flow of ideas starting again. Here is one of my favorite quick-start tricks:

Open a novel and relate the first sentence to what you're writing or would like to write. Here's an example: the first novel I saw on my shelf is "The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon," by Tom Spanbauer (I haven't read it yet, so I can't tell you whether it's good). Its opening line is, "If you're the devil, then it's not me telling this story."

The writing project I'm about to start is a surreal comedy screenplay about a group of people stuck on an island. The idea the opening line gives me is to make one of these people very religious since there is, at least for a time, an "end of days" feel to the situation. My protagonist is an intellectual who is either an atheist or agnostic, so this would make an interesting contrast. The conflict in beliefs could naturally lead to some conflicts in action.

One more example: Carl Hiaasen is one of my favorite contemporary authors and I just bought his novel, "Nature Girl." Here's the first sentence: "On the second day of January, windswept and bright, a half-blood Seminole named Sammy Tigertail dumped a dead body in the Lostmans River." (Hiaasen never wastes any time getting his stories started!)

For my island story, my first thought was, "What if a dead body washes up on the beach?" But since this is a comedy that seems a bit heavy. However, it makes me wonder what else could wash up that might provoke conflict or move the story forward, and that's something I'll keep in mind as I work more on the story.

As you can see, the prompt is just a way to activate your brain cells--where it takes you often ends up far away from the subject of the prompt.

Myths (?) about scriptwriting

  Hmm...here are two tips regarding screenwriting I found on another site--and my take on each of them:

They say: Don’t include a synopsis or character biographies with your script as it gives studio readers an excuse not to review the whole screenplay.

I say: When I was a reader, sometimes we'd get these, but it would turn out, for example, that the protagonist's bio would say something like "Paul is a witty intellectual" but in the script there would be no sign of wit. And sometimes the synopsis would not match the script either. Including these is unprofessional, but no reader I know would use them as an excuse not to review the script. They would just ignore them and read the script.

They say: Don’t put scene numbers on your script until it is sold. This is a rule of the game; readers find scene numbers distracting and use them as an excuse to dub a screenplay “amateur” and unworthy of further consideration.

In my experience, some people like there to be scene numbers in a spec script because it makes it easier to discuss which scenes have problems (e.g., in scene 43 the action slows down). No reader I know would be distracted by such numbers nor dismiss a spec script because it has them.

Maybe the person who wrote these tips heard different, but beware of believing such "rules."

Yann Martel and Tom Perrotta on Plotting

Yann Martel, the author of Life of Pi, shared some thoughts about writing with the AVClub section of the Onion newspaper:

“I am not a person who can write in paragraphs the way some writers can. To me, it’s sentence-by-sentence, sometimes word-by-word. And I revise constantly. It’s a very laborious process, but I love doing it. There’s nothing more satisfying than having a sentence fall into place in a way you feel is right, and then adding another one and then another one. It’s extraordinarily satisfying.”

In the same issue, a writer I’ve already quoted a few times here, Tom Perrotta (Little Children) said this about not having an outline and the danger of writing yourself into a corner:

“Yeah, that’s the danger of it. On the other hand, I knew very few writers who outline fully before they start. It just doesn’t seem possible to do, because so many things don’t come out until you’re absolutely knee-deep in the world. So it seems to me that all you need is enough to get going. And then you’ve got to trust the process, which is scary, because you don’t know where you’re going, and can make terrible mistakes.”

Writers Just Want to Get Paid (and a suggestion)

The theme that resonated most at Blogworld earlier this month (left) was how people could make some money for the writing they do on blogs and for podcasts...not so different from what the Writers Guild of America members are striking for. The New York Times pointed out recently that at least one model for this exists already. The site www ABC.com will over the next 3 months be featuring webisodes called "Lost: Missing Pieces." These were written by one of the lead writers of the series, and were paid for. Not a huge sum, but something, and royalties will also be paid. When the deal was made, it was with the explicit understanding that it would not be considered a precedent for similar ventures...but why not? 

And in the meantime, a series originally produced for internet exposure, "Quarter Life" will now be seen on broadcast television, filling some space created by the strike. Both of these prove that TV and the Internet are destined not only to co-exist but to help each other. When the current hostilities are over, both sides will have to get busy working out how to make this a win-win situation.

In the meantime, why not read a book? If you'd like a suggestion, try "No More Second-Hand Art" by Peter London, "The Courage to Create," by Rollo May, or Brenda Euland's "If You Want to Write." These are the three inspirational books I like to re-read at least once a year.

the part of the Macy's Parade You Didn't See

Sitcom Success: It's the Characters

Writing in The Wall Street Journal Online, Dorothy Rabinowitz delivers a withering analysis of “Back to You,” the new Kelsey Grammer sitcom: “We can begin with irritating, a word that doesn't quite do justice to the aura of grimness in the atmosphere every time the show's male star, Kelsey Grammer -- surely one of the subtlest and most gifted of comic actors -- begins bellowing the unsalvageably witless lines the show's writers have produced, in episode after episode.”

What I liked about her review is her recognition of what makes a good sitcom work: “In its negative way the series is a reminder of the qualities that make for sitcom success, particularly the kind of comedy set in the workplace -- whose society and mores everyone knows. That society and its foibles, its rules and characters, were well known to the people behind "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," which is what enabled the show's writers to deliver subtlety even to a character who was also a caricature, as they did so superbly in the persona of anchorman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight) -- that pompous, vain, self-seeking professional cutthroat, but a figure still credibly human, all in all.”

I had the pleasure of working on The Ted Knight Show, where he basically continued playing the same character. Anyway, Ms. Rabinowitz goes on:

“That kind of knowledge is precisely what ensured success, decades later, for the writers of "The Office," that merciless British series about the Werner Hogg paper company, focused on the massively deluded middle-manager David Brent, portrayed by the show's creator, Ricky Gervais… He's a wholly devastating creation -- a caricature, yes, but also the embodiment of a personality who feels altogether too real.”

Maybe one of the reasons sitcoms are in decline is that they strain so hard for the jokes that they forget the characters.

Writing Dialogue (Top Ten to Avoid)

Times change but some lines of dialogue just never seem to go away. Here is a countdown of old favorites that you may want to avoid:

10: “You’re pregnant? That’s…that’s wonderful.”

9: “You have no idea what you’re asking me to do.”

8: “Whatever it is…it’s not human.”

7: “It’s only one last job, I swear it.”

6: “You have nothing to worry about, we’re just doing some routine tests.”

5: “How long have we known each other? Ten years? Twelve?”

4: “You don’t know who you’re messin’ with!”

3: “How long? How long have you been seeing that slut?”

2: “There’s no way! It’s not humanly possible!”

1: “There’s…there’s something I haven’t told you.”

(Feel free to add your favorites by leaving a comment!)

Copyright and Creativity and a Decision from the Court

See what you think about this legal case: In 1996 Stuart Y. Silverstein and Scribner’s published a book of the uncollected poems of Dorothy Parker, the witty author and poet who belonged to the famous “Algonquin Round Table” group. The poems were in the public domain.

Three years later Penguin published a book containing the same material. Silverstein sued, claiming that assembling the poems is a creative act and that Penguin had violated his copyright (which applied to the format of the book, not the poems as such). He asked for damages of more than one million dollars. Penguin maintained that simply gathering uncollected poems is not a creative act covered by copyright.

Who do you think was right?

A summary judgment by a judge was in favor of Scribner. Penguin appealed and was granted a trial. Now a federal judge (the same one who originally ruled in favor of Silverstein) has ruled in favor of Penguin. He wrote: "The Court finds that Silverstein simply selected for inclusion in `Not Much Fun' all of the uncollected Parker poems that he could find and that this selection process involved no creativity."

Silverstein said he may appeal again, but if this decision stands it could be an important precedent for any writer who uses public domain material.

Pixar's Story Secrets

On his blog, animator Kevin Koch published some notes he took at Screenwriting Expo 5 last year, in Los Angeles. The speaker was Pixar's Andrew Stanton. One of the points Stanton mentioned is the importance of rules within a fantasy picture. This is how Koch summarized that point:

"The next key is to Know your world. As an example, Fantasy = Rules. In a fantasy world, you must establish your rules (which can be anything you want), but then you must be consistent and true to those rules. A key element of audience enjoyment is anticipation mingled with uncertainty. If you don’t follow any rules, then there’s nothing to anticipate. Anything can happen, so nothing matters. In Monsters Inc. a crucial story development was the invention of the rule that screams = fuel — this gave the film structure, and much of the story came easily once this was established."

That’s a great point-- especially regarding a fantasy world, where the rules will be different from the rules every knows about in the ordinary world. This is where a lot of horror and scifi pictures fall apart–because anything can happen (no rules) when it does, there’s no surprise or tension, it’s just one thing after another.

Book Marketing and the Mask

One more bit from novelist Ann Patchett's interview in the (London) Times Magazine. She mentions that writing is a very quiet, personal activity, and "that's why it requires such a change of pace for me to go out and meet my public. It's like I'm required to pull on a rubber head and become another person. 'Annpatchett' my husband Karl and I call her--all one word."

This is very similar to what I call the Alter Ego Strategy--that you have to decide which version of you is best suited to any given task, and assume that persona. As Ann Patchett points out, the Alter Ego that will do best at a reading or book signing isn't the same one that sat down alone to write the book.

I go into this more in one of the chapters of my new book, FOCUS, which comes out next May. I just did the final proofing of the manuscript and shipped it off to the publisher. Whew! I enjoyed writing it, but it was still a huge relief to get to the end because it had taken over my life for quite a while. Now it's time for a different Alter Ego...

Writing Goals -- When Do They Work Against You?

In an article on the innovation tools website (here), Stephen Shapiro talks about the fact that while it's good to have goals, at some point it becomes counterproductive to focus on them. Here's part of what he says:

"Although goals and performance targets are useful tools, they can also have a detrimental impact on results. When people are future fixated, their creativity and overall performance diminish."

He gives an example: "the true story of a high school student who became increasingly anxious over passing her upcoming final exam in math, always her weakest subject. She studied incredibly hard, all the time focusing on her goal to pass her exam. In spite of her efforts, she failed. She pleaded with her teachers to give her one more chance. They did. This time, instead of concentrating on the goal, she used a powerful creativity technique. Her first conscious thought each day when she awoke was to visualize herself as Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. Secretary of State, a very successful, highly educated woman. Dr. Rice wouldn’t worry about a high school math exam, right? By imagining she was someone else, she stopped agonizing and gained more confidence daily. By focusing on the present rather than the result, she scored a 93%, her greatest performance with less effort."

In terms of writing, if we get too hung up on what will happen to a manuscript or script when we've finished it, that takes our attention away from the moment. In that moment, our obsession should be how to make it the best piece of writing we possibly can.

Writing Motivation: Revenge!

Ann Patchett revealed to the (London) Times Magazine that her primary motivation for writing her first novel was to get revenge on the nuns who educated her and considered her "somewhere between slow and stupid." She suffered this for twelve years, and then, in her first job she had a patronizing boss who called her "Dolly."

She says, "One day, I used to think, one day..."

She did show them all and her fourth book, Bel Canto, won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2002, and her new one, Run, has just been published.

Maybe success IS the best revenge! And even if it's not, if it keeps us going when other motivation is low, that's fine.