Time to Write

How to find your creative voice, according to Ira Glass and Andy Warhol

Writers are advised to "find your own voice," meaning, express yourself in a way that is authentic and unique to you.

One who managed that is Ira Glass, the creator of the radio series, "This American Life." He started out wanting to tell the stories of ordinary people. This set him apart because usually the emphasis is on interviewing famous people.

There's the first lesson: find something you want to do that's different from what most people are doing.

He says he didn't even know what it would be to be a reporter, he just understood what it would be to talk to regular people. He says, "And it was really a puzzle, how do you do that in a way that would be compelling and exciting to listen to?"

Lesson two: You'll probably struggle for a while to find how to do what you intend to do.

He notes, "You really have to be a soldier, you really have to fight and get in there and just make stuff, just force yourself to make stuff. It's really hard to do."

Lesson three: The way to discover how to do it is to do it. Expect obstacles, and persist.

Although now "This American Life" is a hugely popular radio series, it took time to build an audience and not everybody got it at first. Getting backing can be a challenge. Glass says, "The more idealistic and idiosyncratic the project, the more cunning you have to be about the business side of it."

Lesson four: Be prepared to be as creative in marketing what you create as you are in creating it.

Finally, he points out that it took ages for him to get good at what he set out to do and adds, "I wish somebody had told me that's normal."

Lesson five: That's normal. 

You can watch a four-minute video of Glass discussing these points here.

Another person who went through that process with huge success was artist Andy Warhol.

ANDY WARHOL'S PERSPECTIVE

Andy Warhol also had good advice on this topic:

"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art."

He also said, "There is beauty in everything, just not everybody sees it."

Ira Glass found the beauty in the stories of ordinary people, and he helps us appreciate it, too.

Maybe that's what finding your creative voice is about: figuring out your way of helping people see the things you see but most people don't. 

It's clear that finding your creative voice isn't about a flash of inspiration. It's a trial-and-error process and it never ends...and it's what makes writing worth doing.

 

Want your document to be taken more seriously?

Although most communication these days is digital, there are still times when you give someone a document. It might be a business proposal, a brochure, a letter, even a business card. Here's a simple way to have it valued more by the recipient:

Print it on heavier paper.

Yes, that's one of those strange phenomena that sounds illogical. It's the content, not the paper that should matter. But of course when we're dealing with humans, logic is not always what determines perception.

I found this strange and potentially useful information at musestorytelling.com. This finding comes from a couple of studies of the effect of heaviness. When some people were handed somebody's resume on a light clipboard and others were given it on a heavy clipboard, the latter judged the applicant to be more serious about the position and more qualified.

Hmm, maybe you should take along your own heavy clipboard. Substitute it for the one they give you when they hand you a form to fill out. 

In another study, two groups were given the same book. One group was told it was an important book, the other wasn't. Both were asked to guess the book's weight. The group that was told it was important guessed it was heavier than the other group did.

I guess it goes back to the old saying, "Never mind the quality, feel the weight!"

By the way, I'm a big believer in the maxim "do something different" if you want to stand out. These days, sending a letter instead of an email is different. Now you know to print it out on heavy paper. 

 

 

A Unique Way to Collaborate

One person wrote a prose poem about the other side of the dark times we're in right now.

He wanted to turn it into a short film.

250 filmmakers from around the world contributed clips and photos.

Ten days later, the four-minute film was ready.

You can watch it here.

What could you accomplish by collaborating with others? 

Is this the time to (finally) be you?

There's a Zen saying, "Out of the mud grows a lotus."

As I write this, we're in the mud. The coronavirus is still spreading and millions (including me) have been instructed not to leave our homes for at least twelve weeks (eleven to go). Loved ones are dying, the future is uncertain, and some of the people in charge are cretins.

That's the mud.

What will bring out the lotus?

For some people, it's suddenly finding they have more free time (if that's not you, keep reading anyway, we'll get to you). 

How will you spend this time?

The internet is full of suggestions for how to spend your extra time, many of which strike me as time killers.

If anything, the current state of affairs is telling us we never know how much time we have, so killing more of it seems foolish.

As Shakespeare said--or warned--in Richard II, "I wasted time, and now doth time waste me."

Why not make your goal creating something only you can create?

Not because you're a genius but because you're you.

The obvious channels of expression, like books, scripts, stories, poems, drawings, paintings, sculptures, etc. are fine if they excite you.

It could just as easily be making a piece of furniture, creating an indoor garden, coming up with original recipes, or using Zoom or Skype to give solace to isolated friends or strangers.

It could be something I've never heard of and can't even imagine.

Finding it is your job.

How to find it

It's possible you've already found it, but you never followed through because you didn't have time.  Maybe you started and you meant to go on, but life and obligations interfered and you stopped. It may be represented by a half-finished novel or a piece of pottery gathering dust, or the intention to connect with friends from years ago.

If you don't know what it is, or you do and you want to recapture the magic feeling it once gave you, use some of your new free time to daydream.

Yes, this was easier when we had the option of strolling through a park or walking along a beach, but you can also do it after everybody else has gone to bed, or before they wake up.

Go to the free site, calmsound.com and listen to gentle rain, or a country garden, or the ocean. If you're inspired by seeing nature as well as hearing it, they also feature videos of the Maldives, a country glen, an enchanted forest, and an Australian beach.

Close your eyes, remember what you dreamed of doing when you were a kid, or what made you happy before you had to stop doing it because responsibilities intervened. 

You'll know it when you see it--or rather, when you feel it. It'll feel like how artist Milton Glaser felt about illustrating Dante's Purgatory: "I can't tell you how much I looked forward to working on it--it is still thrilling to me to be able to sit down in front of a piece of paper and invent the world."

How to do it

You've found it. Now what?

Is there a secret? Something they don't want you to know but that I will reveal to you if you send me lots of money?

No, nobody's trying to keep it from you and there's no charge. It's simple. Not always easy, but simple: 

1. Start
2. Continue
3. Fail (because we can imagine perfection but not attain it)
4. Learn from the failure
5. Continue
6. repeat 3 through 5

Number one is the hardest but the other steps have their drawbacks, too.

So why do it?

Because it means something to you.

Because in some way large or small, you'll be contributing something to the world that is part of you.

It could bring you world-wide fame and fortune, or you may invent something that will benefit millions--but probably not. 

Maybe it'll be a memoir you self-publish that's discovered by a curious great-grandchild years after you're gone, and suddenly a little bit of you will live again.

Maybe it'll be a window garden that someone walking by sees and is reminded that life will blossom again. 

Maybe it'll be a poem nobody ever reads, but having written it makes you feel more complete and that, in turn, makes you a less distracted or frustrated parent.

But what if you don't have more time?

Some people actually have less time these days. They may be working from home and homeschooling their kids. They may have more responsibility for their parents or grandparents. What should you do if that's you?

Exactly the same thing. 

Homeschooling your kids? What greater lesson can you teach them (by example) than to express themselves? Don't expect them to appreciate it now, of course, but the time will come.

Working from home and too busy with work? An article in the Guardian about a palliative nurse who counsels the dying revealed the top regrets her patients expressed :

I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

I wish I hadn't worked so hard. (This from every male patient she dealt with.)

I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

I wish I had let myself be happier.

Every one of those, in one way or another, is about being yourself, expressing yourself.

You do have the time.

Cut out 30 minutes of TV or browsing the internet.

Get your kids involved in your creative activity.

Declare a lunch hour and lock yourself in a room, put in earplugs or crank up the white noise machine and do whatever you're meant to do. 

It's not too late

Whether life gives us another week, another year, another decade or more, it's not too late to take that first step.

As Oscar Wilde said (or should have, in case he didn't): "Be yourself, everyone else is already taken."

I hope that when you look back on these dark days you'll remember it was also the time you decided or renewed your decision to be--and share--yourself.

How Albert Einstein can help you rewrite your book or screenplay

Do you get stuck when you set out to do another draft of a screenplay, novel, or other creative project?

Albert Einstein allegedly said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them."

He wasn't talking about writing, but I think it applies.

When we write fiction, we're in a kind of dreaming state. We imagine what might happen and what people might say. It's a highly intuitive state, unless we are slavishly following a formula or template (not recommended if you want your work to be original).

If we stay in that state when we try to figure out how our first draft could be improved, often we'll either draw a blank or come up with something that makes the work different, but not necessarily better. 

The trick (thanks, Mr Einstein) is to move to a different level. In this case, the critical level.

The creative level vs. the critical level

The writing process is subjective, the critical level is analytical.

When you write, you're on the inside, in the moment with your characters. When you critique, you're looking at them from the outside and you can take a step back to assess the big picture.

How to switch levels

One way to change your mental state is to change your physical state first. 

• To snap out of the creative state, do a bit of movement--a brief brisk walk or a few stretches
  
  
• Move to a different location, even if just across the room from where you write
  
  
• Change your body position. Instead of sitting upright in a chair, lean back in an easy chair

Another strategy is to make the material seem less familiar, more like it's something someone else wrote since it's always easier for us to be objective about someone else's work.

• Print the script rather than viewing it on a screen
  
  
• Print it on different color paper
  
  
• Print it using a different font from the one on the screen
  

Remember you're a critic now, not a creator.

• Just like a professional critic would do, start by considering the totality of the work and identify any big problems. Read through the entire script and consider whether it has any major issues that will impact multiple scenes. Jot down your conclusions. For instance, a review I read recently said that the film couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a comedy, a satire, or a drama with amusing moments.
  
  
• Next, go through the script scene by scene and note weak points, inconsistencies, or other issues. For instance, when I go back to the first scene in a screenplay I ask myself whether it immediately creates a question in the minds of the reader (and, later, the audience). If they're curious, they'll want to continue reading or watching. 
  
  
• Don't try to solve these problems. A critic's role is to point out the good and bad points of a work, not to fix it. If a solution occurs to you, go ahead and note it but do not make any changes in the script--doing so will flip you out of the critical state.

Time to go back to the creator's state

When you've finished making your critical notes, go back to your usual work station and get back into the creative state. You'll have a list of things to fix but not how to fix them.

For instance, maybe one note is that the opening scene, an argument between the protagonist and his father at the dad's apartment, is too talky and doesn't make a visual impression. Now you can imagine how it would play out if, for example, it took place in public, or if the father showed his anger physically. Because you'll be tuned back into the characters, you'll think of options that are what they would actually do, not an arbitrary solution.

Keep shuttling back and forth

You don't have to wait to make all the changes before you go back into the critical state. You can take a printout of an individual scene to your critic's easy chair and assess whether the problem has been solved. This back-and-forth continues until you've made it the best you can.

Warning: don't do this just in your head!

Resist the temptation to think that it's just as easy to make the mental switch without the other changes I've suggested above. Yes, some people can do it, especially after years of practice, but it's difficult and often trying to create and judge at the same time leads to writer's block.

 

Three Dark Writing Moments More Common Than You Thought

Most writers would agree that while writing can be a great joy, it also carries its share of dark moments. When we're in the middle of one, it's easy to assume that we're alone feeling that way. Members of a panel of screenwriters discussed some of the darker moments they've experienced:

Noah Baumbach (writer/director, "Marriage Story") said for him it's starting each new project feeling overwhelmed and like he's forgotten how to write.

Rian Johnson (writer/director, "Knives Out") said it's the moment on every project when the initial excitement for the idea wears off.

Taiki Waititi
(writer/director "Jojo Rabbit") said it was when he was pitching "Jojo Rabbit" and nobody understood the tone he was going for.

Hmm, dark moments when you're starting to write, in the middle, and when you're done and trying to sell the script. One for each phase of the process!

So what's the solution?

I don't think it's trying to fight these feelings.

It's accepting that they are normal.

That it's not just us. 

That they'll pass.

...if we just keep putting down the words. 

 

Don't give up on your dumb idea

Dana Terrace had an idea for an animated magical comedy-horror TV series. She told the LA Times, "I was working with someone at that time who kept discouraging me from working on it."

Her colleague called it a dumb idea.

Named "The Owl House," it has already been renewed by Disney for a second series before the first one has even aired.

Terrace says one of the things that motivated her was proving that former colleague wrong. It wasn't the first time she was out of step. She says, "When I was a kid, and I think a lot of kids feel like this--especially if you're artsy or creative or have any kind of offbeat hobby--you feel a little left out."

I'd add that this still is true for a lot of adults.

However, often it's the oddballs who come up with breakthrough ideas. You know, the kind that are called dumb before they catch on.

Naturally, sometimes a "dumb idea" actually is dumb, but if you believe in yours, stick with it--as Dana Terrace has proved, it can pay off.

          "The Owl House" (Disney Channel)

Your weakness can become your strength

What if your weakness could also be your strength?

In the previous post, I wrote about Dana Terrace, who persisted with an idea for a TV series that her colleague called dumb. The Owl House was renewed for a second season by Disney before the first one even aired. 

In an interview in the L. A. Times, Terrace mentioned feeling left out when she was a kid because she was kind of an oddball. She patterned one of the series' main characters on herself. She says, "He's just a little guy that wants to be big, so I always related to him. He's tiny and no one takes him seriously. He just wants to be taken seriously."

The reason I wanted to revisit this topic is that I think it demonstrates not only the power of persistence in the face of discouragement but also how we can turn what other people see as a weakness into a strength.

This is especially so for writers and artists because supposed weaknesses make great material. People will relate because everybody feels defective in some way, even the most apparently confident ones.

I did something similar in an animated series I created, called Norman Normal. The premise was that Noman is the only normal one in a family of superheroes. Even his baby sister and his dog have powers.

I think this mirrors the feeling of a lot of kids that they're surrounded by parents how have all the power and other kids who are smarter, better looking, or more talented. Of course, it was always Norman who came up with the solutions or was able to help his superhero family win the day. I hope some kids watching the show were comforted or inspired by that.

TURN IT AROUND FOR FUN AND PROFIT

Sometimes we avoid writing about our weaknesses and fears, even in the form of fiction, because they make us uncomfortable.

I'm suggesting that if you face your weakness or your fear and turn it into art--a script, a novel, a short story, a painting--you may end up creating your most powerful and appealing work. It could even be your most profitable work--56 episodes of Norman Normal were produced and because I had a good "created by" deal, it was quite lucrative.

This process can also be therapeutic, as I discovered when I wrote a play called "Killing Mother." (No, my mom never saw it.)

You don't have to make the work directly autobiographical--in fact, usually it's better if you give yourself a lot of leeway to fictionalize so that you can serve the story instead of being bound by the limitations of reality.

At the moment, I'm doing this with a screenplay called Leaving It Behind, about a criminal facing the end of his life. It was triggered when I had to have open-heart surgery and considered the (admittedly slim) chance that I might not make it. I'm not a criminal nor do I have a terminal illness (the operation went well) but the story incorporates a lot of my fears and thoughts at the time.

Maybe you're already doing this, but it may be worth checking whether there's anything in the darker corners of your psyche that you might turn around by putting it at the heart of your next project.

The best opening for your screenplay or novel

I just read an article about Stephen King's new book, The Institute. The person who wrote the article admires King's novels but in this one he got to chapter 7 and there was still no story.

The Amazon blurb for the novel reads, "In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV."

That's intriguing, but even by chapter 7 there was no hint of that story.

Of course, King has millions of followers who are happy to let him take his time to get the story going, but the rest of us will do better to follow the advice to open your novel or screenplay with something intriguing going on that draws us in and has a strong connection to where the story is going. 

THE PROBLEM WITH NORMAL 

Usually, the first chapters or script pages are about the normal life of the protagonist, before the inciting incident that draws them into the main story. That allows us to identify with them and gives us a sense of their strengths and weaknesses. For instance, in a story about a teacher who is falsely accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a student, the first act of a screenplay or the first chapters of a novel would give us a sense of the life that's about to be destroyed. The problem, of course, is that normal life typically isn't very compelling.

FORESHADOW WITH A HINT

Foreshadowing is giving a clue about what's going to be happening later. In our example story, we might have the teacher discipline several students for a prank. One of them comments to the friend who leads their little clique that he's surprised the friend isn't more upset about it. That student says, "That's OK. She won't be teaching our class--or any class--for much longer." OK, maybe a little heavy-handed, but it makes us wonder what he has in mind and we know it's not going to be good. That keeps us interested and buys the writer some time to get more into the life of the protagonist. 

FORESHADOW WITH A METAPHOR

If you can't foreshadow with an incident directly tied to the story, sometimes you can foreshadow with an incident that serves as a metaphor. For instance, during the teacher's happy birthday party there's a scream as one of the guests spots a rat running through the kitchen. Even though rats will not be playing a role in the rest of the story, it gives a hint that in the midst of this happy norm, there's a dark element that will disrupt her life.

This is especially useful if you have a story in which the tone changes drastically as the story goes on. It helps to prepare the reader or viewer on a subconscious level for what's to come.

USING BOOKENDS

You can open at the end of the story if it's exciting or intriguing, flash back to the start, build to the same ending moment with which you began. For instance, you might start a script with your protagonist on the gallows. As the noose is placed around his neck, he turns to the camera and says, "It all started so innocently..." Then you flash back to how it started and continue until we're at the moment with which you started. Then, either he dies, or he manages to get out of being hanged and is available for a sequel.

Another example is Titanic, in which we see old Rose at the start and end, but the core story belongs to young Rose.

OPENINGS TO AVOID

One opening to avoid that I've seen sometimes in novels and short stories is something like, "Little did Posie know that in a mere few days her life would change forever." Clunk!

A dream, especially a nightmare, as an opening tends to feel like a cheat, especially if we don't know it's a dream. 

Prologues can work but tend not to be popular with publishers. Sometimes the prologue is a moment in the heart of the action, a preview of what's to come, and then the novel starts back at the beginning. Or they might show, for instance, a trio of witches brewing up a curse that will come into play later in the story. 

IF YOU CAN'T THINK OF A WAY TO FORESHADOW

If you can't think of a good idea for foreshadowing as you write the first pages, don't worry. It can be easier to come up with that idea after you've gotten farther into the story or even completed the first draft. Often, I'll just write the first act without it and then go back and add it.

And once you get to be as popular as Stephen King, you won't have to worry about it!

Write Like Nobody's Watching

Actually, nobody IS watching. So for your first draft, feel free to be as clumsy, daring, or crazy as you like.

Put it aside for a while.

Then look at it.

    What were you thinking!?

    That's TOO crazy!

    Or it just plain sucks.

The good news is, STILL nobody's watching.

You get to rewrite it as often as you want.

Or maybe more times than you want, but you keep going because you know it's not quite as good as you can make it yet.

Then, finally, when it's ready, you send it out. 

NOW somebody's watching.

They may still say it's too crazy or wonder what you were thinking or that it sucks.

If they have constructive criticism or you suddenly see another way to improve it, great, back to the desk with it. 

If not, keep sending it out until it finds a champion.

Meanwhile, write another thing like nobody's watching.

What you CAN'T learn from others

The internet is full of tips on how to learn from [name of successful person]. The implication is that if you just do things their way, you'll have their success.

Usually, these tips are too general to be useful. Things like, "Be an original thinker, like Steve Jobs."

Sometimes they carry an unintentional irony: "If you want to be original, copy Picasso." Hmm.

Sometimes the tips are too specific. It may be that super-successful people X, Y, and Z get up at 5am and carry around a notebook, but it's far from clear that these are the reasons for their success. What if it's the fact that they all eat lasagna and do yoga?

As writer Dale Dauten points out, "People try to conform to success, but to be successful is to be a non-conformist." Even that is flawed advice if it leads somebody to think that being a non-conformist is, by itself, a formula for success. There are plenty of non-conformists sleeping in doorways.

For a while, Writing Magazine ran a series of articles on the theme of "How to Write Like Anton Chekhov" (or other great writers). I'm not saying you can't learn by studying Chekhov, who indeed is a wonderful writer, but writing like him has one requirement none of us can fulfill: being Anton Chekhov. As I mentioned in the previous post, imagining how he might solve a writing problem can lead you to a solution, but it won't actually be his, it'll be yours.

The moral, I think, is to write or draw, or paint, or whatever you do, your way. There's no guarantee it'll pay off, but at least you'll enjoy yourself.

 

 

 

Brainstorming Strategies: What would (X) do?

One of my favorite brainstorming strategies is imagining how another person might solve the problem or approach the task.

I'll give you a personal example. I'm thinking of writing a film or play about how political polarization affects a family, with a Christmas family get-together as the setting and occasion. How to give it a fresh angle? How would the three people above approach it?

BILLY WILDER is noted for his witty approach to comedies like "Some Like It Hot," and "Seven Year Itch." I imagine a Wilder-style approach would be a smart comedy, maybe told through the eyes of a recent addition to the family (the new spouse/partner of one of the family) who, to be accepted by everybody has pretended to agree with both sides--and of course runs into big problems when the whole family gets together.

MICHAEL MOORE is noted for documentaries like "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11." He might take a mockumentary approach to the event, perhaps with a psychologist stopping the action to explain what's going on and, if it's a comedy, getting it totally wrong; or maybe the shrink has been hired by the patriarch of the family to intervene and bring peace to the family but of course screws it up and only makes it worse.

STANLEY KUBRICK is known for "2001," "Eyes Wide Shut," and "The Shining," among others. Although there are moments of black comedy in his films, I think he'd be more likely to treat it as a dark psychodrama, perhaps leading to the total breakdown of one of the family members, with deadly consequences.

Of course, your "X" doesn't have to be a film-maker. It could be anybody whose way of thinking you're familiar with and admire. The next time you're stuck or just want a bit of extra inspiration, try the "What would X do?" method.

 

 

 

The Writing Payoff You May Not Be Expecting

We tend to think the payoff for writing a book is getting it into the hands of readers, and the payoff for writing screenplays is seeing your work on a screen, small or large. That's not wrong, especially if you're hoping for a financial payoff. 

But novelist Anne Lamott has another angle to consider, one that I feel more connected to these days:

“I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do — the actual act of writing — turns out to be the best part.” 

I know exactly the reaction I would have had to this quote before I had anything published or produced: "Easy for you to say, Anne Lamott! You've had books published and you're famous(ish)! Don't worry, I'll deal with the disappointments if they happen, just let somebody produce one of my scripts--or at least buy one!"

I'm not suggesting that you should lose any of that drive or ambition--it's necessary for a writing career. I only want to say there's more than that, and the joy of writing can get lost if you're putting all of your focus on worrying about what happens to it afterward.

The reason I feel more connected to the rewards of writing for its own sake is that over the course of a difficult 18 months, health-wise (much better, now, thanks), I still had the drive to write, even if only short films and scenes that I wrote without thinking about whether they would ever be submitted anywhere, much less produced or published.

Now I'm getting back to writing scripts for which I have commercial ambitions, but with a greater appreciation of what a friendly, healing presence writing can be.

 

 

 

Can you tell your screenplay story in six words?

Screenwriter Scott Meyers suggests boiling the story of your screenplay down into six words. If you can't do that, he says, you don't have a story.

Sometimes I really resist the idea that everything should be simple, but he has a point. Obviously, six words will not encapsulate the totality of your script but especially if you tend to get lost in your story sometimes, this can be a good tool.

Let's try some examples. See if you can tell right away which films I'm describing:

Son takes over family business: the mafia

Racist driver. Black passenger. Southern roadtrip. (I may be cheating, road trip probably should be two words.)

He's down, she's up: love possible?

Or, for a classic play: Father murdered. Son's revenge consumes all.

I imagine you got those: The Godfather trilogy, Green Book, A Star is Born, Hamlet.

Admittedly, these descriptions don't reveal that Michael doesn't want to be the new godfather, or that a friendship develops between the driver and the passenger, or that the 'down' and 'up' refer to fame and musical careers. And six words can't do justice to Hamlet. However, these do all identify the core elements of each plot.

IT'S ABOUT THE PLOT

Someone said that plot is what the story is about, and theme is what the story is REALLY about.

For instance, Macbeth's plot is the series of murders the Macbeths commit to try to make him king; the theme is the price of ruthless ambition.

Usually, your six words will be about the plot. In the example above, only the six words about Hamlet hint at the theme: that revenge can destroy the person exacting it as well as that person's target.

Don't try to make the six words reflect the theme unless that comes naturally. Of course, it's your execution of the plot that largely determines the quality of the script, but you have to have a solid plot before you can execute it.

HOW TO USE THE SIX-WORD STRATEGY

I'd never use the six-word format in a pitch, but it can be useful to work it out to make sure you know the core of the story.

Write the six words on an index card and put it where you can see it as you work on the script.

When you're unsure about a scene, ask yourself whether it is in alignment with that core idea. Even if it's a scene in a subplot, probably it will reflect the main idea in some way. I haven't done an analysis, but I'm pretty sure almost every scene in A Star is Born is about either him going downhill, her rising to fame, and/or their love.

Think about the films you've seen most recently. How would you sum up their plots in six words? Practicing with other people's stories will make it easier to do it with your own.

 

My Favorite Brainstorming Method

My favorite brainstorming method is combining the thing I want to get ideas for and random words. 

THE FORCED ASSOCIATION METHOD

Here's how to do it: First generate a list of whatever words pop into your mind as you go through the alphabet (you get to skip X and Z). For example:

ARCH

BLOWHARD

CRISIS

DEPLOY

EAGLE

FRANCE

GOLEM

HYSTERIA

INSULATION

JOCULAR

KINETIC

LABOR

MICRO

NEEDLE

OVERWHELM

PUS

QUERY

ROYAL

STANDARD

TREMBLE

UV LAMP

VICTIM

WASTEGROUND

YOUNG

I like having at least 2 or 3 lists like this at the start of a brainstorming session. Then it's time to start combining.

Let's say I'm trying to come up with ideas for short instructional videos about different aspects of scriptwriting.

"Arch" makes me think of the arch dialogue in screwball comedies.

It also brings to mind movies in which a mysterious setting, like a cathedral with many arches, is important.

How to write screwball comedy dialogue, How to use setting to create the tone of your script: two viable topics.

It works for pretty much anything. Let's say you want to come up with a way to promote your self-published book.

"Blowhard" is what people might call you if you blow your own trumpet too much, so maybe you'd create a character who could do it for you, and feature that comedic character on your blog or in a video.

"Crisis" might make you think about the biggest crisis in your book (if it's a novel), and that might make a good hook for your promotions: "What would YOU do if you (describe the biggest crisis)?"

GO WHEREVER THE COMBINATION LEADS YOU

Sometimes the prompt word leads you to think of something which in turn leads you to think of something else, and the idea you come up with ends up not having much of a relationship to the original prompt--that's fine.

For instance, staying with the book promotion challenge, the word "deploy" makes me think of the military, which makes me think of battles, which makes me wonder whether another author and I could generate interest in our books by having a friendly feud on social media.

DON'T GET STUCK

If a word doesn't generate any thoughts, move on to the next one.

QUANTITY OVER QUALITY

The key is to generate as many ideas as possible as quickly as possible, without judging. Some of them will be bad! Maybe most of them. That's OK. One gem may be all you need. Hold off judging the ideas until you have a lot of them.

YOUR TURN

Give it a try. Let me know how you get on, either in the comments or via email to [email protected].