Time to Write

How Nick Hornby deals with the long process from script to film

It can take ages for a screenplay to become a film and of course a lot of times the production never happens. Nick Hornby, whose most recent adaptation is Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon, deals with it by using the time in between to write his novels.  

An article written by Joe Berkowitz for fastcreate.com points out, "what once seemed like a dealbreaking burden [the delays] has turned into a boon for the prolific author's productivity." 

Yes, he does have the advantage of being a best-selling novelist and Academy Award-nominated (for An Education) screenwriter, but I think there's a useful lesson in there for the rest of us as well, namely to figure out how to make the downsides of the business part of our craft work for us rather than against us.

Hearing back from agents and publishers can take just as long as the gaps and delays experienced by screenwriters. I think the lesson is to have another project ready to go when we send one out into the real world...which also helps cut down on the amount of time we spend thinking about the first project's fate!

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Audio Q&A: 'Wild'

Sunday thought: does your writing path have heart?

"When his apprentice wants to know which route he should choose, the Yaqui brujo answers, "Any path is only a path...All paths are the same: they all lead nowhere. The only important question you must ask is: 'Does this path have heart?' 

If a path has heart for you, then dare to follow it. It is important to give up on irrelevant questioning, to take care not to waste yourself."

 --Sheldon Kopp in "If You Meet the Buddha On the Road, Kill Him!"

*** 

Does what you are writing have heart for you? Then dare to follow it. It may or may  not lead you to publication; for sure it will lead you to yourself.

John Steinbeck's Six Tips On Writing: Six

The Fall 1975 issue of Paris Review featured an interview with novelist John Steinbeck. He won the Pulitzer Prize and was a Nobel laureate, and The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men are still required reading in many English and literature classes. I'm sharing six tips from that interview (culled by the excellent Brain Pickings blog), with a few additional comments by me. This is the last of six:

"If you are using dialogue--say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech."

This was also advised by Kurt Vonnegut in the previous series of tips. As well as saying it aloud as you write it, get somebody else to read it aloud as you listen. Ask them not to act too much. If you don't have a willing friend, use your computer's text-to-speech function. The voice will be somewhat robotic but it will still be worthwhile to hear the words spoken. Doing this is even more important for people writing screenplays or plays.

(Mark Twain had advice for writers, too, as did Anton Chekhov, Kurt Vonnegut, Jane Austen, and many more. You'll find it my book, Your Creative Writing Masterclass, published by Nicholas Brealey and available from your favorite bookseller.)

 

 

 

 

Kurt Vonnegut's tips for writing with style: number four

Years ago, Kurt Vonnegut wrote an article sponsored by the International Paper Company, on how to write with style. He intended it mainly for writers of non-fiction, but the tips apply equally to novelists or short story writers. I'm featuring one per day; this is number four.

4: Have the guts to cut 

It may be that you, too, are capable of making necklaces for Cleopatra. so to speak. [This refers to a metaphor in tip number three.] But your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new or useful way, scratch it out.

Jurgen adds:

This is another version of "murder your darlings." If a sentence, paragraph, scene or chapter doesn't harmonize with the rest of the work, you have a choice: cut it out (or rewrite it), or keep it and rewrite everything else. 

 

 

 

 

 

Kurt Vonnegut's tips for writing with style: number three

Years ago, Kurt Vonnegut wrote an article sponsored by the International Paper Company, on how to write with style. He intended it mainly for writers of non-fiction, but the tips apply equally to novelists or short story writers. I'm featuring one per day; this is number three.

3: Keep it simple

As for your use of language: Remember that two great masters of language, William Shakespeare and James Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost childlike when their subjects were most profound. 'To be or not to be?' asks Shakespeare's Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story 'Evaline' is this one: 'She was tired.' At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do. 

'To be or not to be?' asks Shakespeare's Hamlet. The longest word is three letters long.

Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story 'Evaline' is this one: 'She was tired.' At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do. 

Joyce, when he was frisky, could put together a sentence as intricate and as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but my favorite sentence in his short story 'Evaline' is this one: 'She was tired.' At that point in the story, no other words could break the heart of a reader as those three words do. 

Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens with a sentence well within the writing skills of a lively fourteen-year-old: 'In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.'

Jurgen adds:

This advice is echoed by another of my favorite writers, Elmore Leonard, as well as many others. If people are noticing the writing, they're not paying attention to the story. 

 

 

The great escape (it's what writing is all about)

"Two hours of writing fiction leaves this writer completely drained. For those two hours he has been in a different place with completely different people." - Roald Dahl

Being in a different place with completely different people is what made me love reading, and makes me love writing.

With a few exceptions, I've avoided writing (or reading, or seeing films) about serial killers, child molesters, and murderers, mostly because these are not people I want to spend time with.

If you do enjoy vicariously confronting horrible people, perhaps making sure they get their comeuppance more often than is the case with their real-life counterparts, that's great, too.

Either way, I hope you're taking advantage of our unique ability as writers to create worlds and people to live within and to share with thousands or even millions of our fellow escapees.

A brilliant kids' book with no pictures

Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Case in point, a kids' book with no pictures...one that makes kids scream with laughter...and sells LOTS of copies, if the 600,000+ views at YouTube are any indication. I won't spoil it, see it for yourself:

 

Why use a pen name?

I read the other day that J. K. Rowling submitted the first Harry Potter book with the name she normally used, Joanne Rowling.

The publisher warned her that boys might be reluctant to read a novel written by a woman, thinking it was intended for girl readers, and advised her to use her initials. 

Did it help? We will never know, but we can be pretty certain it didn't hurt.

That got me thinking about pen names. I'm just about to submit my first YA novel to agents and/or publishers and thinking about doing so under a pen name, instead of Jurgen Wolff, for a couple of reasons.

NAMES AND PERCEPTION

Multiple studies show that someone's name influences how they are perceived by others. Dictionary.com references one such study conducted in the US:

"Participants of the study were asked to guess the success of students with various names on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most successful.

The highest scoring names turned out to be Katherine, scoring a 7.42, and Samuel, scoring a 7.20. With a score of 5.74,

Amber ranked lowest among female names while Travis ranked overall lowest with a score of 5.55.

As John Waggoner, a researcher from Bloomberg University, points out: “Katherine goes to the private school, statistically; Lauren goes to a public university, and Briana goes to community college. Sierra and Dakota, they don’t go to college.”

In the UK, Richard Wiseman conducted a study, asking 6000 people about their perceptions of names. The most successful sounding ones were Elizabeth and James, the most attractive ones Ryan and Sophie.

Writers often take this into account when deciding on names for their characters, especially for their protagonist and, if applicable, their villain. They don't usually think of it in terms of their own names.

THE NAME ON THE BOOK

Research suggests that people decide alarmingly quickly whether or not to pick up a book (or in the case of online listings, whether to click the thumbnail image). They base this on the title of the book, the image on the cover, and the author's name. 

I wasn't able to find any studies specifically on the extent to which the name of an author who is not famous impacts sales.

This kind of test has certainly been done on possible titles for a book. Timothy Ferriss tried out several names for his first book. He put ads online that described the book in exactly the same way, varying only the title. The clear winner was The Four Hour Work Week. Since the book wasn't actually available yet, the people who responded where told they'd be notified when it was.

It would be interesting to do the same thing, but varying only the name of the author...If I give that a try, I'll report the results here.

POSSIBLE FACTORS

The factor that seems most obvious to me is that it helps if the author's name is congruent with the genre of the book. I'm guessing if one thriller cover featured an exciting image and the author name Mortimer Feeney and another version was exactly the same except that the author's name was Jack Chase, the latter would outsell the former (apologies to any Mortimer Feeneys reading this).

There may also be cultural factors. My first name, Jurgen, is German, and although the recent World Cup win seems to have created a blip of goodwill toward Germans, overall I think there's some negativity associated with German names in the UK, if only subconsciously. 

One additional factor based on your surname is that in book stores novels usually are shelved alphabeticalliy by the last name of the author. If your surname starts with W, your books tend to end up on the bottom shelves, where it's less likely to catch the eyes of browsers.

ON THE OTHER HAND...

Of course there are lots of exceptions--authors who have unusual, unpopular, or foreign-sounding names whose books became best-sellers. In fact, it can help to have a somewhat unusual name because it will be more memorable. 

IF YOU USE A PEN NAME

Based on a bit of quick research I've done, it seems that the etiquette of submitting material to agents and publishers suggests using your real name in your query letters unless you've already had something published under the pen name.

In a way this is too bad because probably agents and publishers are just as much influenced by names as anybody else. Some sources do say that it's OK to add your pen name on the title page of your manuscript, like this:

written by Mortimer Feeney

(writing as Jack Chase)

THE BOTTOM LINE

Ultimately it's a very personal decision--some authors feel that it's a betrayal to thei family name to use a different one--but compromising paid off for J K--I mean, for Joanne.

 

Nine questions to get you writing more: 3 - What change will result?

The Zen Habits blog listed ten questions that can help you take action. In this series of posts I suggest how to apply those specifically to writing more. You can easily adapt them to drawing or whatever other creative activity you'd like to increase.

3. If you do this every day, what change will result?

If you write every day, what will happen?

Eventually you'll have a complete novel or screenplay or whatever you're writing, but beyond that, do you think the process will have taught you anything?   

Will it give you more confidence to tackle your next project and  maybe more confidence in yourself in general?

Will it show others that you're serious about your writing? (Maybe we shouldn't care what they think, but we do, don't we?)

Considering the cumulative results of small actions can help keep you going.

Interesting author strategy (not quite a sequel or a prequel...)

R. J. Palacio, author of WONDER (which I thought was very good, overall) has now issued a short (88 page) ebook called The Julian Chapter, for £1.49/$2.51. It gives the viewpoint of the bully in the book.  

The publisher says, "Thought-provoking, infuriating, surprising, heartbreaking and heartwarming, this is a must-read for the thousands of readers who loved WONDER." 

I'm not saying Palacio did it for mercenary reasons only but it is a clever way to generate some extra revenue from people who are already fans.

This could start a trend!

A new 80/20 rule for creativity

I was surprised to read that the final version of the Pixar movie Brave represented only 20% of the scenes that were created. That’s right, 80% of the scenes were deleted in order to create the best movie they could. 

That’s a new version of the 80/20 Rule (that says 20% of what you do gives you 80% of the value, and suggests putting more time and effort into that 20% for exponential rewards).

I don’t know whether those other scenes were fully animated or were just storyboarded; probably some were more fully developed than others before it was decided they didn’t fit. 

The lessons I’d draw from this are:

• Don’t stop at “good,” keep going because you might hit “better” — if you create so much that you can discard 80% and have a great remainder, you’re on a good track
  
  
• Don’t be precious about your ideas or your more finished material
  
  
• Don’t judge material too soon—keep it all and decide later
  
  
• Discarding 80% of what you create can be a strength rather than a weakness

 (For strategies for being more creative, see my book, CREATIVITY NOW, published by Pearson and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

Do you have a creative name? Should you?

People judge how creative your work is partly by how unusual your name is. That's the result of a study done by researchers Izabela Lebuda and Maciej Karwowski. They had five groups of people judge four different types of creative projects: art, science, poetry, music. In each case the projects were the same but the names of their supposed creators were different. They were one unusual male name, one unusual female name, one common male name, and one unusual male name. A fifth group judged the projects without seeing any name attached. 

Here are the results, as reported in Psychology Today: 

"The highest creativity score was earned by a painting signed with a unique female name, while the lowest went to that same painting with a common female name. For the science-related products, works signed by any male name scored much higher than the same products signed by women. In fact, the science product signed by a common female name scored even lower than the anonymous control group. In the area of music, any piece signed by a unique male name was rated highest. Poems, on the other hand, got the best scores when signed by a unique female name and the lowest from a common male name."

It would be interesting to know how that would work with novels; my guess is that it would depend on the genre. I'm sure a thriller written by Blake Carson would rank higher than the same one written by Petunia Abercrombie; but for romantic fiction the reverse might be true.

Does that mean we should use pen names that fit the public perception? Or should we follow in the footsteps of authors whose sheer talent overcame any bias against their names?

 

Is your book unique? Oh oh!

Is your book unique? That may not be such a great thing.

If we stick to the strict definition of unique, a book can't be "somewhat unique" or "very unique". Unique means one of a kind. 

Of course there are very few things that are unique. Most are variations of what already exists. However, from time to time I meet an author who says their book or screenplay really is unique--nothing like it has ever been done. 

If that's true of what you are writing, prepare for an uphill battle. 

One of the first things a publisher asks is "what are some comparable books?"

It may surprise you that if you say there aren't any, that's a negative as far as the publisher goes. They know that something really new will require too much work to explain to an audience. They prefer saying "This is just like (name of best-seller) but even better."

If you want to attract a publisher, put some comparables in your query letter or proposal and explain why yours is similar and also how it's (a bit) different. Naturally, choose books that have sold well. 

If you self-publish you'll have to make the same thing clear to readers.

If you do have something unique, congratulations. The odds are  it will be a huge success...or a huge flop. It's possilbe that there hasn't been anything like it because nobody actually wants anything like it...or because they didn't know they wanted something like it but now that it exists they can't wait.    

(Want to be even more creative? Get a copy of the colorful, fun to read, and highly useful book, CREATIVITY NOW, published by Pearson and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

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Why writers need to learn the lesson of the drunken baby

I'm always suprised when writers says they feel like giving up because something they wrote didn't turn out to be as good as they hoped.

First, unless you have a very poor imagination almost nothing turns out to be as good as you imagine it will be when you first think of it. I remember a line from an old move called Morgan: "Reality never quite lives up to my best fantasies." 

Second, it takes lots of trial and error to get to the point where you can even get close. That's where the drunken baby comes in. It's not actualliy drunken but when it's learning to walk it sure seems like it. It staggers, falls over, gets up, takes a few more steps, falls over again, and on and on. At first it has to hold on to something, then it takes a few independent steps, and eventually it's racing around the house.

The baby doesn't think, "Hmm, I've fallen over a dozen times, I guess I'm no good at this walking thing. I'll just stick to crawling." It keeps going until it has mastered walking.

Of course this is a strong instinct, not a conscious decision. I think the desire to express ourselves is also a strong instinct and to learn to do it well we have to fall over a lot and get up again and again.

Even when a kid has mastered walking, it still stumbles from time to time. That happens even when it has became an adult (at which point alcohol may indeed play a role). 

Even when you are an experienced writer, some projects will not work. You'll feel disappointed in yourself or the world, or both.

Then you'll remember to stand up and keep going.

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Don't get lost in your own book - write a bible

When I wrote for TV we always had what was called the series bible. It contained every bit of information that had ever been revealed one way or another about all the characters, the setting, and anything else anybody could think of. If you wanted to write an episode in which Uncle Ned visits, you could see what had ever been said about him. He's bald, he's hard of hearing, he did time in prison.

Sure enough, if anything ever slipped through you'd soon hear about it from some eagle-eyed viewer who felt compelled to tell you that 98 episodes ago somebody mentioned that Uncle Ned never learned any languages, yet in the most recent story you had him exchange pleasantries with a neighbor in Spanish. This would always be revealed with great glee on the part of your faithful correspondent.

The same thing happens to novelists, especially those who write series. Maria Snyder, author of The Scene of Magic and many others, suggested this a while back in SciFiNow magazine:

"Keep a story bible! There are tons of details, characters, places and names in a multi-series and if you keep track of it right from the beginning you won't waste time flipping through manuscript pages looking for information. I use a notebook for each of my novels. In there I write all the characters' names, they get a page of details about their physical descriptions, background, etc. Alos, when writing a series, plantng in little clues for conflicts in future books helps."

You don't need to know all this information in advance. Probably you will start with some basics and then you can add each bit of information as you go along.

(for friendly guidance in writing your book from idea through to publication get my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

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