Month: January 2017
Are you a writer? A filmmaker? A dancer? Then you’re an entrepreneur. You have more in common with the young Steve Jobs and the early Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg than you do with your dad who worked all his life for AT+T or your aunt who’s five months away from collecting her pension from the Post Office. [Today’s post, by the way, is the kick-off for a new extended series that I’m calling, until someone comes up with a catchier title, “The Professional Mindset.” Over the succeeding weeks we’re going to examine the inner world of the writer…
Read MoreI received a question following my last post (“Common Sense“), which is tied to writers being paid for their work, and I’m still thinking about the question, and my answer, almost two weeks later. Here’s the question: You argue that writers shouldn’t work for free, but isn’t that exactly what they are doing when they spend time on social media? What about their blogs? I see both as examples of writing as marketing, and no one is paying them. Doesn’t that go against your point? Here’s my answer: On your question, I approach it as I do my yard. If…
Read MoreA case could be made that many, many books and movies are about one thing and one thing only: getting Person X to say to Person Y, “I love you.” The trick is our characters can never use those blatant, overt words. That wouldn’t be cool. It wouldn’t ring true to life. And it wouldn’t possess the power and the impact we want. In fiction, “I love you” has to come in subtext, not text. Here’s one of the ways William Goldman did it in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It’s the final scene. The outlaws are shot up…
Read MoreWe said a few posts ago that sometimes we, as writers, have to tart real life up. Real life is too ordinary. It’s too interior. It’s too boring. We have to heighten the drama, ramp up the stakes. Otherwise readers won’t care. But how, exactly, do we perform this wizardry? Do we just dream up wild stuff—sex, violence, zombies—and hurl it into the stew willy-nilly? How do we know what’s appropriate? How can we tell when we’ve gone too far? The answer brings me back to my favorite subject: theme. The principle is: We may fictionalize but only…
Read MoreI started off 2017 digging into two publishing rabbit holes. The first one is related to a guy named Paine. He wrote a pamphlet that went viral a few hundred years ago and is still being read today. Not long after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Thomas Paine hit U.S. soil. He worked, got political at pubs, and wrote. Paine toiled away on a series of letters to be run in local newspapers. After finding himself way over word count for letters, he decided to publish a pamphlet instead, titled “Common Sense.” Here’s what your high school teacher didn’t…
Read MoreRemember when Michael Jordan got into trouble for referring to his teammates on the Chicago Bulls as “my supporting cast?” He was, of course, only telling the truth. (Though Scotty Pippen, we must admit, has a right to be a little miffed.) But back to you and me and our novels based on our real lives. What about our spouses and kids and bosses and friends and the other crazy characters we’re going to write about? They may not like to think of themselves this way, but .. They are supporting characters in our story. Putting their egos aside, the…
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