Waxing Poetic &amp; Vitriolic

21 Dec 2012

Something happened the moment I started this post. I wrote the following sentence:

“Between all of the holiday shopping, how can anyone find time to write?”

And I stopped. Because something was wrong with the sentence.

Now I will have to level with you for a moment. I am awful at grammar, I don’t understand large parts of it, I don’t know most of the tenses, I would have to look up what a passive voice means, and I can’t even spell that well (I spell it grammer every single time). But ever once and a while I recognize when something is wrong.

And there is something wrong with that sentence. And I had to look it up to confirm it.

I could write the sentence fragment as, “Between all of the holiday shopping…” or I could write, “Between all the holiday shopping…”

The question is which one is right?

Turns out the second one. The rule is as follows:

“All of” is used when the following word is a pronoun. Such as “us, you, it.”
“All” is used for all other nouns.

In this case, the noun is… is… okay… well… I don’t know what it is. The next word is holiday, but that describes the verb shopping…. so it’s an adverb…. right?

Wrong…

Alright, so I looked that up as well. It seems that “shopping” is the noun. Shopping in this sentence fragment is known as a Gerund, which as defined by the Websters Online Dictionary as:

A noun formed from a verb (such as the `-ing’ form of an English verb when used as a noun).

Okay, so that isn’t very helpful. A gerund is the noun version of a verb ending in -ing. And a verb ending in -ing is known as a present participle. Both are spelled the same way, but a gerund is a noun and a present participle is a verb.

In my sentence fragment “shopping” is the noun, because it is a gerund. But besides the fact that I could not locate a noun in my sentence, how do you know the word ending in -ing is not just a present participle verb?

Well as I investigated this, I found out that in a sentence gerunds will be subjects, or objects of the verb. Okay… so what are those?

Every verb has a subject, it is the “who” or “what” that is performing the verb action. For example, “Shopping is fun.”

A subject complement is the adjective, noun or pronoun that follows a linking verb (such as “is, were, am… etc”). For example, “Seeing is believing.”

A direct object answers the “who, what, where, why” that is missing from the subject and the verb. For example, “Evan is writing.” The “writing” is the “what” to which “Evan is”. The gerund can also occur as an indirect object, but it is rare and for the life of me I couldn’t find one example that made sense. If you can find one, pass it along to me.

And finally, the object of the Preposition is as it says, it is the noun that is the object or subject of the preposition. For example, “We talked while eating.” would have the preposition “while” and the object of the preposition “eating.”

Does that make sense? Well it barely makes sense to me, it seems like too many rules to remember. So I have tried to find some simpler examples.

Take the sentence, “Halifax is fun”

Now replace the noun Halifax with something ending in -ing.: writing, shopping, running, eating… etc.

And the sentence still works, because all those words are gerunds.

And if you’re still having trouble figuring out if it’s a gerund or a present participle, then just read the sentence and analyze whether the word is a noun or a verb.

For example, “Climbing cliffs is difficult.”

If climbing is a present participle, then the sentence reads cliffs that climb are difficult.

If climbing is a noun, then the sentence reads that it can be difficult to climb a cliff.

Clearly, climbing is a noun, a gerund.

Well there you have it. That’s what I had to learn in order to understand what I thought would be my opening sentence. Hopefully, you and I now know when a word ending in -ing is a gerurnd (noun) or a present participle (verb). Frankly, I am starting to wish I paid more attention in all my English classes.

Heck, there are even online college classes available in English grammar. And as Alyssa pointed out, this means that “All of the other reindeer” is in fact grammatically wrong. No wonder I couldn’t figure out grammar.

Happy Holidays!

Don’t Just Look at the World, Learn From It

14 Dec 2011

In honor of all of the students cramming for exams, I thought I would talk about the importance of studying. But this isn’t the late night cram session just before the test. This is constant learning, this is tapping into the resources around you and gaining a new insight.

But before I get into all that, I have a pet peeve I want to discuss. The world “the” in titles. I used it last week, I called Blog the 23rd, “The End” which was my second choice for a title. I wanted to call it, “Ending it All” but I was worried that it could be misinterpreted. So instead I settled. To date I have only used the word “the” to start a title 3 times. “The End”, “The Space Between” and “The Festival”. So I think I’m doing fairly well.

The reason I don’t like “the” in titles is because it’s not original, and on top of that it’s bland. I understand why it’s used, it’s simple, it’s descriptive and it’s effective. The AFI just released their top 10 films of 2011 and 4 have “the” as the opening word of the title. It’s just too common, it’s uninspired. I always strive to write something new, something different, so why would I want a title that doesn’t reflect that sentiment. Strive for something more than “the”. Find something original.

Alright, after that little rant, let’s get back to business.

Life is about learning. All through your life you learn. No matter what age, you are always experiencing new things and learning from them.

No one knows everything about writing and if you think you do, then you’re in trouble. There is always more to learn. Writing is an art, there is no perfect way to do it, there is no series of steps to reach the goal. You have to find your own way, develop your own style and create your own works.

So continue to learn.

Read scripts. This is a no brainier. If you are writing scripts, you have to read scripts. You need to see what has already been done, you need to see what has worked and what hasn’t worked. You have to see what styles exists, what methods exist.

But you can’t just read scripts, you have to learn from them. Take a critical look at them. Break them down, see how they work. Find the structure underneath, see how the character develops, see the story arc, take note of how it all comes together. Take note of how visuals are formed, how pace is kept, how dialogue sounds. Take a look at everything and see what will work for you. See what ideas you can take and use in your own writing. And use them.

Read books. Not just novels (they tie in with scripts above) but books about screenwriting. Scripts have structure so find out what that structure is. Find out what tricks of the trade have been found, find out how a plot arc works. Find as many books as you can and read them, and then reread them till they become second nature.

The first book I ever read was “The Screenwriter’s Bible” by David Trottier. It may not talk in depth about story, but it talks about the basics, about action, sluglines, formatting, plot points, arcs etc. It is a great starting point for any screenwriter. I also have in my arsenal, “The Fundamentals of Screenwriting” by Syd Field. An in depth look at story and structure with a lot of references to movies to bring the points home. And “Save the Cat” by Blake Edwards which is full of little pieces of information which will save you hours of struggling to uncover what’s wrong with your script. I’m now looking to continue my library and get “Story” by Robert McKee because I have heard only good things about it.

You don’t have to treat these books as the be all and end all. Their words are not carved in stone, they do not give the perfect way to write a script. But they offer ideas, they offer help and whether you find them useful or not, you have still learned from them.

Watch movies. You’re writing scripts that will be made into movies, so watch movies. For the last 3 years I have averaged 180 movies a year, and I still have barely scratched the surface of the trove of movies that exist. But don’t just watch movies, analyze them. Sit down and figure out what makes each movie tick. Figure out what you liked, what you didn’t like. Be a critic. I don’t write reviews of movies, but I write them in my head. Then if someone asks me what I thought of the film, I can give them a critical and well thought answer. I can explain what worked and what didn’t work. I can explain why I liked it or not. And if you can explain why a film works, then you understand how it works and that means you can use this understanding to make your own film work.

All of these resources are at your fingertips. You just have to use them, and be critical of them. As I said, writing is an art and you have to find your own path to it. So be critical of everything you read and watch, find out how it works and create your own theories and ideas.

Keep studying, keep learning. Analyses what you have around you, don’t let it go to waste.

Because your exam is coming up soon, the deadline for the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition is December 31^st. So get to work, study, learn and polish that script (though there is still a deadline after that, January 31^st)

The End

7 Dec 2011

Last week I talked about my thoughts on beginnings. So it only seems fitting that this week I should talk about my thoughts on endings.

Ending are always tough. I often tell people that when I write, I can figure out the ending to the story, but I struggle to end the story. This cryptically means that when I come up with a story, I can sit down and figure out how the story progresses and how it will all wrap up in the end, however when it comes to writing, I struggle to write the last paragraph. I struggle to come up with the final sentence that wraps up everything the story is about.

I struggle to find the final image. The final sentence in the script, the last thing read, the last thing the audience sees. The last image that lingers in the audience’s mind.

Like the first image mentioned last week that contains everything the story is about, the final image must contain a summation of everything found in the story.

During the course of your story a change occurs in the protagonist, they grow as a person, they change their outlook on life. The events of your story mark a journey from one world to another.

The first world is the one you set up in the first 10 pages, it is the world your protagonist lives in and it is the world that changes at the end of your First Act. Then your protagonist deals with these changes as the story progresses until all the obstacles are overcome and the goal is met. At this point, your protagonist changes, they have a realization, they change for better or worse. And then they enter the second world, the new world that they see around them. The world of the ending, the world that now exists before them after the change, the world they will now live their life in. This world is what your final image is about.

So figure out what your protagonists new life is about. Find out how to best show this new world, this new outlook on life. And make it your final image.

Try and example, Citizen Kane. The whole story is about what Rosebud means. In the final image you learn that, and you gain an understanding of Charles Foster Kane that changes the way you saw his life, and you see the world differently.

This leads into the idea that the ending is really just another beginning. A new world begins, a new world that can be explored from a fresh set of eyes. The ending is just the beginning of this new world. This is shown best in episodic TV shows. Each show contains its own story and at the end the characters grow, they change, the see the world a little differently and this view carries over to the next episode. The character is continually changing and each time a new beginning is created.

Now let’s go back to my earlier cryptic statement. When do you end your story? Well obviously when the story ends. Sure this sounds easy and in no way sounds helpful. But it really is true. The problem the writer faces is they are not sure what exactly “story” means? What exactly their story is about? Surprising this can (and very often does) get lost over the course of the script. Because what you are looking for is the heart of your story, the true meaning of your story. As I mentioned in my posts about Character Arcs in an early post on the Blog, I often find it useful to end the story on the Realization. After the Climatic showdown, after the hero wins (or loses) as I have stated all over this post, the protagonist changes, they have a Realization, they grow as a person. This moment is a fitting moment to end the story. Because it is the end of the story.

Look over your story, look at what it is really about. Is it really about a son trying to console his dying father? Or is it really about the son coming to terms with the way he treats his father? Or is it about coming to terms with your own mortality? Depending on which it is, the end of your story is at a different moment.

Find out what your story is really about. It may not be part of the Realization, it all depends. Many movies end on the death of the protagonist. Since they are the main character, they are the heart of the story, so if they die, the story ends. Or possibly your film is a heist movie, and the main question is, do they get away with it? So the story ends when the audience sees that they get away, or they don’t. It all depends on the story, and it all depends on the heart of the story.

So figure out what your story really is and end it.

Triple Screening of all 3 CSSC short films Monday Dec 12th in Toronto

4 Dec 2011

The great team over at Short & Sweet Toronto have invited us to screen all 3 CSSC short films on December 12th, 2011 as part of their weekly screening series of short films.

So SEEING IN THE DARK (written by Gordon Pengilly and directed by Helen Hatzis and David Cormican), MINUS LARA Iwritten by Surita Parmar and directed by Rob King) and RUSTED PYRE (wirtten by Daniel Audet and directed by Laurence Cohen), will all screen that evening in their first triple screening since playing back to back at the Edmonton International Film Festival in October of this year.

I know it is short notice, but if you happen to be in Toronto, feel free to stop by and introduce yourself to Jordan and Bruce and enjoy some short films to boot! It’s a really nice intimate venue and full of short film lovers alike!

Here are the details:

Short & Sweet Weekly is Toronto’s best place to see amazing short films each and every week.
Where:
No One Writes to the Colonel.
460 College Street (near Bathurst St.)
When:
Monday Dec 12, 2011
(though the series runs Every Monday evening.)
Films start at 8pm.

The screening isn’t all passive either, it’s a social event as well. They will have a short break and an opportunity to chat and network every night. So, be prepared to make a new friend.

Short & Sweet weekly is free to attend.

In the Beginning

30 Nov 2011

Has anyone seen that video of the two football players, Angelo Mosca and Joe Kapp? I have been sent it from a number of people because of its similarity to my film, Those Forgotten. The two elderly men come to blows (and a whack to the head from a walking cane) over a controversial hit in the Grey Cup in 1963.

That’s a 48 year old grudge!

If these two men had come to blows last year, I would have had to re-evaluate my film or risk being accused of stealing.

But enough about that. This week, I have been thinking about the beginning of a story. Because that is where I am right now, in fact it is where I always am. No matter what I am working on, I also have some sort of idea forming in my head, and that means I am always thinking of how to begin this ideas. But other than that, I have been writing a feature (or at least trying to write) and I am writing the beginning. And have been for quite some time.

It seems that every time I sit down to write, I can’t settle on the opening. I am constantly updating my notes, but nothing yells out at me and says, “this is it, this is the beginning!” No, instead I continue to work toward fine-tuning the beginning. Even after I write a beginning, I still end up unsure, and not unsure in the sense that it is the first draft and it’s all terrible (that was last week) but more in the line of I know that I’m not setting up the story properly, I’m not introducing the characters the best way possible and I’ not grabbing the audiences full attention.

The beginning is a very critical part of the story. It is where you set up everything. And you only have 10 pages to do it. Anything more and you risk losing your audience’s attention. And if you are writing a short, you have even less time. I have a 3 page script I have been working on which means I have approximately half a page or less to set up the whole story.

I’m sure you’ve all seen a film where the beginning was done poorly . You’re watching a movie and it’s playing before you but you begin to find your mind wandering. You start wondering where the plot is going, you start wondering if perhaps you missed something when your eyes were wandering the room. And then suddenly you realize you don’t care about these characters, you don’t care what they have to do. And like an uninteresting dinner guest, you start looking for someone else to cut in and tell a better story.

You need to hold onto your audience’s attention. So I find the beginning of a story needs the following items:

An exciting series of events
An introduction to the protagonist
A reason to like the protagonist
A catalyst to propel the plot of the story

And to make matters worse, you need to put all of these things in without sounding contrived. You can’t have the audience know that these four items are in your beginning. Sure the audience knows about them, but they don’t realize it. You have to hide the foundation underneath a compelling story.

So Look back upon your beginning. Ask yourself if it’s exciting. At one point in my feature I had my story starting after a big event. But that didn’t make any sense, why have a big exciting event before the story starts. Why not start it when it was exciting? So I rewrote it.

Next, do you introduce your protagonist well? What are they doing when we first see them? And more importantly, what does it say about them? People form opinions quickly, so make your first impression count. Establish as much as you can about your protagonist from the first time we meet them.

And then make us connect with the protagonist. They don’t have to be a good person, they just have to be an interesting person. They need to be someone that the audience will want to sit for 2 hours and watch. But more than that, the audience has to want them to succeed. The audience needs to see the problem facing your protagonist and want them to overcome it.

And lastly, you need a catalyst. An event that throws the whole world of the protagonist out the window. Something that shakes up their life, something that must be fixed. This is where you hook your audience, where you show them what your story is about. This is where the audience decides if they want to see the rest of the story, or if they’d rather see just how many tiles are on the ceiling.

Finally, I have one last piece of advice. Make it visual. The first image in your film (and thus the first paragraph of your script) should contain every aspect of your story. And since film is a visual medium, it will have to be shown visually. Sound like a daunting task? Well it is. So take your time and plan your opening.

So go out there, watch some films and study how they start. See if they contain the four items. See if the beginning is exciting, look at how the characters are introduced, see if there is something in the first 10 minutes that makes you care about the protagonist and see if there is a catalyst that sets up the rest of the film.

And then watch some bad movies, and find out which of the items is missing and witness how that affects the story.

And if you ever find yourself struggling in your writing, always look back at the start. As the great Billy Wilder has said, “If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is the first act”

Get it all Down

23 Nov 2011

I would like to clear up a claim I have often made. Not only is the first draft of any script not very good, it’s terrible.

I have made this claim may times and I firmly believe it. But that isn’t to say the first draft isn’t useful and important.

But I always look back at my first drafts and cringe at the dialogue and scratch my head at some of the obvious oversight nestled within the story. When I finish any script and I look back from my final draft to my first draft, I always see:

It was terrible.

The first draft is your first attempt to put all your story elements together. After all the pre-story work, building characters, building story arcs, building structure, finding the theme, piecing all the scenes in order, you finally set out to write. You have to take all these elements, tie the strings around them and put them all together, of course it isn’t going to work the first time. There are always going to be mistakes, a lot of mistakes.

No matter how much time you have spent refining all of these elements, your first draft is still going to be far from perfect. Because no matter the pre-planning, your first draft will likely be the first time you wrote a lot of the dialogue, it will be the first time the characters have truly spoken to you, it will be the first time all the actions have played out and you’ll realize the gaps that exist in each of them. You’ll see the story start to take shape and see that all your notes never made up a full story until now. And when you try to fill in all of this missing or new information, you will get your typical first draft.

And that’s fine, the first draft is not suppose to be a masterpiece, if it was then we’d have no need for the word “draft”. The first draft is just the first step in a long journey. It is the starting point.

Your first draft should just flow from your fingertips. You should just get all of your thoughts out, get it all down on paper. Set out on a run and don’t look back.

When I get caught on a detail I just leave a short note stating what I want to say and I will come back to it later. I just want to get the story down on paper. When I am writing a short, I usually write the first draft in a single sitting. I start typing and I don’t stop to reassess the situation, I don’t ponder the problems I have found, I simply take note of them and press on. In the first draft I write the story, and that is all.

Then I can look it all over and assess it all.

I can take note of the problems, I can put in any new ideas that have spawned. I can look at the story from start to finish and pick it apart, I can see if all my pre-planning ever made it into the story, or if I got lost along the way. I can see if all the story elements I need are there. I can see if the climax is strong enough, if the danger is great enough, if the stakes are high enough. I can see if my protagonist is driven, is personable and original.

But, I can’t see all this till the story is written down before me.

Then I take all these notes, all these ideas and I begin my second draft.

And then a third. After which, I tend to do a massive rewrite, not sure why, but it has happened with my last few shorts. I get to the third draft and then I finally see what it is the story has been missing and it usually involves rewriting about half the words that currently form the story.

And then I fine tune that into another draft… and another.

And then I take a look back at how terrible my first draft was.

The Space Between

Zach Herrmann

16 Nov 2011

White space is your friend. And it is a very good friend, so you better start excepting its help. White space breaks up the page, it breaks up the story, it makes the prose easier to read. Instead of a huge wall of text coming at you, there are nice small paragraphs to allow the reader to easily move through the words and down the page.

Since script formatting dictates that dialogue, sluglines, parenthetical, transitions and action are all formatted differently and line breaks occur between each of them. Therefore, a script naturally has more white space than a novel. But you can still find yourself clumping all your sentences into one huge block of text. Because there is no white space that has to occur in your action descriptions.

You have to add it yourself.

If you put down 10 lines of solid text in your script without any white space, your reader is going to find it tough to get through.

Because readers are demanding.

They don’t want your story to be hard to read. They want to read a good story, they want to get whisked away to a new world and they can’t if they find your block of words daunting and struggle to find their way through it.

So add some white space.

Break up your paragraphs.

Make it easier to read.

And then you can make the white space work for you. White space isn’t just about making the story easier to read, you can also use it to tell your story better. When you break apart your paragraphs, you can also set the pace of the action and you can direct the eye of the reader to the details you want them to see.

It’s quite simple really. Just like in film if you see a collection of:

Quick.

Fast.

Shots.

Then the pace is faster. Information is hitting you faster. You progress down the page faster. And the story seems to move at a breathtaking speed. The same in scripts, if you write in quick, fast lines, then the audience perceives to reads it faster, the white space allows them to quickly move through the words, pick up information and move on. But if you have a dense paragraph, if it goes on for line after line after line, then the reader slows down, they get bogged down in the text and everything seems to slow down.

So find your pace, look at you story and see what it should be. Is it slow, methodical, mournful or contemplative? Or is it faced paced, hurried with danger at every corner?

The other thing white space allows you to do is control the visuals. I remind you that you are not in fact the director, you are the writer, so you are not picking the shots. But you can still control the visuals. You aren’t writing that it is a close up of their necklace, or a Medium shot. You are just highlighting important information.

When watching a film and you see that close up of the gun fall to the floor, it is because the director wants to highlight this action. They want the audience to see the weapon has been lost. If it was shot all within a wide or medium frame, some viewers may not see the gun fall and they will get confused. So they put it in a close up so everyone knows what happened. Same thing in scripts. Highlight that action. Don’t bury it inside text so that some readers miss it.

Put it on it’s own line so it stands out.

You don’t get to italicize or underline or bold. You don’t have all those fancy formatting techniques at your disposal to highlight what is important. You have white space. And you better use it.

But what if that action is really really important. What if it isn’t a quick shot of a gun being dropped. What if it’s your house burning to the ground. Maybe this feeling needs to sink in, maybe your protagonist is watching their livelihood, everything they have accomplished, all their memories go up in flames. Then as they stand and witness this fire, you want your reader to witness it. You want them to see every detail, to feel everything your protagonist feels. So instead of a single sentence highlighting how distraught they are as the flames leap higher. Linger, go into detail, let the audience see the destruction, let them feel the helplessness, let them experience your character’s pain.

Or make it one sentence and shock the reader with your abruptness.

Whatever works for your story.

Don’t just write a script with boring format. Get creative. Play with the pacing, play with the visuals. Play with the white space. Breath life into the story, add some flair, add some style. Make your reader see the story the way you do, make them experience the story the way you do.

Because if they don’t experience the story as you see it.

Then you haven’t written it properly.

Face your Audience

9 Nov 2011

Prelude:

I think about writing. I don’t daydream, I think about plots, characters, stories. When I walk to the store, when I walk to work, when I take the bus, before I go to sleep, I think about writing. Whenever I have time to myself, whenever I have any time just to sit and think, I think about writing.

I often wonder, if I stopped writing, what would I think about all day long? Are there important things I am missing as I turn my stories over in my head? Perhaps, I can get a little forgetful at times. But it’s not like I just black out when people are talking to me, I plot these stories during my down time. I just think my life would be a lot more boring if I didn’t try to create these new worlds all the time.

But I do know this, as long as I spend every waking moment dreaming about stories, I know that I am still a writer.

End of Prelude

It is often assumed that a writer is some sort of awkward, neurotic, social reject (and many time they are). However, we cannot always be this way. We all need to step out of out shells, face our fears and share our ideas with others. And not just when it’s finished. We need to share our ideas while they are still budding, while they are brewing and then when they are finished, we have to share them with the world.

You can sit alone at your desk for only so long, eventually you have to face the public, your audience.

And I suggest you do it right away. Before you even put your pen to your page. Pitch your story to a friend. There is no sense in writing day in and day out for weeks, months, years just to find out later that you didn’t have a very good idea to begin with. Take your logline, pitch it to a couple people, see what they say, see if you have a great story on your hands, or if it needs some tweaking before it can be great.

Doubt your story, seek some guidance from your audience.

Self-doubt is a funny thing. You need to have it. It is the only way you will get better. If you write something and declare it perfect, then you’re doomed. You can’t ever improve. Don’t kid yourself and believe everything you write is pure gold. It’s not.

Self doubt makes you question yourself, it makes you edit, it makes your story better and thus makes you a better writer. But as I have said before, don’t doubt your abilities, doubt your story.

Don’t blame yourself, don’t pick yourself and your abilities apart. You are not the problem, all great writers make mistakes, no one writes a perfect first draft. But all great writers find their mistakes and fix them, learn from them. So pick apart your story, question every aspect of it, make sweeping changes if they are needed. Don’t hesitate, edit!

Then ask for help.

At some point, ever writer has to ask for help. You can’t write a good story all by yourself. And besides, you’re not writing the story for yourself, you are writing it for others, for your audience, and if you are going to please them, you need to know what they think. So get someone to read it, someone you trust to give you good feedback. You want them to read it and give their thoughts. If they read it and say, “It’s alright…” Then they aren’t saying anything helpful, you need them to be specific if you are going to make the edits you need.

Your readers don’t even need to know about the mechanics of scripts or writing (it does help), but as long as they know what a good story sounds like then they can help. The criterion I suggest is that they can articulate their thoughts about your story. So find a couple people, and ask them to have a read. You may feel like you are baring your soul to them, but it’s better to learn the problems from those you can trust, then present them to the unforgiving general population. As I said, you didn’t write the story just to gather dust in your desk. You wrote it for others to read. So stop being afraid and let them read it!

And then ignore what they say!

Well, not really, but don’t follow it blindly. They may have some good ideas, they may even have some great idea. But you wrote it, you know why you wrote it, you know what the themes are, you know what the focus of the story is. So stick to it. Don’t compromise your ideas, refine them.

Think back to why you wrote the story in the first place. What inspired you? What compelled you to write? What did you want to say with this story? Think about these things and consider if your story still stands by these thoughts. Then think about what your audience has said, and consider if that stands by these thoughts.

Take the suggestions that work with your ideas, with your vision and work them into the story. And if any idea just doesn’t fit into your vision, then you don’t have to follow through with it. You should still consider it, you should still ponder it, but you only have to follow through on the ideas that fit your vision and fit your story.

So take that story you are planning and tell some people about it, see what they think before you start. Make sure your investing your time in a truly great story. Then take that story you have written and get some people to read it. Find out their thoughts, consider them, apply some of them and rewrite your story. Make it the best it can be. Stop being a wallflower and talk to your audience.

Your story will be better for it.

Drunken Antics

6 Nov 2011

In every family, there’s that one relative. You know, the one who means well but ends up drinking far too much alcohol and embarrassing himself at holiday functions. Too bad that relative doesn’t usually win his family $1,500, an iPad and the chance to make a short film.

But for university alumnus and former Diamondback deputy diversions editor Zach Herrmann and his brother, Jesse, the mythical Jewish figure of Elijah did just that. Their script, Elijah the Prophet, won the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition (CSSC) in May and will be shot next March — if they can raise $20,000 to fund it.

The figure of Elijah is based off the Jewish tradition of leaving a cup of wine for Elijah — a prophet from the Hebrew Bible who would visit rabbis to help them solve difficult problems — at Passover. After years of joking about where the offering of wine disappeared to, the Herrmann brothers transformed Elijah into a pathetically lovable alcoholic who tries to visit multiple houses in Santa Claus fashion but is pulled over on a drunk driving charge.

“Most scripts I consider directing are features,” said director James Cooper, who interned with Zach at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. “In 14 pages, they made me laugh out loud several times where 90 pages have inspired a chuckle out of me. There’s this wit and humor to it that was kind of irresistible.”

That cleverness has attracted big names: producer David Cormican, who founded the CSSC; Melanie Nicholls-King from Rookie Blue and The Wire; Tonya Lee Williams, who starred in the soap opera The Young and the Restless; Brian Markinson, who had a major role in Charlie Wilson’s War; and many more.

Since so much talent is involved, the team wants to make sure the film lives up to the hype. On Oct. 12, Cooper set up a campaign on Kickstarter.com, where donors can give as little as $1 toward a project and will receive different levels of prizes based on how much they donate. As of Sunday night, the “Elijah” campaign had raised $8,688, or 43 percent of the $20,000 total needed by Nov. 26.

“Our whole feeling was that we didn’t want this to be a backyard, nonunion production,” Zach Herrmann said. “We wanted to do it right, and doing it right costs money.”

Cooper conducted extensive research on successful (and unsuccessful) Kickstarter campaigns before launching the project. He concluded the failed campaigns did not reveal everyone involved in the process, while the best pitches included a simple video explaining the meaning and purpose of the project.

“We’re in this age of media that’s dominated by things like Twitter, where all you have is 140 characters,” Cormican said. “It’s like moths on crack. Our focus is to try and remain relevant.”

Zach Herrmann has the same goal for himself. He works as an assistant at a New York talent and literary agency in order to pay the bills, but follows his heart by screenwriting on the side.

Though he started at this university as a communication major, he eventually switched to journalism, a field he said is “infinitely helpful in translating to screenwriting.”

“It teaches you to be very direct,” he said. “You never want someone to reread what you wrote. It’s not like Virginia Woolf, where you’re rereading the same sentence for 10 minutes, and you’re like, ‘What the f—’s going on?’ You can’t do that for a screenplay, or a newspaper or a website.”

Co-writer Jesse Herrmann joked that Elijah the Prophet marks the only award his brother has ever won in three years of screenwriting, while this is Jesse Herrmann’s first try. Zach Herrmann, in turn, said his brother is simply going to provide the financial backing when they become the next Coen brothers (the fraternal duo behind The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and No Country for Old Men).

“I mean, I’m batting 1,000, and he’s one for however many here,” Jesse Herrmann said. “I’d rather have some creative license than be a blank check.”

A Chat About Women in Film

2 Nov 2011

I have brought in director, Alyssa Buchanan, for this week’s post. Because today’s topic is something we have often discussed and was inspired by our trip to a Halloween store last weekend.

There is a trend in Halloween costumes, you know what it is, you’ve seen it so it should come as no surprise. Go to any costume store and you will see: A man can be a pilot, a woman can be a lady pilot. A man can be a cop, a woman can be a sexy cop. A man can be a doctor, a woman can be a nurse.

This got me thinking and I decided that this week I’d discuss the representation of women in film with Alyssa.

AB: Howdy all, happy to be with you this week! Evan got the idea to have me join him this week to look at character development with a focus on gender and I’m really excited to be able to give my thoughts. Let’s do it!

EJ: Alright then, I will get the ball rolling with a question. Would you say there is a difference between males and females in their personality?

AB: That’s a loaded question. And opens up a whole nature vs. nurture. Differences between the sexes most definitely exist, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are innate. Gender is a product of society and changes from culture to culture. That being said, gender is still a central aspect of you are and shapes how we treat others, how others treat us and how we see and experience the world. Talk to any 5 year old boy and 5 year old girl and I think you will find very different experiences already as a result of their gender.

EJ: So when it comes down to it, it isn’t important which gender your characters are, just that you recognize that gender can effect character development?

AB: Exactly. In an ideal world, men and women could have the same experiences, but if you want your story and your characters to be realistic you need to recognize that men and woman grow up with different experiences and some of these experiences differ due to gender. Gender doesn’t have to be viewed negatively, many people embrace their femininity and masculinity, just as people embrace their culture, ethnicity and nationality. This also means that you don’t have to rely on gender stereotypes to make your male or female character (none of us are writing Disney movies here), but try to think about your character’s life experiences and their world view, and how that might differ from your own experiences.

EJ: If I rewrote my life story and suddenly shifted myself to be a woman, a lot of my experiences growing up would never have happened and so my life as it is now would be different.

AB: I entirely agree with you. A character’s gender will affect their back story (just like a real person, which every character should be). And different doesn’t mean bad. It doesn’t have to be a stereotype. But you do need to realize that men and women do face different issues in their lives. And it’s not a two dimensional definition of the Man and the Woman, there is no single man or woman. My sister and I grew up with the same parents, the same household, the same neighborhood and we had many similar experiences, but we have very different personalities and motivations and may react very differently to a given situation. Your character’s should be just as dimensional.

EJ: Something still bugs me, I look back at films I have seen and see that the cast is often predominantly male. Many roles are not written specifically for one gender, but these roles still seem to be filled by males and therefore cast ends up being mostly male.

AB: It still awes me that 50% of the world (give or take) is so underrepresented in films. In several workshops and books I’ve read on directing I’ve been told over and over that as a director, never marry yourself to a certain ideal candidate for your characters in terms of anything physical, gender race and age included. Unless it is integral to the character (ie you’re casting the role of someone in a biopic), you should go with the actor that you feel can best bring the character alive and whom you can best work with, physical characters be damned.

EJ: Film is visual so I can see some weight being put on appearances, but I agree, at the end of the day, I’d want the best performance, not the prettiest performance.

Now, I know I can sometimes be guilty of this underrepresentation. When I write, I predominantly write with a male protagonist, simply because I can related better to this point of view. When I write from a female point of view, it is harder, I have to portray a woman’s life realistically even though I have never lived that life. I have less to draw upon and more to live up to.

AB: As a writer you should strive to get out of your comfort zone, otherwise you’ll get stale pretty quickly. If you can write as an animal, a dinosaur, a mythological creature or an intimate object, which you clearly haven’t lived as, I think you can manage to write from the female point of view.

EJ: A very valid point. And one I couldn’t argue with. All writers need to strive for something new, and that means stepping out of your comfort zone when necessary.

AB: I think writers need to stop and think about where they get their inspiration for these characters, ground it in reality and in real people rather than in fictional depictions. And if you have a female character, think about what she might symbolize to the audience.

In the same way that you would develop any character, you’d have to think about their history, how they grew up, how they’d react in situations and what their values are. But again, this doesn’t mean you have to fall back on gender expectations or stereotypes.

EJ: Now I want to bring up something you showed me. The Bechdel Test. First conceived by cartoonist Alison Bechdel in 1985, is a satirical commentary on the lack of female character in films.

The 3 rules are as follows:

1. It has to have at least two named women in it
2. Who talk to each other
3. About something besides a man

According to the site (http://bechdeltest.com), out of 2712 movies in their database, 51.51% pass the test, but a total of 11.25% fail all three rules. That means out of all the films in their database, 1 in 10 only has at most, 1 woman speaking role in it.

AB: Obviously not all films should be held up to this measure, for example, you wouldn’t chastise Lawrence of Arabia for not having even passing the first rule, as it is a period piece set in a very specific (yet realistic world) where many (if any) female characters wouldn’t fit in (there are no words spoken by a female in the film). Also the Bechdel test doesn’t gage a film’s ability to depict well rounded female characters, some films pass only on the skin of their teeth (for example, Transformers 2 passes all three aspects of the test because Meghan Fox gets a complement on her hair from another named female character).

EJ: I think this test is a very important eye opener. Though not a perfect system, as you mentioned the test does bring to light some drastic imbalances. Even in Toy Story, I believe the only dialog between two woman are between the mother and daughter about how the daughter needs to clean her room. Those 2 lines of dialogue where enough to pass this test. So I find it quite surprising that so many films don’t pass this test.

AB: I think thats the inherent value of the test, to open your eyes and take a more critical view of female characters in films. It doesn’t take very much to pass the test, as I mentioned with Transformers 2 and you pointed out with Toy Story, and these are part of the 51.51% pass these three conditions. Definitely an indicator that there is a need for not only more female characters, but also a need for stronger character development, instead of being the token mom or love-interest character.

EJ: And I think that brings us back full circle. There is clearly a need for more female roles in films and there are no excuses that can be made for this imbalance. I believe every writer out there has a duty to accurately portray realistic people in their stories and woman are not getting their fair share.

I want to thank Alyssa for sitting down with me to discuss this important issue.

AB: Thanks for letting me give my two cents, its been great to talk about gender and screenwriting. I’ve definitely been inspired to dust off my notebooks and get to some writing myself! I hope you’ll give some thought to what we’ve had to say and considerate it both when you’re writing and when you’re watching movies.

EJ: You don’t have to go out of your way and load up your film with women, but I think you need to look over your story and ask yourself, does my story accurately and realistically depict woman?

Alyssa Buchanan is a Halifax based Director. She studied Sociology and Social Anthropology and History at the University of King’s College.

A Wake Up Call

26 Oct 2011

Well it happened, I lost my files. My USB drive, my close companion for all these years is now dead.

I have had the drive for the last 5 or so years, so I have gotten pretty lazy about backing up the files. From my searches, I have not backed up the entire drive since March. So that’s potentially 7 months of work lost. Luckily, I backed up my writings at the end of August. So that’s only 2 months. More luckily, I have been almost exclusively writing in notebooks for the last 2 months so I had nothing new added to that folder. Unlucky, the day before I had rewritten a short and wrote the first 4 pages of a feature and those weren’t backed up.

So it looks like I have to find that material in the trash bin of my mind, uncrumple the paper and write it again.

Now, I don’t want you to go through the same troubles I have, so I have done a bit of snooping online, hoping to offer some help so this doesn’t happen to you. I wanted to find some way of automatically backing up a hard drive and an external hard drive and have had mixed luck.

I have found out that on a Mac, you can set up Time Machine to automatically back up your computer files to an external drive. It seems easy enough, just go into Time Machine and set up an external drive as your back up drive. The first back up will take a long time as every file on your computer will be backed up. From then on, Time Machine will only back up the files that have been modified or moved, so it won’t take much time. The program then backs things up hourly as long as the drive is connected.

So what if you’re a PC guy? Well for that I’m not sure. In my searches I could not find a program that came standard with a PC that could perform this task. So you’re on your own here. If anyone knows of one, please pass it along.

If you’re on a PC or your primarily using an external hard drive, the best thing to do is just back up the files yourself. Pick a day, then back the files up on that day every week, no exceptions.

My last words of advice for today: don’t ever delete your sent messages. I have a few files that were lost with the flash drive, but I have recovered from messages I have sent. It’s not that I trust the recipient to still have the files, I simply trust that my email still contains them. So as long as I am not in need of the memory in my email (which is practically never with the size emails are now) then I never touch my sent mail. That way when I email a file, I know it is also backed up.

I hope you all learn from my mistake. I don’t want this happening to anyone else. Back up your files right now. And don’t get lazy about it like I did.

Sadly, Film Isn’t Cheap

19 Oct 2011

For a moment, let’s take a look into the future. You have just polished up that final draft of your script and now before you, typed out so perfectly is a story so fresh and unique it has to be made into a film. Because it has to be made into a film. Scripts don’t get published, scripts aren’t read under the light of the lamp on the night table. Scripts become films. So after all your writing, you need to find a way to turn your script into a film.

And the first stumbling block you will encounter is money.

Without money, the film doesn’t happen. Money is needed for equipment, crew, locations, post production, props, wardrobe, makeup, etc. The expenses can go on and on. And no matter how much money you have, you will always feel like you could have used more.

So you will have to join every other filmmaker in the search for money.

But, before you head out into the wild, I suggest you inform yourself.

The best way I have found to inform yourself is to find your local film cooperative and ask them if they have any information. I am on the mailing list for a monthly newsletter and it provides me information on employment opportunities, screenwriting workshops, film festivals, funding opportunities and more. Such things like BravoFact, NSI, Linda Joy, CFC and more. Without it, I would have to rely on word of mouth from friends to know about these opportunities.

Now there is also another way to search for funding and it’s called social networking. The goal of marketing your film online is to reach as many people as you can from your computer chair And for this, there appears to be two major websites, Kickstarter and IndieGoGo.

Both sites work essentially the same way. You create a page for your project, you can upload a video explaining the project, you upload information and essentially you pitch your project to everyone who ever passes by the site with the hope that they will be so enthralled by your idea that they just have send a little help your way. This is where your logline from last week will come in handy. Hook them in from the start with something quick and simple then fill them in with all the wordy details.

To get more people involved, you can also add incentives to donating. You can promise whatever you can think of for the different amounts donated. But if you are really strapped for cash and can’t provide incentives, a simple thank you in the credits is often enough to satisfy anyone who simply wants to see your film brought to life.

Finally, always tell them where the money is going. Be it script development, casting, catering, locations, film stock, whatever. If the reader knows where the money is needed and will be used, they are more likely to trust you with their money as you make your film.

Kickstarter is an all or nothing site. You set a fundraising goal and a target date to reach it. If you reach the goal then you get all your funding. If you don’t reach your goal, then you get nothing (everyone gets there money back). The idea behind this is that you can’t make your project if you don’t have the money, so there is no point in receiving your $300 when you needed $15,000. And there is no point in someone donating money to you if it isn’t enough to complete your project.

IndieGoGo (which I used for Those Forgotten) lets you set a fundraising goal and a date to reach it and it simply penalizes you for not making your goal. The site takes a 7% cut from the total raised if you reach your goal, and it takes 12% if you don’t reach your goal. It’s annoying to lose the money, but it made donating really easy for friends and family who lived far away. So in the end, it helped me raise a lot more money than if I just starting asking everyone I knew.

Lastly, when you have your site, promote your film. Tell everyone you know, use social networking, reach as many people as you can from your computer chair. You just might find someone you’d never thought of who understands your struggles and believes in you enough to send some financial support.

So I hope that starts to paint the larger picture for you. You don’t have to go out and make this film with no money and no help. The services and aid exist out there, you just have to look for them. So get out there, apply and make the film your script deserves.

Now, before I sign off for the week, anyone keeping up with this blog, you will have noticed that David Cormican has reached the fundraising part of filmmaking for his super cool short, Elijah the Prophet. He has set up a Kickstarter page, which you can see here: http://www.ibelieveinelijah.com

There are plenty of great incentives to donate, most notably from my point of view is that for $100 you get the script, a song, the DVD and more, as well as a free submission to the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition (which would cost you $75 anyway). So why not kill two birds with one stone. If you’re planning on submitting to the Competition, then why not get some cool swag and help out a filmmaker while you’re at it?

Well that is all for this week, good luck on all your fundraising, and I will see you next Wednesday.

You’re messing with some serious Old Testament S#*!

14 Oct 2011

“Like fantastic actors & great behind-the-camera talent? Then throw some bucks to Elijah the Prophet”
– Adam Barken (Writer, Rookie Blue & Flashpoint)

Elijah the Prophet is the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition’s 2010/11 winning screenplay that tells the comedic story of Elijah: the pious, chummy… and alcoholic prophet, whose yearly antics have graced Jewish households for ages.

Unfortunately for the childlike servant of God, not everyone understands drunk driving is, for him, a divine right, and he soon ends up in trouble with the law. It’s a hilarious script with some real zinger moments with crisp dialogue, written by Jesse & Zachary Herrmann, and it sort of reminds me of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell and believing in fairies and that whole sense of loss of innocence. It’s sort of like that moment when we were kids and you realize that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny or implants aren’t real… that moment forms your life as a child going forward and is the moment you are forced to grow up. Or in Elijah’s case, sober-up.

Making a film is an expensive endeavor, even a short one. While many short films are created on a dime by small groups of friends, with Elijah the Prophet we want to make something special that will stand out amongst the swarm of other short films being produced. This means getting the best people we can for as many positions we can fill.

Thankfully, we have already been able to secure roughly half of our $40,000.00 budget. We’ve also managed to snag incredibly talented individuals (see the previous blog posting or visit the Kick Starter campaign page), based on the strength of the script and our vision for the finished project. We hope you will take their involvement as a sign of everyone’s passion for the film and put your faith in us as they have to bring this film to fruition.

Unlike a feature film, which is a financial endeavor, short films are artistic endeavors with little-to-no chance to make a profit. They are most often the work of passionate individuals who come together to tell a story. That is the case with us here, and that is why we’re asking for your help.

You can learn more about the campaign we have spawned for Elijah the Prophet and find out the ways you can get involved and the cool rewards you can get just for donating by visiting www.IBelieveInElijah.com and showing us how you believe!

L’Chaim.

Tell Me Everything in One Sentence

12 Oct 2011

What a week this has been. Since we have last talked I have been on a 3 day shoot of a Bridge Award Winning film and now I am gearing up to 2nd AD a 2 day shoot on Friday. On top of that I have a full time job and somewhere in there I believe it was Thanksgiving.

Now don’t get me wrong, I have had a blast every day this week. But now I sit here on Monday, 2 hours before turkey dinner thinking about this post because tomorrow I work for 8 hour and then I have to make call sheets. So I better complete this post soon.

Today I am thinking about loglines. Shot descriptions of your film. Not to be mistaken with tag lines that appear on movie posters (they are often called loglines just to confuse you). Loglines appear to be very poorly defined, but for the purpose of this post we will call them one sentence description of the story. They are the kind of description you would give when someone says, “Hey, what are you working on?”

And you are going to want to give them a quick and snappy logline to peak their interest.

So what is a logline? It’s easy to say it’s one (sometimes two) sentence summarizing the story. But there is more to it. You need to hit the key points to your story. You need to find the most compelling parts and hit the audience with that. So here are the typical parts of a logline:

The protagonist – who the story is about
The goal – what they want to accomplish
The antagonist – the obstacle they must overcome

Pretty simple right? Basically it’s who it’s about, what they are trying to do, and what’s stopping them.

But it’s not as easy as it looks. I often struggle to come up with a logline. I can get these three parts, but the trick is to make it sound engaging.

So I will offer you some tips.

For starters, use adjectives. Don’t just say, “A bank teller…” Say, “A nihilist bank teller…” It gives the reader a better picture of this person’s personality, which will bring them more into the story. Spice it up, add some captivating adjectives to your protagonist and antagonist.

Second, be visual. Film is a visual medium, so use words to invoke visuals. If your protagonist is struggling with an internal conflict, you still need to find away to write it as external. Wandering aimlessly through life is not clearly defined, it could be a lot of things. The audience won’t know what to visualize. But if you say they are failing at job after job and struggling to make ends meet. Then you can visualize what is happening.

Be specific. If you are vague, the audience will be unable to visual the story and lose interest. Saying someone is bizarre is one thing, but saying they eat live frogs will get a stronger reaction.

Be direct. You have one line, use every word to it’s potential. Don’t leave any filler.

Lastly, be unique. The whole point of a logline is to catch the listeners interest. So make sure your story is unique. If it sounds like any old story, then you either haven’t found what makes your story unique, or (to your horror) your story isn’t unique at all and you need to find away to make it new and interesting.

Sound easy enough? Well here are a few from works I have on the go:

As his turbulent family prepares for his 50^th wedding anniversary, an emotional distant grandfather struggles to retain his sanity after he murders a kid in a hit and run.

And:

After suffering a heart attack, a reserved father must make his final words count if he is to turn his pig headed son’s life around.

Or this:

In order to become the famous last survivor of a shipwreck, an elderly war veteran must kill his fellow survivor before he kills him.

So there you go, now go out there and write your loglines. You are going to need them. If you want to get your script made, you need others to read it, and they are not very likely to sit down and read a script they know nothing about. It’s just like when you go to the movies, someone be it a friend, a review, an actor, etc, something convinces you to see that movie. You need to convince people to read your script. And the moment you start production, everyone you know is going to ask you what your film is about, so have your logline handy.

The last thing I want to make note of this week is that it is usually assumed that you write your logline after you write your script. This should not be the case. The logline is a condensed summary of the dramatic story, so it works as a quick reference to what your story is about. If you sit down with your idea and find you can’t write a compelling logline, then chances are you don’t have a fully formed story idea to begin with. So further develop your story before you write it.

It will save time when you are editing.

Best in Canada! Plenty to be Thankful For

10 Oct 2011

Well, completely stuffed with turkey and all sorts of family conversations, there is plenty for the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition to be thankful for this Canadian Thanksgiving holiday.

After a quick trip to the mail box to grab the last weeks worth of bills and other notices, one happy envelope stuck out and the contents even moreso!

I happily discovered a letter from Griffth Aaron Baker, director and curator of the Mann Art Gallery and the Reel Rave International Film Festival in Waskesui. Griffith was relaying the happy news that both CSSC short films, Minus Lara and Rusted Pyre had tied for the “Best in Canada” award (which is one of only 3 awards handed out at the fest) for 2011!

What a distinction. And for both films, no less!

A hearty and healthy thanks to the festival for putting on one heckuva festival and for the honour of screening two of our films. My personal thanks go to the Reel Rave Committee, who no doubt had a very difficult decision in selecting the winners this year and I am humbled that both of the CSSC submitted films nabbed top Canadian honours. This feat would not have been made possible without the countless hours and dedication of my wonderful crews, directors and talent. Without these talented individuals, these short films would not be possible. And let us not forget the screenwriters, who took the initial steps to courageously submit their work to the CSSC short script contest, without their words, these films would not exist.

A Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving to all on this National Holiday. Put your pens to rest and share some turkey and make some stories to write about later!

Building Upon the Foundation

5 Oct 2011

My director partner, Alyssa, brought up an observation when reading my post last week. She got to the part where I mentioned how expressive an actor can be without the use of words and she reminded me of what the creative vision of the director and actors can add to the script.

See the writer starts everything. The writers writes the script which is the blueprint for the film. But what she highlighted was that it is not exactly a blueprint, the film will not play out exactly as the script dictates. So it’s not really a blueprint, or a schematic, it is more of a foundation which the film is built upon.

And once you have finished your foundation, you will pass it along to everyone else to finish the building.

Now this is important, the foundation still predicts certain qualities of the film, so while everyone is clamoring to build, make sure they are doing it within your initial vision.

But always remember that your vision isn’t complete, it isn’t all encompassing, it isn’t perfect so don’t try to hold onto every aspect of it. Remember your vision, remember what you intended, but realize that what you intended isn’t rigid, there is room to change. Maybe not big changes, but little ones.

Because what is going to happen is some things that work well on paper, won’t translate to physical action. So changes will be made by the director.

If your script calls for someone to get mad and cross there arms, then I ask, why cross their arms? Why not put their hands on their hips? Or lean on the table and look the offending person in the eyes? They all do the same thing don’t they? They all establish that this person is mad at the other person. It’s not like I said to slap the other person, that would be different, it would be a character shift (though, that shift could be exactly what you need to energize your scene). I am simply saying that there are other physical movements to show the same emotion. Which one works? On paper whatever one you choose, but with the director and actor, it is the one that looks the best, the one that looks the most natural. So be open, realize when it is the same outcome and let the director and actor find the most natural performance.

You will also find that if you are getting a robotic performance from your actor, that it isn’t feeling natural, then the director will let the actor go about it their own way, they won’t tell them every action to make, they will let them just say the lines and do the actions that come to them. Let them find their own flow. If it is completely off from what it should be, then it will be corrected, but more often than not, you will find it suits the story and you’ll find a better performance. So don’t think the director is taking your story and changing it, they are simply fine tuning some actions, the story is still intact.

While I’m at it, I have another simple tip for when your script hits production. Take out any physical descriptions of your characters. It’s just not necessary. When you have your actors, you can see them, so why keep the descriptions left over from when we couldn’t see them? Especially if you cast someone a little different from what the script said. Then it is just something for everyone to trip over as they read and realize script is outdated. So delete those physical descriptions.

I have one last piece of advice related to this topic. I learned this one from a local screenwriter. When you are writing your script, you are working on the story arc, the characters, the dialogue, the theme, the subtext, the atmosphere, the pace, the style and so on. And then you had that script over to your actors and they focus on the character. And nothing else. So the tip is to listen to your actors. Are they always right? No, but they are only focused on one thing, the character and they may be able to bring something you missed while you were focused on writing some other aspect of the story. So ask your actors how they perceive their character, get them to tell you everything they think about them. I bet you’ll be surprised at how insightful it is.

So that’s it for me this week. They may be mostly tips about directing, but they affect writing as well. I hope that it allows you to see clearer where your script falls in the grand scheme of the film and I hope you will see where your vision lies and how it can be tied in with others, without causes any harm to befall it.

Until next week.

Spoon-Feeding

28 Sep 2011

Well the festival is over and life is returning to normal once again. After some much needed sleep over the weekend, my batteries are recharged and now I can focus all the creative energy absorbed through the festival and channel it on my writing.

Inspired by some of the shorts I saw and an edit I recently made to a short of mine, today I want to talk a bit about dialogue. But before that, I am curious to know how dialog is spelled. So let’s look it up… Well I often spell it dialogue, the Canadian English way to spell it and though I am being bombarded by red squiggles across my screen, I am going to continue to spell it dialogue and spell check will just have to deal with it.

Dialogue is a tricky thing. Dialogue gives information, it gives personality, it provides memorable quotes, it gives laughs, it breaks hearts. But when done poorly it can also bring exposition, uneven characters and stagnant visuals.

And this is where my thoughts took me. When do you use dialogue, and when do you just use visuals and expressions? At its core film is a visual medium, the rule is show it don’t say it. But that undermines the power of sound. Silent films were replaced by sound film, so clearly there is something important about sound that shouldn’t be ignored (though there is something special about silent films to, so don’t ignore them either).

So instead of just picking a favorite, evaluate which one is better for the situation. Is better to show it or to say it? It’s not as easy as it seems. It depends on the style of the story, it depends on the pace, it depends on the character, it depends on the setting. If your character is a gossip, then I would say to let them talk as much as they want. If you have a lot of characters in a room then it is very likely they are talking, because people seem to naturally gravitate to talking in a crowd (though if you want it to be awkward you could make them all stand around silently). If it’s one character moving about their empty apartment because their wife just left them, they are probably silent (but they don’t have to be). The point is that it depends on what you are trying to convey.

A character can provide a stunning number of emotions simply through their expressions and body language. But they can’t always explain that emotion. Sometimes you may want to leave the audience wondering exactly how the character feels, but other times you may want them to talk so they know how they feel. Again, it depends on the situation and it depends on how much information you want to reveal to the audience or how much information the audience needs to know.

Dialogue can also come off as unnatural. People don’t often say exactly how they feel, they don’t always talk to themselves and think out loud. They are usually short and to the point and they usually talk about a subject knowing that the person they are talking to knows a lot of the details beforehand, so the audience has to piece together what is happening instead of being spoon-fed the idea. So if you are spoon-feeding information to your audience, then you need to rethink what you’re writing, because the audience is going to rethink listening to it.

On my first draft I always overwrite my dialogue. It’s not something I’m proud of (the perfectionist in me hates it). Don’t kid yourself and say that your dialogue is perfect on the first run through, it isn’t and you know it. It is always overwritten, it always says too much and leaves nothing implied. Which as I said, is unnatural. People imply a lot of things, they don’t just speak their mind. So go edit that dialogue!

And this is exactly where I got on my script. I was editing my first draft and I got to an important line of dialogue by my main character, his first words in fact, and I started to stumble over it as I read. It set up a joke later. It was even important for the audience to know what he had to say. But it was unnatural, it said too much, he said it to himself. So I felt it had to go. Instead we just have his expression, and I think it carries a lot more weight. In this situation, it was about a father being disappointed in his son and I felt that if I said it the audience understood it, but if I showed it, then the audience felt it. Which was more important in this situation.

As I have said, evaluate if you need the dialogue or not. Look at what you have and ask yourself. Does this need to be said or can it be shown visually? On the flip side, ask yourself if the information is displayed visually or if you need to adjust the visuals or leave more explanation in the form of dialogue.

I find it helps if you cover up the section in question. Put your hand over the part of dialogue you are concerned about and read the paragraph before and after. Does it make sense without the dialogue? Is the emotion expressed without the words? Or is there some balance in between? Maybe only some of the words need to be covered up? Maybe the dialogue expresses what is needed but it’s just too wordy?

Try it and see what happens.

The Festival

21 Sep 2011

At the tone the time will be 12:36am.

I’m in the middle of the Atlantic Film Festival here in Halifax, so I’m going to keep things brief this week.

Those Forgotten had it’s premiere last Sunday and has another screening this coming Friday. So I get to watch the film in front of an audience all over again! I must say, it is nerve-wracking to watch for film in front of everyone. Alright, so that’s a lie, it is downright terrifying.

It played with a collection of 8 other shorts and I didn’t know in what order everything was playing. So at the end of each short I took a deep breath in and seized up as I waited and then breathed a sigh of relief as a different film played. And just when I thought my nerves couldn’t take the suspense much longer it screened, 7th in the lineup.

All of this was combined with the fact that it was 9:30pm, I had been on a test shoot for an upcoming short since 10am and spent half the day wadding into shin high mud in the middle of a lake, so I was completely beat and in need of sleep.

And on top of that I couldn’t sit still due to my my restless legs, which coincidentally get worse with my nerves and tiredness. So I was a wreck. I couldn’t sit still, yet I was too nervous to look at the screen.

But as it finally played and as I started to hear the laughs, I started to relaxed and I laughed along and I had a great time.

And then I sighed a huge sigh of relief.

Everyone always asks you if you are excited for the your premiere, which of course you are, but everyone also knows how you are really just terrified. This is where you prove yourself or lose yourself. Your afraid the audience won’t laugh when they are suppose to, or worse, laugh when they aren’t suppose to and you just want to crawl into a hole and hide, but you can’t because your trapped in your aisle in the dark theater with everyone else. Luckily this didn’t happen, I had a lot of friends and family in the there with me to laugh with me and I want to extended a heartfelt thank you to the unknown woman in the row behind me, you seemed to have had a blast watching my film.

You made my night.

I always enjoy the film festival because it showcases something the writer of short films needs. Short films. There are a lot of great features at the festival, but it is the shorts that I always take that extra effort to attend. Features I can usually see again on their theatrical release or else I can find them on DVD. But how many shorts to you see in the theater during the year? Probably not many.

If I’m writing shorts than I need to see shorts. Short films are often structured differently than features. You can get away with things you couldn’t in features. You don’t usually lose your audience’s attention during a short. So no matter how odd it is, it often isn’t long enough that the audience can’t see it through to the end. So you can experiment more, you can add a different style to it, a different structure, and sometimes you can even tell a really good story. So you can’t really watch features exclusively and expect to write a could short. You need to get out there and watch the shorts.

Basically I go to the shorts for some inspiration. I go to steal some of that creativity seeping out from the screen, give it a place to stay inside my own mind and try to spark my own creativity. I also go to learn. Yes I enjoy the films, but ultimately I am there to learn. I want to see what works in a story, and what doesn’t. I want to see what chances are being taken, I want to see what characters have been given life and I want to see all the ideas that have turned to stories. Then I can go home and filled with the sudden desire to make another film, I can sit down and write. And ultimately at the end of the day this is what we all want, simply to write.

And before I go for the week, I want to extend my congratulations to everyone who has there film in the festival, it’s been amazing to see your hard work come together and delight the audience. Congrats to Fabien, Simon, Mike, Brit, Evan, Bretten, Rob, Caley, Andy, David, Mark, Angus, Corey, Micheal, Vicki and to everyone else I may have forgotten (as it is getting quite late), congrats!

And to David Cormican who is in town at the festival with me. I hope to see you at the closing party, but not on the dance floor, you can have that to yourself.

At the tone it will be 1:48am. And I’m off to sleep.

A Story is the Product of its Time

14 Sep 2011

Well the 31st Atlantic Film Festival is tomorrow and I’m getting pretty psyched, I have gone to the festival for many years, but this is the first year that I have a film playing. Now instead of going to the opening party and just hanging out, I can mix and mingle. Okay, so I probably wont. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the mixing and mingling kind of person. But it will still be fun.

Okay so it wont all be fun, the first screening should actually be completely nerve wracking. I wrote this film, everyone is going to know that. Every spoken word was put to paper by me. I’m putting my creative potential before the whole audience and waiting quietly for them to judge me. It’s safe to say that I’m more than a little nervous.

Speaking of film festivals. I attended a backyard film festival put on by a local filmmaker. Basically he gathers up any films that local filmmakers have completed (or uncompleted ones that are looking for a good audience to test on), and he screens them. He puts up a screen on the back of his 2 story house, sets up speakers and even brings drinks and snacks for everyone. There ends up being probably about 50 people in the backyard, all filmmakers and film lovers hoping to see the shorts they might have missed over the last year, seeing their favorites once again or just hoping to see what everyone has been up to in the last year. I brought the one minute film I made with the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative last year which was shot by the man who was putting on this festival. He had not yet seen the film as he was out of the country when we screened it.

So he would defiantly get a chance to see it…

Well that was the plan. Now before we get into the night I have a bit of background information. I live across the street from Dalhousie University and I was taking a First Aid Instructor Course the next day, and I was hit by a lot of homework for it (I was told it would take an hour and a half, it actually took closer to six). Well it is the end of Frosh Week and I have been nice enough to ignore all the hooting and hollering from the students at midnight outside my apartment. But on Saturday there was concert for the frosh. And not just any concert, it started at like 10am and went through the whole day. That means as I studied, I had to listen to the distorted echo of sound bouncing around the buildings on campus and coming in through my windows. But hey, they are only frosh once, so I dealt with it.

Now back to the festival. We are watching the films, chatting, enjoying the night. Then the cops show up at 10pm. Some neighbour has complained and we have to shut it all down. At 10pm? They claimed that the neighbour said he’d press charges and despite the noise ban being at 11pm we had to oblige. So we turned everything off and low and behold, there was the frosh concert, 5 blocks away and we could still hear it. Yet all the hard work of these local filmmakers had to be silenced.

He never even got a chance to see my film! It didn’t even have any audio, it was a silent film!

That was my weekend. Well okay, there is more.

I had a revelation. The kind of revelation that makes you shout for joy and rejuvenates your mind and spirit for writing. I was ecstatic.

See I have this feature I have been wanting to write. I think the idea came to me last fall, I started trying to put it together in the spring and piecing all my ideas together over the summer. But I never started it. It sat there on my bulletin board, cue cards all pinned up in order, dictating the scenes, themes, characters. But words never hit the screenwriting software.

I have been having some trouble with features. Back in my early days I tried some, I completed about 2, but I don’t think I have looked at them in years. They just aren’t very well developed. They were more of a writing exercise than anything. Then I tried to work on a couple ideas over the last few years and got stonewalled. Nothing made it past the planning stages. Nothing even came close. I just got stuck. But not this time. I had completed most of the planning, I had jumped the hurdles I got caught on in the previous attempts. But I still didn’t write it.

Then, Eureka!

I realized I no longer wanted to write that story.

And that’s not a bad thing.

I still wanted to write the theme, I wanted to explore the central ideas of that story. But I didn’t want to be apart of this story anymore. I suddenly realized what I actually wanted to write. The problem was that the story as it stood was too gloomy. I wanted to add a splash of humor to it. Well easier said than done. Taking a gloomy serious story and making it funny can easily (and often does) go astray. But this wasn’t a one time inspiration. It wasn’t, “Guess what Evan, that story you are about to write is no longer interesting.” It was like a damn bursting. A wave of ideas poured out. Suddenly I had my new protagonist, a new setting, a new tone. And to boot the central event still fit and the basic arc still worked.

This change in pace brings up a point about writing. Something that we all have to accept and live with. What you write is dependent on where you are currently in your life. It is dependent on your mood, your experiences, your friends, family, your inspiration, your job situation, your living conditions, and everything else around you at the time you put that pen to paper. Everything you think, feel, see or act upon affects your writing. And though at the time of planning this story I was in the mood to take on this gloomy tale with a serious tone and put my protagonist through this own personal hell, today I am not in the mood to do this without a bit of a smile here and there. My current state of mind has changed and so the story changes with me.

Any story I write at this moment would be monumentally different if I wrote it a year from now. And I just accept it. I wonder if it would be better or worse if I wrote it later, but in the end it would probably just be different. It is helpful though when going through your notebook to know that any idea you couldn’t develop at the time, may be seen in a different light later on. So keep writing down any idea you have, even if it may not be of much interest to you now because who knows how you will feel later. My 9th place script Near-sighted was written based on an idea I wrote a good year before I felt ready to write the script (and the script only barely resembled that earlier idea).

No matter when you write something, it will always be the story you want to write. My idea may have changed, but only because I have changed. In the end, the central idea of the story is still there, I have just decided to explore it in a different way. And in the end, I once again have a feature I want to write. Now, I just need some more cue cards…

Creating Characters Part 2: I Only Said Hello, What’s With The Life Story?

10 Aug 2011

So last week I talked about the need to create believable characters by treating them as real people. And like real people they have an entire history and life that has shaped their personality. But now that you have your well developed characters, you are prepared to write your story. But I have one more thing to say…

STOP!

Creating the character is just the start. Now that you have the character you have to introduce us to them.

And like a person, you can’t learn everything about them right away. You slowly learn about them. And sometimes it takes a very, very long time to learn some things about people. So when writing your story, don’t tell everything right away.

You only see your characters for the short time they are in the film. They have lives before, after and during (unless your film is in real time) the film. Just hanging around me for a couple days may not bring to light all of the things I listed in last weeks post. You can’t get to know everything about someone in a few days. You have to find the balance between creating a life for your character, and unrealistically forcing the audience to get to know the character.

As I said, meeting a character is like meeting a person. At first you see what they look like and you get a sense of their personality by the way they talk, what they say and what they do. But you don’t really know the person the first time you meet them. You get and impression of them, but people are a lot more complex, they can have a lot they keep hidden. Characters need to be the same way. Give us their initial impression, give us their personality and then save the deeper and more complex elements until we have had enough time to get acquainted with the characters to deserve the knowledge of these deeper parts of their personality.

Don’t bombard the audience with every detail about the character all at once. Just because you wrote something about them, doesn’t mean you have to show it, you have to find the right time. Just take my list from last week. It would take a couple of days, maybe even weeks for all of those traits to come to light, and sometimes if the right events don’t occur, those traits may not be noticeable at all. So take your time, and gradually introduce the character to us.

This all comes down to showing what is needed for the story. That is the ultimate goal here. Putting together everything the story needs so it can be the best it can be. The amount of time a story takes place is likely not enough time to get to know every aspect of a person. But it is enough time to get to know everything that establishes them as a real person.

So find the balance. Don’t give your character’s life story. Only tell the audience what they need to know. In the short snippet of life that we see in the story, what personality traits, what emotions, what physical behavior shines through. What will we see when we peer into their life? Tell us what the story needs us to be told.

The best way I find to do this is to make up a character chart. You can easily find a template online and then just make any modifications you feel are necessary. A character chart is basically a list of everything you can think of about a character. Where they grew up, how many siblings they have, who their parents were, what happened to them in school, what they look like, their fears, their needs, their goals, their job, their friends, their hobbies, everything. It allows you to create an entire life for them and shape a personality for them from their history. It will make them a real person. Then as you write, find the parts of that life that shine through and will be seen in the story. Not everything about their life will be in the story, just the parts that are important to the story. But that doesn’t mean that writing their life story was all in vain. Everything you wrote will shape your characters personality, it will influence their actions, it will influence what they say. Though it may not be seen or heard in the story, it will still have an influence on it. And as an added bonus you will have a quick and easy reference to look back upon if you every feel like you need more guidance for your characters or story.

To sum it all up. Characters need to be treated like real people, they have an entire history that has shaped their personality, but like real people, it takes time to get to know someone, and you can never fully know everything about another person.

5th Place

5 Aug 2011

My cockles are still buzzing with that warm fuzzy feeling. It’s been almost a month since Julian sent me this lovely email that makes me know that I started something special and the bigger and better we can expand our Short.Is.Better. script contest, the more worthwhile and rewarding it becomes for me to see the impact it is having on emerging writers lives and careers (is there a difference some days?!)

At any rate, Julian has given me his blessing to share his words and so, I do so with a wonderful feeling in my heart and offer them out to each of you as inspiration and validation while slugging it out in the trenches looking for that first produced credit and or paid writing gig!

Charge on, and again thank YOU Julian for taking a chance and being courageous enough to put your work forward and investing in the CSSC and your career. May it flourish and burn brightly leaving no ash!

Hi David,
Just had a moment in time. The postman called. I am staring at a cheque. I cried and am still tearful. With joy. I’ll tell you why.
This is the first money I have ever received (EVER) for writing a script. Which leads on to why the CSSC is so vastly important.
As an emerging screen writer this is total validation that the endless days and nights and weeks merging into one – months and years – are worth the journey.
I can only imagine how the other finalists feel. And the winner with a script going into production!
You David. Yes you. Have given emerging writers the opportunity to have a go and have a voice. Without your energy and commitment there would be no CSSC. Instead you have given us all a window – a showcase – an opportunity. An outlet.
David, sorry for being so emotional but I’m marking this year down as the best in my writing life so far.
Looking forward to the WGGB article and have script ideas for next year’s compo.
Be proud that you have created a perfect platform for emerging writers to be taken seriously and have a voice.
I’m privileged to be able to send this email to you.
V best,
Julian

Creating Characters Part 1: Characters are People Too.

3 Aug 2011

Here is some information about me.

-my joints get stiff and crack when I move
-I have restless leg syndrome so I like to sit at the end of tables at the restaurant or theaters so I they are not confined.
-Sometimes I leave the house with my hair a mess, because the fan in my bathroom doesn’t work very well and the mirror always fogs up. As well I don’t look in the mirror very often.
-I am very forgetful. My keys are always in my right pocket or above my TV so I always know where they are even if I don’t remember putting them there.
-I have a scar on my side from surgery in grade 9. The muscle around my scar never fully recovered and I am prone to pulling that muscle when I twist around.
-I have a very poor sense of smell. It also means I probably don’t have the best sense of taste and just don’t realize it.
-I often walk with a slight limp, it is related to my cracking joints. My limp is not consistent, it depends on the day.
-I have a tendency to combine words when I am thinking of two words at the same time, or when someone says something while I am talking.
-I have to take my time when reading out numbers aloud because I have a tendency to say numbers that I am not looking at.
-I have a very monotone voice. But I hear my voice with more expression than it actually has.
-My skin has some stretch to it, which is a good party trick.
-I don’t tend to get angry. It is very rare that anyone has every seen me mad. Instead I just get frustrated.
-I am indecisive. If going out to eat, I just go where everyone else wants to go, I lock up and can’t think if I have to be the one to choose.
-I have the mentality that if I can do it myself, than I should. Which means I don’t tend to ask for help. It causes me to do more work than I should when I am sick or injured because I don’t want others waiting on me.
-When having dinner, I eat one thing at a time. It is because I have never understood when I should switch foods. If I am content eating one thing, I will just eat it, when I run out, I will eat something else.
-I currently have a sprained pinky finger, but I type with all my fingers. The frustration of hitting the wrong keys is worse than the pain in my finger, so I take the bandage off every time I type.

So that’s a bit about me. Not everything, just what I could think of in about 5 minutes. But the point is that people are very complex, they have a lot of physical and emotional traits and a lot of aspects to their personality.

So now look at your characters? How much can you say about them?

If your like me, not nearly that much.

Creating characters has always been a bit of a difficult task for me and the part of script planning where everything grinds to a halt (my spelling word this week because I was quite surprise to learn it isn’t spelled, “hault”). I can no longer just daydream the story, I have to take a seat and carefully build up the characters. Which can be very time consuming.

I always envision the story first and then add in the characters later. Therefore from the start, I place the story before the character and I have to be aware that I can end up molding the character to the story. That is, I know how the story will progress so therefore the character is forced to make all the decisions I have predetermined. But then the story is telling the characters what to do. And this is not the case in storytelling. The characters decide how the story will proceed.

When the story shapes the character, you have sacrificed character for story and your characters tend to be flat and have no personality. Without a personality the characters are left to make decisions for no reason whatsoever. Every decision we make is because of the way we think, feel and perceive the world around us. So if the character doesn’t seem to think, feel or perceive, then they aren’t really people are they?

And that’s the goal of character building, creating characters that are believable people. They don’t just seem to be people, they are people. And real people have emotions, personalities, experiences, needs, goals, fears, etc. So your characters need these too.

Creating a character involves building a personality. I am 24 years old, so I have 24 years of experiences that have shaped my personality. Your character on their own as no years of experience, you have to provide them all for them.

Have you ever watched a film and realized that you couldn’t describe the character without saying their role in the film or what they do during the course of the film? Meaning you couldn’t describe their personality? Ever meet a person and were unable to describe their personality? Probably not. You pick up on aspects of it pretty quickly. So if a short conversation can show you someone’s personality, a two hour story should show you a lot more about it.

I recently watched a film and with approximately 10 minutes left in the 90 minute run time my friend turned to me and asked, “What’s the main character’s name?” And I didn’t know. How can that be possible? After 80 minutes with this character, not only did I have no idea who they were, I couldn’t even name them.

So in summary. Characters are people. They have personalities built up from years of experience and their personality shows through what they say, how they say it and what they do. And though it may be very time consuming, you need to write every aspect of it. Your story will thank you for it later.

Tips on Properly Formatting Your Script

29 July 2011

With the proper screenwriting software, formatting your short script (or feature or any length), should be easy. Whether or not you own software such as Final Draft, you should be aware of industry standards. These conventions exist not to make you crazy, but so that readers and producers can get an idea at a glance of how long the final product will be.

SPOILER ALERT: You can avoid learning all of these rules below and skip the test and just use a script writing software that allows you to write on auto-pilot and not have to fight to remember all these rules. But, if you still choose to pain stakingly set up a script using a general word processor… God speed and carry on with the paragraphs that follow:

Font
Your script font should always be Courier 12 point, 10 pitch (“pitch” refers to the number of characters that will fit into a 1-inch space horizontally). The correct font and size is important because it determines how many pages your script will be—something many producers look for immediately. With Courier 12, one script page should translate into approximately 1 minute of screen time. Other fonts will lead to your script being an indeterminable length, which usually means an automatic PASS from the gate keepers. This is why Courier 12 is an industry standard. Also, do not use italics or bold in your script (like we just did using both in this sentence). Make sure you’re using a non-proportional version of Courier. (This means that font glyphs have a single standard of width.) In general, most word processing programs should have these parameters set as default for Courier 12. But check if you’re not sure.

Title Page
Your title should be centered, followed by “by” on the next line, and your name on the third and final line.

MY FIRST SCRIPT
by
David Cormican

In the lower right-hand corner, include your contact information. Include your address, phone number, and email. No description, action, or dialogue should appear on this page.Some people also choose to have their scripts registered by using either the Writers Guild of American or Canada for such a service. This is by no means necessary, but it doesn’t hurt either. If you do choose to register your script, you’ll want to place this either above or preferably below the contact information on the title page.

Scene Headers and Description
Fade ins, closeups, etc. should always be in all caps. So should the place descriptions. These are left-justified with a 1.5-inch margin on the left and a 1-inch margin on the right. In cases where there is a page break, your scene headers should remain on the same page as your descriptions. In other words, do not leave a “FADE IN” on page 6 when your “INT. NIGHT – A CANDLELIT ROOM” begins on page 7. Go ahead and lead with “FADE IN” on page 7.

Action
Action is uppercase/lowercase, just as you would write a normal sentence. It too should be left-justified with a 1.5-inch margin on the left and a 1-inch margin on the right.

Many writers break their description into shorter paragraphs for easier reading. If you have long blocks of action, you may want to consider doing this. Readers will frequently skip over description they think is too long. Especially if your script is the 20th script they are reading that day/week.

Character names and Parentheticals
You can either center character names or set them 4.2 inches from the margin. Either way, type them in all caps. In cases of a page break in dialogue, be sure to use the name of the character who is speaking, with “CON’T” next to the name to show it’s still the same character. You should set parentheticals about 0.5 inches to the left of the character’s name, and they should be about 1.5 inches long. Any longer, wrap them to the next line. Parentheticals are uppercase/lowercase, like action and dialogue.

Dialogue
The dialogue goes underneath each character name, and its margins are 3.0 inches from the left, and 2.5 inches from the right. (You can cheat on this a bit.) Dialogue is uppercase, lowercase, as you would write the action. In cases where you have a page break, a single line of dialogue should be pushed to the following page. In cases where you have a dialogue break, use “MORE” (no quotation marks) at the bottom of the page to indicate the dialogue is continuing on the next page.

Margins
Your top margins should be 1.0 to the body, and 0.5 inches to the number. Your bottom can be anywhere from 0.5 inches to 1.5 inches, depending on where your page break is. Page numbers go in the upper right-hand corner of each page. Remember to number every page!

Again, a screenwriting program such as Final Draft or Scrivener (which exports easily to Final Draft) should take care of the vast majority of these formatting issues for you. But if you are stuck writing your script in a word processing program, knowing these formatting details is essential. The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences supplies a free, downloadable script sample with formatting standards in the script. Happy writing!

Accept it, you have a style

27 July 2011

As I write this, I am sitting here, hair full of sand, leg bruised, with sore arches in my feet all because of a lovely evening at the beach. Cloudy, 14 degree air, 14 degree water, blowing sand, fog just off shore, a light drizzle in the air, truly the Nova Scotian experience. Alright, it’s not usually that bad, but I have to say tonight wasn’t the worst weather I have ever experienced at a beach. I was at something called Surf League, which is a competition between the local lifeguards. The events today were sprinting, (other days have swimming and board races). I believe I placed 8th out of 21, which is respectable and scored the most points for a male on my team. I competed in a fun little game called beach flags, basically a merger of running and musical chairs.

What does this have to do with writing? I’m not really sure, but it is a little insight into a sport that most haven’t heard about.

Now, on with the show.

I have been reflecting on something my girlfriend of 8 years and collaborator (we even survived making the film, Those Forgotten, together), said to me. She often describes my writing and my blogs as very formal. Of course, my goal isn’t to sound formal, its just by the 4th or 5th edit, a lot of the side-notes have been removed to keep the post streamlined.

But that’s just the way I write. It’s part of my style. If I try anything else, I will just be lying to myself. When I write one of these posts, I edit a lot, I like to be as straightforward and clear as I can, when I write a script I like to use long sentences, I like all the sentences to flow well, I like to be simple and straightforward. This is how I write and I accept that.

The same can be said of genre. I may watch just about every genre of film there is, but I don’t write every genre. Some of the genres just don’t match my writing style very well. Ok, that’s not true, I just have to mold the genre and my style into one.

This thought comes to me as I have been working on a short horror script. Originally I just had the protagonist trying to survive, which is all well and good, it’s a perfectly good goal of him to strive toward. It fit the story, but it didn’t fit for me. I don’t write anything unless there is a reason behind it, a thought to explore, a feeling that lead me to the story. The problem with this was that survival wasn’t the feeling I wanted to explore. So now I am adding a additional layer to his character involving his family. As I said, this extra layer of story isn’t necessary for the story, I’m sure it would be just fine without it, but to me, it is needed. To me it adds an extra dimension to the story that I want to explore and takes the story from being simply about survival to a story about a person. This is how my writing style effects my writing. I was unhappy with the standard story, it didn’t have enough life to it, so I had to adapt it to my needs.

And that’s my thought for the week. Figure out your writing style and accept it. Don’t fight it, it’s just a waste of time. In the end you’ll find yourself slipping back into your own habits anyway, so just cut to the chase and start with those habits. As I said, I probably couldn’t write any genre. If I tried to write an action script, it wouldn’t turn out like a typical action script. My longer sentences would create a slightly different mood, and as I edit I would find myself looking more at the emotional core of the story than the action so a lot of my action would probably be edited down. Of course, my favorite action movies do the same. So I don’t write typical action scripts, and that’s perfectly fine with me. I also don’t write every form of comedy. When I write something to be funny, it is because of the situation or because of the character’s goal. My characters don’t tell jokes, they are not funny people, they do not do funny things. And that’s simply because I am not a very good comedian and I can’t write these things without them sounding fake. So instead of spinning the wheel and not getting anywhere, I have just accepted it and gone with with what I am good at.

You’ll ind that there is a direct correlation (spelled “cor” and “relation”, though I often misspell it with a “ralation”) between what interests you and what you are good at. When your heart is in it, when you truly like the story and truly want to write it, it will always be better. And you’ll always take the extra bit of time to learn and make it better. Besides, if it doesn’t interest you, why write it in the first place?

So find your style, find what you are good at, find what you are bad at, but most importantly, find what you are interested in and stick to it (now there’s a run on sentence I can be proud of). Don’t fight your style. Embrace it. If you write the way you want, and just be yourself, it saves you a lot of hassle. Because you and I both know that by the time you finish editing it, you will have slipped into your own habits anyway.

Finding Some “You” Time

22 July 2011

It’s 6 p.m. and your shades are drawn. In fact, they’ve been drawn since the last winter snow fell. That’s because you’ve been sticking to your writing schedule, right? You have been sticking to your schedule. Yet a stray beam of the fading sunlight manages to filter through your blinds, tempting you to shut down the computer and get outside. And you know what?

You probably should. I think you need to be as equally diligent about your play time as you are with your writing time. We hear a lot about “finding balance,” but what does that mean? I think it’s one of those terms that’s meaningless until we find we really aren’t finding a balance, that we’re living week to week feeling harried and overstressed. Sometimes it’s hard to see what the balance is until you’ve tipped. If you’ve been feeling out of sorts or blue and you can’t quite put your finger on what is wrong, or if you can’t remember the last time you just sat in a coffee shop and stared out the window, you’re probably not finding a balance in your life.

Finding a balance between work and play can be challenging—especially if you have a family—but finding time to play is essential to the work feeling like play. And if the work feels like play, you’re more likely to turn out something of quality. How many times have you worked and worked on a problem, walked away in frustration, only to have the answer pop into your head like a vision upon your return? That’s what taking breaks are for.

In her excellent book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron assigns the reader a weekly “artist date.” It’s a time you set aside for yourself (and only yourself) on a weekly basis to explore. The date can be anything, as long as it’s something you want to do and not something you feel you have to do because it’s good for you as an artist. (In other words, you really, really don’t have to go see that 3.5 hour Maxim Gorky play if you don’t want to. Really.) Whether it’s picking up a few art supplies or seeing the latest Harry Potter flick or attending a free concert, you’re spending a couple of hours a week replenishing your well. You don’t have to have any goals. Just do what appeals to you.

These dates can help, even if you don’t want to use the book. Just schedule some time to be alone and do something fun. And what better time than summer to schedule a weekly date for yourself to do something with no goals, to just explore? Schedule some “you time.” Just try to avoid that Rebecca Black song when you do enjoy your “you” time. Your writing will thank you.

I Need A Goal and My Goal is to Have a Need

20 July 2011

I ran into a friend at a meeting for the local film co-op and she asked me if I was going to post any writing tips. So as this was related to some writing I have been doing, I thought I would put together a little lesson that I hope will help. Today I’m going to discuss the importance of a character’s GOAL and NEED.

In order to do that, you are going to have to join me on a bit of mental algebra. We are going to treat this as we would any math problem, we will define our variables, rearrange and then build our equation. In this case the equation is going to be the foundation of the story, built on a character’s Goal and Need.

Definitions:
Goal – what the character wants, a concrete thing that can be obtained.
Need – what the character needs, an abstract emotion that has to be realized or achieved.
Climax – the end of the story arc, the confrontation between the protagonist and the antagonist, what the story builds its way toward.
Resolution – after the Climax, the point where the protagonist grows.
Story Arc – the progression of the story, the physical action that occurs.
Character Arc – the progression of the character, the emotional action that occurs.

Alright, simple so far. Now we just need to rearrange and solve the equation.

You will notice that all the definitions can be placed into to categories, EXTERNAL and INTERNAL. In the external category we have the GOAL, CLIMAX and STORY ARC. In the internal category we have the NEED, RESOLUTION and CHARACTER ARC.

But we’re not there yet, there is one last piece of the puzzle, in every case, achieving the Goal will achieve the Need. However, achieving the Goal is not the only way to achieve the Need. This is very important to remember. You can dream up any number of ways to actually achieve the protagonists Need, he/she is simply set on a single Goal to achieve it, but life doesn’t always go as planned and neither does the story.

Finally, what we end up with is two parts of the same story, intertwined together to make the whole.

1) The Goal is what the protagonist wants, the protagonist spends the entire story trying to achieve this goal and finally confronts the antagonist in the Climax in order to achieve it. It is the crux of the story arc.

2) The Need is what the protagonist ultimately wants on an emotional level, the protagonist grows as a person in the Resolution as they achieve their Need. It is the crux of the character arc.

I find this is a very handy trick when in the brainstorming phase of writing. When planning everything out, you can simply give your character a Goal and a Need and suddenly you have both the start (where you set up the Goal and Need) and the end (where they fight for the Goal and ultimately achieve the Need) set up in their most basic ways. It is a guide for your story, it keeps you focused, and allows you to see in a very simple way, the basic arc of your story.

Now, if in fact my explanation (my spelling tip of the week, I always mess this one up, “explain” has an “i” while “explanation” does not) wasn’t very clear, which is what I fear. I will use my script, “Those Forgotten”, as an example to highlight my point.

LAWRENCE, the protagonist, has a Goal, to kill his friend CALEB and become the famous last survivor of a historical ship sinking. He has a Need: to be remembered after he dies. The Goal and the Need are similar, but they are not identical. The Goal is something external he wants to achieve, while the Need is an internal feeling it is clear that achieving his Goal will also achieve his Need. In the Climax, as he tries to achieve his Goal, Lawrence tries to kill Caleb. Then depending on the outcome (I don’t really want to give away the ending), we are lead to the Resolution, how does he satisfy his Need? does he become famous or not?

Simple isn’t it?

As I said, this is the most basic foundation of your story. You’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned the setting, the number of characters, the action beats, we don’t know how he tries to kill him and any number of other detail that could be incorporated into the story. We just know a few things that keep us focused as we build the story.

The Goal and Need do not dictate the story, they merely guide it. And I hope this little tip helps as you build your stories.

Beat the Heat. Hit the Sheet

15 July 2011

Summer is finally here. No other season brings as much temptation to get out of the house. And while you do need to get out there sometimes—most of your writing comes from actually getting out there and living, after all—too much getting out could lead to abandoned stories. I know. You don’t like to think of things like that, but if you’re spending more nights out of the house than in … it’s time to reevaluate your priorities.

It’s not that we mean to abandon our work. It’s more that, as we accept impromptu invitations to parties and spend weekends barbequing, the work just falls off our radar. Pretty soon a whole month passes (or even longer) and you haven’t touched your screenplay. Then it happens to come up in a search when you’re looking for another file, and you click it open. Gah! You find a fatal flaw and on the spur of the moment decide to scrap the whole thing and start over. Or you decide to look at it later, and it once again slips into nowhere land.

Most of us don’t live such fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants lives that we can’t make a schedule for summer in advance and stick to it reasonably well. Even if you’ve not made one yet … well, it’s still pretty early. There’s a lot of research out there that says if you give yourself a visual reminder (such as a calendar), you’ll be more likely to stick to your schedule to reach your goals. Rumor has it that Jerry Seinfeld used to mark a big red “X” on his calendar everyday he completed his writing goal—and his ultimate goal was to never break the chain of X’s.

And you know what? You don’t have to slog through three months of joyless writing in a darkened room. You can compromise. You can write outside. If you’re forced to write at night after work, find a coffee shop in your area that’s open late, one with outdoor seating if you can find it. Or write out on the porch. Even if you don’t have a laptop, take a pen and pencil. Sometimes changing the format can help spark new ideas. Also, why not try writing first thing in the morning. Wake up an hour earlier and write before the day has begun for most. You’ll feel the pressures of the day melt away knowing that your writing has already been completed while you work during the day. Or, even better, you can hit the pool guilt-free knowing that your writing session for the day is already out of the way. On the days when the heat is unbearable, you can always revert to writing indoors.

But no matter what, aim to keep yourself hydrated and on schedule with your writing. Set goals. Don’t let the heat beat you. Beat the heat instead. Hit the sheet.

A Look Back As We Move Forward

13 July 2011

I haven’t always been a writer, in fact I’m still nervous about claiming that title as my own. I was anything but a writer growing up and I know that if any of my English teachers ever discover this blog they will never believe that I am the same Evan Jobb they once new. I hated writing, I avoided it, I wanted no part of it. But as I sit down and reflect upon my past I realize that it wasn’t the writing that was the problem, it turns out I have always been compelled to write. The problem was a pair of weaknesses that I have that clouded my perception and prevented me from seeing myself as a writer.

Weakness 1: Indecisiveness. All my life, including right now as I try to choose the best way to formulate this post, I have had trouble making decisions. Given the ability to do anything, I find myself doing nothing. I get overwhelmed by choices. I always have and I presume I always will. So when it comes to writing, when I have the ability to take any thought, formulate any character, any plot line and simply have the ability to write anything, I find myself watching the little cursor blinking impatiently while I do nothing.

I remember in Junior High we had an entire English period dedicated to creative writing, an entire hour to write a story and after a whole hour I still had a blank page in front of me, not a single pencil stroke had touched the page. Which leads me to my second weakness.

Weakness 2: Perfectionism. I am a perfectionist, or a recovering perfectionist as I now like to say. Which means I realize I am a perfectionist and try to ignore it when it isn’t practical. Going back to the Junior High story, I didn’t write a single word because I wasn’t going to write anything unless it was perfect. Writing down ideas or possibilities didn’t interest me, they could be dead ends, they could be terrible ideas and I didn’t want anyone to know about them. I would rather judge them safely in my head than reveal my inadequate ideas to my peers.

These two weakness are what held me back for years. I would write when it was mandatory in a class, but I wouldn’t enjoy it. But even though it was difficult for me, and the part of English class I looked forward to the least, some small part of me, way, way down deep inside, still had hope for my writing. Some part of me still wanted to press on. So every once in a while, I would try to satisfy this spark of hope and I’d sit down in my spare time and try to write, but I was never happy with the way it turned out and eventually I just gave up completely. As a result I have not tried to write a short story for the last 8 years.

Then in my second year of University, a friend of mine who lives and breaths film introduced me to his world, because he had realized that I had not seen many of the classic films (in fact I had barely seen any films as I had not grown up watching many). And that is when my own obsession with film started and it wasn’t long before he asked me to work with him on a script. I had no idea how to write a script, and had no delusions of being anything close to a writer. But I listened to that feeling deep inside me and I took up the challenge and gave writing one last go.

As I mentioned, it baffles me that I ever got to this point in my life. All the signs point to the fact that I should have quit long ago. But I realize that I succeeded for two reasons. First of all, this time I actually took the time to learn the craft. When trying to write short stories, or essays I just assumed that I already knew everything I needed to know (because they had already taught me everything I needed to know in school) so I assumed that I had maxed out my learning and just had no gift for it. But when it came to scripts, I knew that I knew nothing. So I had to go back to the basics. I had to learn format, I had to learn structure, I had to learn the ins and outs of writing. If I had just assumed that I knew how to write a script because I had seen a movie, then I would have left the pen and paper to the dust bunnies long ago.

Secondly, unknown to me for many, many years, I was born a writer. Deep down inside me I had a need to write. Despite my weaknesses, despite my failures, despite (I spelled “despite” wrong every time I wrote it, it’s “des” not “dis”) the fact I hated writing, I kept writing, I kept trying. Why? Because, as it turns out I had ideas in my head and I needed a way to realize them. I had to free my mind of the ideas that were trying to so hard to escape and when it became too much trouble for me to keep them locked up, I found myself trying to write, trying to free them. And when it comes to writing that is what we all need. We need to be driven to create something out of our ideas.

My drive to write was stronger than my weaknesses and I eventually prevailed. So my lesson to you is, no matter what your weakness may be, don’t give up, feed your compulsion and write.

Then we can all proudly give ourselves the title of writer.

A Look Back As We Move Forward

8 July 2011

I know we’re all still sad that Carolynne’s year came and went so quickly in the Writer Wednesday Laureate position. But as with all seasons, they change change change.

I caught up Evan for a few quick moments last week before his first post and asked him 5 questions in 5 minutes. Here’s how it went:

DC: Okay, Evan. Here we are only a day or so away from your first post as the 2nd ever #Writer Wednesday Laureate for the CSSC. Do you feel ready for the task? Have you written it already or are you more of a wingin’ it kind of blogger?
EJ: I am anything but a wingin’ it kind of blogger, I’m not even much of a wingin’ it kind of person either. I like to plan out what I am going to type and give it time to breathe. I started to write my post a couple of days ago and now I just pick it every once and a while to make small edits and I’ll continue to do that up until the deadline. But I feel ready for it, I think I have mentally prepared myself to step into this world, to talk about the secretive world of writing.
DC: Carolynne wasn’t very shy in the #WW position. Maybe you could share one bizarre or perhaps revealing thing with us that most people don’t know about you?
EJ: Oh, there are probably lots, but I will save some for later posts. For now I will share two oddities I have. For starters I have restless leg syndrome. For anyone who doesn’t know it means I get an uneasy, sometimes painful feeling in my legs when I keep them still for too long. It effects me mostly at night and can make me quite annoying to sit next to. And to people who don’t know me, I seem quite impatient. Second, I have hyper-extended and loose joints, which means my joints can flex beyond where normal joints can. Besides giving me arms that bend back (a little freakishly) past 180 degrees, it makes my joints crack all the time. My friends have learned to ignore it, but I still get a lot of strange looks from people who don’t know me very well.

DC: Two. Aren’t we lucky! Thanks. How come you haven’t blogged before this point? With such a talent for words, why the radio silence, were you waiting for the CSSC soapbox before you let your hair down?

EJ: The simple answer would be that I’m somewhat shy, the other more encompassing answer would be that I am slow to embrace social media technology. I’m going to sound like an old man, but I don’t even have a cell phone. I like talking in person, I like the phone, I don’t really get the point of texting and I have never had twitter. There are many ways to communicate and blogging is just one of many that I haven’t taken up yet. The CSSC has just given me a well needed push into the technological world.
DC: Carolynne brought us the Cocoverse, the word of the week, the snappy titles, the sage advice, the learning blows, the witticisms, the land-of-what-if-and-maybe… anything up your sleeve? Do you plan to continue on any of her traditions?
EJ: This is something I have thought about for some time. Carolynne and I are two very different people with two very different styles. She is very creative while I am very precise. I have long thought that my engineering education molded with my writing to the point that I apply the same mindset to some aspects of writing as I would an engineering problem. As you will learn in future posts, I don’t have a writer’s mind, I have something else that I have accidentally shaped into something like a writer’s mind. So I hope to produce something memorable, but what it is, I’m not sure yet. I hope to share my triumphs and my failures, my successes and my frustrations over this year and I hope that we can all walk away with a better appreciation for the art of writing. As for the word of the week? I’ll see what I can do, sadly my greatest vocabulary comes from the sciences, so it may take some extra effort to sneak those in.

DC: I know when I first approached you to take the torch from Carolynne you mentioned you were going to pre-plan several weeks worth of topics. How’s that going? And how has your game plan changed, or not, to make it to the end of 52 weeks worth of postings?
EJ: I didn’t come close to the 52 posts, though I wasn’t aiming for it either. I drafted about 9 posts and have ideas for about 10 more. But most of them I want to be in the moment. Problems, issues or ideas that come up as I do my own writing. If it’s something that has personally happened to me when writing, then it’s bound to happen to someone else.
The reason I wanted the jump start was because I am working at a camp with children all day and after running around in the sun chasing 50 kids, sometimes you just crash and sleep all evening. If I have a post ready, then I can allow myself that time to rest.

DC: Summer camp. That takes me back. Oh what the heck– bonus round: pizza or pita?
EJ: Pizza, for sure. I can’t say I have ever eaten pita for every meal of the day, pizza on the other hand…

First Day Jitters

6 July 2011

Ever have to do a show, or a screening or a presentation and all you can think about is how you hope the person before you isn’t very good so you don’t have to be the follow up to something amazing. That’s how I feel about taking over this blog from the wonderful Carolynne Ciceri (and of course she had to go ahead and do a great job at it too! So now I’m nervous and more than a little terrified at the idea of stepping into the spotlight after her).

But now I’m here, for all to study, like a circus animal, put on display for everyone, performing shows every Wednesday. Which would be fine if I liked performing. See, this is my first blog (and my first post) ever. I’m not a very open person, and the intimacies of blogging have scared me. I don’t go about my day telling every detail about my life to strangers, so why do it online? And now David asks me to do this blog and I’m suppose to talk about writing? I spent years avoiding telling anyone I was writing and now I’m just going to post about it online for everyone to see? Well, here I am anyway. Why, you may ask (and after that little spiel you very much should), well I guess it’s because I feel I should probably break out of my shell. I figure it will be good for me. If I am going to inform you about writing, talk about my life as a writer with the aim to make you all grow as writers, then I should probably grow a bit myself. I wouldn’t even be here posting this if I hadn’t taken that leap of faith and submitted to the CSSC back in 2008. It was the first time I put my writing out to be critiqued (please note that “critic” and “critique” may sound similar but are spelled differently, it should hopefully save you all the wasted time I just had trying to figure that out), and the first validation of myself as a writer. So here I go, once again taking a leap with the CSSC at my side as I venture forward in my own life as a writer.

I don’t know how many times I wrote what I thought would be my first post. I had many ideas and many false starts. But now it’s Tuesday night and I look over what I had settled upon Monday night and realized that it was all wrong. My first post shouldn’t be a long story about myself, it should be something short and simple, a salute to Carolynne and a greeting from me. I hope that is what I have accomplished, and I hope you will welcome me in and we can grow together over the next 51 posts.

Thanks for All the Fish

As the sound of one writing door slamming shut is echoing through my head and the sound of a new one opening has yet to be heard – though that could because the sounds of Brahms’ Hungarian dances galloping and trotting and waltzing through my headphones are drowning it out – I did take a few giant steps back this week, almost twenty years, and crack open The Artist’s Way. It is a 12 week self-guided course in unblocking creativity. While some may be surprised by the idea that I believe myself to be creatively blocked, even those of us who write for a living can be, and so my friends if you are, take heart, you are not alone, the Empress of the Cocoverse is right there with you.

29 June 2011

It’s telling that I’ve spent the week obsessing over the title of this, my last post as Canadian Short Screenplay Competition #Writer Wednesday Writer Laureate – a cumbersome title of a different kind, I hope I can convince Mr. Cormican to shorten it – things should be easily tweet-able in this overloaded Infoverse don’t you think? I wonder how long it is before “tweet-able” will be recognized by spell check?

Of course that obsession with title is just procrastination by another name. For most of last two weeks I thought I’d call this post “Thanks for all the Fish”. Maybe I still will. That being a favourite quote from one of the funniest books ever written in the English language – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – and don’t make that face at me if you’ve seen a movie or TV show of it, the book itself is pure literary genius and still one of the few books that makes me laugh out loud when I read it. For those of you still in the dark about the meaning I will take pity on you for a change and explain. “So long and thanks for all the fish” is a Sci-Fi Fan’s way of saying goodbye. It comes from a goodbye note left by the dolphins who depart earth just before it is demolished to make way for a hyperspace freeway bypass. See, I’m chuckling away to myself just typing that, deeply amused by the idea that the dolphins would bother to leave us a note. Not like we deserve the warning from them, is it?

Alrighty, dolphin human relations don’t seem like quite the right topic for my last flight of fancy wearing this particular crown. See how I built that sentence to deposit into both of our psyches the idea that Writer Laureate will just be the first of many such honours? And how awesome is that? Only took me three tries to spell psyche (your word of the week) correctly.

You may be wondering what I am going to do with this big new gaping hole in my writing schedule. That would make two of us. Though Karen Walton (Ginger Snaps, Queer as Folk) and the wonderful peeps at InkCanada have offered two summer internships which I’m thinking of sucking up my courage and applying for, or is that to? As the invitation to apply came just as I was pondering my writing future it seems like a sign. Even if I’m not one of the lucky winners, writing out a list of ten reasons I want the internship (which is the application process) is not only a terrific writing challenge, but also seems to be a very good self-reflective tool to focus a person on what is truly going on in their writing life.

Writing is one of those things that you can never stop learning about and also one of those things where demons that you believed slain long ago can spring up again full of vigour, not to mention that new ones that appear as simply the byproduct of living a writer’s life.

I am being much too melodramatic of course about the CSSC door slamming, Mr. Cormican and your new Writer Laureate Elect Evan Job – everyone say “Hi Evan!” – have both been lovely in inviting me to guest post, which is very sweet of them, and perhaps I shall from time to time.

I must say that I am very happy to have found my way back into the pages of The Artist’s Way which is something with which I first began my writing career. Working through it again is reminding me of that time of energy and enthusiasm laced with self-doubt when all the world was to play for. It still is of course and always will be, no-one is ever finished being a writer after all, but it feels, well, refreshing, to be reminded of my youthful dreams and even having to face down, once again, some of those monsters of old is much easier going this time around.

It is past time though to face the scary dark place at the heart of this post; time to finish this story and begin one anew. As terrifying as it was to begin a weekly blog on my life as a writer it is even more terrifying to end it. I’ve never been good at finishing things and I’ve been putting off writing today for that very reason. It is and always has been my Achilles heel as a writer, this overwhelming grief that sets in when I’m 90% the way through something. My former shrink described it as Separation Anxiety – gee, yah think?

For this to be a truly satisfying third act, our protagonist needs to have had the events of the first two change her profoundly – for the better if we are going for a Hollywood Ending, and why not? I don’t know about you but I could use a lot more Hollywood Endings in my life.

At the same time I have a tremendous desire to make this post more about you guys than me, and so far have failed miserably at that.

I want to give you all a big hug to say thank you for just being out there and making me share a bit of the Cocoverse every week. That sharing has made the Cocoverse both more real and more tourist friendly so I hope you will still visit it from time to time at my personal blog page www.carolynneciceri.blogspot.com . Though of I won’t be hurt if you don’t, there is after all so much good stuff out there on the web to consume and so little time. Well, I’ll try not to be too hurt. There I will still talk a lot more about writing than you might expect though good recipes, guitar chat and my Sci-Fi and Canadian Tenors fandom will also appear in the mix, those last two aren’t connected by the way.

If magical thinking were real I’d do the Faerie Godmother thing around about now and bless you by casting a bit of Faerie Dust into the eyes of each and every person reading this page. Magic dust that would allow you to always see your own genius burn more brightly then your faults, that would make you clearly see the good in the world so that you can more powerfully protect it from the evil and always and ever see how the truths of the universe can most perfectly be expressed through stories. But I don’t have magic dust, only words, so until we meet again my friends, words will have to do.

Fade out.

P.S. My universe is called the Cocoverse because Coco is one of my many nicknames bestowed by a dear friend who once described my voice on the phone as “…hot chocolate for his ears.” And you guessed it! He is a writer.

Getting Out of the Corner

24 June 2011

We’ve all done it. Written ourselves into the proverbial corner with no clue how to get out. Sometimes we’ve written a scene where our protagonist has done something so out of character it’s just not believable, or we’ve screwed up a pivotal scene to the point that it no longer pivots. Other times we’ve just not done enough research and too many conflicting elements have crept into our story.

I think beginning writers tend to be more prone to writing themselves into a corner because they’re just learning to set parameters, but it’s a fine line we all have to walk as we sit down to shape our ideas. We’re part writer and part editor, and we sometimes have to turn the editing part of our brains off in order to produce. Letting The Inner Editor out of its box for a bit can help a writer think more critically, but letting it run free can cause a writer to edit an idea right out of existence.

So how do we handle this writing into a corner thing?

1. When one or more of your characters are doing things they wouldn’t normally do in order to further the plot, that could be a sign you’re starting to write yourself into a corner. This doesn’t mean characters can’t surprise us. Perhaps your protagonist would never shoot a priest, but if s/he knew that priest to be completely corrupt, s/he might reconsider. Or s/he might feel appropriate guilt and suddenly you have a new subplot. But if a character you deliberately wrote to be not too bright suddenly becomes a genius mathematician to further a plot point, you may have written yourself into a corner. If it’s not believable, you’re probably in a corner.

2.When you’ve written a pivotal scene that doesn’t feel believable, or it just sits there instead of actually pivoting, that could be another sign you’ve written yourself into a corner.

3.Dues ex machina is a HUGE sign you’ve written yourself into a corner. If you have to rely on shark-headed space aliens to rescue your protagonist from a hitman in your gangster thriller script, you know you’ve definitely written yourself into a corner. And be careful, deus ex machina can happen anywhere in the script, not just at the end.

4.Failing to adequately research certain elements in your story can lead to conflicts—and not the kind of conflicts you want. Having your hero expound on the joys of shooting a .38 only to have him carry a .45 in the next scene because you found out .38s actually suck to shoot (I have no idea if this is true; do as I say, not as I do, okay?) can really pull down your script and cause extra work. Naturally, you can’t be expected to know everything before you start—at some point you just have to jump in and swim—but if you go to write a script about gangsters, some preliminary research about guns is probably in order. A little research ahead of time (not so much that it replaces the actual writing itself as your primary work) can help you keep things consistent.

In each of these cases, it’s very difficult for writers to see all of the logistics because they’re so close to the work. This is why it’s so easy to write ourselves into a corner. The trick to getting yourself out of the corner is to first get some distance from your story. Take a walk. Put the story down for a day or two. (I know it’s hard!) Give your subconscious a chance to work out the details of fixing the problem. Then go back to your script and read with as critical of an eye as you can. Something is bound to jump out at you that will need to be changed. If you just can’t see it, send the work to a trusted friend. Fresh eyes can be a big help at these times.

For some writers, the trick to preventing getting into the corner is to write as fast as they can, with absolutely no editing as they go. A great way to do this is by writing by hand. Writing by hand (especially with a pen) can force you to write rather than edit. Once you’ve written something you can’t really change it unless you’re willing to start over. If that’s too laborious, simply try to type as fast as you possibly can so that you’re outdistancing the self-doubt that can cause you to make changes as you’re writing.

And remember, the first, second, third, and subsequent drafts are just that: drafts. You can always change what you don’t like. So the next time that corner comes up, show it who’s boss.

Beginning of the End

22 June 2011

Here we are at last, one year of blogging as the CSSC Writer Laureate nearing its close. Over 50,000 words about the things I think about writing and my writing life.

Who knew that I could actually show up every week and complete my assignment? Who knew that I could, in fact, stick with a piece of writing from start to finish? Not I, that’s for sure. Writing this blog has been, without a doubt, the most consistent and sustained application of effort of my writing life.

It has taught me that with an investment of 2-4 hours a week that I can write a book. Interesting huh? Writing a book has always seemed unreachable for someone with my attention span. That is probably one of the reasons that I took up the serious study of the craft of screenwriting in the first place, rather than trying to carve out a career as a novelist. Screenplays are shorter. It makes me laugh at myself to have to acknowledge then, that in this past year, while my screenplay remains unfinished (though I did write a two hour TV pilot) instead I seem to have written a book about writing.

Even if I devote all of my final two Writer Laureate blog posts to listing all the things I’ve learned and the ways in which I’ve grown as a person and a writer, I don’t think I’d get them all down. Or even get any of it down right. There seems to be quite a bit of emotion swirling around the whole topic making things extra hard to pin down, but I will give it a try.

For preference I’d make you a nice tidy list, maybe even numbered and ranked.

Common blogging wisdom is that folks on the Interweb love them their lists – 7 ways to do this, 10 ways to avoid that and the top 3 must dos. We do love our lists. I’m not much in a list writing mood though. I usually like lists as they are a handy way to move something out of my head and trim off the emotions and add a dash of funny before I slot it in to its box. Making lists also has the effect of shrinking things that are too large and blowing up things that are barely there at all. In this way I can feel better about tiny boxes ticked off and survive the tsunami of disappointment over things not yet achieved. But I don’t feel like doing that today. Maybe I’m just not ready to face closing this book and having to begin another.

I can say that I think now, after a year of blogging for the CSSC blog, that I have at long last actually earned the rather lofty title of CSSC Writer Laureate. A year ago I chuckled over being awarded it and felt more than a bit of a fraud, as to date I’ve still to see one of my creative masterpieces come to life on screen. But, I suppose that is yet another thing that I’ve learned, that being a writer is first, last and always about the writing and nothing really to do with the way the world receives it. For me the way to earning the privilege of signing myself “Carolynne Ciceri, Writer” is about writing material that I like. Material that gets the thumbs up from my inner critic. She’s a right Bitch so I know if she gives something the nod that it works at some level.

This is critical you guys, to making it through the hard stuff, so please do pay heed. The most important audience you can write for is yourself. Try not to get caught up in the praise and the money, and for some of you, the stardom, for there will still always be someone out there that doesn’t care for your voice, or your topic or your use of semi-colons. Sad for you if that someone is your boss, but even if it is, keep their critique in perspective. Live to write another day.

I’ve just started re-reading Pamela Douglas’ “Writing the TV Drama Series” as part of my commitment to feeding my inner writer a continual stream of good information on the art, craft and business of writing for the screen. John Wells (West Wing, etc.) is interviewed in the introduction and is asked what he would tell his younger self about the career path he was about to embark upon. I was very interested to see that he would’ve remarked on how long the process takes to truly become a writer. In his estimation a foot and a half of material stacked high before things come together from both a writing and career sense. That’s a hard thing to hear for those of us with big dreams and stars in our eyes. To hear that your first, second or tenth effort is flawed but by golly keep on going.

Sorry, I’ve just read back through this post and realized that I’m not being very funny today, but endings always make me a bit blue, that being the reason I avoid finishing things, I suppose.

Here we are at last, one year of blogging as the CSSC Writer Laureate nearing its close. Over 50,000 words about the things I think about writing and my writing life.

For preference I’d make you a nice tidy list, maybe even numbered and ranked.

Sorry, I’ve just read back through this post and realized that I’m not being very funny today, but endings always make me a bit blue, that being the reason I avoid finishing things, I suppose.

The writing life is a long road, and a hard road, and yet also one of the most magical of roads a creative mind can take. Not the magic of Presto chango POOF! Wand waving here will just get people talking about your potential for 20 years until the day you suddenly realize by “potential” they mean failure. It is magic nonetheless the day you fully understand that writing will give you back more than you give to it. It will, but only if you keep walking out, every day, from the word well to the dip in the back pasture with your tablespoon full of thoughts and squiggly marks. If every day you pour that tablespoon in, come spring you’ll have a lake to row out on, swim in and invite friends over to sit beside.

What I’ll take away from my year as CSSC Writer Laureate is perhaps for the first time in my life, a strong belief in myself. It may surprise some of you to learn that most of the time I don’t think much of me. I’ve been told I hide it well. But there has been something truly transformative about creating this blog week after week, forcing myself to look at what was going on in my head and continually examine and re-examine my writing process. So there it is. I’m a better writer, a more humble writer, and I like myself a whole lot more than when we began last June.

Now I’m excited to sign off for the week and turn my attention back to my various scripts, secure in the knowledge that regardless of how I feel or how much time is spent, or how many words are put down on the page, the stories are mine and I am theirs and it is enough.

The Stories Only You Can Write

17 June 2011

Writing is hard. It’s hard because no one can tell you how to do it, not really. If you’ve ever tried to finish a script, you know this already. And more importantly, you know this to be true. No book on writing can truly prepare you for the moment you sit down to face the blank page and actually try to shape your idea.

On top of that, you either have no blueprint or you’re working within a box of parameters that has its own set of challenges. How do you write a short script when the short films you watch are all wildly different—both from each other and from your script—and provide no real blueprint to help you along? How do you write a feature screenplay, stay within the conventions, and still come up with something that feels fresh? You have to somehow break out of the box without breaking the box.

All of this and you can’t know if a story is going to work out at all unless you sit down to write it. Writers have lots of ideas; it’s trying to shape those ideas into something worth reading that’s the hard part. And doing that takes a certain amount of bravado. You’re creating something from nothing. It can feel like a risk just sitting down at the computer.

So what can you do?

My advise: be yourself and write true to your voice and stories. No matter if you have been told that someone has already written that story you want to tell. ‘Cause I’ll bet you it still hasn’t been done, if you write it the way you want to!

Maybe this will make it make more sense. I remember a time when I was working for a marketing agency in Toronto. I was one of the top sales reps at the time and we were going through training on a new product and the campaign overview. It came with all sorts of information that had to be memorized for the in-store presentations, but they gave us a lot of flexibility in terms of how we delivered it (so long as we hit the main points and kept our numbers up). During our training sessions they always encouraged us to share throughout the campaign with all the other reps, any tips or tricks on elements of the routine that we would develop on our own that seemed to really be working well with clients and customers and worked to move extra product off the shelves. All of us in the room begin to put our guards up, as we felt how could we give away our biggest secrets and still expect to maintain our top seller status if all our competition now had our best tricks. Our campaign lead, Oliver, sensed the tension and hesitancy. He asked us all to think of our best joke that we all keep up our sleeve for parties and gatherings. And then he asked us how we would feel if we were at a party and going around the circle sharing jokes and the guy before you tells the same joke you were going to tell. What would you do? Well, Oliver told us a story of that actually happening to him. And do you know what he did? He told the joke. But he told it his way and not the guys ahead of him way. And you know what… it actually worked. Because he always thought of it as his joke and he made it his joke and he killed. Because the moral of his story was: it’s my joke and nobody and he meant nobody could tell it better than he could!

It’s like the Aristocrats. The A to B is always the same. It’s the execution that makes it your story.

So, commit. Commit to writing the stories that only you can write. You can’t write Charlie Kauffman’s stories and he can’t come to your house and write yours. And that’s not a bad thing. Because the challenges of writing are also its rewards. No one can help you write. And no one can really tell you how or when to do it, either. Writing is a place where you and your muse are totally in control. You want to kill off a character? That’s your decision and no one else’s.

If you’re like a lot of writers—especially ones just starting out—the art you make may be the only place in your life where you feel like you have any control. Don’t give that up. Write the stories only you can write. And by all means, tell your joke if it’s your joke!

Naked Virtue

15 June 2011

There, maybe that blog title will get a little more attention then the last one. Only two more posts after this one my lovelies, then what will you do to lull yourself to sleep on a Wednesday night once I ship the crown of dried Bay leaves off to the Maritimes for your next CSSC Writer Laureate to find a place for it far away from open flame and light-fingered chefs? Opps. Think that was supposed to be a secret, oh well, it is only half out of the bag and the sentence was crap anyway so you probably still have no idea what I’m talking about. That would keep you firmly placed in the middle of the pack this week since I too have no real idea who is at the controls today. I am so far behind myself I can see me coming on in the rear view mirror with wind-blown hair and a crazy look in my eye, so look out.

I’m meant to finish my contemplation of writing’s virtues with this post and I will. But be warned that not only is my tank empty but my cranky level could remove the paint from a ‘66 Mustang with one exhalation of breath.

To recap, last week we looked at 1) Temperance 2) Wisdom 3) Justice. This week we’re going for Courage, Hope, Faith & Love.

4) Courage
Having been born under the Zodiac sign Leo the Lion, this concept is supposed to be something about which have an almost instinctive command. Sitting here as I am today in a deep puddle of mud in a dip in one of the deeper (think Great Rift) of life’s valleys I find myself squinting up at this bold shiny word and grunting out a sort of Hrumphfft sort of sound, followed by a squelching burp as I lurch my bulk up out of the mud’s grip and onto my swollen ankles in order to get a better look at this particular construct of Olympian proportion (as in the mountain people, not the games, read a history book for Christ’s sake). Hmm. Looks like someone cast it from bronze and then plated it with brass to make it nice and shiny and difficult to move. If nothing else I suppose this writer’s life of mine has taught me that Courage is something I not only need to find, but need to make my own. The ability to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and all that. It is also something that as I writer I am duty bound to give to others.

“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen” Winston Churchill

Thanks Winny, very pithy and well written. Excellent use of the semi-colon. Sadly no instructions on how to figure out when to do which. I guess I’ll have to scroll back to Wisdom for some advice on that.

On a day like today it is my friends who lend me their Courage for my own and their sincere expressions of admiration and support what see me through. Indeed, I’m not sure this writer has a store of her own at all. I think it is all on loan from others. From time to time people tell me that they admire my courage – to write the way I do, dream what I dream, tackle the challenges I tackle and then the ability to stand up in front of a crowd and say it all out loud. That may look like Courage from the outside, but it sure doesn’t feel like it from the inside. From the inside that Courage looks like a bubbling stew of Hope, Faith and Love, all burbling away together in the pressure cooker of my soul.

Jeepers. “Pressure Cooker of My Soul” now I’ll give you that writing that down in a sentence and leaving it for all the world to see might be a display of Courage. Maybe the old girl has some in her after all. Or, maybe she should think about a career writing country western songs.

It is certain that a writer needs to find Courage, both to put words on a page and then to send them out into the world. Where can it be found?

Well let’s have a look at my theory – Hope + Faith + Love = Courage

5) Hope.
Yes this is something I do have and it is deep well inside that has been added to and renewed since childhood when my Kindergarten teacher took my Mother aside and told her in the strongest possible terms that she must encourage my imagination, that it was a unique and powerful gift to be nurtured and never crushed. And so every time I receive a laugh, a hug or a compliment it goes into the Well of Hope, as does every piece of good news from a friend or family member and every random act of kindness that I witness.

Before I lay me down to sleep tonight I will revisit my kudos file and re-read an email my sister sent to me at a dark ebb years ago. She entitled it “10 Reasons I Love My Sister”. It is one of the chief treasures of my life and her gift of it to me means that my personal Well of Hope will never run dry. So you see, writers, perhaps above all others have the power to give Hope, for not only did my Sister speak these wonderful things about me, but she wrote them down, so that I may call upon them at any time to refill the well.

Maybe as writers we shouldn’t then worry about searching for Hope, but instead realize that it’s riches are all around us in every smile and kind word or deed we receive or do.

And so since you now know the secret to creating your own perpetual supply of Hope you are ready to take the Writer’s Pledge of Never Give Up, Never Surrender Your Dream. Raise your right hand…

6) Faith
Boy none of these words are very long but the concepts are pretty Tricksy, aren’t they? And no, that isn’t a typo of “tricky” Anyone can say “tricky” but a few of us can gloriously get away with “tricksy”. My gut is telling me to skip lightly over this one and head onto the big, yet simple Lunk-Head – Love.

Faith. First of all, do I have any? Some. Strangely though I find it very difficult to talk about this, despite a lifetime of people around me bleating on about it from any number of pulpits and soap boxes. I suppose through my writer lens it needs to be sufficient to say that I have Faith that if I keep on, every day, putting one word after another that eventually they will form a road leading to my dreams come true. I have Faith that words can shape reality and transform the future. I have Faith in part because the universe is not only more wonderful than I imagine, it is more wonderful than I can imagine. So somewhere out there is my first feature script sale, my first novel published, my first song recorded.

7) Love.
It’s been called the most powerful force in the universe. I think that is true. It is for me because here at the end I see that whether any or all of Temperance, Wisdom, Justice, Courage, Hope or Faith are present, it is Love that keeps me, day in day out, sitting down in front of a blank page – turning dreams into words so that words may turn into dreams.

Writing’s 7 Virtues

8 June 2011

So here’s a great example of a great writing idea that quickly went horribly awry, to wit, the theme of this week’s blog post.

Since the last two posts delved deeply into the sin and darkness part of a writer’s life, I thought it only appropriate to give equal column space to the sunny side of the writing road.

Awesome.

From the over-bursting mental cabinet wherein I keep my Catholic upbringing (actually more of an entire basement cellar full of equal parts trash and treasure), I seem to remember that we endeavour to offset the seven deadly sins with a bunch of virtues. A little googling and there they were, though, not to toot my own horn or anything, but I would’ve got the Jeopardy question correct even without Wikipedia.

Temperance, wisdom, justice and courage, the four Cardinal Virtues – first described by the Greeks of course, not the Catholic Church – most often grouped with the three Theological Virtues, faith, hope and charity (or love). There is some variation of course depending on your source, with Judaism and Catholicism often promoting prudence as part of the fab four, but I choose to go with my much lauded ancestor’s version:

Cicero (106-43 BC): “Virtue may be defined as a habit of mind in harmony with reason and the order of nature. It has four parts: wisdom (prudentiam ), justice, courage, temperance.” (De Inventione, II, LIII)

Thus my list of a Writer’s Seven Virtues reads: temperance, wisdom, justice, courage, faith, hope and love.

Now that is just the kind of basic structure I adore when sitting down to write. A nice complete concept composed of manageable parts. All I have to do now, I tell myself, is to address each concept in terms of what it means to my life as a creative writer (in general) and a screenwriter (in particular).

1) Temperance
That sound you hear is the high-pitched whine of brakes as my mental processes screech to a halt. The road ahead is blocked by this massive, monolithic word carved out of stone TEMPERANCE.

What does that even mean? Or, rather, I’m afraid that I know all too well what it means and am deathly afraid that it in no way applies to me or my writing habits. Except the “temper” part. That part I got no problem with. Most likely to be seen in a writing context when someone gets in the way of my meeting a deadline, gives ignorant feedback, incorrect data or worst of all, doesn’t really know what they want or how to get it so they change criteria and parameters every five minutes, the purpose of which is to whip me into a frenzy so then when I am weeping with exhaustion and begging for mercy they feel satisfied. Not with the writing, which was great to begin with, but because they made me cry, therefore the material must be absolutely the best that I could give and their ego is assured even if they secretly know they don’t have a clue as to the difference between a good piece of writing and a bad one. Though most could probably recognize that previous as a hideously constructed run on sentence. It had passion though, didn’t it? Although it probably wasn’t a very good example of me being Temperate.

And so yes, the clouds part, the Angel choir can be heard to be warming up and I suddenly see that being a writer has gifted me with the virtue of Temperance. I have learned to take criticism, both the useful and not so useful, without biting off body parts of those that proffer it. But since I still from time to time visualize doing the biting, I guess I still have some work to do on this one.

2) Wisdom
Yikes that’s a big concept for a six letter word. So big that I had to go get a glass of water and sip it slowly while thinking about it. Okay, gonna take more than a glass of cold water to sort this one out. I decide to attack the word with the one most closely associated with it within the context of virtue – Prudence.

Cripes, here we are again, yet another word for which I have doubtful association. Whose idea was this blog post anyway? Yeah, I know no one to blame but me. Okie doke. That squidgy spandex snapping sound is me girding my loins before taking a run at this one. This time I can’t even tell you that can at least do the first part – prude – that would not be one of the top fifty words with which friends and acquaintances would trot out to describe me. The “dence” part maybe, if you allow for alternate spelling.

This apparently is the ability to exercise good judgement in practical affairs. Again from a writer’s perspective given that I am floundering around with this blog topic, you might say that I exercised neither wisdom nor prudence, nor good judgement nor foresight, in choosing this as an object lesson about how screenwriting teaches you virtue.

Wisdom is demonstrated by appropriate actions at a given place and time. Just wait a cotton pickin’ minute! I do do that, yes I do. I am all about the unity of time and/or place and/or action in plot construction, aren’t I? Yes, yes I am. That would be a well-constructed plot people! Further, in expressing character development, I counsel myself and others to carefully consider the integration of place and time (aka plot) with illustrating a character’s personality and world-view, so lookit me! There is hope for me and the virtue of Wisdom. Even if my characters are choosing inappropriate actions at a given place and time – know what that is? That’s Comedy!
Wah-hoo.

I am very pleased to find myself on the other side of articulating the writer’s virtue of Wisdom, that was some heavy lifting. Think I’ll take a lap around the apartment and cool off a bit before driving to work.

3) Justice

My first thought here is that justice for a writer would lie in getting paid properly and promptly, receiving well deserved awards and recognition and having everyone treat your prose and scripts like the golden, sacred treasures of perfection that they truly are.

Okay, quit laughing, a girl can dream.

My second thought is that I’m a lot more comfortable talking about the comedic possibilities of pickles, but I have made my blog post bed for the week, so in it I shall lie, pickle-free until the final sentence. Sigh. Now I have a craving for pickles.

Once again this is a word I had to look up and given that I promised you a blog on the positive side, I may not now, when the going gets tough, default to whining about how my writing life is far fuller of affronts to the concept of Justice then it is of evidence of its presence. Maybe my blood sugar is just low. I’ll eat a sandwich and get back to you.

As defined by our friend Wikipedia, whom I use as a source today because I am feeling particularly intellectually challenged at the moment. Justice is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, fairness, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics.

Uh huh. Sounds impressive. I suppose that as a writer of fiction this is a concept which I actually work with frequently in that my characters are often embroiled in situations where they must pursue justice or right the balance of injustice. I do have an entire TV series concept around reluctant teenage superheroes after all (Raingirls).

Where the connection to my life as a writer leapt forth most strongly though was in checking out “natural law” given that Justice in its classical sense (from my Great-to-the-power-of-thirty-Grandfather Cicero again), is the defense of the code of ethics which spring from the examining of natural law where reason has been used to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules for moral behaviour. Round about now I bet you are hoping I go back to the pickles, aren’t you?

Almost pickle time, hang in with me a few more sentences, cause now we’re talking, that analyze human nature bit – then deduce rules for behaviour, that I can do. One of my favourite cocktail party sound-bites is to announce that I have no morals, only ethics. Unless the crowd has already heard this particular piece of self-aggrandizement someone always bites and asks the requisite follow-up question – what do I see as the difference between morals and ethics? Now here I do put on a bit of false humility and say that this is only my personal distinction of course, but in the Cocoverse, morals are rules around what everyone else tells you is right and wrong and ethics are rules that you have chosen and articulated as a result of on your own observation, study and deep reflection.

Well, that may well be the most boring and painfully built blog post of this Writer Laureates’ year, but at the very least I have demonstrated a large dose of writer’s fortitude (your word for the week) in that I was not going to let this topic get the best of me even if I did, in the end, have to reach for the pickles.

If you and we can both stand it, we still have four more Writer’s Virtues to stagger through next week. I can’t hardly wait.

Rusted Pyre Screening at the ROM for WSFF

Dillon Andrews

8 June 2011

The clouds menacingly hung over the ROM; their darkness a warning of an impending thunderstorm, which would surely put a hamper on the day. Thankfully, the rain held off and a happy crowd billowed into the lobby with their WSFF pamphlets and memorabilia in hand.

These short film enthusiasts, and short film filmmakers stood in anticipation for Worldwide Short Film Festivals package of short films entitled: Power Plays—films that are described on the CFC website as having themes where people find themselves “[…]wresting for control over each other, or themselves,” in what they call, “surprising, suspenseful and sweet battles of will.”

Films packaged as an official Power Play selection included Taipei Taxi, Picnic (Udflugt), The Renter, Two, The Combo (Le trio), The Tannery, Northeast Front (Frente noreste), and the most important of them all—the CSSC’s very own production—Rusted Pyre!
You know… the film we’ve been rambling on about on the blog since late last year… the one with the car and the fire… the creepy doll. You know which one I’m talking about!

Now, personally, I had missed the Thursday screening at Varsity Theatre, but the Saturday crowd was sufficient in allowing me to gauge how well received our film was at the festival.

I had joined up with Producer of Rusted Pyre, David Cormican, to watch this screening. Important guests included Gail Wilson (Mother of Samantha Somer Wilson—Ginny), and Brooke Palsson (who plays Sally in the film).

We headed into the theatre, and were treated to some interesting, fascinating tales told through an eclectic collection of short films. However, when Rusted Pyre came on the screen, I had goosebumps as I viewed our finalized project on the big screen, in front of an immersed and captivated crowd.

Gasps, sounds of shock, laughter, (and the low rumbling from the subway below the museum), all added to the experience and ambiance of the film. I had felt purely satisfied as I smugly said in my head, “this is the best film in this package.”

Rusted Pyre ended to one of the loudest choruses of applause that evening.

Following the 92 (or so) minute collection, the lights came on—and unfortunately a large chunk of the audience had left. Those more patient and wanting to get the full festival experience stayed to enjoy a quick Q&A session from the filmmakers in attendance that night.

David and Brooke took the stage to share their experiences in filming Rusted Pyre, and once again exited the stage to applause.

With that, WSFF had wrapped, and all involved with Rusted Pyre could leave with a grin on their face. Those who had viewed it had left with the impression that the CSSC is one heck of a competition, and that our mantra may have been proven. You know, Short.Is.Better.

Writing’s Deadly Sins II

Now this is not a make or break sin in the Cocoverse, but unfortunately I’m the only one who lives there full time so I have to include it on this list for those of you that are only occasional visitors here. Mostly what we share is the Reality Zone where people make much of misplaced commas and incorrect word choices. My favourite of these recently was in the pilot script for the hit TV show Prison Break where a character was described as “a cro-magnin browed thug”. For those of you scratching at your own brow – it should be Cro-Magnon. I guess it could have been worse. He could have said “cro-magnum” which would have made me LOL instead of just chuckle. As an aside, we don’t use the term “Cro-Magnon” any more. The powers-that-be have decided there really isn’t enough differentiation from use to call these guys a separate race so we are to refer to them as EMH – that’s Early Modern Human to those of you who never had a Master’s in Archaeology as a roommate. Hey, just to help expand your knowledge base, let’s make “coprolite” your word of the week

1 June 2011

I made you wait a bit for this week’s food for thought my lovelies, just so very much going on! I’ll try and reward your patience with some really tasty bits. And, since the Rock of Truth is staring at me I should say the reason is that I outlined this post earlier in the week and thought it was a lot more done than it actually is. Maybe I just dreamt I wrote it.

Continuing on from last week I’m listing Writings Deadly Sins. Of which of course there are at least seven, probably more, but seven is the classic reference so I’m sticking with it since I am nothing if not a fan of the classics.

You may remember the first two from last week? In any event for more hyperbole on those, check the archive.

First Deadly Sin of Writing – Not Using the Spaces Between
This is my articulation of one of writing’s greatest Waterloos – handling exposition. I am a huge proponent of ditching the voice overs and the talking heads and interweaving the setup of the story into the action of the piece. Use the Spaces Between is an exhortation not only to fill the spaces between plot points with action and conversation that illustrates parts of the story beyond the immediate, but also to use the between spaces of the character’s lives as efficient space-and-time delineated opportunities to express the story colourfully and memorably. Look at the Steve Martin character walking to work in the film “Roxanne” for a great example.

Second Deadly Sin of Writing – Telling Instead of Showing

This sin flows from committing the first sin. Characters making great speeches about things that have happened in the past or what is about to happen. Yawn. Characters imparting facts by speaking them straight out is dull, deadly and did I say it already? BORING. Further to this poor use of screen time (or stage time, or the first 10 pages of a novel) is characters that say what they mean to each other all of the time. People really don’t you know, we lie to each other constantly. One study claims we North Americans average 13 lies a day. Course now I can’t find the link to it, so maybe my memory is lying to me? Watch yourself tomorrow, see if you can catch yourself concealing, embellishing or downright fabricating. Now remember that all of your characters are doing the same.

Third Deadly Sin of Writing – Shoddy Proofing

For more on this deadly sin see Mr. Cormican’s blog post from early this year on proofreading your own material. God knows I’m the last one to give you advice on this aspect of the craft!

Fourth Deadly Sin of Writing – Not Writing

I think this one is sort of self-explanatory, isn’t it? What maybe needs to be said though is that if you are a writer and you are not writing it can actually be bad for your health. Indeed if you are a writer, then part of the nature of your beast is to have this continual pressure in your head of ideas and stories and words and phrases and verses and arguments and hymns and lists and sounds and smells and images. In order to keep your sanity and be a civil and contributing member of society you need to write. It needs to come out and come out in a manner over which you can exert some modicum of control. One of my writing gurus insists that if you avoid doing your work that tumult and trouble will creep into all aspects of your life, your relationships, health, and environment – all of it. For me I find he is correct. If I’m not writing everything in my life goes to Hell in a Hand basket. So write – even if it is crap that gets recycled or writing that you never intend to show to a soul. Eventually it won’t be garbage and you’ll find your way into a story or a scene or a snippet of dialogue and the Angels will sing.

Fifth Deadly Sin of Writing – Thinking You Suck

My guitar teacher will be recording me playing several songs before month’s end. I’d been sort of puzzled as to why he was going out of his way and making this extra effort on my behalf because it certainly isn’t something he’s doing for all of his students. I think I finally have it figured though. He knows that I think I suck. He also knows that I’m not hearing him when he praises my playing. He wants to record me so that he can play it back to me and make me experience the music from the outside. Currently I am so much on the inside of the song that I can’t see the forest for the trees or hear the music for the notes.

Careful that you don’t give up on your writing because you convince yourself you suck. Hey, maybe you do. But you aren’t going to get better by quitting, just like I’m never going to be able to play Leyenda like Angel Romero unless I can forgive myself for sucking now, and keep on playing. So keep on writing and take as gospel that writing is rewriting. In the Cocoverse the only time to stop writing is when the Deadline Bell tolls, or the Pomodoro timer dings or a production manager rips the pages from your hands because the cast and crew are standing by on set for the rewrites. Thinking you suck is the coward’s way out. Don’t take it.

Sixth Deadly Sin of Writing – Thinking You’re a Genius

I don’t have much personal experience with this one of course. Ding! That was my iLie iPhone app that senses when I’m lying by changes in my electrical field, pulse and respiration and is now dinging to report I’ve achieved my 13 lies per day quota. Rats, and it not even lunch time.

Alright, secretly I do think I’m a genius, but I’m not very proud of thinking that so while that makes me guilty of this sin I am fully aware of my guilt and therefore am in a position to mitigate the repercussions of my perfidy. Oh, such a good word, maybe that should be the co-word of the week “perfidy”. That’s also a nice little illustration of how being raised Catholic colours my prose. A nice little tip when you are working on your characters, whether they are black, white, yellow, brown or purple if they were raised in a tradition different than your own, be very aware of how that creeps into their world view and verbal expression.

Where was I? Oh, yeah sinning the sin of genius. Thing where is this bad for a writer is when you let yourself off too easily and slap something on the page that you know has flaws but you’re too afraid to address them because you can’t abide having your genius challenged.

Pretty sure writing geniuses still rewrite. And listen to good critiques. And say “thank you for your helpful input” to bad critiques. Which won’t even be a lie because crap critique is helpful – reminds you that you are a genius and therefore have a moral obligation to share it with others. Especially if they have paid you for your work and now want to give it to another writer in order to ruin it in a manner of which they don’t think you capable. Smile. Cash the cheque. Wish them luck and mean it. Don’t waste your energy being a prima donna and engaging in melodrama in the Reality Zone, instead go back to your ‘verse and write a new story.

Seventh Deadly Sin of Writing – Not Reading Enough

Another piece of advice that seems self-evident but bears repeating because without a large volume of writing intake you won’t have anything worth squat to output. While my evidence for this is anecdotal, it is my own personal anecdote so you can feel free to quote it as fact Having just completed my experimental month of no recreational reading as a way to encourage myself to write more of my own stuff I am ready to report. It was a failure. Instead of my head being filled with an extra portion of brilliant original writing thoughts and a boost of writing motivation, it pretty much had the same level going on, maybe even a bit less. So while I may have written slightly more, I don’t think the increase in verbiage output is statically significant. Mostly I just felt incomplete all month, like I was missing a body part. I felt lonelier than I have in many years. Also my writing felt more like hard work then it usually does. I did however watch a crazy number of Do-it-Yourself reality programming, so feel confident I can build you a deck or tile your bathroom, no problem.

I’m thinking we writers need a continual flow of words and images in order to stimulate our own flow. Our creative water pumps need constant priming if you will. Not reading in order to focus on my own thoughts seemed isolate me and cut me off from the Land of What If and Maybe. I might do it for short periods in the future in order to meet a burning deadline, but in all am a bit pleased and relieved that it was a failed experiment. I should rephrase, it could hardly be called a failed experiment when so much of such importance was learned.

Now I will say bye-bye. I must away to do some day job and then tonight to do my penance and pluck a novel at random off my groaning shelves, crack open the cover and pour the sweet water of imagination onto my parched and thirsty tongue.

Writing’s Deadly Sins

25 May 2011

It could be said that today is a true experiment in pushing the boundaries of a deadline given that it is now lunchtime on the West Coast and I’m just starting the writing of this post. I could blame double overtime of the playoff hockey game or the season finale of Glee last night or a guitar playing session of great intensity, all of which happened last night, but none of which provide the real reason for my glacial movements toward blogging.

In truth I think I’m feeling a little conflicted about blogging for you all today. Somebody is feeling a little left out of the action I think and as a result there is a certain odor of childish petulance floating in the air around yours truly today. Prompted in part by our friend Mr. Cormican’s exciting film biz schedule of the next few weeks with Yorkton this weekend and the big screening of the CSSC winning script Minus Lara as nominee for the Best of Saskatchewan award. A province whose name I still can’t, after a lifetime of trying, spell correctly on the first go. Then the Worldwide Short Film Festival going in the Big Smoke, where the short film from CSSC winning script Rusted Pyre is in competition, hot on the heels of debuting at Cannes as part of a Telefilm showcase. He also has a trip to ComicCon on the slate this summer. So all in all I am in the grips of a big batch of envy. Of course I could be doing all that stuff too. If. I. Had. Some. Finished. Scripts.

Okay, shooing all the little green toads of jealously that have popped out of my mouth, nose and ears in the last few minutes out the door and moving on to saying something about screenwriting. I actually feel confident in touching on this topic this week because I actually did some. Actually I did a bunch, which in the Cocoverse is the entire purpose of a holiday weekend, unlike the vast majority of my friends, family and colleagues all of whom seem to believe some combination of camping and BBQing is on the must do list.

So here’s the Thing. It’s really a thing in the way that we all have Things that bug us or rise up again and again to poke us where we live and this particular Thing is a writing Thing of which I first became aware long before I first set pen to page. In the Cocoverse it is the First Deadly Sin of Writing – Not Using the Spaces Between. Now I’ve touched on this before with you and in fact devoted my first short script The Lobby to exploring the Spaces Between a romantic relationship. In that case I told the entire romance thru the interactions between the lovers as they come and go from their respective apartments. We never see them in a restaurant, bedroom, gym, office, or even a car.

I first noticed the Spaces Between by watching movies and TV shows that make poor use of them. Long shots of cars pulling up to curbs and detectives walking up sidewalks to houses and protagonists moving down long office hallways, so many missed opportunities to illustrate character and deliver exposition and setup later plot twists. In the early days I just thought of these parts of movies and shows as boring, but as I trained as an actor and started to find my voice as a writer of scripts, I realized that is important to fill the Spaces Between not just because it is boring if you don’t, but because these spaces are, by their nature both brief and defined, and therefore the perfect delivery mechanisms for both plot and character. I think this is especially important when setting up your story and introducing all of your characters and plot points that are going to play out through the course of your story. I was reminded of the importance of this both in working on a short script this weekend, where there are two big moments of surprise, one off the top and another at the end, and in finishing up the first Act of a feature that, as a romantic comedy has more than my usually acceptable number of characters. In an effort to keep the protagonist central to the action of your story, keep your eyes open for the Spaces Between and use them to carry all the bits that you need to introduce.

For example I needed to reinforce (by which I mean hit for the third time) the plot point that the protagonist is an well liked ladies’ man, but I also had to introduce the major subplot, so I changed the liquor delivery person from a guy to a girl and thereby showed in one scene that the protagonist works multiple jobs, that he is a very likeable ladies’ man, that he is close friends with the antagonist, is recovering from a bad climbing accident and has a problem with the local biker gang. All while moving from the side walk, into the bar and back out again. How did I manage that in the space of 2.5 pages? Well, someday you’ll get a chance to buy a ticket and find out!

If you avoid the First Deadly Sin of Writing you also have a far better chance of avoiding the Second Deadly Sin of Writing – Telling Instead of Showing. This I first learned of as an actor being challenged by less than Pulizter prize winning script writing whereby I had to deliver a big chunk of information in a monologue in order to set up the rest of the action. One of the tricks they teach you as an actor is, when faced with such a challenge, find something to do, a physical activity that illustrates the character or theme of the piece that can work in opposition to what is being said. So if the character is swearing and ranting, try doing the whole scene while rocking a baby to sleep or decorating a cake or painting an airplane model. I once did a very dull speech whilst peeling an apple with a very sharp little knife. Completely not in the script, but it stole the show with its intensity and symbolic connection to the theme of loss of innocence. Many said it was the best scene in the play, which made me laugh as for my money (and the director’s) it was the most poorly written.

This show, don’t tell lesson is repeatedly brought home to me when I work as a story editor. I can’t begin to tell you the number of scenes I’ve jumped all over because the writer has a character describing an event or action to another. While time to time it must happen – see the scene in Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal forces Clarise to tell him the story of the lambs – you only get once a screen play in the Cocoverse and then by gum you better earn it. Which in this example it most certainly was given that the scene is not at all about the lambs, but about Hannibal extracting pleasure from torturing Clarise with the memory.

Okay lunch hour is almost over and I do need to eat something to banish the rest of the cranky and fuel a glorious afternoon full of work achievements, so we’ll leave the rest of the Deadly Sins for the next post.

Homework for the week is to look at one of your stories in progress, observe where your spaces between are, and then fill them with something amazing, delightful and essential!

Waxing Poetic & Vitriolic

18 May 2011

What I can tell you is that the ferret story alone is worth the price of admission. In fact I feel a short film script coming on Mr. Cormican!

This blog post will be at least in part an Ode to “Rusted Pyre”. In particular I will be waxing both poetic and perhaps a tad vitriolic in praise and defence of the writer of said short film, bowing at Cannes this month as part of Telefilm Canada’s Canada’s Not Short on Talent Showcase. Although quite frankly if the world hasn’t yet noticed the incredible genius of the output and talent of this sparsely populated and yet extremely artistically prolific nation, I’m a bit worried they haven’t got the brains God gave a goat.

Okay for the ferret story you need to go here and listen to it from David Cormican himself.

As to the rest, I state here now and in perpetuity that though I’ve yet to meet the film’s director Laurence Cohen, I have read and heard all interviews posted by Mr. Cormican, who is nothing if not a great supporter of the talented folk with whom he works. La-la-la hmmm okay I got lost somewhere there in the singing of praises. Probably because it doesn’t really come very naturally to me. I am more the “oops can’t remember your name because I am mildly resentful of the attention that you steal from me” type. Indeed hitherto, oh awesome I get very excited any chance I get to use the word “hitherto”. Okay, hitherto I have mostly felt slightly resentful of the writer, Mr. Audet. He did after all bump me out of the top 3 in the 2009 Canadian Short Screenplay competition. Oh, don’t be so literal. His script “Rusted Pyre” came third and my script “The Lobby” came fifth. So what if it doesn’t seem that close to you, it does to me.

Anyway, Mr. Cohen is busy being interviewed by the wide world as “his” film is bowing at Cannes. That I can’t abide you various reporters at CBC, the Ottawa Citizen, etc. Mr. Cohen has been lovely and crediting the writer, producer and cast with the film’s new celebrity, but I am still pissed at the interviewer’s lack of interest or focus on the producer or writer. Both of whom, I happen to know had kind of a HUGE influence on the success of “Mr. Cohen’s” film. As in it completely doesn’t exist if not for Mr. Audet and Mr. Cormican. So a little more credit where it is due please. Yes, I find myself picking up the banner of screenplay writers everywhere and loudly and shrilly demanding more applause for the writer.

I am also cognizant that this little tirade may earn me a few stern words for being a party pooper, but pooping the party is most certainly not my intent. In truth I am a little bit annoyed at myself for caring about Mr. Audet’s feelings. Not to mention being shrill is not good for a girl’s reputation, nor her complexion.

One of the things that all of us who aspire to write for the screen must be fully aware of is that once the film making machine sucks the fruit of your artistic labour into its big fat maw, you don’t matter squat to the world. That is what it is, though I hope you won’t be defeatist and accept what is as the way things should be. Fight back my Brothers and Sisters of the Pen! Be joyful and triumphant and gracious and collaborative, but don’t shrink off into the backroom while the director and actors pop the champagne!

Fortunately for us, there are in fact a goodly number of producers, directors and actors who are completely aware that they had nothing to do with the creation of your superb dialogue and riveting action sequences and those lovely film collaborators do try at every turn to thank you, the writer, for your genius. Sadly, neither the journalists of the world, nor the ravenous public which consume their stories wants to hear that the greying, overweight, guy in the back corner, with a pronounced squint, is the vehicle through whom the heavens have expressed themselves. Not that Mr. Audet fits any of that physical description, that would be me transferring my own self-image into the mix, but you get my point.

Anyhoo suffice it to say if you want to be a famous writer, write a novel, if you would prefer to be well paid but unsung, stick to screenwriting and TV writing. There is a big upside to that lack of public notice though, you still get to go to some cool parties and hang out by the pool with the pretty kids, but you won’t have your latest 5 lb. weight gain or broken heart splashed across the headlines, nor will you and your children have to suffer the attentions of the stalkarazzi.

Now to this week’s writer’s navel lint. For the last few weeks I have been musing much about how to increase my creative output whilst defending my health, and still giving full value to my day job, friends and family, and of course my intimate relationship with my guitar. I’m trying something new, and don’t freak out because it is a bit outside the box, even for me.

I’ve stopped reading. Yes, I can hear your sudden gasp echo thru cyberspace. What fresh heresy is this? (Heresy is your word for the week) Like most writers, I am a super voracious reader, not to be confused with being a vociferous reader, which I can also be, but that is another blog post. Yes, since I was a small child I have been legend amongst those who know me for the speed and quantity of written material that I consume. A few years back a young friend asked me how many books I read in a year and how many books I read at one time, he seemed to think that the fact that at any one time I have 3-5 on the go was unusual? When I estimated my yearly consumption to be “around a hundred”, probably more if you count the partial reads or re-reads of history texts or writing books. But yah, most years somewhere between 50 and one hundred novels. Some years less, but certainly never fewer than 25 or so. Thus you see that for me to stop reading fiction cold turkey is quite the notable event. My thought being that if I get bored and need a story fix, that I have to provide it for myself. Now we are only about 10 days into the experiment, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

In the meantime – our homework for the week is to watch three short videos – my pick of the week is Mina Shum’s Hip Hop Mom – and read one TV pilot script. For me this week will be the pilot script for Prison Break.

Whacking Into Curbs

11 May 2011

Okay, where have I been and when did they start making jelly-filled Tim-bits? Not that it is something I should know as my perpetual battle of of the bulge in general keeps me far away from doughnut counters of all kinds.

Still my three Tim-bit allotment this a.m. was a bit of a shock. And okay it is true that I allowed myself to have them because I’ve had 10 days of healthy eating perfection, but even more because I’m writing and video deadline swamped and therefore feeling hard done by, and think I’m coming down with a cold and thus once again eating to make myself feel better. Rats. Well, must attend to some work deadlines first my chickens so more junk-drawer-head thoughts in the lunch hour.

Lunch hour is upon me and I’m not hungry, yet another sign that a head cold is screaming down the train tracks in my direction, so apologies in advance for just a few words today and those to be taken with a good dose of vitamin C. Pause to take vitamin C.

Now, I’m not sure I have much left to teach you all in terms of the art, craft and business of writing, but then I suspect you aren’t really tuning in to my posts on this blog for the nuts and bolts type of advice that you can find not only elsewhere, but delivered by those with far more impressive resumes than I. I chose to think that what most of you enjoy are the more colourful philosophical material and the eternal struggle reports that, like as not make you feel better about your own life as a screenwriter, either because you are happy to learn that you are not alone in a particular struggle, or you have no idea what I’m going on about and therefore feel better about yourself because you think, “Whew, she sounds pretty messed up about this, good thing I don’t have that going on in my life. Hey, maybe that makes me better then her?” Yup, it just might my friend.

That preamble to set the scene for the things I’ve been thinking this week. Mostly I’m thinking about how to live the Dream. Seems I have plenty of support from friends, colleagues and family in pursuit of my dream of becoming a full-time screenwriter, with enough cash in the bank to seriously entertain writing several months of the year in the south of France. Or heck, even a nice summer cabin in Quebec. What I’ve been wondering about though, especially with this week’s progression of events, is how am I really going about doing that? Have I actually written out a business or life plan?

Am I following a map or am I careening(your word of the week) the car-of-me along the road of my-writer’s-life whacking into curbs and billboards and livestock and old people in walkers and lovers on bicycles built for two just wishing and hoping that at some point I’d get a chance to pull over to help a motorist in distress and they’d turn out to be McG or Jane Espenson or Lawrence Kasdan or William Goldman or Joss Whedon or Hart Hanson or Lyn Greene or Gale Anne Hurd or Nora Ephron and they’d be so grateful that they’d ask to read everything I’ve ever written and dedicate themselves completely to the promotion and advancement of my screenwriting career. Hey, could happen. But in the meantime, do I have a plan? And if I do, what are the concrete actions in that plan?

Good questions huh? Sure wish I had some good answers. I know that first and foremost I need to write every day and have a steady output of product, however slow. And I know I’m supposed to volunteer and network and send out cheerful updates to the few influential industry folks that I do have on my list. The more I thought about this, the more I realized I’m going to have to sit down this weekend and put something down on paper. My thinking also made me wonder, you do hear so much advice to “follow your dream” “do what you love and the success will follow” and “listen to your heart” often contradicted by further advice from the same source to “have a plan B” “something to fall back on” or “be realistic”.

Urrrgh. It’s no wonder when I think about how I am pursuing my dream that I’m a bit confused about how that chase is supposed to go and what exactly are the small things that I’m supposed to do each day to add up to a big screenwriting success?

I’ve also spend some navel gazing time this week thinking I’m being too easy on myself and that I must demand more action and product in every single day. Then someone makes a comment about how hard I am on myself and I go ??

Brought home big time at guitar lesson last night. See, I told you there is much to be learned about your writing by looking at how you approach other pursuits and creative outlets, didn’t I?

Case in point was I ran through the songs that I’ll be recording in about a month (don’t panic, strictly as an annoyance gift to friends and family) after having intro’d my teacher to a new song that I fell head over heels in love with a few days ago and have been playing obsessively. I played it slowly, but well and he thanked me for introducing him to it. He is very polite. I went on and ran through the pieces I’ve been polishing and during my mini recital I found myself wondering if he was bored stiff having to listen to my inexpert fumbling. Then he went beyond polite and shocked me speechless, which now that you know me a bit you might find incredible, I know I did.

He said he really loved to hear me play that he was so impressed with depth of involvement with the music and he was thrilled that as a teacher for him that was the best thing to have a musician draw him into the song. “Really?” was all I managed in response. And he continued on to reveal the method in his madness of wanting to record me because he wants me to hear what I sound like from outside the music. So here I am, thinking that I play like crap and there he is telling me the opposite. Apparently there is something about the imperfect way I play that is riveting. Further that it is the tiny imperfections in the playing of a song that makes us love one interpretation over another. Reminds me once again that as a writer, I’m not paid for the idea, I’m paid for my expression of that idea. Ideas are cheap. Expression is priceless.

That whole lesson produced food for writer thought in many ways I think. First in the being too self-critical, watch it, it may not only be harmful to your motivation to continue, but you could just be totally wrong in your self judgement. Second that along the path to success placing nose to grindstone every day produces not a ground down nose, but rather a big pile of organic unbleached flour ready to be made into fabulous pasta, scones, bread and screenplays. Not to mention that daily application of even a few minutes writing or practicing does in the long run transform your life, as an artist and a craftsperson producing product. Finally, step outside the writing from time to time. Try and read with fresh eyes and hear with fresh ears. Hey, there is a thought, cough up some snacks and put out the punch bowl and invite a few folks over to read your script out loud.

Speaking of coughing – off I go to do some of that. Also the fact that I lapsed into a bad food metaphor toward the end of this post might mean I’m finally hungry for lunch.

Next week a few more thoughts on the plan for the Dream. There. Now that I’ve promised you something I will be motivated to do the work. But I might also book a massage and work in a Saturday mini-marathon with my Season 4 Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD.

Strange Days Indeed

I’ve written a lot this week. Again both on my current priority feature script and also at the day job, where I was called on the carpet by a co-worker for having my sparkle switch in the “off” position whilst writing a news release. Yes, she actually said that. That would be the downside of having my day job colleagues read this blog, they now are unable to settle for a clear and precise recitation of facts. They are demanding some sizzle with their steak. Hmmm. steak. That brings to mind the upcoming Yorkton Film Festival and the Lobster Blast.

4 May 2011

Strange days indeed. Okay Carolynne, it is time for the rubber to hit the road on this blog post. I confess to feeling a bit scattered at this time of writing. Big to-dos in the world this week. I suppose there are always such things going on so it would be more accurate to say, “Big to-do’s in my world this week.” Got me thinking a bit about how such historic events affect my little life and in particular my writing practice. In a week where true love is served, the biggest of the bogeymen killed and the composition of my countries government shaken to its foundation, I bring the thoughts around to little ole me. As you’ve probably ascertained by now if you follow this blog, thinking about me is something I have elevated into an art form. See, that previous sentence was as perfect as example of the self at the centre of the Cocoverse as any I’ve ever penned.

You can be forgiven for scratching your head and wondering what Yorkton and Lobster have to do with each other, I sure did. First off my almost complete ignorance of Canadian geography came to the fore last year when I discovered that Yorkton was in the province of Saskatchewan, not, as I had thought in Ontario. I guess I had it confused with Yorkville. Yikes. I’m picturing the map of Canada in my head and realizing that I would probably get Nova Scotia and New Brunswick mixed up. Guess I need to spend an hour or two reacquainting myself with a map.

My shortcomings as a geographer aside, Yorkton was a hoot last year, such a wonderful little festival, not at all like the biggies in Vancouver and TO. No posing please you’re on the Prairies. I attended as a guest of the organizers by virtue of being on last year’s CSSC’s finalist list, which is a super perk by the way and I strongly suggest to this year’s finalist’s that they find a way to attend, you won’t regret it, even if you don’t win (which I didn’t, I came fifth, again, gee did I tell you that already? don’t seem to be letting that go any time soon, do I?) I still dream of that borscht they served at the awards dinner.

But I was talking about Lobster, wasn’t I? No steak! Ah if you can convince them to cook it for you medium rare, the steaks on offer at the Lobster Blast (for those of us sadly allergic to that noble crustacean) are astounding. Prairies are absolutely the place to indulge in a piece of red meat if you are so inclined but be advised, old school prairites tend to cook it medium well by default. Right enough of the food talk, on to the writing talk. I really enjoyed meeting and hanging with the other finalists, they are such interesting people from such different places. They’ve all earned a place of honour on my contact list and indeed now that I’m feeling all nostalgic, I think I’ll send them all a shout out and see what’s up with who.

Sadly I will not be gracing the fest with my presence this year as I am hoarding my pennies to get one of my short scripts on film. I’ve finally decided to stop waiting for the universe to magically make it happen and get it done myself. Maybe that is the key side effect of the larger events in the Cocoverse of late. I’m writing more on three projects that are my top priority.

I am also making more of an effort to connect with my community of creative peeps. (Insert a special thanks to Skyhammer and Squishy for the recent red wine, pizza and hugs night, hmm, can you tell someone is dieting by the volume of food talk in this post?) Skyhammer’s game start-up for iPad and iPhone is poised to break globally – Bounty Island and Squish is putting the finishing touches on her first novel “The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer” which will be available as an eBook this June. Bet you can see where she got the inspiration for the name of her protagonist, wink, wink, say no more.

Another big shout out must go to writer/director/producer Michelle Muldoon for sharing her buzz still going strong a week after wrapping her shoot of her new short A Rendezvous. She gave me a great pep talk about my getting The Lobby on screen during this week’s Ink Canada coffee klatch hosted here in Vancouver by the lovely and amazing Kat Montague. All you film and writing types should come join us to imbibe caffeine and inspiration at our monthly chat – first Sunday of every month 10:30-12:30 at The Grind at 25th and Main. I know it is scary for a lot of you writerly types to just show up, but hey, you know me! I’ll be there. Again I think you might be surprised at how much easier it is to keep your own focus on your writing after a good gab about the trials and tribs of the writing life with some peeps. Post Ink Coffee I write like a bandit. Of course that could be the effect of the large coffee I swill, served in a beer mug. Give us a try. We’re cheaper than therapy.

Okay I think that is me for this week. Now going to look for an academy award winning script to download to my iPhone and read at lunch tomorrow – the guitar fingers are going to take a day off. And also going to check out the article about the selection of short films that Telefilm is taking to screen at Cannes along with Rusted Pyre, produced by our own David Cormican from a CSSC finalist script. Oh, soooo cool, Rusted Pyre‘s author Daniel Audet sent me a link to the video directed by Laurence Cohen – check it out!

Until next week my lovelies, write lots and have a look at how, or if, the big events of the world, affect your work. I am interested to hear your thoughts on that!

Severed Demon Ears

27 Apr 2011

In the interests of being an highly efficient creative person who sucks the juice out of every moment and every opportunity of every day, here is me in that weird Tuesday interval between work and guitar lesson with a little more than an hour to devote to the crafting of this, a blog of bits, or a blog of many parts, or a quilted blog perhaps cobbled together from the 5.6 billion thoughts about writing and a writer’s life that I’ve had since I last set digits to keyboard. Cool, a five line sentence. You should probably take that as a warning to run for the hills or at least top up your water bottle and make sure your shoelaces are tightly tied before you settle in to read this.

In this time period, I generally practice a little guitar, sneaking in one last practice session before the 6:15 lesson. The strangest thing about being a devotee and obsessive of the guitar, is the weeks are marked by the length of time since, or to, the lesson. And regardless of how much I’ve practiced (and this week that amount borders on an almost embarrassingly large number of hours), it never feels like enough.

The two thoughts almost always present at lights out are: 1) I didn’t write enough today; and 2) I didn’t play enough guitar today.

This past writer’s retreat weekend I can tell you that for at least two of those four days, I wasn’t thinking those thoughts. I was thinking about how I played too much guitar and wrote too much and how was I going to sleep with my hands throbbing as they were? One of the constants I tried out this weekend was a 100% alcohol free zone, the idea being that I was going to eschew (your word for the day), any activity that would distract me from true thoughts. Well, it worked.

Okay, nice try Demon Resistance, very crafty getting me to note the word of the day and then realize I still haven’t made a list of all the “words of the week” mentioned in this blog and therefore my mortal soul was in the serious jeopardy posed by the possibility of committing the unforgivable sin of repeating a word of the week.

See, even if it is a pseudo legit thought sometimes the little Resistance Gremlins can turn it into a feast. Then, the next thing you know, you are in a writing cul-de-sac circling the central flower bed as you open a document, scan it, locate word-of-the-week, switch to your word-of-the-week document, type out the word with the corresponding week number and then repeat 41 times. How much writing time do you think that would suck up when it is less than 24 hours ’til deadline? ARggggh. Caught this one early though, so not too much harm done. Though I did get to Blog the 8th before I came to my senses.

It was something I became highly aware of this weekend when I got caught in one of the biggest and most dangerous of screenwriting cul-de-sacs: character naming. Now currently my protagonist’s name is Elliot and he works for his friend, Ernesto. For some time now this has been weighing on my mind, as I do subscribe to the fairly widely held writerly view that you shouldn’t have any of the names of your seven main characters repeat the first letter. Just one of those things that help readers distinguish Fred from Franco.

So, I’ve known for a while that I would need to change Ernesto’s name, but like a well-disciplined writer, I recognized that renaming characters is best left until the first draft is complete and one can see how everybody connects and who has turned out to be pivotal. But nooooo, I start thinking maybe I should change it now and how ’bout Paolo in honour of my friend Pablito. But since his is neither Italian or Latin, nor the 63 years of age that the character is, it started to seem a bit silly. Then I thought maybe Giovanni or Lorenzo. Giovanni was the name of my great-grandfather, the last of my direct line born on Italian soil at the end of the 19th century. Then I started thinking about my family tree and smack! All of a sudden I’m not writing the scene where Ernesto is calling out Elliot for his bad behaviour, I’m thinking about the 17th great-great-great uncle etc. who was a Cardinal and that leads to wondering if my family line crosses the Borgia’s anywhere and checking the clock to see how long it is until the Borgias are on TV. Then I remember that I’m not allowed to watch TV this weekend and GET BACK TO WRITING. So I got up, got a glass of water with extra ice and sat down again.

I wonder, if even after my year as #WW CSSC Writer Laureate concludes, if I will still spontaneously wake up at 5:30 a.m. on Wednesdays, stagger to my computer and dump my writer thoughts for the week onto a page?

In the meantime I am pretty sure that I have a couple more thoughts to share about my screenwriting Writer’s Retreat. First off, it did turn out to be all about screenwriting. Nary a song nor novel nor stage play leapt to the fore. It was all feature romantic comedy all the time.

Interesting. I was just about to spin you a tale full of my magnificent focus and total adherence to all of the constants that I set out in last week’s post. But, you know what? Then, I’d be liar, liar, pants on fire and the Rock of Truth would fall off the shelf and bonk me on the head.

So, suffice it to say that I did mostly adhere to my constants.

I did watch The Borgias, but otherwise the TV was off.

I did read a few pages of a novel, but only while eating breakfast. Otherwise… no books.

I did stay off social media and the phone.

And so, I did get some great pages written and lots of quality sleep and enough guitar to make you think that at some point I must be getting pretty good.

You’d be wrong about that, but that’s okay, it keeps me from shoveling potato chips in my mouth and since no words of my own were involved this time around, it did keep me focused.

Also, I am developing some seriously buff fingers.

An unexpected and very significant side effect of this enforced quietude, was the sheer volume of self-reflection which occurred. That was not so much fun. Important, but not fun. Especially when the going got rough and the usual escape mechanisms of story, comfort food, wine and listening to music or talking with people were closed. Not only did I have to talk to myself, I had to listen, whether or not it was pleasant to hear. Indeed, so much a part of the retreat experience was this, that it seems a bit disingenuous to describe it as a side effect, for it was at the centre of all– even the good writing.

From the outside, I’m sure the whole thing looked very Spartan and contemplative.

From the inside, it was anything but. As every insecurity I’ve ever had as a screenwriter, a woman and a human being, all tried to take a swipe at me at some point or another.

I’m happy to say that I realized this was happening fairly early on and armed myself with a host of bright sparkly feel-good phrases and a few very sharp blades of acceptance to cut a swath through the swarms of Doubt Demons. It was a lesson though that I share with you so that you will be forewarned. Those in your life may think you are having a spa weekend full of pampering and luxurious writing time, but the reality is that you are entering battle naked and alone having shed the usual mechanisms of distraction and mediation in an effort to push a project out of a long darkness and back into the light.

It was a reaffirmation of why I like my stories in books and on film – wandering in someone else’s LOWIM (Land-Of-What-If-and-Maybe) keeps me from having to face the flesh-eating demons and piratical ambushes on my own. That having been said, the thrill and joy and ultimate tired satisfaction of a good-job-well-done achieved through journeying and labouring and battling in the LOWIM of mine own far outstrips the attractions offered by any other.

And so I return to you with fresh wounds and old scars newly opened, a bloody rag bound around my brow and a definite limp on the left leg. But that is also a fierce and terrible grin on my face and a sack of severed Doubt Demon ears dragging behind.

Now back to reality and the day job and friends, a brief space to catch breath, sharpen blades and patch my bloody hide before returning to the fray.

Skeletons of Chicken Past

20 Apr 2011

It is spring. At last. Here in the Cocoverse that means it is time for a Writer’s Retreat. This is a bi-annual event wherein a long weekend becomes a sacred escape for my stories and I to renew our acquaintance and deepen our bond.

When I’m in funds, that usually means a cabin or lodge by the ocean with luxury spa and gourmet restaurant within staggering distance. This year given that the contents of the penny jar have been promised to the production fund for my short film The Lobby (a Canadian Short Screenplay Competition finalist), an escape on the cheap will be the ticket. But regardless of whether there is cash for treats or not, whether the spot is a luxury suite, a friend’s guestroom or the interior of my lofty garret on Vancouver’s east side, here are few Writer’s Retreat constants:

First Constant: No people, no talking. This is a vow of silence. Well not really silence, but a vow of not talking to other actual people. I can talk to the walls, the goldfish, the angels, my muse or my characters. I may talk to a recording device if I feel I can be disciplined enough not to use it for playback. But otherwise no phone calls, email, texting, instant messaging or person to person chit chat. If order in pizza, I just smile nice at the delivery person and hand over the cash.

I can talk to myself as well, but rarely do, since that usually ends up in an argument complete with tears and recriminations.

Second Constant: No pre-recorded music. I know. You may be recoiling in horror at the idea that I plan to spend 4 days with no iPod, no YouTube, no CD player and no Spa Music Channel. You might think you’d die if sentenced to such a void. But you know what? I didn’t say no music. Sing, drum, play the spoons, and in my case play guitar until my hands ache. The music I need to be listening to on Writer’s Retreat is in my head and my heart. It is the music that comes to me from the Great Void when I’m struggling to set the scene. It is the music that my characters crave and create.

Third Constant: No electronic devices. Yep, that means writing by hand people! No computer, no Internet, no phone, no TV and no Playstation. Can’t even check the horoscope on my iPhone. Is that another gasp of dismay? How can I write without Movie Magic and the riches of information at Google’s beck and call?

Hmmm Beck and Call, wonder where that expression comes from? Oh, I know, I’ll go Google it. Okay, that was relatively quick, 3 minutes to find out that “beck” was a shortened form of “beckon” in common use in old English and “call” means just what we know it to mean today. Makes sense. But did you know that “beck” or “beckon” means to call someone silently with a nod and a gesture. I never knew that. I guess that means if your character both beckons and calls that would indicate they are quite emphatically using both voice and body language to catch someone’s attention.

Okay, all in all, that little wander took about 6 minutes and I’m pretty sure it isn’t going to make it into one of my scripts (except perhaps as a soliloquy given to a character meant to be slight annoying in their obsession with the origins of English idiom). Idiom is your word for the day since any of you writers out there who did not major in the Arts (like me, science girl that I am), likely don’t really know what it is… Yet another thing taught to me by my Francophone friend Pablito. Why the Spanish nickname for the Francophone friend? He might just have a thing for Latin women, but you didn’t hear it from me.

Alright back to the constants (and deliberately not called rules because Pablito hates rules and he is on my mind today). The writing by hand thing and no Internet research is because this Writer’s Retreat is all about writing original pages, no rewrites and no being distracted by the history of Japanese sword making. This Writer’s Retreat is about picking 3 of my 85 screenplays in progress and pushing them just as far as I am able. So if I have an idea that I need to research, it goes down on the “To Research” notepad for follow-up after the writing is done.

With backing away from the keyboard, the idea is to remove some of the flotsam and jetsam that can so easily get in the way of writing. In my case, that is self-editing. Typing means serious work is being done and thoughts are being prepared to face the big bad world. Writing by hand keeps the Tribunal of Nit-Pickers at bay.

They tend to come a-running when I sit down at the keyboard and the clack of keystrokes fills the air. It is usually a rotating cast of critical characters wearing the faces of family, teachers, friends, colleagues and acquaintances who don the musty brownish robes of judgement, which smell faintly of cat pee and frying liver, who stand at my shoulder and make really unhelpful comments as I work. So a couple times a year, I declare a Writer’s Retreat and get out the legal pads and box of pencils and pens.

The Fourth Constant: Lots and lots of paper and pen choices. I can be a bit fickle when settling into the orgy of creativity that is the Writer’s Retreat, so I find it important to have a wide variety of implements of writery and notebooks, scrap paper, post-its, pencil crayons, pens, pencils and felt tips.

I never know what combination is going to work until the moment I set the kitchen timer for my first 25 minute Pomodoro and get underway. And I do keep a backup pencil sharpener handy, ’cause ya never know.

The Fifth Constant: Take out the garbage and sweep the floor. This is critical if one is being super cheap and staying home. Otherwise the Dust Bunnies and Skeletons of Chicken Past will take the place of the aforementioned Tribunal of Nit-Pickers and distract me. And once I take a break to sweep the floor and scrub the toilet, I feel all virtuous and entitled to goof off for a few minutes and the next thing you know the butt is on the couch and two hours of time are shot watching Wipeout and Diners, Drive-ins & Dives. Two TV programs that, while delightful, cannot, except in the most illogical extreme, be considered research.

Sixth Constant: Stock the pantry. And only of good stuff that is healthy and quick to prepare. That low-sugar instant oatmeal is good, as are eggs, fruit, yogurt, Cheerios, a loaf off multigrain bread and one of those BBQ chickens from the deli counter. Dont’ forget the pickles. And of course a couple bottles of wine. Though it is a writing weekend not a drinking and binging weekend so a glass or two in the evening is plenty.

You know what? I think I’m just about ready to commune with my Muse and generate a large stack of script pages. Getting kinda excited actually, ’cause hey, I get to enjoy a romantic romp in the Rocky Mountains, a nail-biting thriller chasing down the coast of Vancouver to Mexico, and a very sexy little shocker set in an exclusive penthouse on Vancouver’s west side. Where will my exact geographical location be whilst I enjoy this excursion into my imagination? I could tell you, but a then you might be tempted to crash.

Which would be alright if you pledged to uphold the Covenant of Constants and maintain a vow of silence from sunrise to sunset, then crack open one of those nice bottles of wine that you brought – a Mission Hill Reserve Shiraz for preference, or a nice French Sancerre – and regale me with a rollicking tale from your day of journey into LOWIM (the land-of-what-if-and-maybe).

Skeletons of Chicken Past

13 Apr 2011

I can talk to myself as well, but rarely do, since that usually ends up in an argument complete with tears and recriminations.

The Raisin Bread of Me

13 Apr 2011

I think it is true that the world looks a bit different at 6 a.m. when you are staring down the nickel-plated barrel of a deadline.

Or, as many writers visualize it, the dreaded blank page or even worse, the blinking cursor.

Ah, yah, now you’re all nodding, that little black line strobing away, waiting for you to command it into action.

I have an irrational and useless idea that I want to get my metronome out, or in modern parlance, my iPhone-with-metronome-app and see if I can time how many beats per minute the cursor strobes at. Now that would be a useful piece of knowledge, don’t you think? Drop that little tasty tidbit into conversation at your next Writer’s Coffee Klatch and accept the flood of praise and adoration from your peeps. And think of all the writing time it would chew up as you did the calculation. Better yet, hop on the Internet and Google it. surely someone out there has posted the standard cursor blink rate and likely there is a message board somewhere that will tell you how to customize the blink rate in various word processing programs.

See, once again, you observe how I just let the fingers start moving and the next thing you know I’m a’ writin’ away. Peeps are the topic du jour. I’ve been thinking about my peeps a lot this week. Mostly in happy ways while humming “I’ll get by with a little help from my friends.” But also with a few thoughts for good friends who do bad things and bad friends who masquerade as good friends. This train of thought encouraged by a few things happening of late. The recent writer’s festival in Ojah, CA where a bunch of my Sisters of the Pen renewed friendship and reignited each others passion for poetry and prose. The Toronto Screenwriter’s Conference this weekend past where my friend and mentor Dara Marks (Inside Story), shared her amazing insights into storytelling in general and screenwriting in particular. And of course the recent WGC Awards where a few peeps I know in person, and lots of peeps I know through Twitter, and even more that I’d love to know, were hanging out having a grand time and celebrating each other. Also, I wish I was there. But I am always with my writer peeps in spirit, if not in the flesh, and in truth from some of the feedback I get from my non-writer peeps, it may be better that way. As I understand it, I am an acquired taste, particularly in person. It is a bit odd to discover that some people like you better in writing than in person. I guess that might be because they can shut me up and out more easily.

As an aside though, have you ever noticed that the friends who need to point out to your face that you are somewhat opinionated, are themselves pegging into the red zone on the opinionated scale themselves? Indeed I’m thinking that the few who have used the O word to my face have in fact been people whom I would rate much higher both in expressing their opinions and in the inflexibility of their opinions. And they always say it like it is a bad thing. I think perhaps they are just saying that I annoy them when my opinions don’t align with their own, and when I, horrors, dare to ask them to support their opinions with documented facts and logical thought process. Hey I’ll even accept a gut feeling as your rationale if that’s all you have got, but don’t get cranky because I ask you to explain yourself.

I like people expressing their opinions to me. How are you supposed to have a conversation or learn anything new if you don’t share opinions and discuss them? It’s not like I’m stubborn about them. I love it when someone can sway or change my opinion with a good argument, set of data, or insight that I have hitherto been unaware.

It’s got me wondering though, if, in order to have friends, I need to keep my opinions to myself more often. But then I think that can’t be so in the light of one of my besties telling me recently that my crazy and wide ranging opinions are what she likes best about me – this in a conversation where she was sharing that a mutual friend thought I should be much more reserved in my gum flapping. Hmmm. Nope. Self-censorship in this respect is, in my opinion, a no-no. What happens if I pick out all the raisins in the bread of me to suit a complainer only to find out that someone I actually like better anyway, adores absolutely everything about the plump juicy, chock-full-of-raisiness of me. Spellcheck is telling me that raisiness isn’t a word, and I am politely, but resolutely, responding, “That is your opinion.”

Peeps. Love ‘em. I’m looking at a hand-crafted card from one of them as I write. It is a get-well-cheer-you-up type of card and I gotta say, it sure did. Old fashioned, I know, but it is sure nice to get something in the mail slot that isn’t trying to sell me something or demanding payment for something I purchased. Nice emails are good too, of course, but if you have a writer peep that you are trying to cheer, I recommend sending them something. Some actual thing.

In my opinion, every writer’s workspace needs good desk junk. And I bet many of you will agree with my opinion, that the best desk junk comes as a gift from someone you love and respect. I have my Rock of Truth from the aforementioned Dara Marks, my get happy card with custom Pac-person cartoon from children’s book author Paola Opal,

a brass camel from a Dubai souk from my cousin and a screenplay brad hammer from the CSSC as part of my finalist prize package from the first year I placed among that august group. That is your word for the week – august – simply because I’m in a bit of a mood today and it just might be one of the least useful words that has ever appeared in this blog. And yes, there is such a thing as a Screenplay Brad Hammer, so you should all rush out and get one. Not really, but it is useful for nuts and tacking rejection slips up on your Wall of InFamy.

What you don’t have a Wall of InFamy? Jeepers, then what do you do with the cheque stub from your first 1$ option payment, or the FOAD letters from publishers and pull-quotes from Charlie Sheen? I used to have one of those paper spikes, those are awesome too for impaling all the crap that the universe throws your way: parking tickets, the letter stating they refunded you too much GST and want their money back even though you already spent it on a new screenplay brad hammer, not to mention rejection letters and pictures of old boyfriends posing with their new playmate/rocket scientist girlfriend.

It was fabulous too, for impaling any verbal insults that I had incurred during my day’s journey through the world. I would just write them on a scrap of paper and slam them on The Spike. I had to switch to a Wall of InFamy though when I accidentally gave myself a stigma while slamming down a criticism from a co-worker who said I was overly self-involved. So the Wall of InFamy must do as long as I continue to aspire to guitar playing and screenwriting greatness. I do miss The Spike though.

Both writer peeps and non-writer peeps can give you tons of great love and support, though I’ve noticed that it can be very different.

Non-writer peeps seem to have this idea that you are fully aware every minute of every day of your writerly awesomeness, and often talk about how creative you are as if were some expensive spa moisturizer that you could slather on to balm the dry scaly cracked skin you’ve developed from being out in the desert of development or rewrite hell too long. It makes me think that writers might have different hells than regular folk. It may be very akin to the hells of painters and musicians.

Hmm, I’m going to think on that.

Maybe next week’s post will be “The Seven Hells of Screenwriting”. Unless someone reads this and steals the idea. Ohhh, that’s gotta be one right there, the hell of “Stolen Ideas”. Which has to include the grand hell of I-spent-a-year-developing-a-series-pitch-only-to-see-exactly-the-same-idea-in-the-fall-lineup.

In any event, while non-writer peeps can be not entirely well-informed about the whole writer thing, they are often incredibly loving and well-intentioned. Strangely though, while they often ask what they can do to help you write more, faster, better, when they hear the answer “support me financially”, they always seem to be surprised. Even though that could just mean pay for the snacks at the next wine club, or better yet, come bye and clean my bathroom. Yes, I do love the offer but wonder what they really mean, since taking over my chores or paying the cable bill never seem to be exactly how they would like to help. On the huge plus side, they always ask what I’m working on and have the good grace to appear both excited and deeply awed by my response. It makes me feel special and a girl can really never get too much of that. So I’ll take the rah-rah and figure out the toilet scrubbing and wine payments for myself, simply because my friends are so much better at making me feel positive and special than I am myself.

Writer peeps are the comrades in arms that everyone entering battle needs. But you may not picture writing as a battlefield. I mean come on, it is supposed to be fun, right? Otherwise why do it? Squishy pointed me to a fellow writer’s blog last week (apologies as I have lost the link), where he asked the question – If you knew you would never be published (or produced) or make a dime from your writing, would you write anyway? Would it change what you write? His thought is that you need to answer “yes” otherwise writing may not really be for you.

I, however, am still chewing this over as I wonder if I fully concur with his opinion. Aren’t dreams an integral part of creating art? Isn’t the dream of sharing them widely a powerful driver in creation. If you are just going to do monologues in a mirror for your own amusement, or paint to recapture a feeling of childish abandon, isn’t that, in the words of an actor friend, just, um, masturbation? Not that there is anything wrong with that (in my opinion), but it seems kind of sad to me, to sit down at my desk everyday creating stories to cut me off and keep me from needing others. While I do write first for my own amusement, I do find it sort of well, sad and lonely to think it should be my most important purpose, or my sole purpose.

Okay, there is the timer, so guess I’ll have to post on the afternoon coffee break. In reading this over I see that I didn’t talk nearly enough about the Joy of Peeps, but instead took a connection with a peep and went off on a tangent. And then did it all over again. Thinking in bursts again, instead of straight lines. Sorry, must be Spring. I promise next week to take you on a straight line through Writer Hell, okay?

Anyone believe that?

Nope.

Me neither.

The Blank Page

8 Apr 2011

We’ve all been there. Staring at the blank page, wondering if this is the day it’s going to beat us.

And sometimes it does.

Is there any wonder why writers are a little crazy, getting their asses kicked by an inert white hole that wins by just sitting there and doing nothing?

This can go on for days, even weeks. Months. Heck, even years.

The fear can easily become greater than the will to write. We hear, day in and day out as we study the craft of writing, all the things we must do to prepare:

We must be readers as well as film goers.
We must understand the rules of grammar, and be able to format our screenplays to industry standards.
We must study character development and come up with ever-more complex plot twists that will surprise an increasingly jaded audience. Not to mention, the research. Oh, the research.

And yet all this study, no matter how successful we are at it, will never help us face the blank page.

In fact, the study and research can easily take the place of actually writing. It’s work and it helps us believe we’re actually making progress, even when we’re not.

So how do we beat the blank page? How do we fill it up with something worth reading, or something that will eventually be worth viewing? Simple.

We write.

We accept that the first draft will be, in Hemingway’s famous word, shit. We accept that we’ll have to rewrite. We accept that we’ll have to rewrite again. And again. And again, even yet again…

We make a pact with ourselves that we will write a certain amount every day no matter what. Because once you turn professional, you’ll have deadlines, and you won’t have the luxury of shutting down your computer for the night to “work on it in the morning.” We keep writing even when it feels like the blank page is beating us. Because when we’re writing, it isn’t beating us. We’re beating it.

There are books that can help when you feel stuck.

Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way is a wonderful way to get you back into writing when you’ve taken a hiatus, or if you want to increase your creativity.

Stephen Pressfield’s The War of Art – we’ve often talked about this quick-read – is a little more kick ass, but it’s in the same vein. (There are no exercises, though.)

Stephen King’s On Writing, even though it isn’t geared toward screenwriters, still contains some great tips.

Whenever you feel you need a boost, these are great resources from which to get it. You’ll learn all about your own self-sabotaging tendencies and get some ideas on how to get rid of them. This doesn’t, of course, mean you’ll get rid of the fear of the blank page, but you’ll be better equipped to deal with and work through that fear.

So go forth.

Show that blank page who’s boss by filling it with words worth reading.

Gagging the Inner Child

6 Apr 2011

There is a writerly choice that I’ve had to make in the past and it seems to be one of those choices that keeps having to be made.

Every time I have to make it, I get all twisted up into knots and get a headache, even though I’m certain it is the right choice for all concerned.

I’m thinking it is a choice that many of you have had to make and will have to make again – whether to co-write or to write alone? And by co-writing I don’t mean collaborating with a story editor or producer on making one of your scripts better, or even working on a TV writing team where all kinds of collaborative writing occurs amongst a group of peers who work together or apart as their individual predilections (your word for the week), and even those their boss direct them. I’m talking about all the wonderful genuine and talented people that ask me to co-write with them, and also about the soul-sucking opportunists that want me to do all the work for them so they can sit back and collect all the glory.

I don’t co-write anymore, so please don’t ask me.

I have tried it, I don’t like it and I have no intention of ever doing it again.

Indeed I feel so strongly about this that even if one of my writing idols offered to co-script with me, I’d turn it down. Even if they offered to pay me. No, well that isn’t quite true. If they offered to pay me, I’d probably suck it up and do it. I might even pretend to enjoy it. But I wouldn’t be. I’d be faking it.

Co-writing has turned out badly for me. I do the lion’s share of the work and the co-writer sits and makes approving noises. Now lots and lots of writer’s do it, and love it, but not me. Every time someone asks me to, I feel like they are trying to feed me a liver and Brussels sprout smoothie, telling me it will taste delightful and be good for me.

No it won’t.

I get plenty of iron from my daily spinach and my love of cauliflower has me covered on the cruciform vegetable front- thank you very much.

To the lovely, good-hearted, well-meaning, talented people who ask me – I know this will feel like rejection, because it is (and I can’t do anything about that), but you are really doing me and yourself a disservice by asking.

If it is your story, you need to write it yourself, no one can do it better.

Can’t write?

Learn.

Don’t want to learn?

Pay me.

It is as simple as that.

The weird part is that I know people think I should be flattered that they are asking me, that it shows in what high esteem they hold me. But not high enough apparently to understand that I only have one brain and two hands and am made of mortal stuff, therefore I am given x amount of time and y amount of energy to produce z amount of story product.

You see, don’t you, that the idea that I should happily commit to 3 months of my life to write a screenplay or one year to write your novel with you – arguably a less accomplished writer than myself – in exchange for a co-writer credit and 50% of fantasy money is a very poor bargain.

I write for a living.

That means most of the week I already write for the Man, which gives me about 20 hours a week to write my own thing. At best, in reality, the energy only runs to about 15 real hours. I made a commitment to write this blog which takes 2-4 hours out of that real time and all of a sudden the feature script is only getting 10 hours a week. I guess this paragraph sounds all whiny and egocentric and I’m tempted to delete it for fear that I appear ungenerous and ego-inflated. But I’m not going to. I’m going to tell the inner child that wants everybody to like her, to get over it because the truth is the ten-foot tall buff angel boy standing next to her, a.k.a. My Muse, is the one to whom I now owe all devotion.

I share this with you all, whether you are a writer or interact with writers within your own particular ‘verse, because at some point you will find yourselves on the horns of this dilemma… So proceed with caution.

Now one of my friends pointed out that I shouldn’t get so bent out of shape every time I get asked this, that the person asking was probably just throwing it out there, and is fully prepared to accept a “no” as no biggie. But it doesn’t feel that way to me as most of the time the person tries to convince me and lays out what they think are strong arguments and temptations. Some actually have the temerity to look shocked and be offended when I tell them it’ll take $25,000.00 (half up front in advance), to get me to co-write their fabulous idea into a book – a total steal by the way, as that’s the friends-and-family discount.

Some of them even try to seduce me into it, if you can imagine, which really makes me squirmy. Do I really come across as that romantically desperate that I’ll lend them my genius for a little slap and tickle? Alright, maybe I am, but don’t call me on it, it’s too embarrassing.

Jeepers, now it is 5:31 a.m. and color me grumpy, as a well-meaning tweet woke me at 5:19 a.m. to remind me that it is Wednesday and this blog post is due. So picture me puffy-eyed and surly as I try to remember who I am and what the hell I was talking about. Oh, yah, gonna finish up my list of stuff that makes you a better writer that isn’t writing, or in other words, ways to waste time that keep the guilt o’ meter from pegging into the red.

5) Caffeine. Without a doubt it seems the appropriate time to mention the benefits of the application of a moderate amount of caffeine. The US Army did some studies on grunts in the 50’s with all kinda drugs in an effort to make them perform better as soldiers. This little tidbit brought to you from a dusty closet so off the beaten path in today’s Cocoverse as to border on the mythical – the days when I was a BioPysch student, experimenting on rats and classmates in the basement of the Math building.

Yes, there is a movie there.

And why the in the seven hells is spellcheck suggesting “Biopsychic” as a word option. What is a “Biopsychic”? Oh. The word is “Biophysics”, okay that makes much more sense???

Okay, back to the legal stimulant. The amount of caffeine found in two cups of coffee will indeed increase your physical and mental performance on tasks undertaken within a couple hours of ingestion. You should dose yourself about ½ hour before your Jeopardy audition or marathon for optimal effect. Like just about anything in life though, moderation is the key.

Repeat after me “One Red Bull good, six Red Bulls, bad”.

Mostly, more caffeine might make you think you are doing better but you really aren’t.

That brings me to a couple don’ts. I ‘m not big on don’ts as a rule, ’cause I figure you are all adults and should do what you need to do to get through the long dark nights. But with respect to writing, alcohol and weed are not your friends. You can tell me that you’ve had some of your most brilliant verbage come forth under the influence and while it may even be true, I still call: bullshit.

The only reason it might be true in the short term, is because your inhibitions are gagging your inner child and the only mechanism you’ve found to ungag is application of mood altering substance. To you I say, grow up and learn how to set your inner child free without getting her drunk or stoned. First of all, that’s child abuse. Second of all, it is not sustainable.

Know what? Even famous boozers like Fitzgerald and Hemmingway wrote sober. Fine, the rest of the time they drank. But they wrote sober. Stephen King claims to have written several novels in a state of intoxication. Not sure how he managed that, and he isn’t either by all reports. However his situation does support my second assertion, NOT SUSTAINABLE, cause he doesn’t do that any more. Try finger paints. Or meditation. Or exercise.

Rats, that (exercise), is something I should add to the list of good things to improve your writing, oh, and dance. Dance is good.

I’ve co-written with someone who smoked dope and drank wine through every writing session and the only thing I saw it do was increase his personal conviction that his contribution was brilliant, while I remember it to be a lot of nodding and noises of approval at what I was writing. He claims it was the best creative experience of his life though. It does have the benefit of giving you pleasant delusions, so if that is what you are after, go for it. I just can’t seem to let the No Co-Writing for Coco thing go today, can I?

6) Sleep. Especially naps. Ah, sleep. Ah, naps.

Just read a news article on a study about the amount of sleep high performing violinists get (Thanks Yvette!). A study of the world’s top concert violinists shows that they average 8.5 hours of sleep– Much more that most of us average schmoooies.

Take from my friend Bill Shakespeare: sleep not only knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, it makes you a better writer. Dafoe reportedly told his brain every night before turning in, to come up with a good story idea while he slept. Worked for him. Can’t figure out a story point? Don’t know where to go next? Take a 20 minute nap. Not only will it decrease your need for 8.5 hours of sleep at night, but odds are you’ll wake with a good idea. Worked for Einstein, a legendary cat napper. Ben Franklin is another historical luminary keen on the nap as a productivity and creativity enhancer.

“Other famous nappers include John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Bill Clinton, who took a 30-minute nap at 3 pm. Still others include Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, John D. Rockefeller, Eleanor Roosevelt, Johannes Brahms, Beethoven, Benjamin Franklin, and Robert Louis Stevenson.” Chuck Gallozzi

Optimal nap length is 20-45 minutes, any more than that will leave you groggy and be counter-productive.

Now mind you there are studies out that that show that people who sleep too long or too short may have shorter life spans and propose 7.5 hours as optimal, but I haven’t looked too deeply at those studies, just the media reports of them, so I’m not behind the science yet. I will look at the actual papers and let you know if I think the method and sample size are “good science”, or if it is just the media picking up on a contrary study for sensationalism.

Don’t get me started on the amount of bad science that the media disseminates, I’m cranky enough for one day.

From the science I do think is good, and my personal experience, I can say that one 25 minute nap in the afternoon and about 7 hours of sleep at night, keeps me writing and prevents tragic incidents involving me eating the heads of my colleagues and co-workers.

7) Drink with your Writer Peeps. Yep. After my rant against using alcohol to access the Land of What If and Maybe, I now suggest indulging in a little tippling with writer friends as a method of improving your process.

Relaxing and swapping lies with writer friends can be the most fun and re-motivating thing you can do. I never fail to be inspired by my time spent chit-chatting about stories and film and screenwriting and indeed writing and life lessons of all kinds with my peeps. I think it is really an important part of keeping your balance to get out of your cave from time to time and remind yourself the universe does not revolve around your personal page count.

8 ) Exercise. I don’t really need to go one about this one, do I?

In brief, picture the electronic crawl sign at my gym which hypnotizes me several times a week with inspirational thoughts and health tips, but seems a tad over-programmed to repeat one sentence in particular. “If exercise were a drug it would be the most prescribed drug by doctors everywhere.” Which, I think, is supposed to be a big endorsement, right?

Okay that’s it for this week’s rambling tour of the Cocoverse.

If you are a writer, be nice to yourself this week.

If you love a writer, respect the “no”.

If you want to be a writer, just do it.

If you are all of the above and a friend of mine, I will likely read your stuff and give you notes free gratis, just don’t mention the dreaded hyphenate, “co-writer”. Being a hyphenate is not one of my life aspirations.

Cinnamon & Vampire Slaying

30 Mar 2011

It’s 6 a.m. on a Wednesday morning and once again I am just sitting down with my big mug of decaf coffee, liberally sprinkled with cinnamon (which is a multi-functional garnish) –partially masking the decaf nature of the beverage –partially for its fragrance which science has proven to increase alertness and mental acuity – I don’t know about you, but at 6 a.m. my mental acuity could stand a little improvement.

Hey let’s make that the word of the week – acuity. Though I’m not sure how useful it is in that I don’t think that I’ve ever heard it used without “mental” in front of it.

Oh, I’m wrong, “visual acuity”.

Back to the cinnamon. Ingesting it also has some fabulous effects, stabilizes blood sugar, and has positive cardio-vascular effects and anti-cancer properties. Though I have read that ½ tsp. a day is a maximum dose, though some alternative medicine websites say 1 tsp. The site I got the ½ tsp. dose from seemed very reputable (I think it was the arthritis association website, but can’t remember for sure).

So there you go. Obviously great for lots of things but not so much for the memory! So that is the first item on today’s list of things to improve your screenwriting that isn’t directly working on your writing.

1) Sprinkle some cinnamon on your beverage of choice. For all the reasons above, better cardio vascular health, anti-cancer effects, stable blood sugar and increased brain function. Sorry, eating a cinnamon bun the size of your head with cream cheese icing is not a suitable substitute as that volume of white flour and sugar is bad, bad and worse. The fat from the butter is the least of your worries in one of those puppies, so save it for cheat day.

Cheat day in the Cocoverse, by the way, is Saturday, and is the only day on which white foods may be consumed. Except yogurt. Yogurt is a 24/7 food in the Cocoverse. But not the fake kind with no fat and fake sugar. Now why have I wandered off into the contemplation of yogurt? Okay, breakfast break.

2) Read. Don’t roll your eyes. This might not be as obvious as it sounds. In particular, read scripts. Okay fine, maybe it is that obvious. But I think if I bet everybody reading this blog post $5 bucks that you haven’t read a script (that isn’t your own) in the last week I’d come out with enough for a nice steak dinner. In truth I’d have to pay myself, shame on me. With the availability of scripts on the Internet neither of us has any excuse pal.

In fact you can download a collection of CSSC finalist scripts off this very website including a sweet little gem written by yours truly. And they are short scripts which means you can read one on a coffee break. Hey you could read Minus Lara about 20 times on a coffee break.

So let’s both quit making excuses and all of you fully-fledged and emerging screenwriters promise yourself that the minute you finish reading this post you will Google off and find a decent script to read. Hey even you folks that read this and don’t fancy yourself writers should do the same – take a walk on the wild side and try something new – like I said FREE award-winning scripts right here on this website!

If you like mine, I’d like to remind you that I am still looking for financing so that would be a good use of the $5 bucks you owe me.

Better yet, if I’ve caught you out, donate that $5 to Japan or Haiti or New Orleans or whichever charity suits. Here is a link to Mobile Giving Foundation’s list of charities that you can text message your donation to using your mobile phone. Works in Canada and the US and shows up as a charge on your cell phone bill, so skip the latte and muffin and give! And read a script.

Oh, one final word on this, make sure you are reading a script, not a transcript. Transcripts are produced by fans that in general know muffin tops about screenwriting and sit for hours typing out dialogue, so skip them entirely unless you are going to use it to compare it to a writer’s draft or shooting script to see what changed on set, or in the editing room from the original.

Okay that was a crappy sentence, but I’m rushing to publish –so do a little writing exercise and fix it yourself.

3) Watch a movie or some scripted TV. Again it may be glaringly obvious, but it can be very powerful when combined with item 2) (above). Watching a TV series as a marathon can be very instructional whether on DVD or downloaded from Net. Nothing I like better than declaring a Buffyverse weekend and hunkering down for back-to-back vampire slaying. Not only do you learn a lot a about vampire slaying, but you can learn a tonne about how to write a hit show that has elements both serial and episodic. Episodics, by the by, are series in which the individual episodes are stand alone and the action is tied up every week in a complete package. Though these shows can have serial or multi-episode story elements, those tend to be relationship focused and not plot focused. Crime Procedurals like Flashpoint or my new fav Endgame are like that. Serials are more like Ugly Betty or soap operas – even night time soaps like Gossip Girl, where, if you watch them out of sequence, you can be forgiven for being completely confused by who is sleeping with whom.

Lesson learned from pitching as an aside. Don’t use the word “serial” when pitching a scripted drama. It makes broadcasters nervous, they like episodic because they see them as having better legs in syndication where the big money comes from. So even if you plan on multi-episode or season long story arcs, you might want to downplay that or keep it to yourself.

4) Play music. And by that I don’t mean so much “turn on the radio”, as I mean “pick up some spoons and play some music”. Next to the discipline of writing this blog every week, learning guitar has been and continues to be the single most important thing to improve my writing (and my life), in decades.

And I do realize that with respect to this blog that the word discipline is being used a bit loosely given my sometimes spotty spelling, grammar and punctuation. But I do try my best within the time allotted and do rewrite and proof these freaking things somewhere between 3 and 7 times before posting. Mistakes which escape are just further evidence that it is humanly impossible to proof your own work. Another lesson I’ve learned on your behalf: If you are getting paid for it, or hope to get paid for it, get someone else to proof it, even if you have to pay them.

La la la, hey, I meant to talk here about how learning to play music and create music for your own self can improve your writing, not talk about grammar and my writer feet of clay.

Now that I’ve dipped my toe into song writing, it once again might seem glaringly obvious that I am honing my facility with words by tackling a new writing genre. But that isn’t anything to do with the deep, life changing and abiding lessons that the process of learning guitar has bestowed upon me.

Let’s face it, though I am a good employee and a loyal friend in the personal/emotional realm… I am crap at commitment. As evidenced by both my romantic history and my stack of 85 unfinished scripts. I seem to be spectacularly bad a committing to myself.

Until guitar.

Forgive me if you’ve heard this one already, but about two years ago I dug my guitar out of the closet. It was a gift from someone clearing out their garage that I picked up for one of Pablito’s early visits to Vancouver. So that he didn’t have to bring one on the plane you see.

So I’d been hauling the thing from apartment to apartment for ten years, every now and then pulling it out of the closet along with the beginner guitar book. However, every time I got past Michael Row Your Boat Ashore, and mastered the melody line of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, I’d hit the place in the book where I had to learn an F chord. Since it sounded like muffin tops and hurt to boot, back into the closet with the guitar.

Then, two years ago, the guitar resurfaced and I thought I would give it one more go. Really, it was an attempt to keep my hands too busy to stuff food into my mouth. I remember well the moment when, once again I started to put the guitar down for good, disgusted with my feeble attempts to produce a passable F chord. I like to think my Angel grabbed my wrist and refused to let me open my fingers and drop the instrument. He whispered into my ear, “Don’t give up on this. It will be worth it.”

So the next day I checked out the web for recommendations on local guitar teachers and called up Rufus Guitar to which I now make weekly pilgrimage. And come hell or high water, that lesson is a priority item on my to-do list because I discovered that Tuesday night, post-guitar was now the happiest time of the week.

Whether or not you believe in my imaginary friend, he was right about the riches learning the guitar would bring. I play every day. I can now play an F chord and make you like it.

Persisting with this pursuit, even if only for 15 minutes a day, drilled home some of those big life lessons that we’ve all heard quoted and quipped and clichéd about ad nauseam. Things like “life’s about the journey not the destination”, “genius is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration”, “a mountain can be moved with a tablespoon, given time and motivation”, “big oaks from little acorns grow”.

I learned that by making a decision to love myself better I developed an ability to make a commitment to improving my life, which morphed into the ability to apply that most elusive of character traits to music and writing – discipline. Learning to play the guitar, at long last, brought the sledgehammer of discipline to my writing toolkit.

Okay, that was the buzzer marking the end of lunch and the end of the fourth 25 minute Pomodoro allotted to crafting Blog the 39th, so time to wrap up and post.

Not that I’m yet fully swinging that bad boy to full effect. I still have a stack of scripts to finish. But now I am picking one off the pile every day, blowing off the dust of centuries and having at it.

Are you excited to see what happens next? Does our heroine get her muffin tops together and produce a significant body of screenwriting work that garners her great spiritual, financial and critical success?

Tune in to the next installment of Life in the Cocoverse to find out. Oops– that’s serial talk, not episodic, sorry, but not really.

Should You Reveal the Ending In Your Synopsis?

25 Mar 2011

So you’ve written your screenplay, and you’ve got a terrific, nail-biting ending.

You’ve written your logline.

You’re working on your synopsis, and you’ve read all the articles you can find on writing a synopsis.
There’s conflicting advice about whether to reveal the great ending of your screenplay in this tool.

Some writers think you should only tease, and some believe if you want to sell, you gotta give away the ending. Still others think you should forget all about this whole screenwriting business and go back to retail, but of course you’re not going to listen to them.

So which should it be? Should you reveal your ending in your synopsis?

Or should you tease the reader?

This is one of the reasons writing a synopsis can be as hard as writing the screenplay itself. The temptation to give a blow-by-blow of the plot can be overwhelming. At the same time, you can really work up a cold sweat trying to figure out how much of your story you should reveal in the synopsis.

It may help you to think of your synopsis as a marketing tool.

A well-written synopsis has the essence of the story boiled down into a few paragraphs. In movie terms, you can think of the logline as your teaser, and the synopsis as your trailer. You wouldn’t reveal the ending of your movie in the trailer. But consider this: an audience is going to see a movie for enjoyment. The only reason they’re in the theatre is to get lost in the world you created. They’re agreeing to be teased.

The people to whom you’re trying to sell your screenplay, though, are the people who are going to make the movie. They’re looking at the possibility of spending thousands (possibly millions) of dollars on your idea. They’re looking for a well-written story with a good ending. If you feel you have to hide the ending to entice them . . . maybe you’ve got a weak ending.

An ending to any story is essential.

A good ending to your story is crucial—and it’s a selling point. You’d be doing yourself a disservice not to put it in your synopsis. Why? Agents and film executives are not waiting with bated breath for your twist ending. Even if they haven’t seen it all, they think they have. They’re not looking to be teased; they’re looking to be enticed by great writing and a great story. If you’ve got that, there’s no point in being coy.

Squishy Lips of Disgust

23 Mar 2011

Inspired by Mr. Cormican’s blog offering up advice on five ways to create great characters, I thought I would serve up this week’s slice of Cocoverse Pie as my top, umm I dunno, bunch-of-ways-to-make-your-writing-better-that-aren’t-actually-writing.

I even thought about making my point by video taping this week’s post instead of writing, but as I kinda have a face made for radio (and really need to make an appointment with my hairdresser), I figured that my performance might draw too much attention away from the content. My nose wiggles a bit like a rabbit when I talk and I have a bit of a lisp. Could be charming. Could be annoying. Any way, I’ll just type instead and save myself twenty minutes of trying to get the lipstick just right.

While the number one bit of advice I give to wanna be writers is write and to hopeful screenwriters is rewrite, there are a big bagful of things you need to do, not only to refill the creative refrigerator, but to push yourself to be a better writer.

1) Demand from yourself an Outline
Now I know tons of you just get an image of an opening scene or a snippet of dialogue – in my case, often a witty argument between a guy and a girl (that’s my particular kink, go figure) – and you sit down and start banging away. Ooops. If that was a salacious (your word for the week) pun, it really was unintended.

Anyway, writing down your every stray thought is okay for capturing those bits and bobs of inspiration, but what works best for me (proud of me Harvard? I qualified the statement so people won’t think it’s my way or the highway), is to capture these little flashes on napkins or on post-its or a page or two in your word processor, then load them all into my computer into a folder with a working title and let them simmer a bit.

When I think I sense the shadowy outlines of a full story out there just beyond the edges of the known universe, I’ll pour myself a cuppa joe – sadly decaf these days – and sit down to find out what it is I know about the story. No expectations of page count or dialogue or even all the characters. It’s more like poking through a great second hand/vintage clothes store trying to put an outfit together, or putting on my Iron Chef apron and pawing through the fridge for recipe inspiration.

The Outline then sort of assembles itself. I just list out on a few pages what I know about the story, plot, characters, action, genre, time period.

One of the things that works for me is to establish a few rules of engagement. Now I can see a bunch of you reading this and making little squishy lips of disgust cause you think by following rules you’ll be killing your delicate little flower of creativity. But hey, I’m not asking you to follow My rules. I’m asking you to make your own.

Sorry, to leave you hanging there, but the necessity of writing for someone who is paying me interrupted the flow. Some nerve, huh?

Where were we? Ah, yes the outline. It could be two pages of point form or 10 pages predominantly of costume descriptions and sfx shots. Do one. Then let it sit a few days before you open up the screenwriting program and have at ‘er.

I prefer Movie Magic’s Screenwriter by the way, though I do have Final Draft, I will only use it when bullied into it. It has left me hanging too often and every time you update your operating system it will crap out on you. Which Screenwriter might do too, but at least they are awesome at answering support emails quickly.

Gees, I’m a Rambly Rose here again this week, how annoying. And for the record, I do realize that I promised you a bunch of writing tips and then told you the first one was to write an outline. My bad. But really the rest will require minimal writing of stuff. Just a few lists maybe, which may be considered writing by non-writers, but by writers should be considered THINKING THOUGHTS.

2) Make your own rules
Technically this should be 1 a) . But that is the joy of having a producer tell you that you can write about WHATEVER, HOWEVER YOU WANT – I wonder if Mr. Cormican has regretted saying that to me when smacking me on the head and pronouncing me CSSC #WW Writer Laureate? – I make my own rules.

Pablito thinks I’m too hung up on my rules, but when I pointed out that I make them to suit myself he started to get the idea and went back to making me the most glorious chicken mole with chocolate brought back from his travels in South America. Where I thought he was chasing Latinas on beaches, but his mother ratted him out and I found out he was guiding and translating for a group of Dr.’s and Dentists into the back end of beyond in Bolivia, bringing remote tribes medical assistance. See, whether he owns it or not, Pablito knows a thing or too about making his own rules.

The rules I make up for a script – all the action takes place in an apartment and adjoining patio, or all the action takes place real time during a Little League Baseball game (just like the movie High Noon, which if you haven’t seen, shame on you), or that the best Romantic Comedies have co-protagonists, a rule which when pronounced within a group of writers can end up in fisticuffs.

As a guest to the writing group of one of my Sisters of the Pen in LA, I nearly got bounced to the curb for such heresy by the group leader who certainly has a more impressive screenwriting resume than yours truly – at least to date.

So make some rules about unity of time, or place or action. I like to choose one of those three and make a choice as a kind of vase into which the flower my writing gets arranged. Jimmy Crickets I’m getting a little out of control with those metaphors. Or are they similes. Or alliterations. Crap, now I’m going to have to look all those up and correct myself. But not now. Now I want to get through a few more suggestions on how to be a better writer without writing, based on my OUTLINE scribbled on the back of last week’s grocery list.

3) Book Club
If you follow this blog, you’ve already heard me wax rhapsodic about how Bookclub changed my life. The E-Litter-a-ti have, each and every one, past and present members included, opened my mind and my heart. They have also through their choices and their observations, taught me things about writing that I would have never learned on my own.

Okay, maybe I might have learned them, but this way I get hugs and wine and cheese and that weird Tuna dip that Po makes but is really quite delicious.

4) Egg timer
Again, faithful readers are not strangers to my deep affection for the 25 minute Pomodoro – oops, timer just when off, going to play scales on the guitar for 5 minutes, be right back…

…

Much better. See, now I’m refreshed and invigorated and I haven’t even lost my train of thought, despite 5 minutes of moving blood from my butt back to my head.

Writing is like any of the other worthwhile pursuits: writing, exercise, guitar, cooking – a timer can help you through it all. Most importantly it helps you understand both what you are doing with your time and what you can accomplish in 25 minutes. Strangest of all, it dials the stress of big writing tasks and impossible achievements (like regular exercise) into manageable pieces. And I don’t know about you but less stress and more accomplished is a fine thing.

I even use the timer when I am cooking for friends, not to time any one dish, but while talking and drinking wine and waving a spatula around, if I set the timer for five minute intervals and start new tasks five minutes apart, it all comes together on time, no accidents, nothing burnt and masses of praise from my audience. I bet you didn’t think you’d be getting cooking tips today, did ya?

Alrighty then. There are more tips on the outline but we’ll have to pack them up into the “ideas” folder for next week’s blog, as this blog is reaching the length of the rule I made for it.

I’ll see you again in about 28 Pomodoros!

5 Tips to Writing Your Way to Great(er) Characters

18 Mar 2011

In writing a screenplay, even one for a short film, it’s easy to get lost in the intricacies of plot. What happens? When does it happen? How does it happen? All of these questions must be answered by the end of the story.

Yet, a writer can write a great screenplay without a great plot. The Station Agent is a good example. It’s basically about a guy—a dwarf named Finbar McBride—who loves trains. He loves trains so much he works in a shop that sells toy trains. He watches movies about trains. He watches trains themselves. When his boss dies, McBride inherits a train depot where he goes to live. There, he . . . makes some friends.

Exciting, right? Yet it’s a captivating film even though, plotwise,.. Nothing. Much. Happens.

What drives the movie? The characters.

Character is the sole most important element you need in your story. Without it, a story is nothing. Even fast-paced, thrilling screenplays with plot twists so intricate you could get lost in them fall flat without great characters.

So how do you write great characters?

1. Start by observing the people around you. Does your flatmate talk to herself when she thinks no one is around? Does your mother start every sentence with “I wish you would . . . “ Does your best friend hold his cigarette between his second and third finger instead of the first and second? Does he bite the filter?
These are all things you can start with when you begin to work on the characters to your screenplay. Maybe the bad guy has a facial tic that’s only triggered when he’s going to kill someone. Or maybe your protagonist only wears blue on Sundays. These are little tidbits you can start with. Often, you may find that a certain aspect of the character drives the plot, as in 40 Year-Old Virgin, where the protagonist is indeed a 40 year-old virgin. The entire movie is set around how his work buddies try to help him lose his virginity. It sounds like a stupid plot at first glance, but the film really works, and that’s because of the lead character.
2. Study the greats. Pick movies with your favorite characters and figure out the traits that make them tick. Your favorite characters don’t have to be heroes or even anti-heroes. They can be those completely amoral characters you sometimes see, such as Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal. Sometimes, in fact, it’s the baddies in a movie that make the whole film tick.
3. Know your characters. Know as much as you possibly can about them, about their habits, their history, even their genealogy. Not all of this should or will make it into the screenplay, but it will make it much easier for you to write the first draft of your screenplay. It will also make it less likely that you’ll make errors in judgment regarding the choices a character would make. And it will give your characters a lot more depth.
4. Figure out what’s driving your characters. Each character in your screenplay should have a reason for being there. Is your protagonist driven by the death of a child? Does he want to extract revenge on the people responsible? Not every character has to be driven by some malignant motive or dark secret, but each character should serve a purpose. Obviously the protagonist will want to achieve a certain goal, and an antagonist will want to stop him.
5. Don’t be afraid of great side characters. Sometimes the best characters are the side characters who add color. Val Kilmer’s Doc Holiday wasn’t the hero of Tombstone, but his performance, even now, years later, are what people remember most about that film. Or, since we’re on a Val Kilmer kick, how about Gay Perry in Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang? Need I say more?

If you look at every good movie you’ve seen, you’ll notice a pattern: plot springs from characters, not the other way around. If you concentrate on making well-rounded, full characters, they’ll feel more real to you as you write your screenplay, and they’ll feel more real to the audience. You’ll also have an easier time with the plot, because it will unfold with each decision each character makes.

Junk Drawer Head

16 Mar 2011

It is a junk-drawer-head kind of day, so please brace yourself for a jumbly, rambly junk-drawer-head kind of post ‘cause it is all that I have on offer today. If you are looking for a crisp taut post with a couple good solid writing tips livened up with a few humourous bon mots I suggest you check out our blog archive – Blog the 6th Coming Back to Papa and Blog the 19th Care and Feeding of Producers seem to be particularly popular which is, I suppose, your first tip falling on out of the junk drawer onto the kitchen floor – when blogging include the names of famous writers in your post – awesome for SEO. Second lesson also delivered by bad example. Don’t write run-on sentences like the one before last.

Song in the head this a.m. upon opening eyes was the Beatles “All You Need is Love”. Which has always been a saccharine sentiment that bugs me. In my recollection I’ve had not one but two famous Lotharios on two separate occasions spoil perfectly fun hang out with the gang and shoot pool evenings by blathering (blather is your word for the week) on about how they had finally fallen in love and wasn’t’ it great and it was everything and the only thing to live for and completely changed their respective lives. Bah humbug. I guess I’m a bit cranky this morning. It could be because I hauled out of bed at 6 a.m. to write this. Quite honestly I keep looking over at my guitar and my new technique book “Pumping Nylon” which has a guitar and a very pumped man’s bicep on the cover. It is hilarious and cheesy, but my Maestro says the exercises look great. I’m going to keep it on my music stand when my friends come over. In fact I may outline the bicep with a Sharpie so they don’t miss it. All to say I’d rather be pumping nylon than filling a page at this early hour.

I swear David Cormican gave me this Writer Laureate gig to force me to learn how to deliver a publishable piece of text on a weekly basis. Bastard. Not really though, he is a very nice guy. In fact he is even a Nice Guy. But don’t tell him I said so, he’s going for the International Man of Mystery type thing and I wouldn’t want to ruin his cover for him. And I suppose it is arguable whether or not these pieces are really publishable in anybody’s mind but my own. Oh well, keeps me off the streets.

Blackbird, also by the Beatles was the middle of the night song stuck in head, which is a far superior tune in my opinion. It’s the all time favourite song of my office mate, Harvard. So named of course since she is the only one of my personal acquaintance who matriculated from the world’s finest university (sorry Oxford and Cambridge, but that’s what the polls say) Also so named because while I could give her a more colourful designation, I do have to share air space with her on a daily basis so we’ll keep the nickname on the straight and narrow. Though she is a newly minted Gleek Freak so I could think of working that in some how. Glee rocked last night bye the bye. Tuesdays are such an embarrassment of riches, sometimes I wish I could spread the love out a little bit more. Having guitar and Glee in the same night is a little too much happy for the post-work period. Especially yesterday being payday too.

Many of my Sisters of the Pen are gathered in Ojai California this weekend for the Ojai WordFest and Ojai Writer’s Conference and I am bummed that I’m not there with them. Several of them are giving master classes, namely Dara Marks, Deb Norton, Marcy Shacter and Danika Dinsmore, all of whom are incandescently brilliant (thanks for the adjective suggestion Harvard!). While not one of my Sisters of the Pen, Ellen Sandler is also giving a TV writing master class and I’ve met her and pitched to her before and I can highly recommend her wisdom, not to mention TV writing creds that are totally epic. I know that Sister Mary Sequoia Hamilton as one of the organizers will be very present and I seem to think that Lady Joan Macbeth and playwright Terri Sissman (also my Sisters of the Pen) will also be in the Ventura/ Ojai neighbourhood hanging with the other writer types, though I can’t quite remember why I think that. Maybe I just dreamt it. And in the realm of dreaming writer type dreams if you can’t catch Dara Marks in Ojai this week, look for her at the Toronto Screenwriter’s Conference in early April .

Now heading to the day job so more dreck from the drawer for you on my lunch break.

Alrighty, cheap and cheerful lentils and peas consumed and the timer set for the lunch blog activities. Hmmm my life as a writer, what else is up? Oh, been following the tweets of the ever inspirational writer director Mina Shum as she was in LA last week doing the meeting thing. I know she’s got at least 3 features at various budget levels and stages of happening so I’m hoping the pilgrimage to La La Land means she is close to first day of principal on something soon! I could give you a little bit more gossip about what she has in the hopper, but I don’t have her permission and am far too Canadian to blab stuff I heard about at lunch last summer even though it might make me look cool and groovy like I’m one of her closest peeps or something, which I’m not. Rats. Though maybe if she catches wind of this post I can beg a guest blog appearance out of her and she can tell you herself. Whaddyathink?

I also found myself working on the speech I’m preparing to give the next Writer Laureate at the passing of the torch. No panicking people. I’ll be with you through Blog the 52nd so you can breathe a collective sigh of relief. Just that I happen to know who it’s gonna be but I’m not gonna tell you yet. Got me thinking about all the things I’ve learned about writing and being a writer from doing this blog every week. It’s a fair few things so it might take a multi part post to give them all their respective due.

Hey! I wrote a song this week. My first one. Well I wrote part of one in Paris on the back of a napkin but it’s not finished. “If You Were Here Now” is finished. Three verses a bridge and a chorus. Not of course that I have any business writing songs as, next to poetry and technical manuals I have voted songs in my bottom three things never likely to make me any money/and or get me laid. Opps. Did I just type that out loud? Anyway, it was actually a lot of fun. Most fun way I’ve spent a Sunday afternoon in a very long time. I even plan to subject my guitar teacher to it next week. Did I mention he earned his Sainthood with me already? Now I can’t decide whether that should be “never likely” or “ever likely” hmmm. Can’t decide. I’ll ask one of my favourite Grammar Nazis and get back to you.

‘Nother thing that’s been bugging me this week is that not one but three ex-boyfriends emailed this week to say “Howdy” out of the clear blue sky. Seems that all three thought they were the starring character in my last blog post. Which is sort of hilarious and sort of creepy. At least now I know who reads this blog – 50% of my bookclub 25% of my co-workers and about 8.7% of my former lovers Well, that isn’t entirely true, but it is funny and in the Cocoverse sometimes it is more important to be funny than to be true. In fact I think I’ll make that a new law. Law of the Cocoverse: Sometimes Truth needs to take the backseat and let Funny ride shotgun.

Further to the Sola, Perduta, Abbandonatta front – that’s an Opera reference by the way, and shockingly I spelt it correctly on my first try – I received my FOAD letter from the WGC CTV Diverse Writers Program. If you don’t know what FOAD stands for, I’m not going to tell you. Gee look at me with the withholding this week, probably because I let you all see my soft underbelly last week and I’m over compensating. Anyway, it isn’t PG rated so I can’t in good conscience spell it out for you. It was of course a very encouraging and lovely letter. Good to hear they had 120 applications for the 8 spots and congrats to the lucky 8. I hope you make the most of it, cause if you don’t me and 112 of my emerging writer peeps will kick your ass. Thanks again to the Writer’s Guild of Canada and CTV for getting the program happening, it is, in my opinion, a very good thing for Canadian television.

In truth I’m starting to get very encouraged by the ever increasing thickness of my rejection folder, I think it is a positive sign that things are about to break big for me very soon. And now I’m off to work on my slurs and pull-offs which is not as sexually interesting as it sounds. No, I take that back since it is part of my guitar practice and everyone knows guitar players of ALL KINDS are sex gods and godesses. So there, off to practice my divinity and grind out a few pages of my TV pilot rewrite, trying to get it in shape for a fresh round of contests and pitching.

I shall leave you with the words of Lennon & McCartney because last night in the dead of night I heard a Blackbird sing

Blackbird singing in the dead of night,

Take these broken wings and learn to fly

All your life

You were just waiting for this moment to arise

What to Include In Your Film Prospectus (aka YOUR Pitch)

16 Mar 2011

It will be impossible to sell investors on the idea of investing in or donating to your film without a film prospectus (a fancy word for the package you’ll put together for grants and your investors). In order to sell people on giving you money, you need to have a plan. The better plan you have, the better chance people will show you the money. Below is a list of things you’ll need to pull together in order to attract interest for you project:

1. Pitch: You’ll be talking to people about the film long before they ever see a film prospectus. You need to hone your “elevator”pitch—a simple, eyebrow-raising pitch that sells your film in a few sentences. For brevity, it wouldn’t hurt to have a logline, too. You can find tons of information on the ScriptChat website, which has links for books and other websites on how to pitch and write loglines.
In addition to honing your pitch, it’s also a good idea to think about the professionalism you’ll need when you meet with investors. A great resource is Good in a Room, by Stephanie Palmer. Ms. Palmer worked as a studio executive for years before branching out on her own as a business consultant. She gives a great brush-up on commonsense techniques. If you sign up for them on her website at www.stephaniepalmer.com, she’ll send you free bi-weekly tips.
2. Synopsis: This is the summary of your film. This too has to be written in such a way as to sell the film, not just describe it. A great resource here are the many agent and editor blogs in the publishing industry. Publishing and filmmaking are different beasts in many ways, but you can you can find a lot of great tips that apply to you from well-known agents such as Rachelle Gardner and Janet Reid, and editor Evil Editor. Keep in mind your synopsis may be much shorter than novelists write for their books.
3. Screenplay Sample: This may not be necessary for each and every investor, but if someone wants to see it, have it ready.
4. Selling Points: These are the reasons investors will need to consider investing in your film. Why will the film be a hit? What kind of interest have you already attracted? Write a document that hones in on why the film will make back the money invested or be paid back in some other form of return on investment. Keep in mind that you will have to hone or rewrite this when you apply for grants.
5. Budget: Grant foundations and investors will both want to know how much the film is going to cost. Have as detailed a budget together as you can make. Research how many shooting days you’ll need versus the cost of equipment (which will vary based on your shooting schedule) and expected salaries of cast and crew, as well as the cost of post-production. The shorter production schedule you have, the better off you’ll be. Don’t be afraid to apply a little ingenuity here, either. If you have friends and acquaintances who owe you big-time from the all-nighters you pulled editing their films or helping them polish their scripts, call in those favors. Typically, the lower your budget, the better.
6. Cast and Crew Background Info: You need people who are going to be up to the task of helping you make your short film. Try to have a list of people who are professionals, or at least have a reputation for following through on their promises. As well, it is really affordable to attract top notch ACTRA (read: union) talent in Canada by hiring them under the VERY affordable ACTRA AIP program (or TIP in Toronto and area). You can get top notch performers for as low as $100 a day to star in your short film.
7. Footage: If you don’t have footage, that’s okay. Documentaries, even short ones, often have a little footage they can put together as a trailer. But if you don’t, you can include stills from films that have a similar look to what you want to achieve. This “mood reel’ can give your investors a better idea of what your film will look like once it’s completed.
8. Résumé: Even if it’s short, include it. Include any film-related information you can: competitions entered, short films on which you’ve been hired to work, assistantships, etc. If you’ve been to film school, great. If not, that’s great, too. Plenty of great filmmakers never went to film school.

This list is in no way comprehensive, it is merely a starting off point to get your ideas flowing. There are plenty of links online to help you put things together; there are even templates and software for the film prospectus. We’ve not had a chance to thoroughly check them out, but at first glance, they don’t look expensive or a terrible thing in which to invest.

Keep in mind, we are working in a visual medium. So, the more attractive your package can look and visually appealing it is, the better for you. Just don’t oversell and under deliver in the results. Nothing is worse for a producer or an investor to find a product that doesn’t live up to it’s package/promise.

Obviously, if you have a great story, that will help sell the film. Enthusiasm helps sell the film, too, so don’t leave that part out of the equation. That can help cut down on rejection, and even if you do get rejected, it won’t be because you didn’t give it your all.

The First Mystery of the Cocoverse

9 Mar 2011

Today I’m thinking about love. Alright, fine, I guess I’ve been thinking about love for a few days and keeping to the writing-from-a-place-of-truth law of the Cocoverse, I guess I’d better talk about it.

Do note however, that I am writing this blog very late on the day that it is due, using a 25 minute Pomodoro session during my lunch session and planning on polishing and primping it immediately upon conclusion of day job obligations with at least another 3 Pomodoros.

My delay in writing is, as ever, directly related to my reluctance to write it. I don’t want to write about love, because not only will I then have to think about it (which I am doing anyway), but in the writing process, I have to face my thoughts about love. Don’t want to. Want to brush them into the corner under the pile of dirty laundry, which I don’t have to look at until next Wednesday (which is the next designated laundry day in the Cocoverse).

Sometimes being a writer sucks that way. Experience has taught me that, now that I am writing about it, that I have absolutely no idea and no control over where this self-conversation is going. It could take me to wonderful and delightful heights, or painful and uncomfortable depths.

Yah, I know, likely both, but I’m not up for a roller coaster ride today, thank you very much. I’ve had enough drama in my personal life this month, thank you very much. Do I really have to look at this today? Can’t I just tell you an amusing story about my co-workers new found obsession with the TV show Glee? Or the child-like delight of another colleague at his name appearing right after that of an A-list star on a film credit list? Or my super insider sneak peek at a fine cut of the short film “Rusted Pyre” (it was awesome by-the-way; hooray to the CSSC and Year of the Skunk for making it happen!) I could even just make something up about the Cat Lady who made her first appearance in last week’s blog entry. Anything not to talk about me. Sigh. Squirmy though I am and likely will continue to be, it is time to pull off the band-aid and tell you some of the love thoughts. But first, I’m getting a nice cup of tea.

Back with the tea. Earl Grey, straight up. And a glass of water. Procrastinating? Who? Me? By the way, if this was a script, this is the point at which I would delete the entire preceding paragraph and start this story at the real beginning, which is right around here somewhere. Though I leave it in for your edification (your word of the week, for which you should thank me cause I was going to make the word for the week “epigenetics” but I decided to take pity on those of you for whom science is not a religion), as I thought you might want a look at how I really write these delightful missives, so carefree and conversational that, apparently, they look effortless. After a tiny and completely non-scientific poll of several readers of this blog, it appears that the prevailing thought is that I whip these confections off within a period of between 30-60 minutes. Hmmm. Maybe I’m doing something wrong, or have horrifically slow keyboarding skills, but no. Sorry to show you the little man behind the curtain, but typically a post of 1,000-1,500 words takes between 2-5 hours. You see how much I love you that I do this for you gratis every week? Well, while it is true that I do love you, we all know I love me more and that writing the blog is in its essence, a gift to myself as it is a private master class in writing taught by me for the edification (now that I made you look it up I may as well use it twice ), of self. See, I even tried to take a deliberate turn into writing about writing and still ended back a the L word.

Love. I have lots and lots in my life, that’s for sure. Friends and family and colleagues and even a few folks that really don’t know me well, but seem to have developed an inexplicable warmth nonetheless. I started thinking about love in new ways this week out of a conversation about character and motivation. My friend was telling me that he was hanging-out at a restaurant with a woman who I had known him to be dating not long ago. But he made a point of clarifying that it wasn’t a date, rather they were hanging-out. Totally not getting the difference from where I was sitting. Apparently it had something to do with him not having the expectation of a romantic type conclusion to the evening. I’m still not sure I get it, but my actual understanding of his POV isn’t the point. The point is, that the conversation strongly reminded me that characters in a scene, as in life, have differing expectations. I wonder if his date thought there was a difference? It started thinking that I spend a huge amount of time thinking about my feelings of love, who I have them for and who I don’t, who I wish I had them for, or should have them for and who engenders feelings the like of which I would delight to chuck in the recycling bin as a total waste of time, and quite frankly a bit embarrassing to boot. I have spent very little time in life contemplating the love directed my way. Romantically and otherwise.

I am always shocked to find out that someone even likes me.

Anyone actually saying the words out loud to me can expect a bemused “Why?” to pop out of my mouth, particularly if a glass or two of wine have already gone in. Little time also thinking about what being loved does to people. How has the fact that this person loved me and that person didn’t, changed me? And why do some people seem to fall in and out of love faster than the seasons change, while some of us, once begun never truly stop.

I can think of only one time in my life that I truly fell completely and forever out of love with someone. It was the strangest thing. It happened in an instant, in the time it takes to snap your fingers. One moment I loved him. The next moment I discovered the latest betrayal, the latest link I was supposed to over look in a long, long, long chain of things that had to be over looked. And snap. Something broke. Not my heart, but the chain around it.

I realized that my love for him was killing every single thing inside me that was good and bright. So I stopped loving him.

I’m still surprised at how easy it was, and from time to time, I’ll look inside at the place where the love once lived and marvel at the empty room with the clean fresh breeze still blowing through. Sometimes I wonder if it makes me a bad person, that after carrying a torch for the guy for nearly fifteen years it was such a simple and painless act to snuff it out. I know that it hurt him very deeply when I withdrew so absolutely from his life, and I think that some part of me should be sorry for inflicting that pain, but I have no idea where that part of me is.

And…there it is, the truth that all this disconnected rattling around about love was meant to reveal. I’m not sure that I know a thing about it. Love. Hmmm. Earlier today a colleague gave me a couple pieces of writing with the hope that I could “add my special touch”.

She knew they weren’t good, but couldn’t tell me why. No problem. I read them. I could see exactly what was wrong and how to fix it. I could have taught a class on it then and there. About writing I know. About love… I just don’t know. Love is a mystery to me.

I can hear the TV in the background now shouting out “Boxes from Krypton are not toys!” A rather delightful statement, don’t you think? Maybe romantic love is my Kryptonite? Maybe the reason I can’t seem to work up the Mojo to finish the long labour of my feature Rom Com script is that the closer I get to the subject, the faster my super powers get sucked away. Or, I could just be looking for excuses. I do find that is another weird side effect of writing this blog, I’m rapidly losing my ability to find a good excuse and really sell it.

I feel now like I should sum up and tie this all together for you by pointing out what I hope this post is meant to teach you and I about writing for the screen. But I don’t think I will. This week instead of going out with my usual bang and cymbal crash and statement of the bleeding obvious, I will just lay it down. Gently lay it down. I love my family. I love my job. I love my friends. I love potato chips. I love baseball and martinis. I love the colour purple and the smell of vanilla. I love my guitar teacher and my book club peeps. I love the Canadian Tenors and Oban whiskey. I love books and I love stories. I love films old and new. I love when people laugh at something I’ve written. I love the feel of cool rain on my face. I love the long deep blue of twilight. I love the warm strong arms of my love reaching round me to pull me close and the soft happy sigh of his breath on my neck.

In the Cocoverse, while there are any number of Laws, there are also a few Mysteries, the First of which is Love.

A Confession of the Craft

2 Mar 2011

One of the most perpetually frustrating things about screen writing is the mastering of the daunting task of character description. The restriction of only being permitted a few sentences to draw a fully realized character is something that drives me quite mad. Hands down each character introduction is the most re-worked and re-written part of any of my scripts. It is a specific screenwriting skill that I struggle to master and true confession time; I’ve stolen my current method of dealing straight from a great film – “A River Runs Through It”. Which is drawn from the scene, which is particularly unquotable but has remained with me always, is in which the Reverend is correcting Young Norman’s composition, which must be completed before he can be set free to go fishing, and, after liberal use of a red pen, hands it back with a single word, “Shorter”.

The inciting incident to the detailed deconstruction of my character building technique was an observation of a certain very particular person whom I spotted on my drive to work last week. You know, one of those people who reach through the dull haze of your routine and pinches you sharply on the cheek or pokes you in the eye, or sneaks up behind you and claps loudly in your ear. So there is me, in my ancient Honda Civic, about two thirds of the way along my usual 4th Avenue commute. Usual time -‘bout 8:15. Usual tunes – Radio Canada. Unusually the heat was turned up as it was, also unusually, a very cold day for Vancouver at the end of February. As I coasted to a halt at the controlled crosswalk just past Alma, I observed a person crossing from left to right in front of me, moving from the more commercial area and heading into the more residential with that fierce purpose that many of us demonstrate on shockingly cold days.

It wasn’t so much her hunched shoulders or extra-long stride that caught at my attention so much as the way she was dressed and what she carried. Or maybe it was the jangling incongruence (your word of the week), of all these things together that burned her image into my memory. She was a slight woman of middle years and average height, greying hair and oversize eye glasses – nothing there to explain my instant fascination.

Let’s break down the image and see what we can discover. It was the coat I think, or maybe the toque or the scarf? On her feet were sneakers and white tube socks. The few inches of pants visible beneath the coat hem looked to be grey sweat pants with the elastic bottoms. The coat was a magnificence of green velvet, a full length shapeless duster with a back vent, far more suited to opening night of the opera then a quick skitter across an icy early morning street. Calling the coat green might be a bit generous. It was greenish rather, that special shade that pond scum wears so well. It was perhaps the weird movement of the velvet over the sweat pants that captured my gaze. Or the bright fuchsia shawl swathed around her neck and shoulders. Not elegantly draped around her neck and shoulders mind, but swathed in the way a Russian peasant carrying a heavy basket of potatoes down a dirt road in minus thirty degree weather during the empty belly days of winter’s end is swathed. On her head, Canada reasserted its place in the outfit’s sartorial hierarchy with a spectacular acid green toque, though that doesn’t quite paint it true. The green was a shade somewhere between lime and Kelly green. An inexplicable green actually. Not corresponding to anything ever seen in nature. And did I mention the double orange stripe defining the toque’s brim? Or the orange pom-pom bobbing wildly on the tip-top of the entire confection/train wreck?

There was no tearing my eyes away. Good thing that spot features a particularly long crossing light, as I was afforded the leisure of tracking this vision’s progress while my brain scrambled to make sense of what my eyes were reporting. “Why? Why?” screeched the voice of my rarely ever heard from internal fashion police. Then I spotted the third green in the equation, partly masked from my early view by the large metal studded satchel purse swinging from her upstage shoulder. The green of a cloth grocery bag with one, no, two small, heavy items distorting its shape. Ah Hah! Cat Lady! Out of cat food! Running out to the corner store before work to make sure the furry children won’t perish from hunger before the work day is done! I’m so clever.

As I was regaling my co-workers with my description of this delightful apparition and my Sherlock Holmes style conclusion, I began to think about how this outfit, the time of day, walking speed, body posture and the location all came together to give me a powerful impression of this character, who she is, how she feels about that, and about what’s going on with her in that moment. That led me to ponder my struggles with script character introductions. The fallout of which is that I decided to challenge myself to take my ten minute rambling description of the minutiae of her appearance and my conclusions about her character and turn it into something of a length for a script. How’s this?

PENELOPE WALLACE (48) performs a lunging skitter across the frozen street. Her uneven step influenced by the mugging she received early this morning when assaulted by the entire contents of her front hall closet. No matter her mismatched armour, the unseasonable cold, or the painful banging of the shopping bag against her knee, she presses toward home – there are cats to be fed!

Okay, well still too long and wordy. Fine. I will keep working on it. As a very wise film producer once said, “Short. Is. Better.”

Holey Socks & Creative Heresy

23 Feb 2011

Now in the course of our day-to-day, we all give and receive pots and bushels and bags and dump trucks full of advice from all and sundry on any manner of issues from trivial to life-changing. Being an overweight woman, for example, I could build a small island with the barrels, bags and dumpsters full of advice that I’ve received over the years on diet and exercise. I particularly enjoy receiving it from persons whom have never tried to lose more than 10 pounds during their entire lives. It’s the helpful but condescending tone that really gets me there, as if the Mensa candidate scientist with 8 years of psychotherapy under her belt (a.k.a. Me) to whom they are speaking is somehow overweight due to lack of knowledge about self or nutrition. Icing on the cake is when the adviser is a perky twenty something who waits tables while building her home jewelery party business. Okay, enough with the rant. This is meant to be a commentary on writing advice.

There can be periods, when it seems very much like you are strictly on the receiving end for the advice garbage chute and I’ve had one of those periods lately. This time though I noticed a new thought rising like a peculiar odour from the well-meaning heaps of advice that seem to have shoaled in all the nooks and crevices of my apartment. That thought is that the vast majority of advice is not only common sense, and stuff I already know, but it is the same advice over and over again on the same issues, phrased in ways that differ little.

Now some of the time this is important, because for us to hear and own a good piece of advice, it may need to be expressed in a very particular way at a very particular time and from a very specific person, granted. But what became as clear to me as the harmonious ring of a perfectly plucked F chord, is that I really only pay heed to advice that boast one of two characteristics. First if it is truly novel, or expressed in a truly novel way. Second if it is crap advice, even more so if it is expressed in a completely useless way.

Now to the novel examples. I often tell the story of my young niece catching me with holes in the toes of my socks and not only did she helpfully point this fact out to all assembled, but she wagged her tiny finger at me and in a very admonishing tone advised me, “Auntie Carolynne, we don’t have to wear socks with holes in them.” I must confess that not only have I never worn holey socks from that day till this, but every time that I come across one I think of her oh-so-serious five year old face giving me grooming advice. So while thousands of people could have given me that sartorial (your word for the day), pointer I remember it, and act on it, because it came from such a novel source.

Same thing with how I finally and forever learned to distinguish the correct use of “its” vs. “it’s”. I made it all the way through high school as an “A” student without ever really learning the rule. Then with my switch to a science focus in 12th grade and on into University, my lack of ability to apply the correct form never was much of an issue. It was finally, as an adult, that a merciful client, for whom English is a second language, straightened me out. Apparently my error laden emails to him were driving him mad. And so. Schooled by a Francophone in a very ubiquitous and fundamental English usage was a novel enough experience that the lesson stuck. For the record though, he and I are still divided on the issue of the plural of beer, which he insists in English is “beers” and I told him that was only true if the space between his shirt collar and ears was rouge, you were a Maple Leafs fan or your front yard featured the town’s best collection of rusty car bumpers and old tires.

The jumping off point for this idle cogitation on the differences between advice you take and advice you can, and should avoid was a colleague attempting to engage me in discourse on the subject of writing. As those of you who chase that particular dragon are likely aware, when people find out you are writer, they somehow feel morally obligated to share with you their own collection of catch phrases and pithy bon-mots, regardless of how limited or cliché. And so, a brief synopsis of a current writing project was interrupted by the question, “How can you write about snipers? My creative writing teachers always told me to Write what you know.” Sigh.

“Write what you know.” Yah, thanks, I hadn’t heard that one before. I would please, like a good bottle of cabernet for every time that little toad popped up in a writing conversation. What a wine cellar I would have! Almost every writer I know who has written anything at all good, ignores that advice far more than they take it. I’d like to point out that Anne Rice probably didn’t write the Vampire Lestat books based on her personal experience with vampires. Also pretty sure J.K.Rowling didn’t actually go to a school for witches and wizards, nor had her parents, grand-parents or any other member of her family.

Not to say that you shouldn’t add things you do know to your story, of course you should, my extensive knowledge of opera production and genetics or the inner workings of university bureaucracy can pop up in all kinds of stories that I’m writing. And certainly emotional knowledge gained from having been left at the alter or lost a sibling or won a championship can add wonderful veracity and energy to your writing. But I don’t think that in the main that you should write about those things directly. I think that is where mediocre writing comes from. Are you shocked and frightened? Am I advocating creative heresy? Yes, I think that I am. I think you and I should write about things that we don’t know, but that we want to know. The only sure-fire advice that I can give you on how to write a good story is just that. Write to teach yourself something. Write to learn about yourself. Write to make sense of your past- of your triumphs and failures.

I am currently writing a romantic comedy that asks the question, “How do you recognize true love?” In all honesty I’m not doing it to please the producer or to make a lot of money, or even to sell it. I quite sincerely want an answer to that question and my genuine passion for that quest is producing some of the best writing I’ve ever done. Along the way my knowledge of softball, wine-making, the labyrinthine passages of the Banff Springs Hotel and the vagaries of the human heart all appear in the mix. But telling you what I know is not my purpose, sharing the road to knowing, is.

That’s it then, your writing advice for the week. Go forth and commit creative heresy. Scratch out “Write what you know.” and take a leap of faith and passion and write what you want to know, what you need to know, what you wish to know. If you can do that, I promise you will transcend the mediocre. Hmmm. I just got up from the desk and wandered around the apartment for a few minutes pondering the seriousness of me making you that promise. Promises are commitments after all. Do I really feel this bit of unasked for advice is key to making mediocre writing great? Yah, I guess I do. So what is that now, anybody keeping count? Law #4 of the Cocoverse. Let’s call it that for now, I’ll do a bit of review this week and give you a recap in the next post.

Have You Seen My Mojo?

16 Feb 2011

Has anybody seen my Mojo? I put it down a couple of weeks back and darned if I can remember where I put it.

While it is true that a number of life issues have been major distractions of late, things have now settled down a bit. So, a couple days ago, I felt like it was time to get back at it. Or at least to dib-dabble around on some script or another. Thing is, I can’t seem to get into anything. I’m sort of acting like a toddler faced with a plate of food that I don’t want to eat. I’m glooping around in the mashed potatoes, using a piece of asparagus to paint a landscape on the table and stacking the pieces of roast beef first on one side of the plate and then the other. A lot of movement but no chewing and swallowing.

I think of my Mojo as a very specific cocktail of things particular to me. You probably have your own recipe, but mine seems to consist of: part boredom, part curiosity, part hunger, part imagination, part hope, a chunk of awe, a fistful of fear, a big dash of beauty and a good handful of funny. It’s the part of me that cares about things, that engages, that asks “What if?” that gets excited or hurt or fills my head with shiny sparkly thoughts. Without it I’m just going through the motions of life. Essentially faking it. Thing I’ve found though, that while I can get away with faking my life for a short time, I’m not so good at faking my writing.

I’m not in too big a panic though, I’ve mislaid my Mojo before and I am sure to find it again. I know that I will, for it is as integral a part of me as my lungs or brain or heart, so I know that it is here somewhere, just by virtue of the fact that I’m still breathing, my heart is still pumping and my teeth still need brushing. Oh, gee, excuse me a minute, I’m going to go brush them. Maybe I left my Mojo in the bathroom drawer next to the dental floss.

Nope, it wasn’t there. My breath is however now minty fresh, and I’m happy to report I look like a million bucks in the $7 top I bought earlier today. It is a lovely Wedgwood blue which is a colour that looks very well on me. That’s something I do when I’m looking for my Mojo. I’ll get all clean and shiny and do my hair and nails and makeup and put on some clean fresh clothes.

That’s only one of the ways I search for my Mojo. Since, as writers and artists, we need to locate our Mojo to do any creative work (and I bet that all of us at some point misplace it), I thought I’d share with you today some of the places I look for mine.

So, there is one: personal grooming. Another is: naps. Sometimes 20 minutes on the purple velvet couch with Max the Teddy Bear tucked under my chin is all it takes. When I awake there is a bounce in my step and a question in my head about a character or a scene or a line of dialogue and off I go. Another is: taking a walk or 10 minutes of turning up the music and dancing like no one is watching.

Playing the guitar is one of my favourite re-mojovating techniques, though I have been playing quite a bit the last few days and so far the Mojo has remained elusive. So I called out the twin guns today, I had lunch with my Mother and bought a cheap but super gorgeous blue top.

Like many of us, regardless of age, we seek parental approval and often I find that in chatting with my Mom, updating her on what’s up in my life really pushes me to focus. I am of course, always trying to paint a positive picture for her and when I listen to the pretty little truths and even prettier lies that I’m telling her, it draws my attention to what is really going on in my head and heart. Afterward I seem to have my priorities reshuffled and when I next walk the streets looking for it, my Mojo is easily spotted enjoying a double espresso at a side walk Cafe on the Boulevard. When I sit down with her and start in on how hard I’ve been looking for her and why didn’t she tell me where she was going, she just tosses back her caramel coloured mane of hair, laughs throatily and tells me she has been sitting there all along, right where I left her, watching the boys going by and waiting for me to remember where I’d left her.

I’m not the biggest shopper in the world, so that is another thing that can call my Mojo back from where ever she is hiding. Buying something that is neither food, drink, nor a book is a rare enough event that with the ring of a retail register, Mojo will come running just to see what’s going on. As I said earlier, she houses a big piece of my curiosity, so novel experiences of almost any kind can make her poke her head up and ask “What’s Up?”

Another thing I try, is reading through all of my projects in progress and seeing if anything ignites a spark. Often I’ll find that the thing I’m most interested in writing is the thing that is the lowest priority. Sometimes it seems the fastest way to writer’s block for me is to have someone express interest in a particular story idea. That would be my pesky fear of success gene expressing itself.

Strangely, one of the most reliable ways of getting my Mojo back is forcing myself to have a look at my current slate of scripts or script ideas and spend a few minutes writing out what needs to happen next with each of them. Not just big picture things, like re-write first Act dialogue or finish Act III, but if I have plot points or snips of dialogue or scene settings that I can see and hear distinctly but may not be fully fleshed out or even connected, I just jot them down. The next thing I know I’ll be opening up a script and telling myself I just need to write one scene or describe one shot and the next thing you know my bladder is sending up a flare or my brain reminds me that the butt had been in the chair for a couple of hours and it is starting to hog all of the oxygenated blood and could I please stand up and do a few knee bends to restore circulation.

Even stranger, reading a bad book or a great book, or seeing a bad film or a great film can also snap me out of complacency and get the fingers moving across the keyboard again. Mediocrity (your word of the week) in story-telling though is sure to keep Mojo on whatever all-inclusive extended vacation she has hared off too. Watching an okay movie or reading an okay book just puts me in stasis.

There, that’s the secret then.

I need to shake things up a bit. So I’m going to stand up, do some deep knee bends and then go read the script for the 1968 film The Lion in Winter with Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn. That’ll bring my Mojo a running.

Until next week – get on the Internet or hit the library and read the script of an academy award winning movie and give your Mojo a shot of inspiration, your writing will thank you for it.

A Donkey by Any Other Name

9 Feb 2011

Hi all, it’s me back at it again. Apologies for not delivering your weekly fix of Coco last Wednesday, but it was one of those (fortunately rare), moments when the body says, “Stop!” and one must listen or risk all.

I do confess to being a bit scattered still this week- My thoughts being pretty much the only lively things about me. This has led to a much longer mulling period than usual before setting fingers to keys. I started to think I’d just rumble around in the mental front hall closet a bit and toss out whatever balls of wool, odd gloves, weird shaped – but sadly empty- booze bottles and ever else that has been lurking in the dusty dark.

Then I had to face the fact that I was looking to take the coward’s way out. What I need to be doing this week is admitting I was wrong about something. Wow. That is just as hard to type as it is to say. And I need to set the record straight on behalf of my book club peeps who wrote such polite and well-worded rebuttal emails. So I’m sharing the continuation of the book club conversation to which Blog the 31st added some gasoline in order to illustrate to you why I think, as writers, it is way more important to have a good book club than it is to have a writer’s group, to whit, because you can learn so damn much about writing without emotional attachment and insecurity about your own writing getting in the way.

What follows is a cautionary tale of what happens when your logic fails and believing that when x is true, you assume (in the classic “ass” of “U” and “me” kind of way), that y and z must be true. In an effort to be polite I choose not to question the Highlander and Squishy as closely as I should have about their comments at book club. I will forgive myself for that only in that my questioning of people’s opinions have sometimes been described as, um, assertive. Okay, fine the Rock of Truth just fell off the bookshelf and hit my thumb. Aggressive okay? Sometimes in the pursuit of perfect semantic clarity and full understanding, I can be a bit aggressive.

Squish and the Highlander have both given me permission to share their thoughts on the matter of Blog the 31st with you here. I have slightly edited only to protect their privacy and because I am in fact lazy enough to let them write my blog post for me. Thanks guys!

From Squishy…

“Hello my dear friend!
So I just read your blog. And you wrote this: “Have I discovered that two of my inviolate Laws of Writing: 1) That my stories come through my connection to the divine and 2) that the Muse must be served daily or his attention will be forfeit, rendering my life without purpose – perhaps these are not universal truths but only true within the confines of the Cocoverse?”
I think that you misunderstood me at least, I cannot speak for (the Highlander) with regards to the War of Art. I totally believe that stories come through our connection to the divine and that the Muse must be served daily. I completely agree with these two points. It was just that that book, the way he writes about those points, did not connect emotionally with me.
Your Laws of Writing are true, true, true. I fully feel and believe in #1 and #2 but I express them in different words. I feel them in different words. I’m at a loss as to how I do express them, my fingers are hovering over the keyboard. I do know that the divine is within me, within everybody, and I connect with that every day. I feed the Muse every day, whether through writing, reading, yoga, plotting…it all comes back to that power or spirit within me, that I share with the world through writing or creating or just being. I serve the Muse by being true to myself and if some days that means I don’t put pen to paper, then that’s the way it is. But the connection to the divine inside comes first and everything flows from that. I think I am saying that for me, the two Laws are the same thing.
Big big hugs,”

My reply…

“Dear Squish,
Thank you for clearing that up for me! I guess I saw you nodding and agreeing with … and I was such in shock at the fact you didn’t like the book that no doubt the nuances of what you were saying didn’t get thru. Its been a great thing to think about though and I’ll for sure set the record straight blog wise. Would it be alright to share what you just taught me with the hopeful writing masses? I think you really hit it on the head when you said that it was the way he writes about it that didn’t connect with you. Thus why we need so many different stories told so many different ways! And its good too, to kick me in the head from time to time though and break thru my self absorption to look at things a different way you know. Sometimes this fine mind of mine isn’t as open as it should be!
My musing about whether or not I was going to like your respective novels was really a big wondering to myself whether I would like them if I truly didn’t understand where you were coming from. But in ruminating on that I realized that it didn’t matter if I loved your method or understood the intent, that no matter what, if your story speaks to me that it might be irrelevant what you meant me to like or take away. Perhaps as writers for an audience of greater than one, we don’t get the final say on that, regardless of how clear we think we are with our prose!
And I do like your novel, it is the unfolding of the promise of playfulness and imagination that I saw in your earlier short stories. I think I’ve told you before and it is even more true because you are advancing in your craft, you have the bits that can’t be taught – the Art – imagination and original voice, and the nuts and bolts are coming along just fine.
Big hugs back, and thank you for continuing this conversation, it is important to me that my friends want to discuss this stuff and not just wave it off as an agree-to-disagree thing. You know how I LOVE to understand things.”

From the Highlander…

“Hi Carolynne!
I’ve been musing over your blog post from Wednesday and now that I see how you saw my point of view – I feel a bit stupid for not being clearer about what I meant.
I did like what he (Stephen Pressfield – The War of Art) said – he was very clear about the biggest obstacle standing in the way of creative endeavours is the artist herself (and boy do I ever agree with that – at least for me) and I like that he advocates self-discipline and taking what you’re doing seriously.
I think where it fell down for me was the presentation – I found him a bit repetitive at times (though I can see the purpose in that since repetition helps a person learn new behaviours and habits) and I took the mentions of God as more of a religious thing and not so much as the universal divine – I admit I might have misunderstood what he was trying to get across with that part.
I agree with you that we should hold ourselves responsible to whatever gifts and dreams we have that we hold dear. We owe it to ourselves and the given gift to explore it, to take it seriously and, above all, to do something with it. I feel a part of something much bigger than myself when I write – even on the crappy days when I spend a lot of my time arguing with myself and cuddling up to the delete button. I don’t know if it’s God, or the universal divine – more often I feel that it’s my mind expanding just that little bit further to take in more, so that I can push myself to do more and face whatever obstacles I’m putting in my own way – and face them without fear or excuses.
I should have thought it out more before I spoke, because I think (I hope!) that we agree more than it seemed like while we were talking about it at book club – well, you were talking, I was having a mouth and brain disconnect, but anyway…
I used to be a TA at a high school for a couple of years and I always told the students, “You can disagree with me and dislike something I like – but you have to have a better reason than, “I dunno, it just sucked I guess.” ” And despite drilling that into their heads, I seem to have forgotten it myself.
I wanted to try and explain myself better and to apologize again for coming across like a cretinous (your word for the week) moron.

My reply…

“Gosh (Highlander), please don’t feel you have to apologize because I misunderstood you! Though that is such a writer thing to do that I totally get where that comes from.
Honestly I’m thrilled that the discussion churned up so many questions. My little house of “I know everything” needs to be shaken up from time to time and both you and Squishy have significantly added to my body of knowledge from both the discussion and the terrific emails in its aftermath. And you were both so kind as to not suggest that some of this extra fat I carry around was stuck in my ears.
May I share your email with Squish? I’d also like to share some of what you guys said in my next blog too, if you are agreeable – I’ll leave out the part where you call yourself a cretin But I would love to share what you said about holding ourselves accountable and your feeling of connection to something bigger with the wider world. You’ve both said great things in your emails that really demonstrate why book club is so important to being a writer; how much we can learn from each other and the importance of not just listening but asking questions about what you think you’ve heard!
One of the things I need to think further and deeper on is how and why I, upon hearing that the book didn’t connect with the two of you in anything like the way it did with me, that I extended that to mean that you therefore didn’t agree with two of the things about writing that for me this book hits on the hardest. Since both your emails have corrected me on that I think I need to share the cautionary tale of the danger of assuming when someone says they mean X about A that they also mean Y about A, just because X and Y are dependent in my mind. Ah, the danger of assumptions. Think I’ll title the blog post “A Donkey By Any Other Name”. And since it my blog, I get the hind end of the donkey costume!”
Cheers,
C.

More from the Highlander on what goes on in a writer’s head…

“I’m glad I’m not the only one who feels it necessary to apologize over misunderstandings or for having what seems to be (and sometimes may actually be!) a differing opinion. I suppose it’s bound to happen if you spend anytime at all in other people’s heads writing down their words and adventures – you start to see everything from so many different angles of possibility that being articulate outside of those inner musings and writings becomes difficult. I do it in my writing too – I’ll go back over something and realize that some of what I meant to say is still living in my head and I’ve just been filling in the blank bits on the page from up there – and that won’t be useful to any eventual reader at all.
Book club has been such an eye-opener for me too! I might be biased, but I think our book club has assembled some of the most intelligent and interesting people I know – it’s shaken up my own house of “I know everything” as well. Book club, for me, has been like looking at a map and realizing there are still lots of unexplored, uncharted blank spots – except the map is my brain. I need to go further and really see what’s out there because my own opinions and way of seeing things are just a tiny little island.
I also need to learn to say all of what I mean instead of speaking in partials and assuming that anyone listening is filling in the blanks the way I am in my head.
I think we can all take turns wearing the hind end of the donkey costume when we forget to listen well, ask questions or (in my case) speak in an articulate fashion – and not just at book club either. I’m sure I make these same mistakes elsewhere too – it’ll be a good for me to break that tendency.
My vain side says thank you for leaving out the part where I call myself a cretin, but honestly, if it fits into whatever you write, go ahead and use that too ”
– The Highlander

So there you go. Go forth and form a book club you writers all. It will be one of the best things you ever do for your writing.

HUGE thanks to the Highlander and Squishy, my fellow E-Litter-rati for writing this week’s post for me

say-it-ain’t-so

Greetings friends. I find I have the stage and know not how best to approach it. If I could think of a clever bit of onomatopoeia (let’s also make this your word for the week, as we don’t want anyone to starve or atrophy in the absense of what is about to be announced), for microphone feedback, I would [insert that combination of letters here].

2 Feb 2011

I know many of you have been waiting all day for our dear #WW Laureate’s next post in her adventure-in-screewriting as they may be/were/are and it is my duty as the “producer” of this blog and site to inform you that the show as regularly scheduled cannot go on today. Instead I bring you the substitute teacher’s version of #WritersWednesday. So feel free to goof off and play heads-up seven-up, because the teacher is out sick today and us students are left to fend for ourselves. But in true #WW Laureate fashion and as is made fashionable by Carolynne, I’m going to write from a place of truth and what is happening right now. After all, it seems that I should stay somewhat true to the spirit of this regular Wednesday time slot.

AND I’m almost certain that we will have a chance to hear Carolynne wax poetic (and far better job than I, might I add), on any number of reasons or excuses and bluffs as to why we did not have a post from her – for you – her fans – this week.

Alas, I am sure that somewhere amongst next week’s post will exist a list. Because we all love a good a list. Thereon said list will be the truth, or a multiple choice of options and as well as (and perhaps more importantly), another lesson in the world of life as an emerging writing talent. No doubt, she has in fact planned this whole rouse this week to teach me and you the greater lesson of the Art of Understanding-and-Having the back-up plan!!

So let us raise a glass as a toast to Carolynne and her mischievous and clever little ways, which will no doubt be revealed “until next time”…

And the above all being true for the time in being and to the best of my knowledge, I want to say that we are now officially closed for submissions to the CSSC for the 2010/11 submission season. And boy does it feel great! We increased our submissions year over year by a whopping 174%. We also have now cracked the 30 mark. As in, we have now received submissions from over 30 countries worldwide and I’m happy to report no cases of Ebola, avian bird flu or some other H1-N1 pandemic. I guess we have proof that world peace and health can be found through writing!

And on that note… how about I leave you with something pretty to look at: a pie chart of where the entries came from this year… I take special comfort in not only knowing how loved the CSSC is by our cousins to the south. But it is also good to see it represented in the shape of a pie! I can’t wait to see how the leader boards shape up in comparison to the entries. I’ll have to remember to do another pie chart once we get to the quarter finals, semi’s and finalists, so we can keep a running visual tally of how the different countries stack– er, rather, slice up.

The Top Three Tips to Winning a Screenplay Contest

30 Jan 2011

The truth is, writing is writing, and contests are contests. How a writer wins a screenplay contest is the same as how a writer wins any other contest. You apply the three variables of attention, skill and luck.

You can’t do much about luck. The Vikings believed a person was born with lucky or unlucky, and that a person’s luck could desert him. On the other hand, Samuel Goldwyn said,

“The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

Believe in the first if you must, chuckle at the third, but apply the second, and always keep your fingers crossed, except when typing.

Attention and skill, however, are well within your control.

If I were to give a person only two words to live by, they would be, “Pay attention”, possibly with an exclamation mark afterwards. Attention is more important than skill, because skill can’t be acquired without attention.

Skill is more important than talent. Talent is the flash that starts the fire – skill is what feeds it and keeps it from going out. Skill, like attention, requires work. Skill can tell a simple story in a compelling, page-turning way, and tell a complex one without requiring that the viewer have a program in order to keep the plot lines untangled.

Here’s how you apply attention and skill to make a winning entry.

1 – Research your contest.
Make sure you and your work fit the parameters of the contest. I’m pretty sure that you won’t put a comedy screenplay into a horror contest, or vice-versa. But look at the requirements for length, number of characters, location, themes (like “uplifting”). If you are one character over the limit, or can’t move your story from Toronto to Spongecake Falls, then don’t squander time, energy and postage on the contest. It may be a very good contest, with excellent prizes, and you’re absolutely not going to win it.
There may also be age limitations, or residency, experience or estrogen requirements. Read everything. Be sure. Pay attention.
What do you do after you’ve read everything you can find about the contest and determined that it’s absolutely for you and your screenplay? You can (and should) contact other winners. If they won, they may have some tips for you.
2– Polish, polish, polish
Read your screenplay again. More than that, get feedback. Every writer should have a writers’ group, either online or in real life. Learn to give good, solid, constructive feedback and seek out those who will give you the same.
When you’re entering a contest, it’s no time for a feel-good, warm-fuzzy-fest. You need to know if the opening scene kicks or sucks, if the humour is falling completely flat, if the characters will need to be shot in 3-D to be well-rounded. Find people who will tell you the honest truth about your screenplay. If they’ll tell you when something isn’t working, then you can believe them when they say it’s great.
You don’t have to make all, or any, of the changes suggested. Neil Gaiman says that when people tell you something isn’t working, they’re usually right; when they tell you how to fix it, they’re usually wrong. Do what you believe is the best for your screenplay. Run it by your readers again.
3 – Persist
Are there people who win the big prize the first time out? You betcha. Are there people who win only after entering multiple contests? Lots more of those. If you don’t win the first one, try again. You might or might not get feedback about why you didn’t win – chances are you won’t. Maybe you came in fifty-eighth, but maybe you came in eleventh, or sixth.
Don’t be discouraged – try again. If you give up, you’re guaranteed never to win. Maybe there’ll be another judge next year and you can put the same screenplay in again. Maybe you need to narrow your field, choose another contest, try another screenplay. Just be persistent. There are more good writers out there than there is funding for them, and that cuts across all the disciplines of writing, screenplays included.

Get out the lucky rabbit’s foot, nail that horseshoe up over the office door and keep your fingers crossed – except, of course, when typing.

The Single BIGGEST Mistake Writers Make. Period.

28 Jan 2011

Anyone who reads fairy tales knows the danger of wishes. Someone who gets three wishes always winds up having to wish a sausage off someone’s nose and doesn’t get the big house and the gold bathtub. That’s bad enough, but what if the fairy gives you only one?

“The single biggest mistake” is rather like “you get one wish”. In each case, there is a cornucopia full of possibilities. Writers have at their command an incredible choice of biggest mistakes.

The one that first came to me was “The biggest mistake a writer can make is not to write.” But then, if one doesn’t write, how can one be a writer? A writer not writing is an oxymoron. Scratch that one.

Okay: the biggest mistake a writer can make is not to read. Read others’ work so you can see how it is done, whether that is well, poorly or brilliant, and take the lesson. Read tips and instruction from other writers. Read for research, which will prevent your historical novel from being thrown at the wall. (Don’t ask.)

But what good is all that research and example if you never finish anything?

I know! The biggest mistake a writer can make is to start and not to finish. We all have an idea file and a little drawer of uncompleted stories or first drafts that we know need to be massaged or kicked into shape.

Oh, wait, shape – maybe the biggest mistake is for a writer to neglect the body in favour of the life of the mind. Aerobic exercise, even a walk in the fresh air, does wonders for a stalled plot line or recalcitrant character. “Butt in the chair, pointy end down” is great advice, but you gotta heave that butt out of the chair sometime, and not just to replenish the coffee and biscotti, either.

No, no, I’ve got it. The biggest mistake a writer can make is not to write what he or she knows! Yeah! That’s it. Wait – write only what you know? That could be boring after a while. Mistake.

Okay – the biggest mistake a writer can make is never to learn something new. On the other hand, you could spend all your time in research, and then you never get anything written. Another mistake. Write what you don’t know? Let’s not go there. Huge mistake.

Even if you avoid every one of these mistakes and produce work which is painstakingly researched, promptly finished, beautifully polished, what if you never, ever submit it for sale? Whether or not that’s a mistake may be a matter of debate. Most writers, however, want to be published, so let’s call it a big mistake.

Of course, you could still starve to death on a writer’s income. Then you will neither research nor read, nor write, nor submit. The biggest mistake a writer can make is to marry for love, not money, because the other biggest mistake is thinking you can (ha!) live on writing. Do not discuss this with your spouse, especially if he or she pays the bills. That would be a huge mistake – and one not confined to writers.

You can see how we’re going with this. Pick a mistake, and someone will have one they consider worse. It’s really very much like the arguments over the three wishes.

The cleverest solution to the single-wish problem was the wish of a man who asked to live long enough to see his youngest grandson fed his dinner from a golden plate with a silver spoon by his chief nurse. In this one wish he achieved longevity, progeny and wealth.

Let us learn from his example: The worst mistake a writer can make is to attempt to make a living at writing while failing to read, research, finish or market his or her work during that golden time when the spouse is footing the bills. Oops, we left out the exercise thing.

There is no single biggest mistake, people. There is only a rotating selection of biggest mistakes coming around on the menu. Take your pick. And don’t worry about the ones you haven’t made yet.

You’ll get to them. No mistake about it.

Wishing and Cat Skinning

26 Jan 2011

If I had a million dollars to invest in my writing career this year, here are some of thing things that I would have already ticked off the list:

I would have submitted a film to the Fake Film Fest sponsored here in Vancouver by Virgin Radio. By the time I heard about it, time was not my friend, vacation was over and I was back at the day job. It would have been a triumph though – a re-telling of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid using finger puppets and my Flip Video Camera. Then of course I would have actually got a pitch into Crazy8s as originally planned. But the competition required a video pitch and I choked on my self esteem in the final hours and thus, no submission.

I think at the end of the day the idea of myself on camera pitching a film was just too horrendous to contemplate. You may be under the impression from having read this blog once or twice, that I am a wildly self-confident person. When it comes to my writing – yes. When it comes to my body image – no. The only part I’d cast me in is an ogress. And since the story I was going to pitch did not take place in a fairy tale swamp, I decided I’d be better served to put my energy into finishing the longest labour of love ever (next to the seven year sweater), my romantic comedy feature script. Of course that is the next thing that would have been completed in this month of January. I mean I have a full outline. All I have to do is write the dialogue – the fun part! The easy part! Uh-huh.

What else. Hmmm. I would’ve also taken a trip up the Nile with my friend Sequoia in January – http://sequoiahamilton.wordpress.com/write/ She organizes these awesome writing trips and events.

Suffice it to say a portion of my million would be taking me to Ojai, California for a Writer’s retreat by the sea with writing coach extraordinaire Deb Norton – who has just launched a new website by the way www.partwild.com. But that is in February and I haven’t finished with January yet, despite the fact that it is almost finished with me.

Okay I would have also hauled my butt out of bed for the Vancouver version of Ink Drinks – which is Ink Coffee one Sunday a.m. a month hosted by Kat Montague. You can find Ink Canada on Facebook and Twitter and if you are looking to hang out with people who get what this writing thing is all about, I invite you to join us. It is really not a formal networking thing, more of a social club. But I sure find the folks inspirational and motivational on the creative career front.

One of the things I was super surprised to learn was how much having good writer peeps elevated the serotonin levels, as well as the quality and quantity of my creative output. The other thing I’d have assigned some of my million to this month is renewing my Women in Film and Video Membership (bad Carolynne) and signing up for the TV Writing workshop they have organized here in Vancouver this Saturday January 29 with Dave Moses (Hiccups, Robson Arms, Heartland). Dunno if there is still space, but if you’ve got the coin and the time check the www.womeninfilm.ca events section and go learn some stuff that I don’t know yet. Jeepers I sure I wish I could work that one into the budget. I don’t really need to pay rent in February, do I?

Oh, and I also would have signed up to volunteer for the Women in Film and TV Festival here in Rain City April 17. In fact, as a millionairess, I’d sign up to help out the Vancouver Film Fest in the fall as well. I’d also attend Yorkton Film Fest in May, and TIFF in Toronto in September and while I’m spending my million may as well add Venice, Berlin, Palm Springs and Cannes to the festival list, eh? I don’t want to get too festival’ed out though. One does need to write after all, not just party and watch other peoples movies. So maybe just one big international fest and a vacation cruise to Hawaii. I have my eye on that Toronto’s Screenwriter’s Conference in April too.

Though my big hope for April is still that I get a seat in the CTV – WGC Diverse Screenwriter’s program.

Okay, now all this thinking about all the writerly type things I’d like to do this year is making me exhausted and I haven’t made it past spring yet, let alone to the Banff Media Festival in June. I am attending that one, million dollars or no, as I am saving my pennies for gas. I might have to mooch sleeping space from a friend, whereas the million bucks would at least stretch to a small suite.

Complete topic shift now into the realm of navel gazing at some universal truths about writing and creativity. Funny how I always have to look inward and poke through the nooks and crannies to find a way to articulate something that expresses itself as something very large outwardly. This has been bugging me since book club when I discovered that two of our members hated a book on writing that I had recommended – Stephen Pressfield’s The War of Art. They seemed to hate it as passionately as I love it. That is really making me reconsider everything I thought I knew about the art of writing.

They are both writers themselves, aspiring novelists in fact, both working full time on their respective debut novels. The two things they seemed to take most exception to, were excessive talk about religion and little about Art and the idea that a writer should push her/himself to the daily discipline of facing down the blank page.

Now I’ve read the book several times and hearing that the author spoke excessively about God and religion throughout the text was surprising news to me. In reviewing the book again, post book club, I find the mentions of God or the idea of God were indeed as I remembered. Not mentioned in any organized religious way but as the concept of the universal divine. And the idea of writing as vocation or raison d’etre; in essence that we have a need and a responsibility to express our art and therefore our connection to the universe and the universal divine by pursuing our art. He also speaks of God a couple of times when discussing the difference between fundamentalism and its negative effect on the expression of art and humanism and its promotion of and reverence for art and the artist.

I’m thinking that this discussion of art and the divine didn’t fizz on me as God Talk since I totally agree with it. The author’s understanding of where his gift and creative drive and Art come from completely supports my own opinion. Since it supports my own point of view so entirely it is no surprise then that I am such a rabid advocate for the book. I also find resonance within for the daily struggle to pursue Art as Mr. Pressfield experiences it. Interesting to note that the husband of one of my other book club peeps is also a lover of the book. As a visual artist both professionally and vocationally it sounds as though he might join me in praising the book’s power and influence as a pivotal work that both supports understanding where our Art originates, but also pushes us to accept nothing less from ourselves than its dedicated pursuit.

This leaves me wrestling with the idea that since two of my dear writing friends find little of merit in a discussion that to me describes many of the essential truths of being a writer, that perhaps there is more than one way to skin a cat and write a story. Evidently they skin their cats some other how. It leaves me wondering if I will like their books. I sure hope I do. Maybe it doesn’t matter at all that they find the truth of their Art and chase the dream some other how. Perhaps I’ll just like the product as something created by funny, original, literate minds.

Still it feels a little cold and lonely out here in my quadrant of space today. Have I discovered that two of my inviolate Laws of Writing: 1) That my stories come through my connection to the divine; and 2) that the Muse must be served daily or his attention will be forfeit, rendering my life without purpose – perhaps these are not universal truths but only true within the confines of the Cocoverse?

Until next week then, I will write and contemplate the idea that the universe many not be entirely be as I imagine it.

Ways to Fund YOUR Short Film

22 Jan 2011

When you’re trying to fund a short film (specifically YOUR own short film), there are going to be days where you feel like you’re attempting to fund the sequel to Ishtar. Yet the process doesn’t have to be hopeless; if you’re prepared to encounter rejection (and there will be a lot of it), be tenacious every day, and don’t give up, you’ll reap dividends.

There are several avenues you can take to fund your film. Naturally, if you just happen to know a gagillionaire who loves short film and is willing to fund your enterprise to its hilt, your job is easy. But most of us don’t know people with scads of cash they know not what to do with, so we have to hunt.

Here are a few options:

1. Grants: By most standards, grants are a long shot—especially the competitive ones like the Canada Council or the American equivalent, the National Endowment for the Arts grant. But if you can find a non-profit or foundation that provides grants to recipients with projects similar to yours, it’s probably worth applying.
2. Private Investors: These are people willing to fund your film. They don’t exactly crawl out of the woodwork (at least not in real life—maybe they’d like to be an extra in your film for that), so you will have to look for them. Ask friends, colleagues, professors, and business associates to find out who these people are by word of mouth. Don’t be surprised if someone who has expressed an interest in investing in your film is going to expect rewards. That said, especially if you are making a short film, don’t over promise on what you can deliver in terms of financial gain to your potential investor.
3. Corporations: These are, of course, corporations willing to fund your film. They may not fund your film directly, but through a foundation. But you should still google some big-name companies you know to see what you come up with.
4. Kickstarter: This may not seem like the most obvious choice. The advantage (and disadvantage) to Kickstarter is that if you don’t meet your financial goal in raising the money within a specified period of time, you don’t get any money at all. This can be a selling point, but you’re also risking not meeting your financial goals for the film. However, Kickstarter might be a great way to help you on the homestretch. Christopher Salmon, a filmmaker, recently raised the entire budget for a short animated film he is making (based on a Neil Gaiman short story) on Kickstarter. IndieGoGo is another similar crowd funding option.
5. A website: If the idea of risk turns you off, you can always set up your own website where you can add a Paypal donation button which people can use to help you fund your film directly.

In my next post, I’ll discuss the material you’ll need to have together in order to make an effective proposal to whomever you submit, whether it’s someone willing to kick in $5 or a prestigious foundation.

In the meantime, don’t forget to check out the CSSC’s very own Short Film Fund, where you can raise up to $1,500 towards the completion of your film or marketing your finished product.

The Road to Hell

19 Jan 2011

Yep. That’s right folks. The post that this is supposed to be, it is not.

It was supposed to be my list of all the writerly type things that I would plan my year around if I had a big wad of cash and the freedom to come and go at will. Everything from Crazy8s to Yorkton to Banff and beyond. Sprinkled with workshops on cruise ships, pitch fests and a one week writer’s retreat in Paris. While that post is under way and will show up in the weeks to come, this is not that post. Why you ask? Because the Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.

I do realize that this is a variation on “The dog ate my homework.”, “My hard drive crashed.” “My husband left me.” “I broke my hand in a freak laundry room accident.” “I laughed-so-hard-at-Ricky-Gervais-hosting-the-Golden-Globes-that-I-tripped-on-the-edge-of-the-rug-and-spilled-a-glass-of-Merlot-on-my-keyboard.” You get the idea.

The phrase, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” is, according to several Internet sources, a proverb with origins in a statement by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who said “ “L’enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs”. Which I’m not sure is the same thing at all, but then my French sucks. I read and speak at about a 4 year old level, which means I can ask for the toilet and get some food in me, but following directions can get a bit iffy.

Oh well. I decided since I feel so short of my own expectations this week in so very many ways that I may as well grab a well worn phrase to build this post around because at least then I can claim to be in the company of authors who have used the phrase to their own advantage. That list includes Samuel Johnson, Coleridge, Sir Walter Scott, Soren Kierkegaard and Karl Marx. At least it does according to Wikipedia, which as we all know, is the accurate and definitive source for all knowledge.

That last by the way people, is sarcasm, not irony. We’ll get to your irony lesson sooner or later, since pretty much every writer that has ever lived needs to refresh their understanding of the ironical. But we’ll wait until I am in a super pissy mood or I bark my shins on a particularly heinous example before I subject you to that most holy of writing rants.

Writer’s rants have a way of sticking to repeated themes. We all have our areas of special annoyance which I’m thinking must somehow map to our personality traits and writing style. I for example, am somewhat careless about punctuation and spelling as befits my freewheeling stream of conscience shtick. Further down the curve though, I have been known to quibble about capitalization, wince at participles which dangle and become irascible (your word of the week) about word usage. I’ve been known to argue at length in defense of the use of a very particular word, using completely made-up-by-me but official sounding terms like, “emotional resonance” or “cultural zeitgeist”. Hah, hah. Who said words aren’t weapons, eh? Bet I could get 99% of you to back off your word criticism if I threw one of those at ya with just the right zing of passion and whiff of condescension in my tone.

One of the world’s best known, most prolific and hugely wealthy authors, Stephen King has his own area of special annoyance – “I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions.” (Stephen King, On Writing, 2000) I just thought I’d throw that in at this point because I am a big fan of Mr. King’s on many levels. Dropping that adverb advice in at this point also serves to assuage some of my Catholic guilt over not yet saying anything particularly useful.

How the proverb applies to me this week is with reference to the slate of writing and life tasks that saw much more added this week then scratched off. The frustration of having many intentions and not following through on any was a late night sitting front of my computer with a big giant self-hate on. Sometimes I’m not very kind to myself. I said some very bad things to me. Bad things I shan’t repeat. It has been my experience that this isn’t a very helpful place for a writer to go.

Given the billions of anecdotes about the self-abuse many writers and other artists have been known to inflict upon themselves you’d think someone somewhere would have added self-care as a topic into the Creative Writing curriculum. While one appreciates that such behavior makes one much more colourful and infinitely more likely to be portrayed by Nicole Kidman or Johnny Depp in the Biopic of one’s life, I for one would be far happier with more drama on the script page, less in my day-timer.

Note to self. Don’t over promise. Don’t over schedule. Don’t let the drama of friends, family or co-workers drag you from your path and onto their gerbil wheel of despair. Get enough sleep. Walk around the block. Eat things that are green and fibrous. Suggest short novels for book club. Avoid reality TV. Create a safe place and time to write and defend it from all the King’s men. See that’s it! Problem this week is my cutlass is in the shop getting a new edge ground into it. Got a couple chips in it this past weekend hacking away at the Rom Com script.

So it is a small nutshell of advice this week
1) sharpen your sword
2) stay off gerbil wheels
3) kill the adverbs

Until we meet again, be a lot nicer to yourself than I am to me.

Keep writing.

Living the Dream

12 Jan 2011

I’ve been thinking a lot the last little while about giving up the dream. Not for myself. Never fear in the event that the previous sentence sparked terror and disbelief in your heart causing your bottom lip to tremble and the thought spring unbidden to your consciousness “What ever would I do if Carolynne stopped writing!? Oh, the horror!” No fear gentle readers, making my way in the world as a creative writer is one dream I am never abandoning. I will (and do) state that to myself and anyone who cares to listen, loudly and often.

Giving up is much on my mind though. I’ve talked to, or received correspondence from, a number of my writer peeps over the past few months that are a bit despondent over what they perceive as failure. In all cases that failure is connected to their failure to have a script optioned or interest from a producer or broadcaster, or not placing well in competition or just flat out not getting hired to write for film and TV. God knows it is easy to get down on your career, especially when you’ve had a glimmer of success. Glimmers are great, but not however, accepted as legal currency. It can be dangerous to your self-esteem to think that because you’ve landed an agent or had a script place well in competition that Hollywood will call and six figure pay-or-play options are going to start raining down upon you.

I suppose this is my writer’s advice on living in the now, but these kudos and expressions of interest and acknowledgements of storytelling prowess should perhaps be full enjoyed in the moment, but not be considered to be the first event in a daisy chain of credits. Don’t get me wrong, they may indeed be just that, but maybe not. I do think they have to be celebrated and added to your Kudos file. Yes, I do keep a Kudos file (kudo, your word for the week) and if you ever have occasion to send me an email with kind things to say about my writing, that is where it goes. I even put a very nice “no thank you” series of emails from Space in there because for a “no”, the emails were indeed very encouraging. See, this is me saying that you should be encouraged by rejection, because you know what? At least you put it out there and only if you put it out there can you achieve your dreams. Constant rejection means at least you are constantly trying.

Come on, we’ve all heard the stories of successful writers, actors, musicians and entrepreneurs who were rejected a billion times before things clicked. Whether or not you want to believe other people’s tales of trials and tribulations before entering the promised land of living the dream is up to you, but I can tell you a couple tales that I know to be true. I know that opera singer Richard Margison was rejected by the opera program at the University of Victoria and advised to keep to his folk singing. Not advice that he took, by the way, as evidenced by his international career. He performs regularly in many of the world’s leading opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the San Francisco Opera, the Théâtre Royale de la Monnaie in Brussels, Covent Garden, the Sydney Opera and the Grand Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona. Please note the use of the word “regularly”.

Another example I would like to cite is author Tim Ferris, who claims his manuscript for the “4 Hour Work-Week” was rejected by 27 publishing houses before the 28th said “yes”. This one New York Times bestseller has made him a multi-millionaire. As a writer can you say that you’d have kept submitting after rejection 11 or 12? I’m not sure that I would’ve. I could go on for pages and pages of examples, you know I could.

The one thing I can’t tell you is a story of someone who gave up right before their true break through moment. I can’t tell you any because they gave up, so the dream never happened for them.

You can call me Pollyanna, or a cock-eyed optimist, or ask me about my Happy Pills, but I think you just have to believe. Faith, I think they call it. Faith in yourself. Faith that if you do your work and put yourself out there in the line of fire, that some of the rocks get thrown at you will turn out to be gems of great worth. There, can you hear the soundtrack swelling in volume and grandeur about now? Can you hear the Canadian Tenors singing the lyrics to “Because We Believe”?

Look I have given up on lots and lots of things in my life, so I know how easy it can be to let a dream slip through your fingers. Or really I should say, I’ve given up on myself too many times to count. I’m not doing that any more. Ever. I’ve even learned at long last to marginalize the nay-sayers in my life. At some point you’ll hear it – a friend or family member asks about your writing career in an effort to be supportive and when you report back nothing new, or the list of things that fell through, they suggest either directly, or obliquely, that maybe you should find a new hobby, or have more “realistic” expectations. Grrr. Realism sucks man. If you read this blog you already know I think there is entirely too much reality in the world.

One of my friends put my optimism most colorfully when, after my report to him that none of my long list of creative projects was moving forward said, “I’ve gotta hand it to you Carolynne, your ship never comes in, but you keep getting in that little rowboat and paddling out to the shipping lanes to meet it.” Dam right I do. I happen to be a rower from way back. But that is a tale for another day.

I guess this turned into a pep talk and I’m honestly not sure whether it was meant more for you, or for me. What I am sure of, is that I’m never giving up the dream, nor should you. In fact you shouldn’t even if I think your writing sucks. Or you think your writing sucks. Or even a bunch of people think your writing sucks. That’s because as sure as it rains in Vancouver, if you give up, the one thing your writing won’t get… is better. And as long as there is the possibility of it getting better, there exists the possibility that some day, some how, some one will plunk down a nice chunk of money for it.

You’ve still got the better part of nineteen days to get a script in to the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition. The “I missed the deadline deadline” is midnight January 31. I once wrote a decent short in 7 hours, so no excuses, you have plenty of time.

Write a short. Enter it in the CSSC. Put your writing out there and you’ll be both dreaming the dream and living it. What could be better then that?

Lessons in Madness