Writing Excuses 4.33: Trunk Novels.
Here’s a writing podcast I love. It’s updated weekly and it’s useful.
Filed under: web reviews, Writers, writing tips
08/26/2010 • 6:38 PM 4
Bad Writing, Jim Belushi and Charlie’s Angels
Last night I watched TV as I puffed along on a treadmill at the gym. Jim Belushi’s sitcom was on. I was listening to a podcast on my headphones but the
Big Bang Theory writing is flashy, fast and funny. Good writing there.
onscreen captions caught my eye. It was an According to Jim episode with all the predictable elements: a hot wife, Jim, a wacky neighbor who is fatter than Jim so the “star” looks smaller. There were a couple of cute kids running around.
David Cross tells a story about Jim Belushi (in Cross’s excellent book I Drink for a Reason) that is pretty awful. I won’t repeat it here. Go get Mr. Cross’s book for the full chewy goodness. Anyway, Jim is no John. But that wasn’t why I disliked the show. Yes, there was a tone of he-man homophobia which was distasteful and seemed dated to me, but it was the writing that was most egregious.
Perhaps it was the captions that alerted me to what was going on in the episode. I don’t mean the story per se. I mean the subtext of bad writing. Jim was there to crank out the stale and predictable jokes. The neighbor was there to make Jim seem more normal. The part of the wife could have been played by a whiteboard. She may, in fact, be a terrific actress. We’ll never know. No one on the staff was writing for her.
As I ran on the treadmill I wished I’d seen it from the beginning so I could keep a tally of how many times the wife’s lines were:
“What?”
“Yeah?”
“Okay. Okay? Okay.”
And then back to “What?!”
Wouldn’t it be great if everybody in the show got great lines? It’s either a power/insecurity thing* or the actress really couldn’t remember words longer than a few at a time. Maybe some day she’ll get to be a mindless exposition device. On this show, she may as well have been a cue card.
Watch The Big Bang Theory. Everybody gets great lines, not just Sheldon. Watch King of Queens reruns. Kevin James was consistently funny and you never once thought, “I bet that guy’s a real prick.” King of Queens was an underrated show, but it’s exactly what According to Jim would have been if it were any good.
Good luck to Mr. Belushi in his new fall show, The Defenders. I sure hope he got a whole new bunch of writers. I don’t want to see Jerry O’Connell going through entire shows saying “What? What? What?” so Jim can throw out another pithy line. It won’t matter too much. From now on, at the gym I’m sticking to Writing Excuses podcasts on my iPod.
BONUS:
*William Goldman relates a great story about the tense set of Charlie’s Angels. The actresses grew to hate each other and counted all the lines and words to make sure no one was getting more lines than they were. The writers ended up calling it Huey, Dooey and Louie dialogue because the angels would each have a line of equal length at all times.
Angel 1: “I think we should…”
Angel 2: “Get to the beach!”
Angel 3: “…and find our Charlie!”
Quack!
Quack!
Quack!
A producer was asked the secret to Charlie’s Angels success. He didn’t laud his writing staff or the acting. He said one word: “Nipples.”
Filed under: Media, Rant, writing tips, bad writing, charlie's angels, david cross. I Drink for a Reason, jim belushi, television
08/26/2010 • 5:13 PM 0
F Shortcuts for Writers #1
Faster keyboarding means faster production = more profitable writers. Some F shortcuts allow you to be one with the machine as you enter The Matrix:
F10 opens the Menu bar.
F6 bounces you through the elements on your screen.
F5 updates the active window.
ALT + F4 quits the active item
F4 displays the address bar list in Windows Explorer and in My Computer
Use F3 for a file search
F2 renames the selected item.
BONUS:
CONTROL + SHIFT while dragging an item creates a shortcut to that item
Filed under: getting it done, writing tips, F shortcuts, faster writing, keyboard shortcuts, write faster
08/25/2010 • 3:05 PM 0
Words to Avoid:
1. “Nice.” This is a bland nothing word. Ditto “interesting.” You can come up with better adjectives.
2. Offensive words outside of dialogue. (Unless you are making a useful point and not using a gimmick.) If you’re trying to shock me, that will wear off quickly. Then you’ll just be boring me and slowing me down. Good writing does not slow the reader.
3. Adverbs. (Example: “He shut the door firmly.” You probably don’t need that adverb (“firmly.”) If you feel you can’t lose it, (“He shut the door.”) take another look at your verb and see if you can make it stronger. (“He slammed the door.”) If you really can’t change that verb and still feel the adverb serves you, then keep it if you must. I wouldn’t.
4. Out of date words (unless you’re writing historical fiction.) If you use the word behooves, you’re either immortal or own a time machine. Go kill Hitler.
5. Jargon. You’ll lose your reader.
6. Acronyms. Ditto #5. And yeah, I know Tom Clancy uses tons of acronyms and I don’t care. Don’t do it.
7. Dialect. Writing in dialect puts such a strain on the reader his head might well explode. Mine would. Don’t do it and if you must, do so very sparingly.
8. Ten-dollar words, long words, show-off words. Reduce. Readability is more important than what you can find in your thesaurus. I love my 1901 dictionary and yes, I do throw out weird Cool Word of the Day posts. They’re fun. They aren’t for actual use.
9. Flowery words and purple prose. You’ll come across as melodramatic and overwrought. Romance novel sex scenes are notorious for falling into long descriptions which are really long lists of unintentionally hilarious euphemisms. If you’re going to attempt those sorts of scenes, read a lot of it so you can do it well. Credible sex scenes (read: writing that doesn’t make you giggle) take a lot of skill.
10. Wrods thst you haevn’t raed oever at leats twce. Proofraed!
Filed under: writing tips
08/23/2010 • 8:08 AM 0
(Top 10 Things) Writers Fear:
1. the blank page. And yet, ideas for stories are all around us. Look in newspapers, magazines, real life, fantasy, the net, your dreams and in the back of your sock drawer. Everywhere. Augusten Burroughs says if you experience writer’s block, then write about that. That will prime your pump.
2. that someone, somehow, will steal their ideas. You can’t copyright an idea, and that’s a good thing. Ideas are cheap because (see #1) ideas are everywhere. Execution and completion is what counts. Lots of people have book ideas but never type long enough to even get to the starting line. You’re the best one to take your idea through to fruition. Also, come up with an idea and pitch it to 100 people. One hundred different stories will shoot out from pulling that one trigger. (Note: I won’t steal your ideas. I’ve got plenty of ideas! I’ve got more ideas than I have life left to execute them all! …gulp.)
3. failure. Yeah? Who doesn’t? Failure is in not even trying. Nobody likes a whiner. Shut up and type.
4. success. Just kidding. Nobody really fears success. Change, sometimes, but never success. Fear of success is something somebody made up in 80s to sell self-help books. Who still believes that now?
5. criticism. You won’t join a critique group so you won’t learn (or will learn very slowly.) That’s how I learned very slowly. The truth is, not everybody is going to like you or what you write. That won’t change, so accept that and look for people who give you caring yet constructive criticism. Flush all others. As Walt Disney said, “I’m not gay.” No, no. He said, “Always move forward.”
6. rejection. People very rarely get a book deal from the first agent they approach. (See #5) Not everybody is going to like what you write. If it’s any good, eventually someone will. Then you can crow all you want about all the publishers, editors and agents who said no before you found the one genius who agrees with you. Your definition of a genius is anyone who loves your manuscript and is in a position to market it to the world.
CHAZZ DEFINITION OF GENIUS:
Anyone who agrees with Chazz.
7. revision. But your best writing is your rewriting. You know that. So go do it. Yeah, it really is that simple. That’s the same way everybody else who hates revision bulled their way through.
8. that our best friends will achieve astonishing literary success and we won’t. I guess you should start typing faster if you want to even have a horse in that race then, huh?
9. poverty. So make sure you get paid for what you write. Send out more queries. Suffer the day job until you achieve escape velocity. Keep the day job and enjoy both with a little less sleep. Be so adorable someone else will support you while you write (I am!). Launch a successful business you can escape to write. Make writing your successful business. Reality check: if you choose writing over riches, are you really going to end up in the street? Would the people who care for you really let that happen? (If so, you’re a right and proper bastard, aren’t you? You deserve homelessness. Maybe you should work on your social skills and bathe, hm?) Poverty isn’t so bad. Not writing would be worse. (If you don’t understand that equation, you aren’t a writer.)
10. anonymity. This is the worst. You fear anonymity because if no one reads your words, there goes your only shot at immortality. If you don’t achieve some success with your writing, soon it will be as if you never existed. You might as well have never existed if you can’t leave some kind of stamp of your personality, your brain and your thoughts on the careless, fickle future you’ll never see. The abyss is yawning beneath you. We are only a brief crack of light between two black infinities. If you don’t write, you can’t be published and if you aren’t published, you are forgotten. You are a helpless speck disappearing down the raging current of time. There is no return. Death waits for us all.
ANONYMITY = DEATH
Feel that fear? It’s not just real. It’s good.
You need some fear in your life to keep you motivated.
Back to the keyboard, friends!
Filed under: getting it done, Rant, writing tips, 10 Things Writers Fear, anonymity, getting it done, writer's block, writing advice
08/22/2010 • 10:26 PM 0
Ken Levine on Overwriting
Click it! I’ve lauded The Great Levine before. I’m doing it again for good reason.
Filed under: writing tips, Ken Levine, overwriting
08/20/2010 • 8:08 AM 1
Dare to Suck.
She’s got it right. Lots of writers expect to be fantastic as soon as they start. That’s unrealistic. You are not a genius, but with practice, you could be. Also, don’t think about the money you will or won’t get. For now, just write for its own sake. The rest? That’s for later.
Filed under: web reviews, Writers, writing tips, dare to suck at writing, writing advice, writing tips
08/18/2010 • 8:52 AM 0
Chuck Palahniuk on Writer’s Constipation
Filed under: Writers, writing tips, chuck palahniuk, writer's block, writing advice
08/17/2010 • 8:22 AM 0
10 Tips to Write Faster
Here’s how to get it down on paper and out the door:
1. Outline first. To write fast, it is a good idea to have some sort of structure in mind before you sit down to write. Beginners need outlines (even rough outlines will do) so no time is wasted having to recover from 50 pages of dead-end writing. Plots need twists. Things need to come together and make sense. Outlines help you keep on track and save time in the long run. (Yes, of course, you can deviate from your outline when you find your characters are taking you down a certain unexpected path. Your creativity is not restricted by outlining. It’s enhanced because you have structure upon which you can hang your narrative.)
Real life Example:
I wrote an incredibly long apocalyptic thriller that was way complex. My outline consisted of five pages, one sentence to a line. Each line answered one question: What happens next? Your outline need not be exhaustive and set up with Roman numerals like they taught you in school. In fact, if it’s too detailed, it will feel like a straitjacket and will take too much time to build. Mind map it. Free associate. Then go.
2. Don’t edit as you go. Let it go and let it flow. Writing the first draft quickly gets you to the revision stage fast. It’s important to write fast for a simple reason. By the time you’re done with writing any book , you’re going to be a little sick of it. (No shame in this. The next book is always more interesting than the middle you’re slogging through as you tackle a tough plot point.)
The danger is that you tinker forever. Perfectionism can allow you to keep your masterpiece hidden away in a drawer for the rest of your life. Writers never finish revisions. They just stop because they can’t face it anymore. Save revisions for follow-up drafts. There is no time to indulge your inner critic when you’re in first-draft mode.
Don’t succumb to the lure of perfectionism and taking it slow. Writing fast allows you to keep up your enthusiasm for the project over the long haul.
3. Reconnaissance saves time. Recon is your list of characters and their traits. Keep track of your characters with a rough sketch. For most characters, you probably won’t need more than a paragraph for name, eye colour, occupation, and most important, what does each character want? If two characters sound too much alike, or serve the same purpose, they are better as one character. I discovered this very thing in my latest manuscript when the english teacher and the drama teacher could be one person.
CHAZZ RULE:
If two characters can be one person, they should be one person.
Make up your Recon sketches at the beginning, not halfway through. By page two-hundred I was at a loss as to the name of the drama teacher from the first chapter and had to backtrack. That was a waste of time and energy I could have poured into the draft. Not knowing such things at once is like a disorganized desk. You can waste years of your life looking for misplaced things. Life is too short for that, especially if you want to get published before you die.
4. Set a deadline. Make it. Short deadlines are better than long deadlines. Take one luxurious deadline and cut it in half. That’s still a realistic deadline. Now shave off 20% of the time you’ve allowed yourself for the first draft. Now you have pressure. Refer to yesterday’s time management post (below) to figure out how you’re going to make that crazy deadline. You can achieve it and, with that achievement, your enthusiasm and confidence will grow. Very few things are as satisfying as typing The End on a draft.
5. Report to someone. Dieting works if you don’t keep your accountability to yourself. It’s the same with writing. Got a big project you want to complete? Make your word counts or page counts known. Tell people you know and respect what youre trying to do and that will help keep your resolve from day to day.
6. Compete with someone. Choose a writer you trust and respect. By the end of the week, one of you will have written more words. Loser buys Sunday brunch. Go to work on that first draft as if it’s a race—it is. The more you write, the better. This tool will get you where you want to be. A writing buddy will motivate you to productivity you wouldn’t have otherwise. (And really, do this one challenge and you’ll both win.)
7. Learn to type properly. I got through journalism school without ever learning how to type correctly. When I get lazy I fall back on my own system of spidering my fingers across the keys inefficiently. That is sub optimum. Productivity is king. Publishers and agents evaluate their risk and return on investment partially on how prolific you are. (And see yesterday’s post below for more on keyboarding. I’ve retrained myself and my speed and accuracy almost doubled in just a few lessons.)
8. Commit. I attended two writing conference this year. At the next conference in 2011, I’ll meet up with the friends and contacts I made. I’ll have a manuscript to sell and a new manuscript I’m working on. Are you still talking about the same book you were working on two years ago? You’re not alone, but honestly? That’s a bad sign. Get it done.
9. Be consistent in your commitment. Are you still waiting for The Muse? The Muse is a fantasy only amateurs indulge. Save that claptrap for the book tour interviews. Writing sometimes feels like work, especially in the moments before you actually get your ass in that chair and start doing it.
10. Move on. Not every book you write is destined for publication. When you fail to compose quickly, your enthusiasm for the project will likely sag over time. That’s a sign you need a fresh perspective, and probably a new book to write.
Every time a famous author dies, a novel they weren’t proud of surfaces. It’s a “trunk book” and that’s where it should have stayed. Its goals were not realized during the author’s lifetime and sometimes an adoring son or daughter (or greedy publisher) pushes the sad coda into print. If you find you can’t commit and compose quickly, that’s a sour sign that you just aren’t interested enough to complete the work on this book. Don’t throw good time after bad.
Get a new book going. Make sure this one sets you on fire. Write the book that you want to read. Write the book you feel in your bones the world needs. Your enthusiasm is the key to getting it done.
The cliché is true: If you aren’t interested, readers won’t be, either.
BONUS:
Got an IPod or Iphone?
Download the Streaks app to keep you honest about your progress in writing every day to achieve your goals.
Filed under: getting it done, writing tips, 10 tips to writer faster, get your first draft done, Ten tips to write faster, write every day
08/16/2010 • 2:15 PM 0
Ken Levine on TV Script Don’ts
Avoid dream sequences, don’t shop around your script for an old show, keep the budget and logistics in mind and many more tips and observations from The Great Levine. (Sounds like a 70s hypnotist, doesn’t it?) Actually, Ken Levine knows TV as a writer and director. He wrote for MASH, Frasier, Cheers and many others. In this post, he tells you what not to do if you’re trying to break in as a TV writer. Lots of sage advice here (although the advice about the fly made me think of the most critically acclaimed episode of Breaking Bad this season. Well, the fly’s perspective didn’t take up the whole episode.)
Bookmark his blog. There’s always some chewy goodness for scriptwriters and comedy lovers of all heights and glycemic indexes.
Filed under: scriptwriting, Writers, writing tips, Ken Levine, scriptwriters, scriptwriting, TV scripts, writing tips
C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m 
