It’s one of my life regrets that I went to journalism school. I should have been in film school! Margaret Dunlap has a great take on the surprising benefits of these programs.
Thank you, Margaret! Great post!
Filed under: Media, web reviews
08/28/2010 • 9:35 PM 3
Television Writer Margaret Dunlap on the merit of Film School – How to write a screenplay, sell a screenplay – ScriptShark.com
08/28/2010 • 8:08 AM 0
Writing Excuses 4.33: Trunk Novels
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
08/28/2010 • 7:27 AM 2
Random advice from the Napa Writers Conference (via Fog City Writer)
I can’t be in Napa so a little bit of Napa came to me. Thanks to Fog City Writer for this post from the writers’ conference!
via Fog City Writer
Filed under: Uncategorized
08/27/2010 • 7:14 PM 0
Twitter Addresses of Literary Agents Who Twitter (via Ramblings of a Raconteur)
This is useful. When you’re on the hunt for an agent, here’s a place to look first.
Filed under: Uncategorized
08/27/2010 • 8:08 AM 0
What got done this week
Hey folks! For a change, a little about me, me, me.
In addition to editing my novel (Romeo, Juliet & Jerome) I completed an editing/ghostwriting job for a client. The fellow wanted his content punched up for a magazine article which will publicize his business and connect him to new customers. His allotted word count limit was 3,000 words. He submitted 1,000 words to me. This could have been a problem, but I came up with another 500 words after the edit/ghost job. We solved the rest of the shortfall with photos so everybody’s happy.
I also finished a preliminary edit on a memoir this week. Great life stories are so humbling.
I joined Goodlife Fitness and now I’m exercising every day. If you’re a writer, please do the same. Nobody talks about this much, but as a writer, you’re sedentary. You spend hours sitting still. This wasn’t healthy when it was TV and it’s not any more healthy now. Writers need to get out the door, hit a gym, go for a run or at least a brisk walk. Counteract the damage to your body that writing demands. We are human. We aren’t supposed to stay still as long as we do. In the near future, I expect to be in great shape. (Okay, really good shape.)
Happy Friday! More links are coming later today as I scan the publishing blogs for you, you , you.
Filed under: Editors, getting it done, This Week's Missions, What about Chazz?, editing, editing jobs, mission accomplished, this week's missions
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
08/26/2010 • 8:01 AM 0
Kurt Vonnegut from A Man Without a Country
Filed under: Writers, excerpt, Kurt Vonnegut, Man Without a Country, writer
08/26/2010 • 4:16 AM 0
It’s a New World. Join the Publishing Revolution
I just added a five-star system so you can rate posts, a Digg button so you can “like” posts and several ways to share posts (Twitter, Facebook, Print, Reddit, Email, etc.,…) Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true.
Your rare shameless (and fun!) plug begins here:
If you like the blog, please let me and your friends and followers know! Hit the Digg button above the comment box to “like” it. Share on Facebook. Tweet on twitter. I’m above grovelling, but I am willing to ask nicely for your support.
This is the fun part: I have added these buttons in a craven attempt to spread the word about Chazz Writes. I have big plans for the blog. As we get bigger I want to include book reviews, contests for prizes and, ultimately, annex a small tropical island nation whose national drink will be hollowed out pineapples with five kinds of rum. I shall be king, of course, but benevolent in my clothing-optional palace. We’ll be nuclear-weapons free, nuclear-capable, solar and wind-friendly, and establish a very reasonable flat tax. There will be free healthcare for all. We’ll be weed-legalized, jerk-averse and twelve kinds of awesome sexy. And everybody will get a Mac. (Acers for jerks. That’ll teach ’em!) Also, clothes lines are allowed and I’ll keep the needless spending down by force of Nerf bats and exile to lesser, non-Chazz-infused nations. (All that therapy is really nipping my narcissistic megalomania in the bud, huh?) But I digress…
If you like my stuff, please let other people know. This is a relatively new publishing blog, but I’m not new to publishing. I do have a lot of information to share with writers from a writer’s and editor’s perspective. (Don’t know Chazz and wonder where he gets off talking publishing? Click here.) I just love to talk to people about their writing projects, publishing issues, and that book you’re going to publish some day. Every day I curate the best information on publishing I can find as I search the web for news about writers, interesting stories and stuff that helps writers figure out the best routes to getting published.
I also look for laughs along the way. We need it. The writer’s life can be a grim nobility. Unlike some writing blogs I detest (i.e. a few agent blogs and angry blogs that mock writers) you are not a minion here. You are a travelling companion and friend. I love books and I love the people who love them.
Return often for updates and keep an eye on that Twitter feed to your right
OR
simply follow me on Twitter @RChazzChute
AND/OR
go to the bottom right and subscribe so you won’t miss a thing!
Like the blurb says:
The publishing revolution has begun.
Join me.
Rare shameless plug ends.
Filed under: blogs & blogging, Publicity & Promotion, publishing, Social Media, Twitter, What about Chazz?, Writers, book publishing blogs, publishing, writers
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
C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m 
