I try to discourage the preoccupation with “being a writer”. I don’t even let my students talk about it. The writing suffers under that kind of self-consciousness. I failed one student a Duke. His mother called me and said, “He doesn’t usually fail. He’s a good student, and he wants to be a writer.” I…
“I always want to remind people that the word fiction doesn’t come from some imaginary Latin verb meaning I make things up as I go along. It actually comes from a real Latin verb which means I give shape to. The essence of fiction is shaping, patterning, and plotting, using symbols, handling narrative, all those…
What follows is an abridged transcript of Tim Ferriss’s podcasting advice from Deviate with Rolf Potts, Episode One. Sub-section topics within the interview include the following: 1. How Tim Ferriss Got into Podcasting 2. How to Frame Questions in an Interview 3. The Advantages of Doing the Interview by Skype 4. Deciding if Podcasting is…
“Successful travel writing mediates between two poles: the individual physical things it describes, on the one hand, and the larger theme that it is ‘about’ on the other. That is, the particular and the universal. A travel book will make the reader aware of a lot of things — ships, planes, trains, donkeys, sore feet,…
1) A journal forces you to think clearly about the day “The journal calmed me and forced me to think clearly about the day. Often the day had been muddled with so many things happening one after another that the only way to straighten it out was to write about it, reliving it until the…
The following is adapted from a lecture in my July 2017 screenwriting class at the Paris Writing Workshop. 1. All characters must suffer. No Game of Thrones character avoids misery. How they deal with suffering is how we learn who they are. 2. Obligation must be at odds with desire. No Game of Thrones character…
“As a writer you have only one job: to make the reader turn the page. Of all the tools a writer uses to make a reader turn the page, the most essential is the plot. It doesn’t matter if the plot is emotional, intellectual, or physical — as long as it compels the reader to…
1) Confessing and confiding are overlapping concepts Confessing and confiding are overlapping concepts, like envy and jealousy, often used interchangeably, but distinct at their cores. The fundamental difference between them is that a confession, in the word’s historical, nonliterary sense, is addressed to some entity—God, the court, the public, a person one has wronged. That…
“In most cultures, stories entail causality and goals, and so that’s what listeners expect when they hear a story. This expectation is so strong that the listener will use them when remembering the story, even if the story lacked these elements.” –Daniel T. Willingham “The Privileged Status of Story” (2004) “By telling stories, you objectify…
1) Plays are written with a communal audience in mind I was, and remain, fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness. A novelist writes a novel and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal…
Writing craft: Studying a show’s pilot script is a useful way for aspiring scriptwriters to get a sense for how its creators chose to establish the world of the story, introduce its characters, and leave the viewer wanting more.
