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LifeWriting Articles
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Written by Steven Barnes
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Friday, 27 August 2010 21:48 |
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One of the core conflicts for creative artists of all kinds is the tug-of-war between art and commerce. Frankly, an artist needs to make money, and it is preferable to make it from his craft. A writer who must work a full-time job to support himself will struggle to find the time to work, and often eventually gives it up altogether. On the other hand, being able to write on any project at all can polish valuable skills, and teach one the rules of the publishing industry. On the other hand, I’ve met writers who were clearly working on projects, or toiling away at a career, that was burning out their souls. I remember meeting one such writer. His business card read "freelance hack and literary mechanic." Sadly, but not entirely unexpectedly, he was dead of alcoholism within a year. How to avoid such burnout? Well, in my own career, in addition writing the books I cared about the most, I’ve written Batman comic books, a Star Trek novel, and a Star Wars tie-in. In my television career, in addition to writing for "Outer Limits" and "The Twilight Zone," I also wrote four episodes of "Baywatch"(!) And never for a moment did I feel that I was selling myself out. Let’s get something straight: Shakespeare wrote for money. One can keep a careful eye on the bank account, and still reach the heights of craft. But again, how? In my own case, the answer is fairly simple. Envision the thought process like this: I draw two circles. In the first, is everything I would like to write (and there are always dozens of projects in the mental hopper!). In the second is everything someone else is willing to pay me for. Where the two circles overlap, I write. In other words, are there projects I’d love to write, but can’t get paid for? You bet, and I generally don’t write them unless they are quite short. And there are projects that producers or publishers might want me to do, but don’t touch my heart at all. Having learned through experience that there are limits to my creative flexibility, I turn those down. But from time to time, an opportunity arises that is in the no-man’s-land between the circles. There is money, but the project isn’t exactly something you have ever considered writing. What then? Then, you ask yourself if the project is something that you could be proud of. If you would read it, or respect someone who did. For instance, when my agent called and said that the producers of "Baywatch" wanted to talk to me, I had the office send over six hours of video on the show. I sat on the living room couch and watched them with my daughter, who was about six at the time. After a few episodes, I asked her what she thought. She liked it. I asked why. She said: "Because it’s about nice people working hard to make the beach safe for us." I thought about it, and then replied, "you know? There are worse things than that in this world, by a long shot." And decided to try writing for it. Every show, every project has its limitations. You must use certain characters, must get them into certain kinds of situations, and must avoid certain topics. That can be restrictive, but you can also decide to take it as a challenge. After all, you could give Fred Astaire a stage of any kind, and props of any kind, and he would find a way to create dance. Should you be committed to a lesser level of skill and vision? No. You must find ways to amuse yourself while writing, to stretch your skills by trying something you’ve never done before, by empathizing with a younger audience if necessary—never ever writing "down" to your audience. That is the death of art. But if you can be truly flexible, you’ll find that more doors are open to you, more opportunities arise, that brass ring comes around more often. A writer ready to leap at any opportunity to show his skill, and who finds it easy to fall in love with about a project will often out-perform a brittle "genius" who must have everything exactly his way in order to write. And if that approach is good enough for the Bard, it’s good enough for me. Dark Dream 906 Ashworth Pl Glendora, CA 91741 US |
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David Farland
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Written by David Farland
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Friday, 27 August 2010 21:46 |
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Update on Writer's Forum: The new Writer's Group Forum is almost ready to launch. I, Talespin Jim, emailed a Questionnaire for everyone to fill out who is interested in being placed in a writing group. The purpose of the Questionnaire is to find the best group for you. If you didn't receive your Questionnaire, you can email me at
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and I will send you one, or you can pick one up at the construction forum at, http://www.amberdine.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=58, and email it to me. If you haven't already asked to be in the writing groups, no problem, just send me the Questionnaire. Finding just the right group for hundreds of people this weekend is going to be wild, if I get committed, you'll know why. By the way, if you don't like your group, you are free to change to one of your choosing at any time. So give it a spin, see if this works out for you. By the way, I forgot to ask on the Questionnaire what age group you write for. If you think of it, add that information to it. But if you've already sent your Questionnaire in, don't worry about, unless it's important to you to be grouped with writers who also write to that age group. For example, children's authors might all like to be grouped together. In that case, add it to the Questionnaire and email it to me again. Be sure to tell me you are RE-submitting it, otherwise I might accidentally put you in two different groups. Sorry about forgetting that, I tried so hard to think of everything but I have this teeny-weeny, little brain. People have been asking about what's going to happen after they submit the Questionnaire. As soon as the forum is ready, I am going to announce it on the construction forum and I'm going to send out a special Daily Kick email, just announcing that the forum is ready for you to sign up. I need everyone to sign up ASAP. The forum will be locked so all you can do is sign up at this time. I expect it will take a few days for most of the people to sign up, so we'll give everyone a chance to do it. Then the coders will work their magic and put everyone into their private writing groups that I will have picked out for you. Meanwhile I will start a thread you can read on the forum, where I will post everyone's screen name who has signed up thus far in alphabetical order, followed by your writing group number. You will also already have a leader assigned to your group. Once we're done putting everyone into their groups, we'll open the forum for fun and frolic and you can all go in and start posting and chatting. The first thing your leaders should do is work with your private group to choose a group name and choose your group rules. At that point, anyone who wants to change groups can either let me know and I'll change them, or they can talk to other group leaders and those group leaders can add them to their group. There will be a forum for groups looking for more people and another forum for people looking for a group, whichever way you want to use it. One thing that's very important is that you fill out and update your user profile and choose if you want email alerts. Group leaders will be looking at your profile to see if they want to ask you to join their group. Sorry for the long interruption. Here's David Farland... ### David Farland’s Daily Kick in the Pants—The "Time Bomb" Exercise One way to increase tension in a story is to create what is called a "Time Bomb." A time bomb of course is any event that puts a time limit on an act that has to be accomplished. It’s taken from an old Alfred Hitchcock story about a man who gets up in the morning and shaves, and as he packs his briefcase, he sets a time bomb into it, then goes to work, where he promptly enters a board room and sets the briefcase under a table. The audience knows when the bomb is going off, but as a dozen people come into the office—each with his or her own nasty temperament and personality—we’re left to wonder who is meant to be the victim of the attack. Sometimes the time bomb in a story is so important that it becomes the focus of a story. You’ve probably seen a romantic comedy where a young man or woman inherits a vast sum of money —on the condition that they find a suitable spouse within a month. You’ve also seen the thriller where a serial killer must be caught "before he strikes again," and of course if an asteroid is going to strike the earth in three days, our hero had darned well better fly up in a spaceship and blow it to smithereens before then. The important thing with having a deadline is that the "bomb must go off." You as an author set up a rule, and then you must keep to it. Otherwise the audience will feel cheated. So here is the exercise for today: Look at a story that you have. Consider your primary and secondary plot lines, and look for ways to increase the tension by adding a "time bomb." So you look at your story and ask yourself: Is my character hoping to get into a major school? If so, when is the deadline to apply for a grant? What complications might arise that would keep him from applying on time. Is he hoping to get engaged to Sophie? What reason might she have for giving him a deadline? (Note: it might not have to do with her. Perhaps it’s a little thing—such as he hopes to get his "perfect" engagement ring re-sized before he asks her to marry him.) Well, I’d write more about this, but it's almost five-o'clock and if I don’t get my work done for the day, my wife is going to clobber me! ###
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