On Other Blogs

The TV Writers Social Contract

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What is it, exactly?

The folks at TVGasm believe it’s this:

We watch their shows and make them
rich. In return, they promise to work hard and prevent that show from
sucking.

But my writing/producing partner William Rabkin is confused.

I thought our social contract with the viewer required us to write
whatever storylines the "real" fans demand… to slavishly adhere to
the "rules" they set down in their fanzines… and to realize that
their fanfic is infinitely better than our produced work, because we’re
just doing it for money and they’re doing it for love. How many damn social contracts do we have with our fans?

So which is it? Hurry up and tell me, okay? Because I need to know before we start writing/producing another TV show.

LA Times Book Review Reviewed

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The Elegant Variations reviewed this week’s LA Times Book Review and managed to succinctly sum up everything that’s wrong with it:

Well, there’s a bit too much of the wrong lessons learned from the NYTBR – lots of space given over to policy and politics titles that will probably only attract the smallest of audiences. We know Book Review Editor Steve Wasserman wants to feel important and
all East-Coast-smartypants and we suppose overlong, dull reviews of
weighty titles is one way to do that.

And this week’s issue wasn’t even as dull as usual. C’mon, Steve, I know you want to educate all pf us unsophisticated, superficial, uneducated, DaVinci Code-swilling, L.A. boobs… but can you puh-lease  give us a thought-provoking, intelligent, inspiring, and relevant Book Review that doesn’t read like a software manual?

No, He’s Not Talking about LOST…

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From TVGasm:

What the hell was that? Seriously. Aren’t we in some sort of social
contract with television writers? We watch their shows and make them
rich. In return, they promise to work hard and prevent that show from
sucking. Yes, eventually all shows wear out their welcome and plod
along with uninteresting storylines. I understand that sometimes things
are going to seem repetitive and even overly staged. But that shit
isn’t supposed to happen until at least the third season. I’d rather be
performing on stage at a Tijuana donkey show than watch another
episode of…

I don’t really care what show he’s talking about… I just liked his bit about the social contract we writers have with our audience. I think he’s right.

I Hear Voices

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My brother Tod has started an interesting discussion on his blog about the role of  voice in fiction.

When someone tells me that they hear me in a book or story (fiction
only here — in my essays and columns, you often are getting unfiltered
Tod) I feel disappointed. My characters aren’t me and if you see me,
hear me in the narration, that 4th wall is broken.  I want you to hear
the narrator, whomever that might be. If it feels like I’m sitting
there telling you a story, I believe I’ve failed.

His comments were provoked by a blog posting from author Amy Garvey, who was thrilled when one of her readers "heard" her in her prose.

A friend of mine gave me the ultimate compliment recently. (Sadly,
it wasn’t about how much I look like Nicole Kidman.) She’s not much of
a romance reader, but she was interested to see what I’d written. So I
gave her my first book and got an email back which read, “It is so
‘you.’ I feel like you are sitting there telling me the story.”

Not
impressed? I was. Because what it meant to me was that beneath the
story, this reader had heard “my” voice——the writer lurking behind the
characters and the plot.

I may not agree with exactly how Ms. Garvey phrased it ( I don’t think I want the reader to sense the writer and, with it, the construction work behind the story), but I understand her being pleased that her readers heard her voice.

I think the author’s voice is important.    Some of my favorite authors have a very distinct voice that carries through all their books, regardless
of the stories they are telling or the characters they are writing about ( Larry McMurtry, Stephen King,  Elmore
Leonard, and John Irving immediately come to mind). I think that voice is part of
what makes their books special. Other authors take on the voice of their lead character, and that’s fine, too… but I don’t think either approach is technically superior when it comes to sustaining the "fiction" that the events we are reading about are real.

Tod vs The Fanficcers

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Once again, my brother Tod takes on the fanfic universe.  First he did it with his column, now he’s doing it with Letters to The Editor.  He wrote to Writers Digest this month, criticizing them for an idiotic article (then again, aren’t most of the articles in that magazine pretty lame?)  that suggested that writing fanfic might be a good way to learn how to write.  As a successful novelist and acclaimed teacher of creative writing, Tod thinks otherswise. In part, he said:

Being handed a character…isn’t equal to the organic process you must
go through to create real, living characters. Writing fiction isn’t
about getting a shorthand lesson in creativity via someone else’s
established characters; rather, it’s the process of learning how to
create vivid characters and story lines from your own minds. Writing
fanfiction to learn how to write a novel is like filling in a crossword
puzzle with the belief that someone will hand you a doctorate
afterward.

Naturally, this has pissed off a lot of fanficcers, including some folks who are writing their own Harry Potter novels. Like this woman, for instance…

Well, Tod Goldberg, I majorly disagree. To begin with, I think
fanfiction gives people the courage to write. One, because you can put
up your work in a welcoming atmosphere and not have to go through the
self-esteem destruction of trying to get published. Two, you can get
your work read by someone other than your mother. Even if you
write something and set up a web site for people to read, you’re not
likely to get the draw that you would putting up a story at a fanfic
site. Three, you don’t have to go through the very hard work of making
up a background, allowing a writer to jump write in and write!

She has, of course, just proven Tod’s point…but I doubt she noticed.  But far be it from me to dive back into that  debate again.  I’ll leave that to Tod over on his blog.

To Outline or Not To Outline

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Prolific novelist Sandra Scoppettone has hit a wall in her new book.

I think I’m in big trouble.  This novel is a mess. I’m on page 142
and not only don’t I know what’s going on, I can’t imagine writing at
least another 250 pages of this.

Nothing makes sense.  I’ve written myself into so many corners I can’t see how to ever write out of them.

If
it wasn’t so depressing, and if I didn’t have a deadline, I think I’d
junk this novel and start again.  I honestly don’t know what I’m going
to do.  I should be working right now but instead I’m doing this.

I
feel I’ve been fooling myself, thinking it would work itself out.  I
don’t see how it can.  I’ve never been in quite this position so early
in a book.

I don’t know whether she writes with an outline or not, but I’m guessing she doesn’t. Novelist Ed Gorman wishes he could outline…but can’t.

The few times I’ve managed to fix an outline on both the page and in my
mind, I was more relaxed with the writing itself. I didn’t wake up in
the middle of the night depressed because I couldn’t figure out what
next day at the machine would bring.

Novelist James Reasoner always has a vague sketch of where he is going.

Although taking off and winging it with no outline can be fun . . . if
everything works out right. These days I like a nice six to eight page
outline so that the basic structure of the book has already been
figured out before I start. I usually write these even for books where
the publisher doesn’t require an outline, just for my own benefit.

All
that said, I don’t think I’ve ever written a book that turned out
exactly like the outline. Some unexpected plot twist or character
always pops up during the writing of the book itself.

That’s the way it goes for me, too. I find the security blanket of an outline, even if I deviate from it along the way (and I do), always helps me. At least I can look at it and say, "Okay, I had an idea of where I should be going, why am I not heading in that direction? What changed? And did it change for the better?" My outlines tend to evolve as my novels do…I call them "living outlines," because I am constantly rewriting them as I write the book and usually don’t finish my outline until a week or so before I finish my book.

Sometimes it’s fun for me to go back and look at the original outline and then the one I ended up with and see at what points I went in new directions… and why. I always learn from it.

UPDATE: Sandra Scoppettone reports on her blog that she doesn’t use an outline…and here’s why:

I
couldn’t stand to have an outline.  The idea of knowing where I’m going
is hideous to me.  Anyway, I couldn’t write an outline when I never
know who did it until I’m at about page 100.  I don’t want to know who
did it when I start.  It would spoil everything for me just as if I was
reading a book and knew who did it from the beginning.  Before I start
I know who my protagonist is (in this case I know a lot about her
because it’s the second in a series) and who has been killed.  That has
always worked for me before.  And now it’s failed me.  I still won’t do
an outline.

Frankly, I can’t imagine writing a mystery, and planting clues, without knowing whodunit ahead of time.

I’m curious, fellow writers… how do you feel about outlines?

Self Publishing = Bad Idea

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Book critic David Montgomery weighs in on the self-publishing debate.  His bottom line? Save your money.

The problem with self-publishing is that the resulting product will
have no credibility and no exposure — and very little chance of ever
obtaining either. Everyone will know that the only way you were able to
get your book published was to pay someone to do it, and they will
judge your work accordingly. (In that sense, I think it’s even worse
than having no book at all.)

A Big Thumbs Up

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Sarah Weinman is asking writers over on her excellent blog to share how they felt after getting their first bad review.  Here’s the story I shared:

Maybe it’s because I come from TV…so I’m used to getting unwanted "notes" (ie criticsm) on my writing from everyone (actors, agents, managers, directors, psychic colorists, craft services etc.) and everywhere (studio, network, talent agency, viewers, the press, my pool man, my mother, etc.). I don’t ever take it personally. When it comes to reviews, I read them with a smile, whether they like my book or not. Everyone is allowed their opinion…I’m certainly not shy about expressing mine.

My favorite review ever was from Rolling Stone, calling an episode of BAYWATCH that I wrote the worst hour of television in the history of the medium. And they were being gentle. I loved the review… probably because they were right.

But reviewers…well, at least the publications they work for… can be truly schizo. For instance, Publishers Weekly gave MY GUN HAS BULLETS a bad review… and then, a year later, praised that same book as "riotously funny" in the midst of a rave review for the sequel, BEYOND THE BEYOND. Go figure.

In TV, you develop a very thick skin. I had a star tell me a script Bill Rabkin & I wrote was a "complete piece of shit." I just smiled and said cheerfully, "Gee, I guess you didn’t like it much. What troubled you?" Turns out what troubled him was a great scene one of his co-stars had  that The Star wasn’t in. His idea of fixing the script was a) deleting the scene or b) deleting all the fun and character from the scene or c) making the scene all about his character and what his character might be doing, thinking and feeling.

I had another executive tell me another one of our scripts would be  a hell of a lot better with a teen suicide in it.  And she wasn’t joking.  She just felt a teen suicide somewhere in the story would add drama.

Another exec once told me his only note on a script we wrote was that he’d like me to swap Act One with Act Three.  He wasn’t joking, either.

Now these aren’t exactly reviews, per se, but they are still comments on my writing. Severe, ulcer-inducing comments. 

What I’ve learned the hard way is that you can’t take these notes, or reviews of any kind, personally or you won’t survive in this business… whether you’re toiling in TV or publishing… or, as in my case, both.

I’ve found some negative reviews, especially of our TV shows, helpful in refining the franchise or spotting weaknesses in our story-telling.

But it also cuts both ways…if you start believing all your positive reviews, you are just as screwed as if you take all the negative ones to heart.   The good reviews feel better, but they can be just as destructive if you start believing your writing is perfect and you’re God’s gift to TV or literature…