Author Barry Napier was the winner of the “You Can Write a DEAD MAN Novel” contest last year….and his book, THE DEAD MAN #18: STREETS OF BLOOD, has just been published by Amazon/47North. I’ve invited Barry to talk about his experience writing the book:
I won Amazon’s You Can Write a Dead Man Novel contest last year. The months between October – January were spent writing and editing it. If I’m being honest, I learned a lot from writing it, some of which I think most writers can either relate to or need to know.
First, Lee Goldberg and William Rabkin were very kind about pointing out a few of my flaws…flaws that have plagued me since writing my first short story at the age of 14. Among them…I’m too wordy. I tend to wax poetic when it’s not called for. I try to create back story that serves as a story in and of itself (this one, I will argue to my last breath, is often necessary and pivotal for longer works). When I try to write about someone collecting information or being smacked by insight, I tend to come off as too passive.
The great thing is that I have had these things pointed out by editors in the past. But with TheDead Man #18: Streets of Blood, these things were not only pointed out, but highlighted with blood and gore. Writing this book was perhaps my biggest lesson in reigning myself in when I wanted to get too wordy or experimental when it wasn’t called for.
This book was equally odd to write because of its content. It’s one of the bloodier things I have written in a while. When you consider the fact that I was writing a faith-based suspense novel at the same time, it was a very challenging and eye-opening few months.
So, while researching parts of scripture for the faith-based novel, I was also having to research old morbid nursery rhymes for my Dead Man book.
I’m not going to lie…it was sort of fun.
So again, a big thanks to Lee Goldberg for helping me through the process. It was an intensive course in writing short novels while helping me to further cripple some of the mistakes that I still wrestle with in my writing.
It’s easier to win admission to the Harvard Medical School than a seat in Professor Walter’s legendary screenwriting seminars at UCLA
Richard Walter was my screenwriting professor at UCLA…and, in large part thanks to what I learned from him, I’ve had a long and successful career as a TV writer/producer and screenwriter. His former students have taken Hollywood by storm…just in the last four years, graduates of his seminars have won three Oscars and five Oscar nominations and have written ten movies for Steven Spielberg. Now, for the first time, he’s opening his acclaimed class to non-UCLA students for a special session June 24-Aug 2nd. Enrollment is limited…so sign up fast.
I thought this would be a good opportunity to corner Richard and get some of his insights into the bevy of “screenwriting gurus” out there, the state of movie & TV biz, and how the craft of screenwriting has changed in the last few years.
LEE: What can aspiring writers get from your class that they can’t get from the myriad of script gurus teaching courses out there?
RICHARD WALTER: For openers, this is an advanced screenwriting seminar at the UCLA film school – not a private for-profit weekend lecture—that is available both to UCLA and non-UCLA students alike. All students receive 8 college credits. It’s not a one-shot but an on-going six-week series of workshops light on lectures and heavy on in-class writing challenges and analysis of in-progress student pages. It is very much a hands-on writing seminar.
LEE: What will they gain from this class that they can’t derive from the 10,000 screenwriting books out there (including your own)?
RW: It’s a chance to put the principles from those 10,000 screenwriting books (including my own) into use, to try them out in the context of creating a dramatic narrative under the guidance of, well, me. The course is not about books about writing, nor is it even about writing; it is writing.
LEE: How should an aspiring writer judge the “merits” of a screenwriting teacher/guru/consultant. How do you find the “real” ones from the “hucksters?”
RW: Ask around, and ask for references. It can’t be about the marketing–only the writing. Run as fast as you can from anyone who even merely suggests that there’s a good chance after working with him that the writer will win representation and the script will sell. There are truly excellent consultants available and affordable, and it’s becoming increasingly routine (and in my opinion also smart) to work with a consultant who can ask the hard questions before the studio asks them. One of the most damaging and common mistakes writers make is to show their scripts too soon, before they’re truly ready. I regularly refer writers to worthy consultants.
LEE: Are Hollywood “pitchfests” useful or a swindle that takes advantage of aspiring writers?
RW: Swindle is a strong word. I’ll only say it’s not called screen-talking.
I’m sure it’s possible to make some connections and get a script considered, but the person doing the considering is likely not authorized to green-light any thing. He can only pitch it to his bosses. What writer wants someone else pitching his story? The pitcher will likely blow it. “Oh yeah, and there’s something about an iceberg.” Consider also that writers have far greater control over a movie that starts as a spec script compared to one from a pitch.
LEE: How has the screenwriting business changed?
RW: There has never been a greater time to engage the screenwriting racket. When I came to town forty years ago there were seven studios and three broadcast networks. All of those are now toast. The action is in cable and the web, and it’s soaring. This is not the future; it is now. When does anyone see in a theater anything a thousandth as brilliant as a Homeland episode or one from Breaking Bad? This is the golden age of television, except it’s not television. There are exponentially more buyers now operating out of ever-growing companies. There is more product than ever, which means more opportunities for writers (also actors, directors, editors, cinematographers) and expanded offerings for consumers to choose. What’s not to like?
Also, at cable and the web, the producers are the writers and vice versa. They control. In those formats it is not the writer but the director who is “for hire.” There, the writer is the boss, as well she should be.
LEE: Are development executives looking for different things from a script than they were five or ten years ago? Do audiences have different expectations of stories and characters these days?
RW: No, and no. Narrative is narrative. It’s all about story. All audiences care about throughout the millennia is story. Make your screenplay tell a compelling story. Demonstrate in every script your strength as a storytellers
LEE: Are the principles you’re teaching applicable to TV as well as film? What if someone is more interested in writing a spec pilot than a spec feature?
RW: The principles apply to all dramatic narratives, including opera librettos and novels. The only difference between a spec pilot and a spec feature is that the latter is longer.
LEE: Is TV easier to break into than film? Or is it the other way around? And if so, why?
RW: The other way around. Why would anybody want to break into film? Film is in the midst of an unspeakable, smothering war against originality.
LEE: Are studios and networks relying more on “proven” writers than newbies?
RW: Every experienced, established, successful, adored, wealthy writer without exception was once a newbie. Newbies should take heart in knowing that they are in great company
For further information on Professor Richard Walter’s Summer Class at UCLA visit:www.richardwalter.com.
Lee with SNL actress Kate McKinnon at the Big Island Film Festival 2013
For the past few days, I’ve been attending the Big Island Film Festival in Hawaii, where my short film Bumsicle is screening. I’ve seen quite a few shorts and I’ve been struck by how slick they are technically…and how weak so many of them are when it comes to story telling. It’s as if the film-makers had an idea for a moment, or a character, and then went ahead and made a movie before figuring out if they actually had a story to tell. It’s incredibly frustrating. So many of the shorts start out with promise and then peter out into nothing.
What these film-makers don’t seem to understand is that the story is the most important element… not the kind of camera, editing software, or lighting package you’ve got. All of the technology , all of the acting, all of the directing, are in the service of one thing: telling a great story. If you have a great story, then you can overcome poor production values, iffy sound, and weak acting and still have a strong film. But if you have terrific production values, great sound, and good acting, but your story sucks, or doesn’t go anywhere, your gonna have a crap film, guaranteed.
That said, I’ve also seen some really great stuff here. I think my favorite film so far was PERVERTIGO, a very clever, refreshingly original noir/comedy about a peeping tom who gets strong-armed into committing a murder. It was a technically top-notch for an ultra-low-budget film and the script was terrific.
I also got the chance to spend a few minutes chatting with Saturday Night Live castmember Kate McKinnon, who is one of the Festival’s special guests. This is her first season on the show and she was an immediate, break-out hit with her impersonations of Ellen DeGeneres, Penelope Cruz, and Martha Stewart, among others. But you’d never know that talking to her. She’s very soft-spoken, low-key and self-deprecating. Success is still new to her…a little over a year ago, she was reeling from the cancellation of her show on the Logo network. She told us she got by on unemployment benefits and writing children’s books under a pseudonym. Every year, Kate sent an audition tape to SNL and never heard anything…but this time was different. She got a call-back and, much to her surprise, got hired as a new cast member. The season finale was only last week, so she’s still getting used to the fact that she’s got a steady job on a hit show. It was nice to meet a TV star who is still very much a “normal person.” I hope she stays that way, despite the success and fame that is surely coming her way.
Our chat reminded me of another celebrity encounter I had many years ago. My wife and I were vacationing in the Bahamas and shared a bus ride to the airport with George Clooney, who was a regular on Sisters at the time. He was friendly, approachable, and came across as a nice, average guy, despite his celebrity gig. We had a very pleasant, relaxed conversation. The bus driver, an older woman, complimented him on his straw hat, and he told her some amusing anecdote about how he got it. The bus broke down and the driver started crying, distraught that we’d miss our planes. Clooney reassured her that it was no big deal, that these things happen, and gave her the straw hat on his head as a gift to calm her down. Every time I see Clooney in a movie, I remember that encounter and hope he’s still the same, nice guy despite his wealth and fame.
Jonathan Winters died today at age 87. My parents used to play all of his comedy records for us when we were kids. Those records made me laugh so hard I had trouble breathing. Jump forward to 1997. I was a novelist and TV writer by then and I was invited to be a guest speaker at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference… on a panel on writing humor with Jonathan Winters and Fannie Flagg. I was honored…and absolutely terrified. What the hell was a nobody like me doing on the same stage as a legend like Winters? But he was incredibly gracious and hilariously funny…and that night is one of the most treasured memories of my career. Here's a recording of that hour-long panel. Although it's a video, there's only a still photo to look at. The audio track is the panel. The picture here, and in the video, is of my mother Jan Curran and Winters at the conference. Somewhere out there is a picture of me with Winters and Flagg, but I haven't been able to dig it up.
A friend recommended a crime novel to me that came out a few years ago from a major publisher and that was also praised by some big-name authors (including some who have praised my work). I brought the book along with me on a short day trip for something to read while my wife & daughter were shopping. The book was awful, but some of the terrible writing was worth sharing. Here are some of my favorite examples:
“A sustained orgasm of flowers filled the strip between the driveway and right side of the house.”
This made me laugh out loud. So did some of the comments my Facebook friends made about it:
And on the other side of the driveway, a foreplay of hedges.
Haven’t you ever had a sustained orgasm of flowers?
Better than a multiple orgasm of concrete.
Not just an orgasm of flowers, but a sustained orgasm of flowers. I want to live in that neighborhood.
Here’s another excerpt:
“Staring at the picture, I had a clear sense of the living person whose image was cradled in chemicals on the bed of thick paper.”
Or as a less pretentious writer might say it: “I got a clear sense of the person from her photograph.”
“The girl in the picture had a glimmer of erotic fear in her dark eyes, waving like a thin, white arm of a drowning person.”
So fear that is sexually arousing… or perhaps fear of something to do with sex…is visible in someone’s eyes as a white glimmer that looks like the arm of someone who is drowning. Yeah, that makes sense.”
Her short black skirt clung like a high priest’s desire to the curves of her ass.”
I suppose this might make sense if anybody had any idea what a “high priest’s desire” is. A high priest of what? Tortured metaphors? Speaking of which…
“The night was filled with the exotic feeling California still evoked for me, surf shushing beyond the campfires, palm trees thrusting their composers’ haircuts up into the starry sky, swaying with the symphony of the wind.”
Surf shushing? Palms thrusting? A composer’s haircut? WTF? And am I the only one who thinks “a symphony of wind” sounds like another way of saying “a herd of cows farting”?
I spent the day Saturday in the company of a bunch of talented writers to plot a DEAD MAN novel…not just any book, but our biggest tale yet, both in page count and ambition. The story will be published next fall as a Kindle Serial (six to eight, 10,000 word "episodes" that will add up to one, cohesive novel). The project is being written by Phoef Sutton, Lisa Klink and Kate Danley from a shared outline. So series co-creator William Rabkin and I, along with DEAD MAN author David Tully (THE KILLING FLOOR), got together with them and we all spent the day cracking the story in a "writer's room" setting.
Bill, Phoef, Lisa and I are all experienced TV writer/producers, we are very comfortable with the "writer's room" process of hashing out the story as a group, analyzing every character motivation and story beat until we come up with all the moves of the story, which we layout on a white, dry erase board. It was a new experience for Kate and, to a lesser extent, for David, who has been part of a writer's room on some television projects in Germany (where his wife was a network executive).
The writer's room process is wonderful because not only do you benefit from the creativity of everybody in the room, but it also forces you to really explore, analyze and figure out all the angles of your plot and the motivations of your characters.
The group experience also forces you not to give in to the easy, lazy or cliche way of resolving plot and character issues…to go further and dig deeper. It means there are some inevitable frustration or disagreements, but it's all positive…because you end up with a much stronger, more-thought-out story.
It's my favorite part of the TV writing experience…spending hours, days and weeks in a room full of smart, clever, outrageously creative writers…all working to together to tell the best possible story.
Our writers room session for THE DEAD MAN went great. We first discussed character and our over-arching, creative goals for the book. Then we started talking broad plot points. Then we drilled down to the novel equivalent of the eternal TV question: "what do we want our act breaks to be?" (Or, in this case, the "cliff hanger" moment at the end of our six "episodes") And once we had that, we got into the nitty-gritty of the specific beats of each "act."
That's where the real work was. We hashed it out in spirited debates while eating lots of food (and, occasionally, diverging into discussions of lame plot points in SKYFALL and the last BATMAN movie. Do you realize Bond failed at *everything* he did in SKYFALL? He didn't do anything right. Still a great movie, though).
We got started at 10:30 am and by the time we finished around 5:30 pm, we'd plotted out the novel and felt great about what we'd come up with. Or, as one person in the room put it, we accomplished in one day what it would take an author by himself a month or two to figure out. It's going to be a kick-ass, standalone DEAD MAN novel that requires no previous knowledge of the series to enjoy…but that will also satisfy our loyal fans with a game-changing story that acknowledges past events, answers some long-standing questions, sends Matt Cahill in an exciting, new direction.
Now everybody is writing up their portion of the outline, which Bill and I will cobble together into one document and submit to our editors at Amazon Publishing's 47North imprint for their notes. Once we have their input, the authors will start writing.
BOOZE BULLETS & BROADS by Bruce Scivally is an ebook examination of Dean Martin's Matt Helm movies and the subsequent TV series. I was thrilled when I heard about the ebook but it turned out to be a major disappointment. It's very short, more like an expanded article than a book. It's very light on details, and the author appears to rely almost entirely on facts and quotes culled from newspaper and magazine articles. I don't get the sense that he did many, if any, actual interviews of his own. Also, his declaration that the Bond producers were creatively influenced by the Helm films isn't based on any facts, but rather a wild assumption the author jumps to based on some plot and scene similarities between the two series. On that basis, you could just as easily argue the Bond films were influenced by THE WILD WILD WEST, THE AVENGERS, and MAN FROM UNCLE, too. But that's a minor quibble. Overall, the book is an interesting read, and you do learn some things about the development of the scripts and production of the films, but it's not nearly as well-researched and informative as I'd hoped it would be. The chapter on the MATT HELM TV series is particularly thin and, given how little information there is about it, was hardly worth including. In fact, if you take the plot synopses out, which are pure fat, there isn't much real meat left. That said, it's well worth the $2.99 investment for Matt Helm fans or fans of 60s spy films. (As an aside, the Kindle formatting of the book is terrible at the outset, but it gets better. Don't let that put you off).
Much more satisfying is Charles Kelly's fantastic GUNSHOTS IN ANOTHER ROOM, his long-awaited biography of Dan J. Marlowe, one of my favorite authors. This biography is almost as wild, compelling, dark and surprising as one of Marlowe's books, which includes the classic The Name of the Game is Death. Kelly has done an enormous amount of research and thoroughly knows his subject. What really sets this book apart from most literary biographies is the tight, novelistic approach he's taken to telling not only Marlowe's strange story, but also the tale of bank robber Al Nussbaum, who became Marlowe's collaborator. Marlowe fans will appreciate the fascinating, detailed look at the author as a person, as well as his complex relationships with his literary agent and two collaborators (William C. O'Dell and Nussbaum), but also the telling details behind the plotting and writing of his books, even those that never saw print. Highly recommended!
FAST TRACK was a two-hour pilot for an American-style action series that would have been shot in English and German with a cast of American, Canadian, British, French and German actors and followed the lives of four young people in the world of illegal street racing. ProSeiben commissioned the pilot movie and scripts for six episodes. Making the movie, which was directed by Axel Sand and starred Erin Cahill, Andrew Walker, Alexia Barlier and Joseph Beattie, was one of the highlights of my career and the friendships I made during the production continue to this day. It was a fantastic experience professionally, creatively and personally (if you watch the "Making of Fast Track" documentary, I think you'll see why). Unfortunately, the series didn't happen…but perhaps because I've remained close to many of the actors, the characters have stayed fresh in my mind. I haven't been able to let go of them, and have tried to resurrect the project several times over the years (we came close with Cartoon Network, but it fell through).
So I approached the opportunty to revisit the FAST TRACK world with enthusiasm. I used the first draft screenplay as the basis for the book because it had some action elements that we either had to omit or re-imagine due to budget/scheduling/location issues and a prologue that was shot, but that I ultimately cut, in the final edit (I've always regretted cutting the prologue).
The film took place in Berlin, but I decided the novella would work better in the United States, so that required some rethinking of the characters' backstories and reworking some of the scenes. I also did a complete update on the cars, with the help of Sam Barer, the same technical consultant we used on the movie.
I had so much fun writing the FAST TRACK novella that if it does well, I may revisit the characters in sequels based on the twelve episode ideas that I came up with during the development of the pilot (though the stories,which I haven't looked at in years, may have been so Berlin/Europe-centered that they may not work in the new, Los Angeles setting).
But this experience has definitely spurred me on to take a look at my other scripts. I don't know yet which one I will tackle during my next short hiatus.
If you'd like to know more about FAST TRACK, here are some links:
I spent last weekend as a special guest at the Love is Murder conference in chilly Chicago and I had a terrific time.
It's probably the smallest mystery conference I've ever been too and, reflecting the huge popularity of self-publishing, there seemed to be more authors than readers in attendance. In fact, there were two big "group" signings over the weekend and there were so many "authors" sitting behind tables that there were maybe three actual "readers" left standing to buy books. I've signed more books at funerals.
But the small number of attendees also made the conference more intimate, and I had a lot of opportunities to talk shop with authors like William Kent Krueger, Bob Mayer, Blake Crouch, Joe Konrath, Ann Voss Petersen, F. Paul Wilson, Robert Goldsborough, Jamie Freveletti, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Sparkle Abbey, Hannah Dennison and Raymond Benson, to name just a few (that's me with Kent and Libby in the picture). We spent a lot of time trying to figure out where the publishing business is going, though we didn't manage to come up with the answer. But we agreed that it's a great time to be an author.
I was treated by Joe Konrath to the worst hamburger I've ever had in my life. It was from White Castle. Joe, his wife, and F. Paul Walker went wild over those burgers. I sent mine to a forensic lab for analysis and am awaiting the results. I'm curious to know what that very thin, oddly-colored patty was actually made of. When Joe comes to Los Angeles, I'm going to take him to In-and-Out or The Habit so he can see what a real hamburger tastes like.
I was a guest on many lively and fun panels, including one on writing characters created by others. My fellow panelists were Robert Goldsborough, who talked about picking up Nero Wolfe where Rex Stout left off, and two strange women who wore matching shirts covered with their bookcovers and talked about revising an unfinished manuscript written by a dead guy…with help from his ghost. I kid you not.
One of the women said her first novel came to her in a dream. She encountered Bugs Bunny on a spirit path, he opened his skull, and there was her book, cover and all, inside his head. She read the book, woke up, then ran downstairs to make notes and describe the cover. She then fleshed the story out with the help of her friend's dead father's ghost. Or something like that. Their process was so confusing, and there were so many ghosts and cartoon characters involved in their writing, that it was hard to follow. They also read aloud from their book, which was a real treat.
On Sunday, Libby took me on a tour of Chicago, and one of our stops was the Sears Tower, where I discovered that I have a slight fear of heights…it revealed itself to me when I stepped out on the "skydeck" that is basically a piece of plastic hanging out over the street where a normal window is supposed to be. I couldn't help thinking I'd be the one who finally fell through…and for what? A photograph. Libby was very amused by my discomfort.
Afterwards, we met with Jamie Freveletti for some deep dish pizza and shop talk, which I really enjoyed. I realized that one of the things I miss most about being on a TV show is all the time spent in the writers room, working with other writers. Now that I'm primarily a novelist, my writer's room is me and my dog, who doesn't contribute much when it comes to breaking stories.
I flew home on Monday. On the plane, a young woman fell asleep and snuggled up against me. That's not the first time that's happened. I must have a very comfy shoulder. After about an hour, I moved a bit and woke her up. She was startled an mortified, not so much because she discovered that she was clutching me, but because the first thing she saw was a graphic, brutal sex scene from Game of Thrones on my iPad. If the plane wasn't full, I think she would have switched seats.
All in all, a very pleasant trip. Next week, I am off to Florida for a photo shoot for The Heist, the book I wrote with Janet Evanovich.
It’s news to no one that the publishing industry has undergone a massive paradigm shift in the last twenty-four months that has changed everything about the business for authors, booksellers, and publishers. But there's one thing that hasn't changed, the most important thing of all, and sadly too many authors aren't paying enough attention to it.
Thanks initially to the introduction of the Kindle, and Amazon opening up their storefront to authors, it’s no longer necessary to have a publisher in order to reach readers. Authors now have options they never had before for getting their books to a national audience. Being dropped by a publisher, or having your books go out of print, are no longer the kiss of death. On the contrary, they present perhaps more profitable opportunities to exploit your material.
For new authors, it’s no longer necessary to go through the struggle of finding an agent who will then sell their work to a publisher, an odyssey than can take years…if it happens at all. Now it’s the publishers, editors and agent who are struggling ….desperately trying to reinvent themselves in a radically changing business.
Self-publishing is no longer the realm of vanity press vultures preying on aspiring, naïve and desperate authors…nor is it the complicated and outrageously expensive gamble, with pitiful chances of success, that it once was. It’s now possible to publish your book, both electronically and in print, with a mouse click, with little to no upfront investment…and to have your book on the virtual shelf on equal footing with the likes of James Patterson and Nora Roberts, at the Amazon and Barnes & Noble storefronts.
Writing careers are being born and, in the case of mid-list authors, reborn.
Now whenever authors get together, we are no longer discussing how we write, or problems with our editors, or tales of life on the road. The talk today is inevitably about reversion of rights letters, book scanning, copyediting, e-book formatting, the nuances of cover art, manipulation of metadata, e-pub vs. mobi, pricing, giveaways, marketing and publicity, social networking, blogging, tagging, liking, tweeting and pinning.
For established, professional writers, coming into self-publishing after years in the “legacy” publishing world, that isn’t such a bad thing. They’ve learned and perfected their craft (or maybe I am just trying to excuse my own obsession with those aspects of the business). But I’ve listened to new writers at conferences or while lurking on writers’ boards and the newbie writers seem obsessed with everything except what matters most: the writing.
I believe it’s that misguided obsession that s leading to the ethical scandals we’ve been seeing lately… like John Locke who hired people to buy his books and write fake reviews (to artificially boost his rankings and acclaim) to establish himself… and Stephen Leather and RJ Ellory who both used “sock-puppets” on Amazon and social media to generate false buzz and fake reviews to boost their popularity and attack their "rivals."
What authors need to remind themselves is that all of that formatting, pricing, tweeting, social networking, etc. is meaningless if you don’t know how to tell a good story, create compelling characters, develop a strong voice, set a scene, establish a sense of place, or manage point-of-view.
I rarely hear writers anymore talking about the pluses and minuses of out-lining, the importance of an active protagonist, the different kinds of conflict, or the elements of structure. The craft of writing has taken a backseat to the business of publishing.
That’s one reason why the members of Top Suspense, have put together a book called WRITING CRIME FICTION. We want to get the dialogue started again… to bring writers back to the one thing that will never change, even as the publishing business reinvents itself.
People want a good story.
That’s why writers write and readers buy books. Good stories. Great characters. That's what matters. Not whether you should write an erotic novel to cash in on FIFTY SHADES OF GRAY… or maybe focus on a YA novels since the HUNGER GAMES series is so hot.
Writers have been handed a great opportunity in the last twenty-four months. We now have tremendous control over our creative and financial lives as writers that we never had before. We now have choices that simply didn’t exist before.
Don’t blow it. Don’t become so focused on the business that you forget the craft. Take advantage of the freedom, and the opportunities, and the new choices by focusing on telling great stories. Hone your craft, Find your voice…focus and less on how the story is packaged, sold and promoted. Help us shift the balance back to where it belongs…