"Have you used watercolor pencils? They're really great for traveling, and you can use a water brush, one that has a built in water well, to smooth out the colors."
My First Assignment: Characters and the World They Live In
As I have been blogging about very loudly lately (can one blog loudly?), I am trying to get back into the swing of writing after years away from the daily habit of doing the work. As some of you know, I don't feel, when I've written a blogpost, that I've "written" that day, though I have learned a enormous amount from pushing myself to blog, something I resisted and feared before I started She Writes! (You can read my posts, "For This Writer, Writing and Blogging Are Different: Vive La Diffe... and "Five Ways Blogging Has Made Me A Better Writer" if you want to weigh in on that subject.) Yesterday I called on one of my most trusted resources -- who is available to be become one of yours, if you are interested -- my good friend and unofficial writing guru, Amy Fox.
Amy is one of the best writers I know -- a playwright whose work has never once struck me as anything less than compassionate and exquisitely honest (and funny, too!) -- who adapted one of her plays into a film for Merchant Ivory, "Heights," and who is currently working on her first book, too. Because my first project is going to be a television pilot, Amy was the friend I turned to for advice on how to begin. (She might have suggested that I start by logging off She Writes and getting to work, but what can I say.) I wanted to share some of the highlights of our conversation, because I found it an enormously helpful one in the fundamentals of that ever-difficult question when each of us faces the blank page: how do I begin?
For one thing, Amy quickly cautioned me when I began by telling her my idea for a television pilot, and then expressing various fears about it: it is too autobiographical, I'm afraid the protagonist won't be likable, I'm worried about managing the storylines in a one-hour script. "I always tell my students, 'Don't write from a negative place,'" Amy counseled. "Just let yourself write without worrying about any of the things you may worry about later, when you've got much more of the story down. You can always go back and change details or wrestle with story lines, but if you start writing with the idea that you already have a problem to solve, it's very hard to start."
Best, Amy advised, would be for me to start by setting aside some time, whether it was an hour or five, to free write. "Write down everything you have thought about when you've been thinking about this pilot in your mind. Don't worry about whether it's a scene, a detail, a piece of dialogue, or something you know about a character. Just get it out of your head and on to the page." Amy likes to do this on paper, but I may try it on my computer, as I can type faster than I can write. (I am even thinking of trying Scrivener, the organizing tool for writers that Andrea King Collier used to help her survive NaNoWriMo last year.)
Then Amy told me what she thought were the two most important things for a successful television series: the characters, and the world they live in. My task in the beginning is to get to know my characters and describe, in as much detail as I can, the world in which they live. By doing that first, I can then create a pilot episode for the series that "backs out" the story lines that will best describe these two crucial things. It makes sense for something serialized, where story lines come and go, but viewers tune in to watch people they have come to know navigate the world they live in.
I wondered if it will be similar for me when I tackle a novel, the next big project I hope to take on. If there are fiction writers reading this, can you tell me how your advice might resemble, or differ from, Amy's, if one were beginning a novel? And for those of you who have written television pilots, do you have anything to add? I'm all ears. And now I'm off to go DO it. :) More soon!!
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Comment by Gwendolyn Rhodes on July 26, 2011 at 2:28pm -
Hey Kami, thanks for your words of wisdom about "doing the work" and "getting it down on the page in front of you" and worrying about all the rest later. It gave me the boost to go at it again.
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Comment by Rosalie Morales Kearns on July 24, 2011 at 9:44am -
Kamy, I second yours and others’ thoughts about (1) letting the first draft pour out rather than overthinking/overediting it as you go; and (2) setting aside a chunk of time to write. It doesn’t have to be the same time every day, either.
I know nothing about television, but here are some specific thoughts about writing a novel:
For readers, part of what’s interesting about being immersed in a character-driven novel is learning more about the character over time. So for writers, an important consideration is how much to reveal when. Introducing the character is different from just dumping all relevant information on your reader at once. Let them enjoy finding out as they read.
The best advice, I think, is to take a novel you really like and read it through with technical questions in mind, doing plenty of underlining and note-taking in the margins. Questions like how the characters are introduced, how the information about them is doled out, how scenes are set up; how the author transitions from one scene to another; the balance of summary versus scene, etc. (I advise getting an old, paperback version; I always feel guilty writing in a hardcover book.)
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Comment by Meg Waite Clayton on July 23, 2011 at 10:35am -
I definitely agree with Amy's advice. I tend to do my development writing in a journal, as I always have it with me (except when I run, when I have a folded paper and golf pencil in my pocket, which I can tape into the journal).
For the what's important, I think for a novel more than a tv show, an early sense of what's at stake is also important. (Although maybe it is in a tv show too.) But I do think if I sit down to character and place, the what's at stake bubbles up.
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Comment by Marisel Vera on July 22, 2011 at 6:01pm -
I agree with Amy about scheduling time to write every day if possible and try not to censor what you write. Later you can revise! I like to start to write fiction with a character in mind--at least an idea of who the person is and trusting that more will be shown to me--and also with the setting. I've noticed that I can write a great first chapter (this novel I'm working on is my third) and then I feel compelled to stop and do more research. Sticking to my writing schedule (which at times is hard) helps me to push on in the writing. I think that writing is writing whether a blog post or essay or novel and you just strive to do the best you can at that particular time.
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Comment by Tara Zucker on July 22, 2011 at 12:19pm -
Exciting! My main advice? Be true to your own voice. Last year I wrote a detailed treatment for an original pilot plus eight episodes. It never "went anywhere," and I'm certainly no expert on any of this, but I was working with partners, so there were some compromises I had to make, and because of that I'd say, if possible - try not to do that! Especially at first, and for as long as possible, stay true to your own voice. That's what will make your show unique. At the same time, be flexible with your own ideas. I was creating a show for a specific celebrity, and his "character" was him, but definitely fictionalized. I created the premise and characters based on a specific idea I had - and then he threw a big curve and asked for a different premise. It was very hard at first to let go of my original concept, but it challenged me to come up with other ideas and characters. Think about what will keep your audience tuning in week after week - give the audience a reason to care (or hate, or root for, or feel something) about your main characters. Also - think about how your main character will - or will not - change over several seasons. The pilot is just the starting point - you may not have all the answers for the future, but you should have some ideas for going forward. So much fun! Good luck! I can't wait to hear about your progress!
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Comment by Deborah Batterman on July 22, 2011 at 12:16pm -
I tend to agree with Amy re: letting something out of your head and onto the page, at least in a first draft. Writing a novel especially (yes, I'm working on one) sometimes feels like a long road trip -- there may be a general sense of where I'm headed, but it's never a straight path and the detours and stops along the way are what enrich it. Sometimes they're integral to the story, sometimes they need to be ditched. In any case, serendipitous as it may seem, I started a discussion here this week -- Plotter or Pantser? -- that came from an interview question I was asked on another site where I'm featured this week -- All the Blog's a Page.
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Comment by Bridget Straub on July 21, 2011 at 12:25pm -
I'm with Amy, start anywhere and work your way back later.
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