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IT'S TRUE. It's all true. It's always been true.
Might have something to do with why I became a writer in the first place. No, I didn't turn out a thousand-page novel
when I was three or even thirteen. I did see my first play produced when I was thirty, though, and from then on I was well
and truly hooked.
Not long after that, I got to know a fantastic writer by the name of Harlan Ellison, one of the sharpest minds and most
prolific pens I've ever seen. (I've told this story a hundred times, but I'm going to tell it again here.) Harlan's done everything
in a long and tumultuous career, novels, essays, feature films, adaptations, television, even comic books. He wrote the best
Star Trek episode ever made, called "The City At The Edge Of Forever," which he claimed was butchered but for which
he won both a Hugo and a Writers Guild Award. So why am I telling you all this? There is a reason.
| DON'T! |
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| Unless you have to! |
Harlan has a (not entirely undeserved) reputation for being abrasive and argumentative.
He is well known for being willing to fight to protect the integrity of his work. A dust jacket from one of Ellison's
own books describes him as "possibly the most contentious person on Earth." But (and he'll kill me for saying
this) while he likes to come on as a curmudgeon, he really is a very generous guy. He has gone out of his way hundreds of
times to help other writers. When he is asked, as he often is, for advice to young (that is, new) writers, he always has the
same one-word answer: "DON'T!" Then, after a pause while shock registers on the questioner's face, he continues,
"Don't do this (another pause)... unless you have to. If there is something inside you that MAKES you do this,"
that won't let you alone if you don't write, then maybe, just maybe, you'll have enough whatever it is one needs
to survive as a writer. It's a good point. It could save some people a lot of time and a lot of heartache trying to fight
their way in when they just don't have what it takes.
| This was the hardware we used |
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| before there was scripting software |
It's true. Writing is not a game for the faint of heart. if you think you want to be a writer for fame or
fortune or both, forget it. The only reason to do it is because you have to. You have to love writing, not just "being
a writer." It's just too damn complex a craft, and way too damn hard as a business, to even attempt it without that
"fire in the belly" or whatever the hell it is that makes writers write. It's true. Trust me, I know. I've
been at this for a very long time... been there and done that.
I try to get this across to my screenwriting students.
Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't. One reason is that every writer, when they're first starting out, has
to nurture their ego, their secret sense that they might be the best there is. This is partly because it takes a strong ego
to put words on paper and put it in front of people, and partly because it helps to balance the never-ending struggle between
necessary confidence on the one hand, and the insecurity and self-doubt that plagues ever writer I've ever known. Writing
can be a very schizophrenic profession. That might explain why anyone who sets out to make a living as a writer has to be
at least a little crazy. So, if it's so hard, why do it? What's it really all about?
The writer's job is not merely to express him- or herself.
Writing is a solo act only in the creation, not the completion.
Its singular function is to communicate.
That means it has to reach an audience,
even if only one other person (but preferably more).
At the same time, writing can bring not only challenges but enormous satisfaction. While some writers make a fairly good living,
the rewards have nothing to do with money. They are internal, in pushing the edges of one's abilities, in digging down inside,
in discovering what one can really do, in exploring the way people think and feel and act and speak.
There is also satisfaction in knowing one has told a story well, deftly, perhaps even deeply, but in such a way that catches
people's attention, and informs or amuses or moves them in some way. That, after all, is what it's all about.
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We're
all storytellers. Every one of us. Really. When we tell someone about something we've done, someone we know, somewhere
we've been, we're telling a story. When we try to explain something, teach something, sell something, even tell a
joke, we're telling stories. When we tell someone why they should go see the movie we just saw, we're telling a story
(hopefully faithful to the movie, but not so much as to spoil it for the other person). When we share any experience, verbally,
we're telling a story.
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Why tell stories? Because
it's important. In my view, storytelling is a crucial part of us. It's the way we try to know who we are, the ways
we do what we do, and perhaps even why we do it. It's how we communicate that to ourselves and to others. It's what
our culture is built on, for better or for worse. It's how, in significant measure, how we will be seen, heard, and hopefully
understood, by those who come after us.
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