Advice is cheap

Recently I was asked to advise a friend's son who wanted to know the easy route to success as a screenwriter. This is what I said.

Advice to a young writer

Stop!

OK, that was a joke. Sort of. Writing is not an easy path to fame, fortune and happiness. It is quite a hard road, in fact, though happiness and a modicum of fame are somewhat easier to reach than fortune.

I've been writing for twenty years. I've published one novel (though I've written six), I've had four stage plays professionally produced (and several self-productions) out of fifteen. I did write more than forty interactive comedic murder mysteries -- and acted in a lot of them, too. I've written one screen play (unproduced) and over thirty short stories -- thirteen of which someone bought and published. I've won or been nominated for a number of awards, both for plays and short stories. I enjoy writing -- it generates more pleasure than pain -- but these days it mostly consists of speeches and policy papers. That's where the money is.

As a full-time fiction writer (I did that more or less for six years) my best year generated $18,000. I got a lot of happiness from it and a small measure of fame but fortune always eluded me. Which is why I now do other things full-time and write on the weekends.

One major benefit of being a writer is that I got to spend a lot of time with other writers -- some pretty impressive ones like Sharon Pollock and Robert J. Sawyer and Joe Haldeman, but mostly lesser known ones with a range of successes.

A few writers I know regularly make six figures a year (though only one of the above mentioned). Many others make a modest living -- we're talking in the $20-30Ks -- and supplement with teaching or part-time jobs. One guy I know who has published six well received SF novels drives school buses to make ends meet. A lot of writers, like all other artists, have successful and well-paid spouses.

The majority of writers I know look at my career with envy. Well, maybe that's a little strong.

The point I'm trying to make is you don't need to want to write; you need to have to write. It better be a compulsion, a yearning, a calling. If it isn't, and you are not both very talented and very lucky, then the writing life is not for you.

OK, if I haven't scared you into your senses, how about I give you some advice you can use.

The first rule of writing is to read -- a lot. Even if you want to write plays or for the screen, you need to read. Watching movies or plays is not good enough. You are a writer not a listener or a talker. Read widely and read critically. Think about whether the writing works and then try to figure out why. Read good books, plays, screenplays and bad -- but read more good than bad. Pick one great writer and read everything they wrote -- it's encouraging to know that no-one is great every time.

The second rule of writing is write -- a lot. Stephen King said you had to write a million words of shit before you could write well. Robertson Davies claimed that a writer's apprenticeship was ten years. "A writer writes" says Billy Crystal in "Throw Momma from the Train." If you have to work at a job, which you probably will, try to find one that pays enough money so you don't have to work long hours and that lets you leave the job at work so you can write when you get home. After earning enough to live on -- writing has to be your primary activity. More important than friends, family or life. OK, try to get in a good ten to fifteen hours a week.

Rules three through five. Re-write, re-write, re-write. Your writing will never be perfect but it can almost always be better. Read Hemingway's "Islands in the Stream." It was published after his death and only the first third is polished Hemingway, the second third is a second or third draft, the last third is a mess. Nothing will teach you more about the value and craft of re-writing than that book. Some people like to have people critiques their work between drafts. Mentors, writing groups, an intimate but critical friend can all be helpful -- but in the end you and you alone are responsible for your writing.

Rule six. So stop re-writing already. At a certain point your work will not get better, it will just get different. Time to test the market. Send your babies out to be slaughtered. Don't be surprised or hurt when they are. Unless you are a wunderkind -- in which case you needn't read further -- you will be rejected more often than you will be bought. By the way, aim high. One sale to a mid-level market is worth more than a lot to lesser markets.

They say write what you know -- which is nonsense. If that were true only cops and murderers would write mysteries and science fiction and fantasy would be right out of the question. You can always get knowledge by research. Write what you feel would be better advice -- write about the things you care about, the things you love or hate, things that scare you or give you joy. Robert Frost said; "No tears for the poet, no tears for the reader." If you are not personally engaged in your plot and characters, you are not a writer you are a hack.

I mentioned writing groups -- at the very least check them out to see if they are for you. In Calgary, there is the Imaginative Fiction Writers Association (IFWA) for SF and fantasy, Alberta Playwrights Network for play writing and screen writing, Romance Writers of Alberta (name says it all) Writers Guild and Calgary Writers Association and the Alexandria Centre for mainstream fiction, the Independent Filmmakers for screen writing. There may be others -- do some research. Some of these are groups of writers who get together; others are organizations that offer programs and advice.

Books on writing -- Absolutely!

In particular:
The Chicago Manual of Style or Strunk and White: The Elements of Style (because no one wants to wade through bad grammar!)
Bernays and Painer: What if? (The best book of writing exercises I've ever seen)
Straczynski The Complete Book of Scriptwriting
John Gardner The Art of Fiction
Goldberg Writing Down the Bones (not my favorite but a lot of people like it)

There are lots of others -- find the ones that work for you.