So Jeremy Dyson, one of the writers of the BBC's jolly successful weird comedy The League of Gentleman came to lead the seminar yesterday. Was mighty awesome and inspirational. And made me want to write my thoughts and share them on our group blog. Which is what I did. And what you can read below...
>>>
What a wonderful talk by that nice Mr Dyson! Seems like, for me, he’s put everything in place, and given strength to that timid little voice that says, but I just don’t think writing works like that, Mr McField: I think it’s something more organic, something more magic, something that almost gives birth to itself. Sure, I dig the work ethic – I ain’t some mad bohemian who thinks everything should come out fully-formed in one great flash of good-feelin’ and inspiration and if the world don’t want it it’s ‘cos the world is crass and idiotic – but all your talk of structure and inciting incident just leaves me cold. And let me ask you this one fine question, oh God of screenplays: how many scripts you had put into production anyways?
This was the sentence that summed it up for me: “all those things are tools of analysis, not tools of creation.” The 3-act play, the story arc, the plot points and moments of crisis and false climax and full and final climax: they all came about after the fact, through reading and studying the huge body of literature that works. Nobody sat down and plotted it out in that manner: not Dickens nor Austen nor Vonnegut nor Carver. And that’s not what I want to do either. Sure, you can look back when the story’s over and say, oh yeah, this is plot point one, this is the protagonist and that’s his need: but that’s all in the reflection, not in the writing. Ultimately, surely, the only question is this: does it work? And maybe analysis can help in the rewrite when the answer’s “no” – or maybe it can’t, ‘cos it might all be obvious anyway. Is it dragging? Chop it down. Is it missing something? Then find out what it is and put it in. Is it shit? Well just start again.
All this talk of what makes a story…to discuss the requirements of character, of protagonist…that’s just saying that it’s going to be about somebody, which is kind of a given. And to talk about narrative, about plot: that’s just saying it’s made up of words and that something happens – ideally, something interesting. But as for specifics, formulas, demands and rules? No, I don’t think so.
What else did he say? He said that often it’s our subconscious that does the work, and, indeed, that the best parts are written by our subconscious. That sometimes things arrive more or less fully-formed and we are more like midwives helping to bring them into the world – implying that they are gifted to us, that they come from elsewhere, which is certainly something I’ve experienced and agree with. He said the key is to follow what you love, what fascinates you, and to be the most pure you you can be on paper. He said writing takes faith and letting go. I dig it all.
None of this is to say, however, that I believe writing is purely inspiration, that there’s no place for forethought, and that hard work doesn’t play its part. Sometimes a piece may appear to write itself – but I’d say it’s a rare story that doesn’t involve a hell of a lot of grind. I don’t know who it was that said writing is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration but I think they must’ve been pretty smart.
I never wrote fiction before I did my BA: I was always strictly a memoir/blogger-type person and I didn’t think I had it in me. But I did a class on reading and writing the short story and, lo and behold, there was stuff in there that, with a bit of pressure and necessity, came out not so bad. The first story I wrote was okay, nothing special; the second…I remember sitting down on the morning it was supposed to be handed in and I had this thing I was gonna write all planned out. I started, I got a little ways in, and…it stalled. It just wasn’t working. And the clock was ticking. I deleted everything I’d written and next thing I knew some whole new idea had come out of me and within a couple of hours I had a complete piece of work that I felt pretty pleased with. Tutor liked it, and after a lot of editing and redrafting I submitted it to an anthology and it got published. The editor of the book said it made the first guy who read it cry. In a good way, I think.
The point is, I don’t know where it came from. I do know that a seed had been planted when the creative writing tutor had said, “short stories are about little things: you wouldn’t write a short story about the end of the world, for example” – and I’d thought, oh yeah? That’s what I’ll do then. But other than that, nothing. It seemed like it came out of thin air, that it kind of wrote itself. But I suppose the subconscious must’ve been working on it all along. And the other point is this: even though it may have seemed to fall out of me pretty much effortlessly in the space of two or three hours, and arrived on the screen more or less complete and already good, it took another two or three weeks of editing the arse out of it, right down to the last lousy comma, before it really started to shine. I learned something grand in that. Writing really is work.
So thanks Mr Dyson: I feel more inspired than ever to write what I feel is in my piss and bones, even though it may not be trendy or palatable to Hollywood or get me great grades. But I do believe it’s good, and works, and that somewhere there’s an audience for it. And, for now, that’s what feels most crucial.
>>>
Note: "McField" is the quick way of typing "Syd Field and Robert McKee". Their philosophy seems to have dominated things thus far in our learnings.
No comments:
Post a Comment