5 Ways to Take Your #Writing to the Next Level #writetip

 

I just came home after three days in Los Angeles at Story Expo, a screenwriters’ conference. While it was my first time attending, I discovered that not everyone there is writing for film or TV, and that many of the speakers already try to incorporate advice for novelists in their sessions. While I only write novels at this point, I’m leaning toward writing a TV spec show or pilot in the not-too-distant future.

Before I get onto the advice, enjoy this YouTube clip from the 2007 Academy Awards show, a salute to writers in films.

Here are just a few of the tips that I heard and want to pass on to other writers and aspiring writers.

 

Become the world’s biggest sponge

Arnold Shapiro shared this piece of advice. Listen, read, watch and keep listening, reading and watching. Pay attention to what’s popular and what’s not. What do you like about the stories you come across, and what don’t you like?

 

Soak up information, techniques and become outwardly centered, not inner/self-centered. This helps you see what interests other people (your audience) and to build better stories and characters.

 

Don’t worry about this influencing your own writing. Instead, you will build upon what you see and hear with your own style, voice and experiences.

 

A friend of mine is a jazz musician. During a recent visit to his house I spotted an article he printed on how to play solos. The part that resonated with me was not about playing an instrument, but rather about how music works and how it affects the listener. The writer said that when you hear a jazz musician play a solo you can tell which musicians he has listened to. Not because he copies their music, but because it influences how they play, what kind of solos they play.

 

I think that works for writing too. Everything you write is affected by your interpretation of the events, characters, themes, but you can learn a lot from reading and watching the masters at work. And don’t just read as a reader, try taking notes, tear scenes and plots apart to see how they tick. What can you learn from that?

 

Make your mark on your writing with style and voice.

This means that someone reading your work should know it’s your story even if they don’t  see your name on the cover.

Linda Seger made this point, though it’s not necessarily going to be easy to achieve. She reminded the audience that when you see a Woody Allen film, you know it’s Woody Allen, no matter the story or the characters.

 

Why? Because Woody Allen has a distinctive style, voice and theme that carries across his body of work. Due to his nature and interests, you can bet there will always be a very literary character, either one who knows a lot about literature, or might even act like a great literary character. He has spent a lot of time in therapy, so he uses a lot of psychology/psychiatry jokes. He loves New York and hates LA so he often puts in a dig about LA.

 

What trademarks do you put into your writing, consciously or unconsciously? What would you like for readers to associate with you?

 

Get physical!

Christopher Vogler made a point that really stuck with me. He used to work for Disney, reading screenplays and weeding out the crap from the ones the studio wanted to consider producing.

 

The most important thing for him was how many organs did the story affect? If you’re writing romance/erotic romance, there’s one you pretty much need to connect with. But beyond that, does the story choke you up, make you cry, twist your stomach into knots, make you shiver or cringe?

 

If the writing doesn’t elicit a physical response you are not connecting to the reader strongly enough. Vogler said if the script didn’t hit him in at least three organs it went into the trash.

 

When I mentioned this to another writer, she told me that a great screenplay gives you a physical reaction in every scene. Well, over the hundreds of scenes in a book, it might be difficult to keep that level of physical connection going, but if we can, then how could a reader put our stories down?

 

I don’t think they can!

Understand the market if you want to be a professional and get paid for your work.

Melody Beattie, one of the world’s top selling authors, had this great piece of advice.

 

Professionals get paid, which means that readers and/or publisher buys your story.  To be successful and build a career, you need to be true to your writing, but you need to write stories that are salable. Depending on your personal goals, you choose which task comes first. For Melody, she makes up a list of ideas she wants to write, then chooses the ones that are most likely to be commercial. There’s nothing wrong with that!

 

Or you may want to see what’s selling, then see if you want to write something similar.  If not, try something else. But be careful to make sure you love your project, because your audience will know when your heart’s not in it. If you love it, then you are much more likely to convey that passion to a reader. If you don’t love it, why should someone else love it enough to pay?

Raise the stakes and terrify your hero

I heard variations of this from several speakers, but Christopher Riley said it in a way that stuck with me.

Your MC (hero) has an obstacle in the way of his goal. We’ve heard that a thousand times before, right?

 

Why should we care about that character, his goal or the obstacles? Only you can make it real for the character and the audience.

 

What kind of goal is your character willing to do CRAZY, INSANE, OUTRAGEOUS things to accomplish? If the goal isn’t worth getting extreme, and the pursuit of that goal isn’t extreme, you’re not going to grab anyone’s organs (see #3 above).

 

The less heroic your character, the crazier even normal action may appear.

 

I’m not a big fan of LOTR, but a lot of you are. When Chris explained why Frodo makes a great hero, suddenly everything got crystal clear.

 

The hero is the character who goes into danger for what he wants/needs. For Superman, there’s not much out there that he’s afraid of. Frodo is afraid of just going out the door, so going after the ring becomes orders of magnitude more significant for him and for the reader who knows how difficult it is for him to do it.

 

Let’s take a look at Superman again. He’s big and strong, but all that goes out the window when someone opens up a box of Kryptonite. Without that vulnerability, Superman is pretty boring as a hero. He’s physically so powerful that it’s difficult to worry whether he’ll come out ahead.

 

Make your hero vulnerable, and then still make him do things that should terrify him because the goal is that important. That’s what makes a hero, overcoming that terror to ACT instead of stay home and binge watching  Breaking Bad.

 

Have you got a great piece of advice that has influenced you and your writing? Please share it below.