Writers write.

Today's blog is inspired by a question from "Anonymous".  I don't know how long the question was there unanswered because it had fallen into my spam folder, probably for mentioning another blogging platform.  Anyway, part of the question was, in part, "Any advice for aspiring writers?"
(You can find the entire question on the helicopter blog)

My answer to this question was as common and cliché as the question itself.

Just write.

I know,  you've read it before.  It's the answer all writers and self-proclaimed writers (I am more self-published than second party published in every area of my writing) give when confronted with the question.  This isn't because we're plagiarists. It's not because all writers lack imagination.  It's not even because we were all given the same advice and then never thought about it again.  The reason most writers give this answer is because it's a simple, but powerful, truth.  If you're writing, you're a writer.  You may not be a good writer.  You may not even be a coherent writer, but  we all have to start somewhere.

Another thing authors, screenwriters, poets, columnists and writers of every sort will point out is that writing is one of the few passions people can pursuit without any significant financial investment at all.  If you have some time to set aside, a pen and a pad, you can get started in writing something.  Sure software and apps help make it faster, check our spelling and now ever our grammar, but to just write and find you voice, all you need is about $2 worth of supplies and someplace quiet and well lit to work.

My first 40 or so first short stories were written on legal pads with disposable pens.  My sister and my Mom eventually typed out a few of them on a word processor for me the first times I submitted them and had them rejected by publishers.  Three of those stories became the first three short films I did when I "returned" to filmmaking after the disaster that was my first feature movie.

And that brings me to my next point.

Trim down your obstacles to work on your rough spots.

"Z: The Last Letter" is a black and white silent movie about a dog and a mail man.  There is no spoken dialogue and it was all shot outside, during the day.  It is also based on one of those short stories I wrote way back when I had first gotten out of college and thought I'd try to do some writing before I got a "regular job".  You can watch it on Amazon Prime.

I had produced a feature horror video a few years earlier and hit the same pitfalls many of us did before digital made picture quality easier to maintain and tips and tricks were everywhere to be found online.  My lighting at night wasn't enough, the microphone I used barely captured audio from more than a few feet away and I tried to produce a story well outside of my budget or level of ability at the time.  So, I decided to make some shorts and work my way up through my weaknesses.  By eliminating lighting at night and recording sound on location I eliminated my two biggest production problems and was able to concentrate on the story and character direction.

I think this can be applied to writing as well.  If you want to write a novel, start with some short stories.

Maybe you have trouble composing complex plot lines, or intersecting stories. Maybe your weakness, as is mine, is character development. Perhaps you have some difficulty with describing locations or surroundings in a satisfying way.  Try what I did with the shorts.  Choose what you or your readers feel your weakest spot is and eliminate it from work you plan to publish or submit to others for publication. For now. Take this same area that  you need practice in and make it the center of your personal projects.  

Which leads us to my next point.

Let others read your work.

If you're like me, the trouble here is finding people who aren't aware of or worried about your fragile ego.  I know, how could a mega talented, handsome, charming, modest demi-god like myself have a fragile ego?  Well, I do. I can prove it.  Remember those 40 or so short stories I mentioned?  How many have  you ever heard of or seen printed here?  

Exactly.  Once those first rejection letters came in, I more or less gave up.  For a good long time.  Eventually some got published on websites or in small printed publications, but I never felt they were very successful and so I sort of stopped writing for awhile.  Not writing meant, you guessed it, I wasn't a writer.

You need to let people read your stuff and give you constructive criticism.  Not all criticism will be constructive and that you'll need to ignore.  The most useless stuff will often come from other writers who really love your work, but sort of hate you.  Learning what to take to heart and what to ignore is probably the most difficult part of starting out.  Let me give you some rules to live by as a writer.

There are no rules to writing.

This is obviously not true.  If you want people to understand what you write and you want the experience to be somewhat enjoyable and easy to follow, the basic rules of grammar and spelling will apply most of the time.  Knowing these rules and learning when to break them will also allow you to add flare to your writing and give your characters some depth.

That said, writing being a creative endeavor, any other rules helpful writing instructors may give you, such as, "You should introduce all of  your main characters within the first act of a play" or "Never introduce a plot point that isn't going to develop and resolve by the end of your story" are to be looked upon as guidelines and NOT hard and fast rules.

Basically, aside from proper grammar and spelling, my only hard and fast rule in any art form is that there are no hard and fast rules in any art form.

Being creative is about bending or breaking conventions.  Knowing when bending or breaking a convention actually works for readers or an audience is where the talent portion comes in.  That goes back to the need to have other people read your work.

You know what you're trying to say with your story, so often things that read as fine to you will still confuse other people.  It's like a family in-joke that makes you and all of your cousins crack  up, but when a friend who doesn't know the background of the story is around they get that blank stare while the rest of you chuckle.  Your readers may not have the same context as  you and you need to be aware of that.

Writers read.

I do not read enough to be an excellent writer.  My interest in reading came late in life and for screenwriting I grew up during a golden age of mediocre television. The fact that I watched more TV shows than movies as a kid definitely presents itself in my earlier screenplays, which play out more like old anthology episodes than films.

Read what you enjoy, but occasionally read stuff that bores the heck out of you in order to expand your perspective.  Read the classics.  Read things assigned widely in schools.  These will put you in touch with the "collective unconscious" of many of your readers.  Read the news, if you can find anything that qualifies.  Read nature magazines, fashion magazines, car magazines and magazines and websites about things you have no interest in at all.

If nothing else, reading so many things that don't interest you will inspire you to sit down and write something that does.  Hopefully it will interest other people too and you'll be on  your way to being a published writer.

Either way, you will have written something and thus, on that day, you will be a writer.

This is an inside HFP episode about "Z", but to watch the film
Please visit the Amazon links above.
It's still free with an ad, but I think you'll find the quality there
a bit better, and honestly, I'll make a bit more if you're
signed into your Prime Account.