For my second way to be a great writer, (the first is here) I’m going to ask Ernest Hemingway to take a bow and present you with his very own…
Bullshit Detector
No writer can survive without it. It’s that crucial device that sits just between your ears and tells you when you’re coming up with crap.
On the one hand, it’s crucial to be able to come up with rubbish. Editing and judging too early is a major flaw in any creative artist. In the first instance it’s important to – using Stephen King’s phrase – “write with the door closed”.
First drafts are supposed to be manure. But then as you know out of manure beautiful things can grow.
However, it’s not much use if it stays as manure. That’s where EG’s great BS detector comes in.
Second draft, you plug the BS detector in, turn it on and write “with the door open.” You spot the blahand you weed it out with a ruthless venom.
Ernest used to say that he’d seek out “one true sentence” and build from there. It’s not a bad way to go.
Too many otherwise well-written scripts that I see are simply sabotaged because the writer didn’t bother to be truthful. Whether it’s a plot point or a character or just a lack of careful research.
Go looking for truth.
2 Comments
October 9, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Gee, the writing process to YOU must be very burdensome. For me, the entire process is the beauty of it all. You should know that words have power, so I would NEVER call my first draft (door closed or not) manure or weed shitting or whatever. I am sure Stephen King doesn’t need to encounter such arduous changes. Writing is supposed to be your second skin, it is supposed to be good fun sweat, not all kinds of manure. My goodness, no wonder I have safe guarded my work for so many years. I’ll just do my thing, my way and bathe in the art and craft of the process. Shesh!
October 24, 2011 at 6:19 pm
Hi HM – You make a good point. The issue is whether manure is burdensome or has its own beauty. Personally I find all the processes beautiful – as clearly you do.
It’s great if you can always have good fun when writing. The truth is, it doesn’t always work out that way, every day and while it may be the case for you, I don’t want to mislead other (possibly beginner) writers into thinking something’s going wrong if they aren’t joyously inspired all the time.
It is well said that professional writers have to put some words on the page, whether inspiration strikes or not. Sometimes you can, as you say nicely, bathe in the art and the craft. Sometimes you have to just get stuck into the sweat, and discover the good fun later.