Write Whatever the Heck You Want to Write
Write what you know, write what you don’t, write terribly, I don’t care, just write!
I have about a dozen or more half-finished screenplays just sitting in my Amazon Storywriter dashboard. Most of them, I keep telling myself, I’ll do more research. I’ll write “when I feel like it”. Some of them, I don’t even care about the idea, there’s just one decent image floating around on the page.
Today, I was listening to Alex Ferrari’s Bulletproof Screenplay Podcast, and his guest, Scott Myers, said something along the lines of:
Research is great and all, but if you’re still “researching” six months later and haven’t written a thing, you just gotta start writing. You’re not writing a documentary. You just need it to believable.
After a long discussion with fellow actor and lifelong writing partner about a certain absolutely crappy first draft, she began to explain to me that we will never be satisfied with our writing. We have to just let our inner child free, and write whatever the heck she wants to write.
You don’t need the “right reasons” to be writing something, you just need one
I’ll be the first to admit, that about 80% of my screenplays start because I want to play a certain type of character or update my demo reel. My aforementioned terrible first draft was one of those. I didn’t really even care about the story at all. I filmed some neat slo-mo shots of me running through backwoods in the rain and I wanted something that could use that.
I started writing it because I wanted to act. I fell in love with the story second. It doesn’t have to be love at first sight with your writing, it just needs to be interest at second glance.
You don’t even have to like writing—I don’t
Speaking of love, writing is not about love. Writing is about persistence.
In an excellent article I read this week, Brianna Wiest says: “You’re Not Meant to Do What You Love”. In another article, Jessica Wildfire identifies: “The Dangerous Myth of Passion”. In the comments, someone pointed out, in fact, that the root for passion comes from the Greek “pati” which means to suffer.
The basic premise of these articles is this: passion and love mean nothing at all. If you want something, you need to actively pursue it.
In fact, some of the most successful writers hate writing. Austin Kleon. Adam Phillips. Literally, when winning an award, Larry David had this to say:
I hate writing. Nothing puts me to sleep faster than picking up a pen. Within minutes, I’m out cold. I not only hate writing the shows, I hate all kinds of writing. Recommendations, thank you notes, excusing my daughter from school, condolence letters … Oh those are the worst.
Writing is not about love. Writing is about persistence.
I despise nothing more than writing, I’d almost always rather be acting or watching Netflix…So why do I write then?
I write because I must. I write because I’m good at it. I write because I love ideas—and no one else will turn these ideas into reality except me…sadly.
Nothing is original, nothing is original, nothing is original
I think this goes without saying. All that can be said, has been said. It’s just never been said by you.
Something that always angered me in my film classes were the sheer amount of kids (usually dudes) who judged their own work and the work of others solely based on its “originality”.
I’m sorry, but “originality” doesn’t mean anything because it isn’t achievable. It’s not about being unique, it’s about being interesting.
Write the worst thing imaginable
I have the distinct privilege of working with kids. Listening to the stories they come up with has influenced me more than any book or college class.
Last week, they made this bizarre 6-part superhero film about a pie tin named “Tin Foil”. In the end, they informed me, every single character died and they have since moved on. I cannot overstate enough how much they were in love with this character. They started screaming his name, begging for autographs. Half of them couldn’t even tell me what the story was even about.
But it didn’t matter. Because the story wasn’t the point.
“Something doesn’t have to be profound to be worthwhile.”
The point was this: the story did exactly what it set out to do. Entertain and excite 15 seven year olds for 30 minutes, make them howl with laughter, give everyone a chance to play a part, let them emulate their heroes over at Marvel Studios and DC and have a baller time having superpowers and evil plans.
My friend and cinematographer loves “crappy summer teen romance movies”. When her slightly snooty film critic friends ask “…why???”. She explains this:
“I knew exactly what I was getting. A crappy teen movie. And it was a crappy teen movie. It still made me cry and cheer. It didn’t pretend to be something that it wasn’t. Something doesn’t have to be profound to be worthwhile.”
Conclusion
Many of us adults have shuttered our inner child due to all sorts of fun things. Trauma, mental illness, fear of rejection, the works.
In The Hustle Economy, Neiman Fellow, Mónica Gúzman talks about dialing down the “parent” in your head. We all have one. That’s the voice that tells you to quit while your ahead and that you’ll never write anything worthwhile.
We must stop obsessing about the worth of what we’re writing. We must only (at first) care about writing.
Are the unfinished drafts on my dashboard worthwhile? Maybe. But I don’t care. They exist. I want them to exist. That is enough of a reason to keep writing them.
Let your inner child out. Write your own terribly convoluted 6-part superhero franchise, write the most self-important, Lynchian, existential nonsense in the world. So long as you keep writing and do not stop.
