David Mamet's Tips on Writing

I found this floating around the internet; it seems to have quietly made the rounds back in March, but I just found it now and it contains a lot of wisdom from an amazing writer. This was a memo sent from David Mamet to the writers of the, now-cancelled, CBS show The Unit. I guess they either didn't pay attention to his advice, or the TV watchers of America aren't used to well-written TV-shows. Regardless, read it, and figure it out for yourself:

“TO THE WRITERS OF THE UNIT

GREETINGS.

AS WE LEARN HOW TO WRITE THIS SHOW, A RECURRING PROBLEM BECOMES CLEAR.

THE PROBLEM IS THIS: TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN DRAMA AND NON-DRAMA.LET ME BREAK-IT-DOWN-NOW.

EVERYONE IN CREATION IS SCREAMING AT US TO MAKE THE SHOW CLEAR. WE ARE TASKED WITH, IT SEEMS, CRAMMING A SHITLOAD OF INFORMATION INTO ALITTLE BIT OF TIME.

OUR FRIENDS. THE PENGUINS, THINK THAT WE, THEREFORE, ARE EMPLOYED TOCOMMUNICATE INFORMATION — AND, SO, AT TIMES, IT SEEMS TO US.

BUT NOTE:THE AUDIENCE WILL NOT TUNE IN TO WATCH INFORMATION. YOU WOULDN’T, I WOULDN’T. NO ONE WOULD OR WILL. THE AUDIENCE WILL ONLY TUNEIN AND STAY TUNED TO WATCH DRAMA.

QUESTION:WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TOOVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC,ACUTE GOAL.

SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES OF EVERY SCENE THESE THREE QUESTIONS.

1) WHO WANTS WHAT?
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
3) WHY NOW?

THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS ARE LITMUS PAPER. APPLY THEM, AND THEIR ANSWER WILL TELL YOU IF THE SCENE IS DRAMATIC OR NOT.

IF THE SCENE IS NOT DRAMATICALLY WRITTEN, IT WILL NOT BE DRAMATICALLY ACTED.

THERE IS NO MAGIC FAIRY DUST WHICH WILL MAKE A BORING, USELESS, REDUNDANT, OR MERELY INFORMATIVE SCENE AFTER IT LEAVES YOUR TYPEWRITER. YOU THE WRITERS, ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE EVERY SCENEIS DRAMATIC.

THIS MEANS ALL THE “LITTLE” EXPOSITIONAL SCENES OF TWO PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD. THIS BUSHWAH (AND WE ALL TEND TO WRITE IT ON THE FIRST DRAFT) IS LESS THAN USELESS, SHOULD IT FINALLY, GOD FORBID, GET FILMED.

IF THE SCENE BORES YOU WHEN YOU READ IT, REST ASSURED IT WILL BORE THE ACTORS, AND WILL, THEN, BORE THE AUDIENCE, AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO BE BACKIN THE BREADLINE.

SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE THE SCENE DRAMATIC. IT IS NOT THE ACTORS JOB (THEACTORS JOB IS TO BE TRUTHFUL). IT IS NOT THE DIRECTORS JOB. HIS OR HER JOB IS TO FILM IT STRAIGHTFORWARDLY AND REMIND THE ACTORS TO TALK FAST. IT ISYOUR JOB.

EVERY SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. THAT MEANS: THE MAIN CHARACTER MUST HAVE A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD, PRESSING NEED WHICH IMPELS HIM OR HERTO SHOW UP IN THE SCENE.

THIS NEED IS WHY THEY CAME. IT IS WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUT. THEIR ATTEMPTTO GET THIS NEED MET WILL LEAD, AT THE END OF THE SCENE,TO FAILURE - THISIS HOW THE SCENE IS OVER. IT, THIS FAILURE, WILL, THEN, OF NECESSITY, PROPELUS INTO THE NEXT SCENE.

ALL THESE ATTEMPTS, TAKEN TOGETHER, WILL, OVER THE COURSE OF THE EPISODE, CONSTITUTE THE PLOT.

ANY SCENE, THUS, WHICH DOES NOT BOTH ADVANCE THE PLOT, AND STANDALONE(THAT IS, DRAMATICALLY, BY ITSELF, ON ITS OWN MERITS) IS EITHER SUPERFLUOUS, OR INCORRECTLY WRITTEN.

YES BUT YES BUT YES BUT, YOU SAY: WHAT ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF WRITING INALL THAT “INFORMATION?”

AND I RESPOND “FIGURE IT OUT” ANY DICKHEAD WITH A BLUESUIT CAN BE (AND IS) TAUGHT TO SAY “MAKE IT CLEARER”, AND “I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUTHIM”.

WHEN YOU’VE MADE IT SO CLEAR THAT EVEN THIS BLUESUITED PENGUIN ISHAPPY, BOTH YOU AND HE OR SHE WILL BE OUT OF A JOB.

THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. NOT TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO*SUGGEST* TOTHEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

ANY DICKHEAD, AS ABOVE, CAN WRITE, “BUT, JIM, IF WE DON’T ASSASSINATE THE PRIME MINISTER IN THE NEXT SCENE, ALL EUROPE WILL BE ENGULFED IN FLAME”

WE ARE NOT GETTING PAID TO REALIZE THAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS THIS INFORMATION TO UNDERSTAND THE NEXT SCENE, BUT TO FIGURE OUT HOW TOWRITE THE SCENE BEFORE US SUCH THAT THE AUDIENCE WILL BE INTERESTED INWHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

YES BUT, YES BUT YES BUT YOU REITERATE.

AND I RESPOND FIGURE IT OUT.

HOW DOES ONE STRIKE THE BALANCE BETWEEN WITHHOLDING AND VOUCHSAFING INFORMATION? THAT IS THE ESSENTIAL TASK OF THE DRAMATIST. AND THE ABILITY TO DO THAT IS WHAT SEPARATES YOU FROM THE LESSER SPECIES INTHEIR BLUE SUITS.

FIGURE IT OUT.

START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE: THE SCENE MUST BEDRAMATIC. it must start because the hero HAS A PROBLEM, AND IT MUST CULMINATE WITH THE HERO FINDING HIM OR HERSELF EITHER THWARTED OR EDUCATED THAT ANOTHER WAY EXISTS.

LOOK AT YOUR LOG LINES. ANY LOGLINE READING “BOB AND SUE DISCUSS…” IS NOT DESCRIBING A DRAMATIC SCENE.

PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR OUTLINES ARE, GENERALLY, SPECTACULAR. THE DRAMA FLOWS OUT BETWEEN THE OUTLINE AND THE FIRST DRAFT.

THINK LIKE A FILMMAKER RATHER THAN A FUNCTIONARY, BECAUSE, IN TRUTH,YOU ARE MAKING THE FILM. WHAT YOU WRITE, THEY WILL SHOOT.

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TOKNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

DO NOT WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT. WRITE A RIPPING THREE, FOUR, SEVEN MINUTE SCENE WHICH MOVES THE STORY ALONG, AND YOU CAN, VERY SOON, BUY A HOUSEIN BEL AIR AND HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU.

REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. MOST TELEVISION WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE RADIO. THE CAMERA CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. LET IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS DOING -*LITERALLY*.WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY SEEING.

IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA.

IF YOU DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF THE CRUTCH OF NARRATION, EXPOSITION,INDEED,OF SPEECH. YOU WILL BE FORGED TO WORK IN A NEW MEDIUM - TELLING THE STORY IN PICTURES (ALSO KNOWN AS SCREENWRITING)

THIS IS A NEW SKILL. NO ONE DOES IT NATURALLY. YOU CAN TRAIN YOURSELVESTO DO IT, BUT YOU NEED TO START.

I CLOSE WITH THE ONE THOUGHT: LOOK AT THE SCENE AND ASK YOURSELF “IS ITDRAMATIC? IS IT ESSENTIAL? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT?

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY.

IF THE ANSWER IS “NO” WRITE IT AGAIN OR THROW IT OUT. IF YOU’VE GOT ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME UP.

LOVE, DAVE MAMET
SANTA MONICA 19 OCTO 05

(IT IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW THE ANSWERS, BUT IT IS YOUR, AND MY, RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW AND TO ASK THE RIGHT Questions OVER AND OVER. UNTIL IT BECOMES SECOND NATURE. I BELIEVE THEY ARE LISTED ABOVE.)”

Write Club! "Left Handed Past!" V. 3, Ep. 0b

WRITE CLUB!

In our transition from one volume to another we get some help from the enviously talented writer Josh Jenkins.

We chat with Josh about his Plan B series, mainstream comics, BBC Comedies, and surgically removing frag from the Earth. And some other stuff, I'm sure...

Understand, you will like it!

Intro: "Protect Ya Neck" Wu-Tang Clan

Outro: "Write Club Theme" Scott St. Pierre

Anomalous is pretty hard to spell

Writer Spotlight: SmartGrrrl aka Michelle Wiener

When Kurt invited me to write something for Write Club, I was pleased -- and more than a little surprised. It hadn't been very long, maybe two weeks, since I'd put up a temporary page on my website with writing samples and a relatively calm but still sorta desperate plea for work. "Hey, if you like what you see here and what to hire me to write for you, call me. I AM AVAILABLE." While I was fantasizing about offers trickling in, I wasn't really expecting it.

I have worked in publishing since 2005. Before that, I was a writing instructor and PhD candidate a few revisions away from finishing my dissertation. My reasons for leaving academics aren't all that interesting -- chances are, you know someone else who left the profession for similar reasons. But among those reasons was this prickly feeling that I didn't much care for academic writing. Granted, once I had finished my dissertation, which traditionally requires one's academese to be at the pinnacle of complexity, and then further revised it for publication, I'd be able to write however I wanted and whatever I wanted, but I still felt confined and didn't much feel like facing another decade or so of writing within some predetermined institutionalized code just to prove that I could to people who would first give me a job and then maybe give me tenure. (But I'm not bitter.)

So I had my mid-30s career change, which scared me a little and terrified the hell out of my parents. I went into publishing because that made the most sense to me -- I knew I could write well, even if I was untested in the non-academic field, and editing couldn't be that much different than grading student papers and helping young writers find their voice. I was fortunate to land an associate editor job, writing the front of book blurbs and short interest pieces, and managed to get one feature-length story in before I left to become managing editor of a startup online magazine. And here's when I learned that the same job in publishing can mean extremely different things to different companies. I've worked at places where the managing editor does a great deal of the editing and copyediting, and others places where the ME holds a more administrative position, making sure copy circulates among writers and editors, but not really doing much of the work herself. I found managing to be not as fulfilling a job as I had hoped it would be -- I craved more hands on experience and more creative input. Fortunately I had a couple friends who were magazine editors at different craft magazines, and they threw a little writing work at me. Writing articles on the side was a great outlet and way to keep on top of things that interested me.

When I lost my job in June of last year, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next. I was pretty sure I didn't want to have any sort of administrative/managerial job again, and equally sure that I wanted a job that would both require me to be creative and allow me to develop new skills and grow with the position. It is exceedingly tiresome and soul-sucking to have mastered all the skills you need for any one particular job, and then not be thought capable of or allowed to do anything else. In the back of my head I could hear a soft voice telling me to write, but I felt overwhelmed by the idea of starting out brand new at something that it seems everyone in this city wants to do.

Then one night I was having a conversation with friends, and one of them made a comment about how frustrating it can be to compete with all these other people who want to be published writers. And it wasn't until then that I realized, I AM a published writer. I've been published lots of times. Granted, my bylines are all in niche publications . . . but so what? And that's when that soft voice got a little louder, and kindly but firmly told me that it was about time I stopped thinking that this was something that I couldn't do, since I had already done it before.

I am still looking for full-time work (*cough* here's my LinkedIn profile) but I have rededicated myself to writing, both professionally and personally (*cough* here's my blog) (and here's another blog). I'm not afraid of exploring unconventional channels for possible writing gigs (*cough* I am available). What I'm starting to learn is that anything can make a good story. The most important thing that I've learned over the last couple months, however, is that any kind of positive action -- even doing something as seemingly silly as putting up an "About" page summarizing my work experience on my blog that only averages 40 hits a day -- tends to create forward momentum, and that is never a bad thing.

The Process: Featuring Colleen Harris

By Peter Hammarberg

I've known Colleen Harris most of our lives. Her brilliance has only been matched by her charisma and penchant for being a total tattooed badass.

How would you describe your work?

Hrm. It depends on my mood, I suppose – my work is readable for the general public, it’s an exploration of memory, a negotiation of relationships, it’s trying to give voice to the things we don’t say out loud that we wish we could. I do tend to write largely in a woman’s voice, but I think as humans we all have the same general worries, concerns, and yearnings.

Who has influenced you?

I’ve been lucky enough to study under some great poets, especially Alabama writer Jeanie Thomspon, Montana poetry master Greg Pape, Earl Braggs, Molly Peacock, and others. They have helped me refine my work quite a bit. I keep Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and Maurice Manning’s Bucolics on my nightstand the way some folks keep their Bibles there, but I wouldn’t say my work resembles theirs in any way. T.S. Eliot and Jorge Luis Borges are a fewmore of favorites. If I had to choose a few poets whose work mine resembles, it would be Louise Glück, Lucille Clifton, and Kathleen Driskell. I like to think that I work in a tradition of poets who work with the fabric of their lives, of reality and relationship as we experience them, and try to process it and come to a truce with it as best we can in words.

What made you decide to pursue being a poet?

I used to write when I was a child, and I stopped for many years while I concentrated on college, and getting a job, and various other things that make us Productive Citizens. It got to the point that I felt something in me was withering away, and no matter what I did, there was a barrier to my happiness. Writing helped me reach my inner spaces. I’man avid reader of all genres, from poetry to vampire romance novels, and I appreciate the escape and intellectual or emotional depth books offer, and I desperately want to be An Author. I want to contribute to someone’s reading, in the hopes they’ll find a poem of mine that resonates with them. When I found out that all I had to do to be a poet was to start writing…well, I wrote. I’ve been lucky, since friends and family cheer my hobby (or at least they humor me).

Have you been compared to anyone else? Would you consider that a good thing?

On my brighter days I’ve been compared to Natasha Trethewey, Tess Gallagher and Janice Harrington. I do consider it a good thing – I am always flattered to be held in company with well-established and well-published poets, and beautiful writers at that. And it’s always interesting to me to see which poets other people relate my work to. I consider it a great compliment.

What drives you?

I once heard someone say that when someone asks you why you write, if your answer is anything but “because I cannot not write,” that you’re in the wrong craft. I write because I have things to say, and poetry is the only medium that allows me to work with language in such a way as to say them properly. I write because if I didn’t, I think I would explode from the life that goes on in my head that I don’t live out in reality. I write because I love metaphors, and language, and odd words. And because as both a writer and a librarian, I covet ISBNs. I want to have some of my very own. I want to be immortal and live forever on library shelves, sitting beside Shakespeare and Eliot and Milosz.

Walk me through your creative process.

“Process” makes it sound like there’s a lot more planning than I usually have! *grin* usually I get caught up in writing a poem, and it sparks a certain obsession. With God in my Throat, I became really attached to the idea of the exiled daughter, and about how God makes decisions about our lives. Sometimes I reach back for a memory, and a flood comes and so I have to write ten poems instead of one. Mostly I sit down and start writing. About seventy percent is crap, and so the challenge is to dig through and find the thirty percent that’s worth salvaging, and crafting it into something that shines around the original idea. Some poems take me years to polish and get right. Sometimes they come out full-formed and need just a minor tweak. I will say that the more I write, and the better I am about writing regularly, the better my writing gets.

You sit down to write a new poem. BONK. Nothing happens. How would you deal with the writer's block? Go around? Climb over? Colleen Smash!?

If I hit a block, I’ll work on some poetry prompts just to get something written and de-grime the gears. Usually those prompts have to do with working in a formal structure, like a sonnet, pantoum, or sestina (if I’m feeling brave). Since I don’t usually work in form, it forces me to exercise different writing muscles. I also keep a “slush pile” of poems I’ve tried to write in the past that didn’t work in one way or another, as well as a file of lines that will sometimes come to me that I think are magnificent, but that didn’t develop into whole poems, and I’ll try to see if I can salvage them. Imight also pull out whatever manuscript I’m working on at the time and go back to revise some work to see if that jump-starts me. I usually have more than one project going at a time, which helps. I try not to break things, since stuff is expensive, and I’m usually broke *grin*

Any new projects?

I have a few new projects burning – I’ve got three book manuscripts I’m working on, in various stages of development.

Gonesongs is nearly complete, it’s a collection focusing on how our understandings of relationships, love and betrayal change as we grow from children into adults, and how we reconcile the family relationships we want with the ones we get. A good portion of this was my creative thesis for my recently completed MFA at Spalding University. I’m still lassoing a few stray poems into their proper places, but I expect this one will be done by New Year’s Eve.

The second one is tentatively titled The Green of Breakable Things, and it’s a very different sort of poetry from what I usually write. If I had to jam it into a sentence, I’d say that it’s a series of semi-surrealist meditations on the objects in our lives and the impact of memory. I lived in Kentucky for nearly ten years after leaving Long Island, and there are a lot of echoes of Kentucky’s landscape and weather in this collection.

The third manuscript is a collection of persona poems, which vaguely resembles my first published book, God in my Throat: The Lilith Poems, which was a full length collection of persona poems in the voice of Lilith. This one is so far the least formed. I started out with poems from the perspective of various goddesses, then started including fictional female characters, and now some real people and some men’s voices have crowded in. I’ve decided I’m just going to keep writing as they come to me, and I’ll deal with getting it into decent manuscript form once they peter out and stop haunting me!

Any advice you could give to someone starting out?

I would tell any writer starting out that there are three keys to success.

First, read. Read as much poetry as you can get your hands on – new poets, the old canon, everything. You’ll get a better sense of craft, of why you like the poetry you like best, of the art of the line break, of form and free verse, all of that. Too many poets refuse to read poetry because they think it will affect their work – it’s supposed to affect and inform you. The master painters first trained by imitating their masters, and picked and chose from the skills they learned before developing their own masterpieces, and poetry is much the same.

Second, community is essential. Find other writers in your community to share your work with, to develop programming like reading series and workshops with. Having like-minded people with which to share your writing dreams is essential. Developing within your community an audience to appreciate writers’ work is essential to everyone’s success! Other countries give much more support to their artists than the U.S. does – poets read to sold out soccer stadiums in Russia and other countries, and writers can be fully funded and make a living off their work alone. It tends to be harder to do here in the United States, where we have the freedom to say whatever we want, but often lack the support to make a living out of it. Building relationships within the writing community and then connecting that to your larger community or neighborhood is essential. Your work doesn’t come alive unless someone is reading (or listening to) it. Cultivate appreciation of the arts.

Third: Submit, submit, submit. Unless you don’t want to be recognized until after you’re dead, in order to participate in the published-writers world, you have to submit your work. It helps to read the journals to see where your work will best fit, and this helps you get to know various editors. You can’t make a splash – big or small – unless you toss some stones into the pond.

Lastly, I would remind new writers that writing is not a competitive sport, for all that the contests would have us believe that. We are a family. Writer and MFA program director Sena Jeter Naslund has said countless times to her students that our competition is not beside us in the classrooms, or workshops, or readings. Our competition is in the library. Don’t write to “beat” your contemporaries. Write to join your literary forefathers.

Ultimate Goals?

I would love to be able to make a living with my writing, or to work as a creative writing professor, which would allow me to write and to teach writing. That’s my ultimate goal. My intermediate goal is to be a full time academic librarian (as I am now) and teach a creative writing course or two, until I can afford to be poor *grin*

Now for the serious stuff!

Who would win in a fight...

Kurt Vonnegut or Hemingway?

While it might be a tie (they could bore each other to death), I vote Hemingway. Crazy people have incredible strength. Plus, he had a shotgun.

William Blake or Virginia Woolf?

*torn* I’ll have to go with Blake. He was a virtuoso and a real Renaissance man.

Bea Arthur(before returning to The Force) or Optimus Prime?

Bea Arthur, hands down. She wins at everything.


Shameless Plug Time:

Colleen S. Harris is a librarian at North Carolina State University. Her poetry has appeared in The Louisville Review, Appalachian Heritage, Wisconsin Review, descant, Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, 66: The Journal of Sonnet Studies, and various others. Her first full-length poetry collection, God in my Throat; The Lilith Poems, is available from Bellowing Ark Press. Colleen goes by “warmaiden” on most online social networks, and can be reached at warmaiden [at] gmail.com