Creativity Challenge--A Week without Reading

by Karen Finnigan

Don’t tell any first-grade teacher this concept exists (more important, don’t breathe a word of it to the students). But I recently completed an enforced week of no reading. It came out of an adult class I’m helping to lead: we are working our way through Julia Cameron’s bestselling book, The Artist’s Way (Tarcher/Putnam, 2002). The exercises have been affirmative, inspirational and aimed at freeing up the creative child inside each of us (Example: “List ten things you used to dream of doing.”) I never saw the exercise on reading deprivation coming until I happened on it in Chapter 4. “Stop reading,” it said in effect. Deny yourself reading for an entire week. Listen to the silence inside your own head.

The author had to be kidding, I thought. I’m not giving up my newspaper! I’m especially not giving up my stack of novels. At times I read three at a time. As a writer, the privilege of reading was divinely ordained, wasn’t it? How could I function without it? And that was the general reaction of our class. No way, most of them said. We’d rather walk the plank or languish on a desert island without water than give up reading. Ms. Cameron also suggested giving up TV, puzzle books, magazines, whatever busy work wastes your time. The rationale: over consumption of other people’s words may block your own inspiration. The hope: Get your nose out of other people’s writing, and make room in your subconscious for your own stories to come out. This was a radical concept, and my heart clenched in fear. Fear of change. Yet, as leader of the class, I felt duty-bound to set an example. So I allowed myself to try it--but on my own terms and without copping a purist attitude. After all, I was still allowed to read my textbook, so this wasn’t cold turkey.
Here’s how it went:

Day 1-The first day I got up and did not allow myself to check the news on the computer. I browsed the headlines in the paper only (no over reading of obituaries). Withdrawal from reading made my blood pressure go up a bit, so I wrote in my journal until I relaxed. At bedtime I looked at my bedside stack of books and sighed. I thought about the novel I’d been reading as I went to sleep. Six more days to go.

Day 2--Sipped coffee and sulked over the crossword puzzle I wouldn’t let myself do. Stared at the glass, at the dogs, the cracks in the patio. Wrote in my journal about the view outside my window.

Day 3-- Caught myself reading the label on the cereal box. Picked up Newsweek out of habit, looked at the cover story, then tossed it down. Stared out the window at snowflakes, birds and water dripping off trees. I returned to my journal and a blog idea spilled out. Maybe, I mused, I could kick my habit of over reading, or to be more precise, my habit of reading to procrastinate from writing.

Day 4--Wrote in journal, typed up blog idea, brainstormed characters. Never turned on the TV. Threw Newsweek in the recycle pile. I felt very good and thought about the next story I wanted to write.

Day 5--Resisted the urge to read my old emails. No cluttering of the brain. Instead, I gave my novel a final edit and mailed a query.

Day 6--A new story idea drifted out of my subconscious. Realize I continue to feel good. Maybe I don’t need to finish reading that novel on my nightstand, not in one gulp anyway. My own ideas are popping up, begging to be written down.

Day 7--I woke up with a new ending for my book. Wrote all day. Ecstatic.

Two weeks later, I still try not to turn on the television. I limit bedtime reading to a chapter each night. I have several ideas spread around me. I feel creativity flowing like it hasn’t in a long time. I read emails and blogs, but for a limited duration. The key, like so much in life, is moderation. Thank you, Ms. Cameron, for giving me a needed jolt of self-discipline.

To Write is to Rewrite

by Bill Corbett

FADE IN:

SUPER - 1953

INT. – BUDDY CRAWFORD’S BEDROOM

Teenage BUDDY CRAWFORD is in his room. He is packing, getting ready to go off to college. He holds in his hand a picture of a boy and his horse standing in the arena at the county fair. His dad, WILL, walks into the room.

WILL
What’ve you got there, Buddy?

Buddy hands the picture to Will. He takes it and looks at it.

WILL
I didn’t know you’d kept this
picture all these years.

BUDDY
That was a pivotal summer
in my life, Dad; good times
and bad. I wish Sally and I
could’ve had more time together.

WILL
There was a time when you
wouldn’t have said that, son.

BUDDY
Yeah, I know.

Will hands the picture back to Buddy and puts his hand on his son’s shoulder.

WILL
Now, you’d better hurry and
finish your packing. We need
to get on the road.

BUDDY
Okay, Dad. I’ll be ready in a
few minutes.


Will leaves the room and Buddy resumes his packing.

SUPER – TEN YEARS EARLIER – 1943

EXT. OPEN FARM FIELD IN IDAHO – EARLY DAWN

Two boys ride double on a beautiful horse. A bally face bay mare with four white stocking feet and good conformation. One of the boys digs his spurs into her side. She winces and bolts. The other boy jerks on the bridle; she whinnies in pain, starts to buck throwing both boys off, then runs away....

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To those who have screen writing experience, I may be “preaching to the choir.” But to those who don’t, this post may present something new. It was suggested to me that since I've jumped from novel and non-fiction writing to a screenplay, that perhaps I should share a bit of this experience with the followers of this blog.

The previous scenes you just read are opening scenes to a screen play that I adapted from one of my books and had “naively” pronounced in a previous blog two years ago that it was completed. I’m currently on the seventh rewrite. There’s an old saying around Hollywood: “To write is to rewrite." I had the good fortune to connect with a story editor at a major production company; a company that has produced several TV shows, and feature movies. Since I never sought permission, I won’t mention the name of the company or the editor. The one thing I learned from her is that when you think you’re done with a script, it’s just the beginning. From then on, it’s rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite.

Fact is, when I listen to Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies describe the techniques of movie making, I get the impression many movie scripts aren’t complete until the last scene of the movie is shot. He has said that directors, and even the players, will rewrite scenes during the actual shooting of the movie.

During my high school years I never missed the opportunity to watch Bing Crosby movies. The famous Crosby/Hope road pictures were as much ad lib as script. Legend has it that on one of those movies the boys got so carried away with their ad libs that the director threw up his hands, tossed the script, and said “go at it, boys.” So as I mentioned earlier, it’s difficult to tell when a movie script is really finished.

Script writing involves a totally different technique from novel writing or non-fiction. Format is very critical and must be followed to the letter. Left margins must be one and a half inches. This is to enable room for notes and comments. (Please note, the correct format is not what you see here. Character dialogue should be centered on the page.) When scripts are submitted, they are three-hole punched and bound together with two brass brads with a front and back cover sheet with no writing. The title page is the first page inside. Character dialogue is usually confined to blocks of four sentences at a time with breaks in between, although this is not cast in stone. Page breaks in the middle of a character’s dialogue are not recommended either.

When characters are first introduced through the action narrative, as you saw in the example above, their names are always in CAPITAL letters. There is also certain terminology that must be followed. EXT. is short for exterior, and denotes an outside scene. An example might read:

EXT. MONT’S FRONT YARD – EARLY MORNING.

An example of an inside scene my read as follows:

INT. -- MONT’S HOME – KITCHEN.

When you want to superimpose something on the screen such as a date or particular location, it would read as follows:

SUPER – 1943 – LONDON.

Since movies are a visual media, the person reading the script must be able to actually see the movie unfolding before his or her eyes as they read the script. This means all descriptive narrative action prose must be in third person, present tense. The action in the movie must also be seen through the players’ dialogue and their individual voices.

Movies are generally written in two script forms, the spec script, and the shooting script. The spec script is the one from which the project is purchased for production; the shooting script is the script from which the movie is shot and contains all the little details, such as scene design, camera angles, etc., etc.

So, there you have a brief primer course on screenplay writing. Please understand that in no way am I trying to pass myself of as an experienced professional in this field. This screenplay is my first experience, and I still have much to learn about this craft. I find it to be a fascinating medium and a challenge. For those who would like to learn more about the craft of screenwriting, and perhaps stick your toe in the water, the text book that was recommended to me by my online teacher is The Screenwriter’s bible, by David Trottier. It’s available at amazon.com.

Happy movie writing.