Should You Collaborate?

            They say collaborating on a piece of written work is like three people getting together to have a baby—one of them is unnecessary.  And, really, how many brilliant novels or plays can you think of that were co-written?  Yes, there are composers and lyricists who work together.  And goodness knows the Sistine Chapel had numerous assistants (though the design and bulk of the execution were Michelangelo’s).  But sheer writing is tough to do with a partner.

            I had a great experience collaborating, once.  I was a struggling screenwriter in Los Angeles, and my agent paired me up with Joan Scott, widow of Adrian Scott (one of the Hollywood Ten for you history buffs).  Joan had written a script that needed to be punched up with humor and turned into a comedy, and our agent put us together.  The result was a hilarious script that never sold, but which made us both proud.  And we formed a wonderful friendship in the process.   I’d tell Joan the changes I had in mind, we’d laugh ourselves silly, and then I’d send her a new version.  We’d meet again, share more ideas, and continue to tweak it until we found ourselves in several discussions with interested studios.  Thankfully, neither of us had an oversized ego and both of us just wanted the best final product, regardless of who wrote which parts.  We were extremely lucky to get along so well; it doesn’t always work that way.

            So, despite having genuinely enjoyed my one foray into collaboration, I’d advise writers to go it alone if they can.  Most of the stories I’ve heard about joining creative efforts are horror stories, even if that’s not the genre they were going for.

            Should you find you do need to collaborate, here’s my best advice:

1.      Set aside your egos and commit to the best outcome without worrying who gets what credit.

2.      Try to be the hardest working member of the duo, so your partner never feels trapped with a slacker.

3.      Be open to completely different ideas than your own, and respect the other guy’s thoughts.

4.      Be organized.  Take turns writing drafts and never miss a deadline.

5.      Be honest about your strengths and weaknesses, and try to pair up with someone who needs your strengths, and whose abilities fill in some of your blanks.

Last, I hope you’re fortunate to meet a talented, engaging friend in the process, someone as remarkable as the great Joan Scott (1921-2012).  To read more about Joan, click here:  http://bit.ly/17GZ464

The Right Word vs. The Wrong Word

                I am much more forgiving of ignorant people these days.  Part of it is because we all can make the occasional grammatical mistake, or find a typo in our work.  And part of it is that I’m more mature than the uptight young girl I used to be who would nearly fall off her chair in frustration when classmates used the wrong word or stumbled along in “out loud reading time,” prompting my first grade teacher to write on my report card that “Joni has a hard time being patient with her peers.”

                And I don’t want to be that person.  I want to see beyond failings in grammar and vocabulary the same way I want patience from techno savvy and athletic people when they realize how far behind the curve I am in those areas.

                But when it comes to writing for a living, you must be a stickler with yourself.  Using the wrong words or the wrong punctuation can cost you work.  Mark Twain once described this as the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.  Similarly, one letter- y- can make tin into tiny, and slim into slimy.  And we all know the vast difference between being holed up in a bank and a bank hold up.

                You simply can’t submit careless mistakes to editors and agents; they’ll see you not only as an amateur, but uneducated—someone whose writing simply won’t measure up, and will cause them untold hours of work, cleaning up your errors.

                So here are some of my top word choice peeves which you can avoid:

                Less and Fewer— “Less” modifies, as in less energetic, less accurate, less successful.  “Fewer” is numerical, as in fewer cavities, fewer accidents, fewer graduates.  You should never say "less cavities," “less accidents” or “less graduates,” yet we hear and see this all the time.

                Farther and Further—“Farther” is sheer distance, as in farther down the road.  “Further” is penetrating, as in further research.  Sports writers, the winner of a race didn’t go further, he went farther.

                Accept and Except – “Accept” is to receive or agree.  “Except” is to exclude.  Never say, “He had flaws but she was very excepting.”  Aaaugh!  Joni falls off chair, gets censured by teacher, which brings us to:

                Censure and Censor – “Censure” is to have been called on the carpet and chastised or criticized for something (politicians are often censured).  “Censor” means something has been removed, such as bad language getting bleeped on television.

                Stationery and Stationary—“Stationery” is what your write with, such as pens and note paper.  “Stationary” means immobile, like a plant.  I once pointed out a sign for “Stationary” at Nordstrom Rack, and the clerk shrugged and said, “Oh, yeah, they know about it.”  Sigh.

                Affect and Effect – “Affect” means to change or make a difference.  “Effect” is the result.  The movie affected her deeply.  The effect was that she cried.

                Horde and Hoard – “Horde” means to collect and store a vast amount of stuff.  A “Hoard” is group or a crowd of people.  But you are welcome to say, “Hoards of people horde food today.”  No, on second thought, don’t say that.  It may be accurate, but it sounds stupid.  Take note, headline writers.

                Compliment and Complement -- “Compliment” means to praise something.  “Complement” improves something.  You compliment someone on their new hat, but the hat itself might not complement them. 

                Faze and Phase – “Faze” means to upset or discourage someone.  “Phase” is a period of time someone goes through.  Don’t be fazed by him; he’s just going through the adolescent phase.

                Ensure and Insure—“Ensure” means to make sure something will happen.  “Insure” means to compensate for damage or loss.  I can’t ensure that your belongings will be safe, but your insurance company can insure you if they get stolen.

                Imply and Infer—“Imply” is to suggest.  “Infer” is to conclude.  There’s a giving and a receiving here.  She can imply that he was late; he can infer that she dislikes tardiness.

                Last, I will give you my very best tip for expanding your vocabulary and increasing your ability to choose the right word.  It is not to look them up.  It is to READ.  Read, read, and read some more.  You will see words in their proper context and understand correct usage if you read.  My dad was a psychologist, a sociologist, and a criminologist.  The latter job often required him to consult with prisoners, felons, and parolees.  The ones who got out of prison and made something of themselves all had one thing in common: Every day that they were incarcerated, they read the editorial pages.  Surprised?  This is where they found the most passionate writing—both in letters to the editor, and in the Op-Ed pieces (on the opposite page, hence the name).   It helped them master the kind of  vocabulary that nailed job interviews when they got out—they sounded smart, plain and simple.  They became more confident speakers and writers.  It can have the same effect on you, so accept this assignment, read further, and ensure your future success. 

Keeping it Short

Too many writers have word counts in their heads.  It starts in school when the teacher demands a 500-word report, then continues when an editor wants 3,000 words for a magazine piece, and finally culminates with a publisher’s demand for a 60,000-word novel.

            If our finest work comes short of that, we stretch, don’t we?  We pad.  We think of ways to bloat and ruin our writing until it hits the required mark.  We add useless chapters, unnecessary descriptions, redundant examples, scenes we earlier edited out for good reason. 

            Yet the shorter stuff is almost always better.  It takes more work to cut away the fat and find the filet.  Anyone can blabber on and make the story longer.  But it takes effort to analyze a sentence and think how to make it more succinct (and thus stronger in most cases).  It reminds me of what Blaise Pascal said, in 1657:  “I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter."  Mark Twain said something similar, years later.

            Short story writers can tell you that, while a novelist can indulge in excessive descriptions, can adorn his pages with extra bits and long conversations, they have no such luxury.  For them, every word must earn its place.  Nobody skims or flips pages when they’re reading a good short story—they’ll miss too much.  Poetry is the same, at least good poetry is.  There’s no room for waste.

            And the truth is that while we are sometimes at the mercy of length requirements for selling our work, we should still write as concisely as we can, out of respect for our readers.  The quality shouldn’t suffer simply because we’re conforming to the word count.  Brevity, economy, spare writing—these should be our goals regardless.  Next time you’re working on a project that has a size directive, see if you can set it aside and focus on simply telling the story.  Tell it honestly, tell it passionately, tell it as best you can.  Your writing will be infinitely better, truer, and more important.  And if that’s not why you’re writing, maybe this isn’t for you.  

Clearing the Decks

            Great ideas hit us at the most inopportune moments-- while showering, washing dishes, driving down the freeway, having a romantic dinner with our spouse.  These are times when it’s more than a little difficult to jot down your inspired lines.  We scrunch up our brains and try to remember long enough to dry off, pull over, or somehow get to a pen and paper where we can capture our thoughts, worded exactly right.

            And yet we can sit for hours staring at our computer monitors and nothing will come to us.

            There’s a reason for this.  It’s because our brains don’t work as well when they’re in a knot of tension, when we’re forcing the issue, when we’re anxious and troubled.  Take the pressure off and suddenly the faucet pours forth.  This is also why we get ideas at two in the morning.  Saul Bellow said, “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”  And it’s amazingly true.  Somehow the sleeping brain has been able to discard all the mundane concerns of the day and focus upon creating magnificent stuff.  Invariably we think more clearly, we organize automatically, we simply rise to higher level when we aren’t cramming our task in between phone calls and to-do lists.

            So how can we take advantage of this relaxed condition, and even find some it during the day?  First of all, let’s talk about bedtime.  Keep a notepad and pen on your nightstand for those sudden bursts of brilliance in the night.  I know, I know—sometimes you’ll wake up and read, “Fljbter gst hbnizxl.”  But usually you’ll be able to scribble down enough of a note to prime the pump in the morning.  When an entire essay or chapter or scene occurs to you, get up.  Go to your computer and type it out.  Don’t think you’ll remember every phrase the way it comes to you in the night; you won’t.  And you’ll wish you had written it down when your brain was more eloquent, your wit a bit sharper.  I wear contacts, but I had a pair of glasses made just for this purpose, and I keep them on my nightstand for those times when I don’t want the hassle of putting in my contacts to talk me out of going to my work station and hammering out the idea.

            Second, program your brain to work while you sleep.  You can actually do this, you know (and it works on problem-solving as well).  Simply assign your brain the task of coming up with the next bit of dialogue, or the best description for the scene you’re working on.  Then go to sleep and let your subconscious get busy.  During the night, or in the morning, you might discover the shoemaker’s elves have been toiling through the night to surprise you.

            Third, practice shutting off outside interference during the day.  Set aside your concerns, your bills, the texting, the interruptions.  If you can’t do it at home, consider working elsewhere.  I know a writer who got an office away from his home for this very reason.  It also forced him to put in an honest day’s work of eight hours, then to be able to let it go and relax with his family when he got home.

            Fourth, meditate.  Find some time to de-stress, relax, and get your brain into a wavelength where it can create.  Slow down, breathe deeply, let go of unrelated concerns (they’ll wait for you).  Like tuning into a radio channel, find a way to clear the signal and access your own best ideas. 

            Fifth, cut back on things that sap your creative strength.  When I was producing and hosting my own daily TV talk show in L.A., I found it much harder to generate creative writing ideas because I was already spent, putting the show together.  If you’re involved in other creative pursuits, you may need to make some hard choices and sacrifice one to benefit the other. 

            Last, if you’ve been mentally pushing yourself too hard, ease off.  It’s not a race.  You don’t have to sell your novel by X date.  Yes, it’s good to set goals and give yourself deadlines.  But not if they work against you.  Lower the heat and realize that a rolling boil might not be the climate for creativity.  Try a low simmer and see what happens.

            When I was in college one of the professors showed us a picture of the famous bronze, “The Thinker,” by Rodin, and asked us what was wrong with it.  None of us knew.  The problem, he said, was that the man was tense and uptight, his brow furrowed, his body a knot of worry as he struggled to think.  And, ironically, you can’t think when you’re like that.  To this day I catch myself being “The Thinker” and I back off, relax, and let go of the angst.  And that’s when my thinking is actually its best.

Outline or Run With It?

            How many bestselling novels were made up on the fly?  How many were scribbled on a yellow pad while someone lounged on a beach, or were dictated into a recorder while someone traveled across the country on a bus?

            Okay, I do not have the exact answer.  But I’m betting it’s zero, or the number adjacent to zero.  The plain truth is that you must flesh out the concept and have, at least, the bones of a story before you begin writing.

            It’s a fanciful idea that an entire book simply spills itself out onto your pages, needs no reworking, and becomes the next great novel of our time.  Most stories percolate in the writer’s mind for months or years before they unfold into an outline, then slowly arise in polished form. 

            And the word too many writers hate is “outline.”  They come from the right side of the brain where witty lines occur and passion reigns, and outlining (organizing, measuring, structuring) is a left-brain thing.  So they resist it.  They tell themselves they have more talent than those pitiful folks who have to outline to stay on track.  Their story needs no such limitations, but can flow where the wind blows.  Their characters are so real, so vibrant, that they take over the story and lead it in a completely different direction. Why, even the lowly, British manservant can rise up and become king in their book. Or an astronaut.

            Do you see what I’m saying?  People who refuse to outline, who allow their daily mood to take the story careening off a cliff, are invariably puzzled by readers’ refusal to follow them down that rabbit hole.  That’s not to say you can’t surprise your audience, but you can’t insert events that stretch believability to the snapping point.

            And an outline will keep that from happening.  Let me try to make it less painful.  You think of a great idea for a movie or a book.  Write the gist of the plot on your computer.  Include trials and hardships that pull the main character(s) from their goal.  Jot down where the climax of the story occurs.  Jot down the resolution.  You now have an outline.  Yes, this is the most simplistic form an outline can take, but at least it will keep the butler from going into space.

            From here you can fill in the flesh on the bones.  Add those sparkling scenes that made you want to write this in the first place.  Insert the funny lines.  Include those suspenseful moment when all seems lost.  Keep adding details as they come to you, putting them in the right places.  You will have a wonderful overview of the story, and you’ll see where you need faster pacing, more description, or less verbiage.

            The time you spend outlining will be—I promise you—the best investment you can make.  It will save you hours and hours of actual writing time, and more importantly, rewriting time.  Can you still let a character jump off the tracks and take your story a new way?  Absolutely.  Can a manservant still rise up and do something remarkable?  Of course.  But it will be something the reader will believe because you’ll create a new outline that embraces this innovative idea.  You’ll back up your impulse, you’ll drop in hints early on so it doesn’t seem reckless, and the final result will read rich, instead of rash.