by Peggy Bechko
“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”
? Jack London
One of my favorite quotes on writing.
Peggy Bechko’s World: Writer’s, Don’t Wait for Inspiration
Author: Peggy Bechko
Peggy Bechko’s World: Quotes for the Aspiring Scriptwriter – from one who really knows something
by Peggy Bechko
“Nobody knows anything…… Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for a certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one.” William Goldman
If you’re writing screenplays or teleplays you know who William Goldman is – a writer with many hats who’s been writing, publishing, etc. for many years. Screenwriter is among his numerous hats. Mr. Goldman is approaching 85 now according to what I can find and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he’s still writing. That’s the glory of being a writer. You do it until you drop dead usually.
I admit to being a bit of a Goldman fan and have read some of his books along the lines of Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell. And I’ve enjoyed Butch Cassidy And the Sundance Kid and loved The Princess Bride. The above quote is pretty plain and right on. And it should give every writer some hope.
Peggy Bechko’s World: “Writers, save your readers from ‘boring'”
by Peggy Bechko
Throw your hero off a cliff.
Yep, that’s the ticket. Think about it. Are you boring your reading audience with wonderful Mr. Nice Guy who may be a bit shy, but so darn good looking he’s irresistible?
Okay, he can be all that, but does he spend his days at the lake faithfully with his one true love and have nothing more exciting than crossing against a light to spice up his day?
TVWriter™ Summer E-Newsletter 2016
A WORD FROM LB
As I write this, the news is coming in about the latest atrocity in our so-called civilized world – the car bomb deaths of at least 60 people celebrating Bastille Day in Nice.
As a human being living in this time in this culture, I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about the violence that has defined this month, July, 2016, so far.
As a writer, I know that I should have words to accompany the thoughts and feelings, express them not only so I can sort out the sense behind the senselessness but also so I can communicate my deliberations and conclusions to a wider audience, to help that audience deal with the situation.
Peggy Bechko’s World: Your Inner Critic and You
by Peggy Bechko
Everybody and his or her brother can be a critic; is willing to criticize the writing of others…especially if they don’t write themselves, right?
And over time all that criticism from editors, producers, well-meaning friends, critical relatives who just know you’re wasting your time, a reader’s group who though well-meaning, don’t know what they’re talking about, whoever, builds up until it all super-charges the self-critic already camped in your brain. In fact, by now as a writer of scripts and/or books, you might not even be able to tell exactly who or what makes up that tyrant of a self-critic sitting in the bleachers in your brain.
It might do you some good to figure out what the composite actually is, but the main lesson to take away from this is, your writing absolutely must make your audience come back again and again. The audience must look for your name in the credits of a movie. The novel must hook the reader to return to continue reading that book and to look for more with your name on the cover of the next.