A Writer’s Credo
by Larry Brody
Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of what I can only call BAD WRITING. Self-indulgent and, frankly, uncommunicative.
I’ve written about the way I look at our “calling” before in my column in the sadly now defunct SCREENTALK Magazine. For those of you who missed it – and since the mag’s demise was about a generation ago that’s probably most of you – here’s a restatement.
This is what drives me whenever I write anything. It’s my credo as a writer, and I think it’s appropriate to share it with all of you once again.
To The Audience
I want to express my inner truth, my vision of life in this universe – not only for myself but for YOU. My goal is to communicate, to enable you to learn and feel and taste and appreciate and be moved to some kind of higher action by my exposure of my innermost self.
To do this I can’t write merely to please myself. That truly would be preaching to the converted. Instead I must express my truth in a way that will get to you. A way that will stab you right in the heart and go to your soul.
I have to write using all the tricks I know that will help you, the audience, be entertained and enlightened. If I don’t have some effect on you, if I don’t change your life in some way, no matter how little, then I will have failed. My purpose, won’t have been fulfilled. There will have been no sharing, no joint experience. And, ultimately, no art.
So here we go again. Audience, this one’s for YOU!
Another in what I hope will be a long run of helpful hints for TV writers here on TVWriter™ every week. Which brings up a point: If you’d like to share some writing tips with your fellow TVWriter™ visitors, please get in touch with me at larrybrody@tvwriter.com and we’ll try to make a guest post happen.
