Yeah, this
is a day late. Lots going on this week,
so I thought I could make an exception...
Which, by
coincidence, is what I wanted to blabber on about this week.
If you hang
out with enough writers (or musicians, or filmmakers, or other artists), either
online or in the real world, you’ve probably heard a story about someone who
broke the rules and got away with it. And
Wakko didn’t just break the rules, mind you... he shattered them. Every one of them. They had to write new rules for him to
break. All those people who tell you do
this, don’t do that—he ignored them all.
And that’s how he got where he is today, with his fame and fortune and
living the life we all dream about
People like
these tend to get sort of a mythology around them in their respective circles. Which is kind of sad, because these
folks—unintentionally or not—tend to make things a lot harder for the folks
coming after them. Once I buy into the
idea of being the exception, my chances of success drop drastically.
Let me give
you an example...
Most of you
have probably heard of Cormac McCarthy.
He’s a brilliant writer who’s done some wonderful books like The Road
and Blood Meridian, among others.
He’s also famous for using almost no punctuation, sometimes to the point
that his books become difficult to read.
Seriously, you’d think the guy got beat up by a pair of quotation marks every day after
school when he was a kid.
Now, a lot
of would-be screenwriters who believe in ignoring the rules
saw this as validation. How can anyone
say formatting matters after a format-free script sells and becomes a major
motion picture? It’s undeniable proof
that sort of thing just isn’t important.
Except,
well... not exactly.
Cormac
McCarthy’s been a legend for twenty years, and was still famous for twenty
before that. He could’ve turned in a
script written on a used paper plate and the bidding would’ve started at fifty
thousand. His status as a novelist made
him the exception to the rules of screenwriting. Just because he can do it doesn't mean I can. Or you can. Or she can.
Here’s the
thing...
Exceptions
to the rule tend to be rare. Exceptionally
rare, you could say. That’s why they’re the exception and not the
rule. McCarthy’s script was snatched up by Hollywood despite its poor
formatting, but dozens of them are tossed aside every single day for that very
reason. Because that’s the rule. Formatting does matter.
And it’s
not just screenwriting. For every person
who sold the first draft of the first novel they wrote to the first publisher
they showed it to, there are millions of people who did not. Yes, E.L.
James, Diablo Cody, J.L. Bourne, and a triple-handful of other writers started
out by giving their work away for free and then spun that into successful,
paying careers as writers. And that sounds
fantastic until you stop to consider there are over two billion
people on the internet these days. Even
if only one percent of them are trying to make money by writing on a blog or
website, that puts the odds of success somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 to 1 (about 0.0005 % if my math is
right). And that’s with a very generous
estimate of how many successful writers have followed this path.
I can’t use
an exception to the rule as a basis for how things should be done. By it’s very nature, the exception is the
freak chance, the aberrant behavior—it’s just not the way things work. Think of the stories you’ve heard about
people who survive falling out of airplanes or getting shot in the head. They’re amazing and true and took almost no
effort, yes, but they shouldn’t make anyone rethink using parachutes or gun
safety.
If I want
to succeed, the best thing I can do—whether I’m jumping out of a
plane, getting shot at, or writing a story—is to follow the established rules.
The absolute worst thing I can do is scoff at those rules—rules like spelling, grammar,
or wearing body armor—and decide they
don’t apply to me. No matter how amazing my writing is, I need to follow
the basic guidelines for my craft.
The reason
I should follow them, before you ask, is because the person reading my
work is expecting me to follow them. The publishers, editors, and
producers who see it before my chosen audience definitely will, and those readers
or viewers will assume I’m going to, too.
They all have certain expectations they’ve built up, and these
expectations all tend to fall in line with the rules.
Now, does
that mean amazing, rule-bending things won’t happen or can’t be done? Not
at all. My writing may be so spectacular that no one notices the abundant
typos. The basic idea could be so clever that nobody will pick up
on the fact that all of my characters have about as much depth as a puddle on
the kitchen floor. Heck, the structure of
my story could be so rock-hard the reader will forgive and forget those
incredibly boring opening chapters.
But you
know what? Let’s say on page one of my
manuscript I introduce school newspaper reporter Tomm Truth and Joanie Justice,
and show them straggling with staph editor Barry O’Bama who doesn’t want them
running a article about the poor campus seckurity. After a paragraph or two of that my
editor’s going to groan out loud. I know when I was a script reader seeing
stuff like that made me roll my eyes and add more rum to my glass.
Y’see,
Timmy, the minute I see a bunch of clichés, misused words, poor grammar,
and misspellings, I’ve rendered a judgment on that writer. Possibly two or three, depending on how many
things I see that look wrong. And they
may not be wrong for this story—each one may be carefully chosen to set up
certain things for later on. But on page
one or two or three, they look wrong, and that’s how they’ll be
interpreted and that’s going to color my view of the manuscript from here on.
If I assume
I’m the exception, that I don’t need to follow certain rules, I’m setting an
obstacle between me and the people who are going to pay me to keep
writing. Maybe even multiple
obstacles. They’re not insurmountable
and they don’t guarantee failure. But it
does mean I’ve just limited my potential audience. Some readers will toss a manuscript in that
big pile on the left after seeing two or three things that look like
mistakes. Others will read ten or
fifteen pages before setting it aside.
And if I can’t prove I am the exception before that happens, I’m
going to get a lot of rejections.
My story may be loaded with promise, but if my initial foundation looks
weak and poorly designed, why would anyone risk the time to see if the rest of
it’s structurally sound?
So try to
be the exception. Just don’t
automatically assume you are. You need
to earn it.
Next
time... I want to talk about Guido.
Until then,
go write.
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