I had an interesting meeting with Jen Segaio (sp) this week as she is helping organise Mark Travis’ influential workshop, The Solo Workshop, in the UK later in the year. In this Mark works with a limited number of writers on a project of theirs: in essence it is to find out what the story is really about. http://www.markwtravis.com/
This reminds me of the dictum I have always loved: what happens in a story is not what the story is really about. Failure to realize that almost always leads to the blight on most spec scripts especially by inexperienced writers: the stories are very thin; they lack substance; they lack universality; they lack depth.
It also made me think about what two iconic writers, Agatha Christie and Stephanie Meyer (couldn’t be further apart), have so much in common. Do they, you ask? Well, what they have in common is that neither writes particularly well, in the sense that they do not use language like poets; their style is not ‘authorial’; they do not really have an unforgettable voice.
They also have in common that they are read and watched all over the world, by huge audiences.
What they really have in common is their accessible storytelling. The way the story is told is perhaps more important than the actual story being told. Accessibility is the key. Where is this taught or studied? Please let me know if you know.
Tags: accessibility, Agatha Christie, Mark Travis, Stephenie Meyer, storytelling
It is a wonderful observation and one that as a young writer I was guilty of. I had an English degree and almost everything I wrote could easily be pretentious, trying too hard to be clever. Now I am older I can’t be bothered with that, I’d prefer an audience.
The above reminds me of a comment from Ian Fleming, that a writer should be more concerened with being literate rather than literary. Orwell’s essays on writing said similar things.
I now write songs, pop songs for a band. It is a good discipline to try. Also remember that some of our greatest, most resonant literature was written for children.
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