David Mamet

31 May 201631 May 2016

Go To

Contrary to popular belief, when energy, motivation, and/or creativity is low in the Writing ~~Cave~~ Keep, I do not resort to singing along with Ms Krall ad infinitum.

If it’s a technical challenge, I turn to the writing library, top most being William Goldman‘s Which Lie Did I Tell?, Alex Epstein‘s Crafty Screenwriting and Stephen King‘s On Writing.

If a project has certain constraints or is more long-form, there’s these classics to crib from:

Joss Whedon‘s Buffy the Vampire Slayer — not just a scantily-clad teen-girl who can kick serious demon ass¹;
Jed Mercurio‘s Bodies — a visceral and heartbreaking look at just how little separates life and death in a maternity ward; and
David Simon‘s The Wire — its novelistic approach to presenting a criminal investigation, showing us every shade of grey between the police and their adversaries, as well as the world in which both operate, is something to which I can only dare aspire.

And if it’s all too much and/or I want to procrastinate for hours I just need a little kick, I never go wrong with any of these:

James Cameron‘s Aliens — a war movie in space;
Quentin Tarantino‘s Jackie Brown — a small-time crook’s One Final Score;
and David Mamet‘s Spartan — a rogue agent’s attempt to Do The Right Thing.

It’s not necessarily the story I worry about — it’s how I’m going to make it interesting. I want to grab and hold the reader’s — and, eventually, the paying audience’s — attention, take ’em for a ride, and then afterwards, drop ’em back in their seat, exhilarated, exhausted, and begging for more.

All of the above touchstones do exactly that.

Most times, soon after referring to any of the above, I’m back at the keyboard, writing.

¹ But oh how The Goddess rolls her eyes when I talk about superior subtextual story-telling amidst well-choreographed ass-kicking.

27 March 2010

A Mametian Memo

The Unit creator David Mamet apparently wrote a memo to the writers of the show of things to keep in mind, including things like:

THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. NOT TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO*SUGGEST* TO THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

Nothing a self-respecting screenwriter won’t already know but nonetheless a recommended and refreshing Mametian reminder.

(Fedora-tip: WGGB Blog.)

17 June 200727 July 2012

Paper Trail

I’m a hoarder by nature. Pre-Goddess, I shifted flat innumerable times and each shift entailed a re-evaluation of my hoarding criteria. With each shift I held on to less and less. But what I held on to mattered. Or I couldn’t bring myself to part with. Either reason was good enough for me to schlep it around.

Amongst the clutter that I dragged around were reams of ideas and notes and bits of stories. Each story had an audit trail of previous iterations. I drew comfort from the fact that if whatever change I’d made in version x.y+1 didn’t pan out, I could go back to v.x.y, copy-and-paste what I needed, and continue with v.x.y+2.

I didn’t tell a soul about this. It smelt of eccentric writerly behaviour and I feared it might lead to some superstitious obsessive compulsive behaviour. And then DJ Ash gifted me a movie book, inside which was the following:

I like to have all the actual physical pages that I have done in front of me: all the drafts, and all the revisions, and all the markings on them. It gives me a sense of security; ie., ‘look at all these drafts you have done, you must be a very responsible person – now all you have to do is use your good taste and refine these pages’. – David Mamet, Some Freaks

And all was well in the Land of D.