My Two Cents On Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art

In a recent a post on her The New York Screenwriting Life blog, Janet describes getting a well-needed “kick in the tush” from Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art. Having just read the book myself, and having had a decidedly different response to it, I just have to get this off my chest.

I ordered the book after reading how warmly Robert McKee recommended it to screenwriters. Not that I take McKee’s word as gospel by any means, but he knows a thing or two about writing. So I was hoping to find some new and practical insights into dealing with procrastination, lack of focus and all the other annoying obstacles that a screenwriter has to deal with on a daily basis.

Instead, what I was treated to was a collection of wild and inaccurate generalizations, formulated in bombastic, pretentious language, peppered with the kind of absolutist Christian theology that would even make the Pope blush.

I intensely dislike Pressfield’s use of a moral frame, in which writing is good and not-writing is evil. He has this unified theory of everything which blames anything unpleasant on Resistance (his caps). He constantly refers to Resistance as a pernicious, insidious and conniving force, with petty and narrow-minded Ego as its accomplice in sin. His use of overblown terms like "destiny," "fate," "forces in the universe," etc., is so pretentious it drives me nuts. He never once even attempts to give anything remotely resembling evidence for any of his claims and theories. It’s just what he thinks, take it or leave it.

And he uses that awful third person style. We always this, we never that … insinuating that he knows with absolute certainty that “we” are all the same. Speak for yourself, please.

Pressfield’s essential mistake, in my opinion, is the same one all proponents of this Rhonda Byrne type pseudo science make: He takes metaphors literally. He elevates concepts such as the Muse, or the Ego or Angels (yes) to the status of actual living entities, which I find ludicrous.

Don’t get me wrong, I can understand his evangelical enthusiasm. After all, once he managed to get a handle on what was holding him back as a writer and he was able to let rip and write freely, he wanted to give everyone else the same experience. Unfortunately, in his fervour he fails to distinguish between a metaphorical concept which helped him work more productively, and a silly, literal belief in (religious) symbols.

Not to mention the totally outrageous suggestion that Hitler wouldn’t have started World War Two if he had only known what Mr. Pressfield knows, and continued painting. That is so absurd and ill-informed it just defies any reasonable response. Or what about Pressfield’s claim that cancer can be caused by not following your creative urges. Even more revolting: the suggestion that terminal cancer can be cured by finally picking up that paintbrush or pencil during the course of your chemotherapy!

I find this entire way of thinking distasteful and counterproductive. Not only because of its preachy idiom and cadence, reminiscent of a minister admonishing his congregants and scaring them into submission with threats of fire and brimstone. Not just because of Pressfield’s arrogant way of stating absurdities as facts, for example , that “humans” have been around for fifty million years. But more than anything else because this type of thinking is the ultimate form of blaming the victim: If you’re not successful as a writer, it must be your own fault. That, in the end, as with all self-help methods based on positive thinking, is the source of much more sorrow than solace. Because most aspiring writers don’t possess the magical powers necessary to simply will themselves to success. As a result they will end up feeling more wretched for trying. The tough truth is, not everyone can be a Hemingway or even a Steven Pressfield.

Feh! I came away from reading this mercifully brief book, pleased to have been reminded of how wrong-headed this approach to the creative process is. At least for me. I don’t find it helpful to look at life in terms of judgemental absolutes and neat linguistic dichotomies. Life, certainly the life of a writer, is far more complex and fluid than that. Sometimes you gets your pages written, sometimes you doesn’t. Which doesn’t mean your Ego is in cahoots with the devil, it just means it’s not your day. You’ve got to be able to accept the rough with the smooth, because that’s what life as a writer is like. You can’t exorcise the rough, no matter how many capital letters and sweeping analogies you deploy.

If there’s anything positive I took away from the book, it’s a confirmation that the only constructive attitude for a screenwriter is to focus on the work. Which means different things for different people. Just listen to a few of the Q+A’s in Jeff Goldsmith’s invaluable series of podcasts to get an impression of how varied professional screenwriters’ writing habits and processes can be.

The key is to find the regime that suits you best. You might be a ten hours a day person, you might be someone who writes in fits and starts. You might be a meticulous outliner, you might be the more spontaneous type. Whatever works. However, the worst thing you can do, in my opinion, is add a moral dimension to the search for the method that fits you best.

Screenwriting has nothing to do with battling against demonic resistance to the good which is creativity. It’s a profession. It’s about writing. As much as you can. It’s about reading. As many screenplays as you can. It’s about learning. From whatever source suits you best (workshops, DVD lectures, how-to books , university courses, etc.).

Oh, and by the way, I understand why Robert McKee so warmly recommends the book. Apart from the fact that it fits perfectly with his paradigm which says that all stories are essentially mythical tales about the individual overcoming the worst possible obstacles and thereby discovering their “true self,” he’s also mentioned in the book and he has his name on the back cover. Of course that may be irrelevant …

P.S. Just for clarity’s sake, Janet at The New York Screenwriting Life, this diatribe is not directed in the least bit personally against you! You just happened to be the trigger that prompted me to respond.

How Showing Work In Progress To The Right People Helps

In a recent interview in Variety, Disney-Pixar’s John Lasseter talks about allowing people to fail as part of the creative culture which originated at Pixar and is now being implemented at Disney too.

At all levels and stages of the creative process, everyone is encouraged to propose new ideas and solutions to problems. As the article puts it:

[Lasseter] ... is adamant that teams not be allowed to sequester themselves or work too long without sharing their progress with others. No matter what state a project is in, every three months, directors are required to put their film up on reels and test how it screens. That way, Lasseter and his fellow leaders can identify problems early.

I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing I try and avoid more than having someone read anything of mine that I don’t consider polished and presentable. If I know the writing isn’t ready yet, I keep it well hidden. Because almost no one understands that the process of screenwriting consists of writing draft upon draft of a variety of documents which often only make sense to the screenwriter. That you just have to produce and discard a lot of crap before anything worthwhile emerges. That it takes time and lots and lots of effort to come up with a presentable screenplay.

Which is why having a writing partner can be a boon. That is, if you’re in a writing partnership that can contain and cope with the inevitable emotions involved. The sulking, the accusations, the manipulations, the abuse, the violence and, yes, the affection.

As I mentioned a while ago, I’ve set myself a series of deadlines for an outline (already finished!), a treatment (nearly done!) and a first draft of an animation feature I’m writing together with my writing partner. And this is what happened a couple of days before I read Lasseter’s interview:

My writing partner comes over, for something unrelated to the screenplay in question. (For the sake of clarity, the way we’re working on this stage of the screenplay is that I’m writing and he’s critiquing.) I mention in passing the progress I’m making on the treatment. So he says, why don’t I give him what I’ve written so far, so that he can catch any problems before they become more complicated to solve.

I feel myself freeze. I hear myself offering lame excuse after lame excuse for not giving him the pages. "I’m still working on some set-ups and pay-offs," I lie. "There are scenes at the end which might still prompt changes in earlier scenes," I hypothesize. And so on.

Then it dawns on me that I’ve gone defensive. Big time. Whereas if there’s anyone who’s going to add to the quality of the writing by looking at the work in progress, it’s my writing partner! So I give him the pages, he takes them home and reads them, and gets back to me that same evening with some really insightful notes.

So now you see why the interview with Lasseter struck such a chord with me. He’s basically saying that his people have to show each other their work in progress on a regular basis. Because openly encouraging them to not be afraid of failing, increases the likelihood of identifying and fixing problems earlier rather than later in the creative process. Which confirms the experience I had just a couple of days earlier.

Sure, it can be pleasant to lock yourself in your writer’s ivory tower, but the advantages of identifying problems while you can still correct them relatively easily, are huge. Not only does it save time during rewriting, it also allows for more depth of rewriting.

However, as I’ve written in an earlier post you have to choose the right moment to show your work in progress, and it’s essential that the person reading your work has no ulterior motive for pointing out problems in your writing. As long as you’re both equally invested in and committed to producing the best work possible, then it’s well worth the potential embarrassment of exposing your writing at an early stage.

And now I’m off to finish the treatment before Tuesday’s self-imposed deadline …

Get Distance From Your Work Now Without Leaving The Room

I’m busy expanding my animated feature outline into a treatment. Adding detail, discovering plot holes and filling them, inventing twists, scrapping and merging scenes, squashing and stretching characters, etc. Always a fascinating ride and always one on which unexpected obstacles crop up. Things that seem obvious in the larger perspective of the outline, don’t work in the detail of the treatment. And ideas emerge from details of a scene at the treatment level which wouldn’t have occurred to me in the outline stage.

But of course, there are those moments when I just stare out the window and wonder what the hell to write next … These are ideal opportunities for what I like to call a cognitive break (read: displacement activity). During one such interval I came across an article in the July 2009 issue of Scientific American, called An Easy Way To Increase Creativity, which seems like it could be helpful in the screenwriting process.

The article refers to a psychological theory called construal level theory. The theory postulates that creativity can be enhanced by establishing a sense of distance between the creator and the task at hand. The distance can be literally geographical, but also temporal or a distance in terms of probability (i.e., how likely something is to occur) or familiarity. Or as the article sums it up:

“ … scientists have demonstrated that increasing psychological distance so that a problem feels farther away can actually increase creativity.”

The greater the perceived distance, the more you focus on the central, abstract, general features of the task at hand and the more likely you are to come up with creative solutions. So goes the theory.

Of course, the best way to create the feeling of distance from your screenplay is to put it in a drawer for a year, or travel to some solitary or novel location to write in peace. We all know that, right? But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that you can’t afford that luxury. Would it help to imagine yourself writing the script a year from now? Or perhaps envisage yourself writing in a log cabin in the Andes or on the space shuttle? According to the logic of construal level theory it should.

It’s just a theory … but I’m going try it out and let you know what happens.

Why You Need To Know Who You’re Writing For

Well, I got to my first milestone on schedule … The outline is finished, and at about 2,000 words it’s a very decent length. Apart from feeling very pleased with myself, I’ve also learned something interesting while getting the work done: It pays to distinguish between a selling document and a working document.

A selling document is intended as a pitch, to interest someone in your script. As such, whether it’s a one-page synopsis, a blow-by-blow outline or a twenty-page treatment, it must be a good read. Not just in terms of story structure, character and imagery, but also in terms of language. Rhythmic sentences, well-executed humour, intriguing and teasing choice of words, and so on.

A working document, on the other hand, is solely intended to help you, the writer, move ahead with your process. It too can be an outline, a treatment or whatever, but it only needs to be comprehensible to you. The only thing that matters is that when you look at it you know what to do next.

So the thing I caught myself doing this weekend (no, not that thing …), was struggling to write a selling document, when what I need is a working document. Once I dropped that self-imposed stylistic demand, things suddenly became a lot easier. And it’s clear why.

If all I need is a reminder that, say, at a certain point in the narrative one character tries and fails to teach another character to use a sword, then “X tries in vain to teach Y how to fence,” is sufficient. When I read that back, it automatically evokes a scene I already have in my head, which I can then flesh out.

Not so if the document is intended as a pitch. Then I have to articulate the atmosphere and dynamics of the scene more succinctly. I need to spend a lot more time ensuring that the description is comprehensive enough for someone who doesn’t have the scene in their head to be able to picture it.

So, job well done. Now it’s time for my reward! Which for this modest achievement is an appropriately small item, a CD: Cloud of Unknowing by guitarist James Blackshaw. Wonderfully evocative music. Brilliant for spacing out to and getting your creative juices flowing!

Next step: Finish a treatment based on the outline. Deadline: 1 September.

:59 Seconds Of Inspiration

In a departure from my usual reflective and observational format, I’m going out on a limb today by announcing a plan I’ve set myself. It’s based on a chapter in psychologist Richard Wiseman’s new book :59 Seconds. Think a Little, Change a Lot. This is a wonderful book which debunks many of the more insidious and widespread fallacies that drive the so-called self-help industry. Professor Wiseman simply and clearly sets out alternatives for the many popular, positive thinking methods, which he shows can be hugely counter-productive and even downright demoralizing.

I’ve recently found myself in need of an effective way of keeping focus amidst the numerous projects and people (including my children) vying for my attention. So I’ve decided to give the professor a run for his money and see what transpires.

In his chapter on motivation, Wiseman describes five principles that emerge from extensive scientific studies into how people successfully motivate themselves, keep focus and reach their goals. These are the five principles he sums up:

1. Successful people have a clear plan, a specific goal. And they break their plan down into a series of steps, or sub-goals.

2. Successful people tend to make their plans known to family, friends and colleagues. This makes it a lot harder to quietly abandon their plan without anyone noticing.

3. Successful people focus on the benefits of achieving their goals, rather than on the risks involved in not achieving them.

4. Successful people deliberately reward themselves for achieving steps along the way, and of course for achieving the goal itself.

5. Successful people often articulate their plans in writing, in very specific terms including detailed actions to be taken and deadlines to be met.

In my case, my concrete goal is to write a screenplay for a feature-length animated family movie, based on an idea my creative partner and I dreamed up about a year and a half ago. This idea already exists in the form of a first draft script for a thirty minute short, but I’m taking it right back to the drawing board and redesigning it as a feature.

I’ve already started work, using the old cork board and index cards method, and my first concrete goal is to finish an outline by next Monday (27 July). The following four steps in my plan are: writing a treatment, writing a first draft, getting feedback on the first draft and then doing a rewrite.

In a concerted, albeit virtual attempt to publicly embarrass myself into getting the work done (i.e., principle number two), I’ll be posting about my progress here on the blog, as well as on Twitter.

And now I really need to get cracking on that outline ...

Why Screenwriting Is Neither Science Nor Religion

At the moment I’m reading Your Screenplay Sucks, by William M. Akers. I highly recommend it. It’s a very entertaining and educational compilation of the most common screenwriting conventions, presented as advice on how to get your screenplay read by the people that matter. However, apart from being a useful checklist with which to critically assess your writing, it’s also a reminder to me of the dangers of taking screenwriting conventions too literally.

The film industry in Hollywood is constantly inundated by spec scripts, most of which are not good enough to become produced movies. As a result, there is an extensive system of “filters,” such as agents and script readers, who sift through the mountain of screenplays in search of viable material. These people, by necessity, employ rules of thumb to make their work easier. So, for example, if you don’t format your script according to the accepted conventions, it most likely won’t be read. That’s one very good reason to adhere to formatting conventions.

But what about conventions that govern the content of your story? Here’s where it gets a whole lot trickier in my opinion … Screenwriting isn’t a science. There’s no way to replicate empirical findings. What makes one script tick may not work in another. And screenwriting isn’t a religion either. There are no divine laws that you must accept with blind faith.

So I’m a little uncomfortable with Akers’ numerous must-mantras such as “you must have an active protagonist, or “your protagonist must change by the end of the story,” and “your antagonist must be stronger than your protagonist,” and so on. These are all basic Hollywood story conventions as presented by popular teachers such as Robert McKee, John Truby, Syd Field and which are always disingenuously qualified as not being rules at all but merely guidelines distilled from successful movies.

In fact, these are rules, and they sound very Thou Shalt Not-ish to me.

I get the notion that these rules are formulated to help you avoid giving anyone a reason to stop reading your screenplay. The trouble is, follow these rules too closely and you end up with generic, boilerplate writing. Plus, presenting these rules as if they’ve been unequivocally proven by numerous experiments and studies, can lead to some pretty strange mental gymnastics.

For example, Akers criticizes blockbuster box-office successes such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Alien for not following the rules. On page 40 he literally writes, about an inconsistency he perceives in the actions of an evil pirate,

"It should have been infuriating, at least, to somebody."

To me this just confirms how impossible it is to dictate in detail how (not) to write a screenplay. I mean, it’s not really a convincing argument to claim that a hugely successful blockbuster movie was not actually as good as everyone thought, because the bad guy wasn’t written according to the rules.

In fact it’s evidence of precisely the contrary: Even if you don’t follow all the rules, your script can still be a killer.

To my mind, screenwriting is like any art or craft or skill: You first need to learn the techniques before you can subvert them and find your own voice. The same way an artist needs to study the effects of light and learn basic drawing techniques before he can experiment with new forms. Or like a musician needs to master her instrument by endlessly practicing scales and arpeggios in order to be free to improvise.

In other words, books like Your Screenplay Sucks are hugely useful for learning basic screenwriting techniques and conventions. But the real art of writing only kicks in once you stop thinking in terms of articles of faith or proven laws. The magic really starts when you open your mind and let your characters lead you wherever they choose.

Why Revealing Character Is Like Boiling A Frog

Characters require contrast. Sounds like a bit of a no-brainer, right? But as with every basic concept in screenwriting, it’s easier said than done. My writing partner and I were reminded of this recently while working on our current, comprehensive rewrite.

There’s this one character, see … and he’s, well … he’s a bad guy. But by introducing him immediately in all his ugliness (which is what we did in the first draft), we made an important mistake: We left ourselves no room to surprise the audience with his nastiness. In other words, the character was too predictable, and therefore his dramatic usefulness was seriously compromised.

It’s easy to make this mistake, because you want the audience to “get” why someone’s going to be such a bastard to some other character. You want to make a point. But that’s precisely where the craft aspect of screenwriting comes in. A screenplay has to be written deliberately rather than impulsively. Dosing character information creates tension and surprise, and it’s a delicate business. It sometimes requires you to write backwards. To start from the effect, the reveal, and carefully cover up the path leading to it with misleading, contrasting actions.

In relation to this particular issue, a metaphor is called for. Popular mythology has it that if you drop a frog in a pan of boiling water, it will jump right out, whereas if you put it in a pan of cold water and turn the heat on, the frog will realize too late what’s going on, and boil to death.

Same with a character: If you introduce a character in one way (sympathetic or otherwise) and subsequently add tiny increments of behaviour that reveal a contrasting trait, it will happen almost imperceptibly, until suddenly you realize the character is someone other than you thought.

So back to our bad guy. We decided to introduce him as a relatively nice guy. As follows:

He’s travelling, alone. We see him arrive at the airport. In trivial interactions we see he’s a charming, friendly guy. Then we see him in a hotel room. He calls home, speaks tenderly to his young kid on the phone. In his hand he holds a couple of children’s drawings and assures the child he’s going to take them to grandpa tomorrow. He wishes the child goodnight, exchanges a few pleasantries with his wife and hangs up. That’s the surface: a loving father and husband.

Now for the contrast: While he’s on the phone, the man unpacks food he’s taken with him for the trip. The careful way he unpacks and neatly arranges the items, suggests a degree of obsessive behaviour. So, almost imperceptibly, here’s a hint that this is also a man who plans ahead meticulously and needs to be in control.

The idea is that the discrepancy between the man’s spontaneous, loving attitude to his child and his calculating, premeditated behaviour in the hotel room, is a contrast that will gather more and more meaning as the story progresses.

It’s impossible to know whether this scene will survive, as is, into the next draft. However, just consciously deciding to introduce this character differently, has made him more contrasted and intriguing than he was in the previous draft, which only presented his bad side. And that’s a step towards a more interesting and intriguing screenplay overall, because the contrast creates scope for tension and surprise.