Paul Hackett

Whether we admit it or not, a lot of us wannabe screenwriters with blogs are in awe of John August. He is to screenwriting what Robert Plant is to singing, or Humphrey Bogart to acting: one of those artists that possesses a complete understanding and awareness of his own abilities.

John has posted to his site the text of a recent speech he gave at Drake University, The Challenge of Writing in a Digital Age. Sometimes all it takes is an expert to say something obvious for it to resonate clearly. John offers up the following definition:

Writing is how we demonstrate that we understand something.

For the screenwriter that means your story. If you’re going to write a movie you should have something important to say. You can’t tell a good story if you don’t understand it yourself. A good script should adhere to a certain structure and follow a logical plan. There are as many books as there are blogs on screenwriting, but real insight and understanding only comes through hard work. This is the day to day routine of writing.

This applies equally to other kinds of writing. A songwriter needs to understand the mechanics of emotion. Songs may tell stories too, but if anything, the true purpose of music is to stir an emotional response. What remains true to all kinds writing is not only what you say, but how you say it. As John said at the end of his speech, we should all write like our lives depend on it.

It must seem like I have way too many excuses for not writing. I have already blogged about my preference for procrastination and my habitual traveling. In my own defense, I truly believe that to be a good writer you need to lead a full life. The lonely writer shut off from the world is unnecessarily isolating himself, and is hardly likely to emerge after 2 years with a masterpiece. Balancing a healthy, active life with your work is the best way to go. While you’re busy being a writer, it’s important to get out there and do other things or your creativity will suffer.

To add now to my litany of writing sins, I want to discuss the power of sleep. Besides providing your body with the rest that it needs, sleep is the time when your conscious mind gets turned off, and the unconscious takes over. Fortunately for the writer, the unconscious mind is often better at solving story problems than you’re awake and incessantly thinking about them.

Whenever possible, I do my writing in the morning. One’s energy is always on the increase until about mid-day, so it makes sense to write as much as possible before noon. I spend my afternoons on story planning, organization and other work. If I’m in a hot climate I’ll try and take a nap in the afternoon. I also walk a lot in the afternoons and evenings, which is another great way to think about my story.

But when it comes to stubborn story problems that I can’t think my way out off, I’ll turn to a good night’s sleep. Lots of writers like to feed their subconscious in this way, and I was not altogether surprised when I found this passage in Graham Greene’s autobiography Ways of Escape:

Dreams, perhaps because I was psychoanalysed as a boy, have always had great importance when I write…Sometimes identification with a character goes so far that one may dream his dream and not one’s own.

I have never personally had that experience. But many seemingly insurmountable story problems have vanished thanks to several hours sleep. Graham also had this to say on the subject:

I imagine all authors have found the same aid from the unconscious. The unconscious collaborates in all our work: it is a nègre we keep in the cellar to aid us. When an obstacle seems insurmountable, I read the day’s work before sleep and leave the nègre to labour in my place. When I wake the obstacle has nearly always been removed: the solution is there and obvious – perhaps it came in a dream which I have forgotten.

I had already been doing this before I knew of Graham’s methods. And I can absolutely vouch for it. If you are really doing your work, sleep does help.

Of course, thinking too much before trying to sleep has it hazards. If you’re not careful it can lead to bouts of insomnia. That will certainly adversely affect your ability to write and maybe even sap your interest in the story altogether. But I have found that by considering a single problem as I drift off to sleep, I will invariably wake up with the solution at hand. It’s not magic, and it’s probably not science either. But it does have a lot to do with making writing a balanced part of your life. Never let writing consume all of your time.

For me, there is something almost as important as keeping a daily writing routine – it is knowing when to break the routine. Creative work is probably the hardest to finish when you’re trying to force yourself. My standard three hours a day, six days a week of writing can at times feel like an attempt to manufacture the goods on an assembly line. A well timed day off works wonders.

Lately it seems as if I’ve been traveling as much as I’ve been working. Travel is the greatest of escapes. It sure beats that other favorite writer’s excuse for not working – cleaning the fridge!

Not only does a trip take me outside the box, it also stimulates me with new ideas and experiences. It’s more likely that a real life situation I wouldn’t get in my regular writing space will produce that key line that transforms a scene and saves the story. Whatever I’m working on, inevitably, turns out better for a little time spent on the road. It’s not always possible to go away mid-project, so I make a point of going somewhere after completing each draft, and again before starting a new one.

I see why the writers from the classic Hollywood era did a lot of their work in hotels. I’m thinking of Robert Riskin writing for Frank Capra in Palm Springs, or Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur churning out scripts for Howard Hawks in Manhattan hotel rooms. For some reason, it’s just easier for me to get work done in hotel rooms. (Yeah I know, the above writers were all notorious for partying it up – but they completed some of their most famous work under those conditions.)

This advice, if it can be termed advice, should come with a warning. Travel can offer some great inspiration; but inspiration only accounts for two percent of a great story. The rest is perspiration – hard work!

When I settle into the hotel room after a long day of activity, I can do a whole day’s work in less time than usual. Most of the time the work is better too. If I had to guess, I’d say it has to do with the fact that while my mind was busy doing other things, the subconscious had all day to work on the story by itself. We writers carry our stories around with us for a long time, sometimes years. The mind simply can’t put it to rest because you’ve gone into escape mode. As Graham Greene wrote in Ways of Escape, “the unconscious collaborates in all our work.” I think I’ll have more to say about this later.