Story Literacy & The Shrinking Memory

There's an excellent post today on mystery writer James Lincoln Warren's site about Story Literacy. Go read it. I'll wait.

Hey. Welcome back.

One of my mentors, (my first boss out of Uni, actually) was fond of saying that he thought that the idea of taking undergrad journalism studies was ridiculous, because you were so much better off actually doing a general degree in something else. If you could write, you could learn the journalism. But there comes a certain point where you can't distill knowledge and insight if you don't possess any yourself.

I took Radio & Television Arts as an undergrad, and for the most part, I've never regretted it. Okay, I did waste ten years whoring myself in low-rent infotainment, but nobody's perfect, and I did get to interview P.J. O'Rourke, Peter Gabriel, and Ted Turner along the way. What I missed, though, was the value of a real grounding in the canon.

I make a vow to try and catch up every once in a while, but the victories are few and far between. I'm proud of my Mark Twain phase, and hell, Great Expectations was better than I thought it would be - but there's never enough time to really read and absorb -- not when you're hustling as a freelancer.

What I do have, though, is the benefit of about sixteen years of crushing Catholic dogma. And, unlike some RC's I know, I figured if I was going to dutifully go to the classes, maybe I'd read the Bible now and again, too.

I'm consistently amazed by the number of times I talk to younger writers, (and by that, I mean anyone my age and younger,) and find that they don't know the basic myths, have no knowledge of the Poetics or Greek Drama. Never mind Brush Up Your Shakespeare: there's lots that just haven't read him.

It extends to movies too. Warren talks specifically about Film Noir. I've had that conversation, too. Then there's the comedy writers who have never seen The Marx Brothers, Keaton and Chaplin, or Preston Sturges. Or Drama writers that have never studied Alan Bennet or Dennis Potter or Harold Pinter or Edward Albee or Capra or Tennessee Williams or Arthur Miller or Dalton Trumbo or Capote or Paddy Chayefsky or Billy Wilder.

I've met young turks who want to write half hour comedies who don't know who James L. Brooks is. "No, wait," they'll say, and my teeth will grind cause I know what's coming... "didn't he write for the Simpsons?"

This is turning into an old fogey post from someone who's not actually old enough to make one, but bear with me a second here, cause I'm getting to the point.

I started teaching part-time at the same University I attended when I was 25 years old. That means I've been seeing a parade of 20 year olds come through for more than a decade. And what I've found, unmistakably, in that time, is that the cultural memory has shrunk.

Time was, if you were 20, you'd know about stuff that happened long before you were born. You'd recognize who a singer was. If you heard a cover song, you'd eventually find out who did the original and feel a momentary burst of embarrassment that you didn't know that someone had been there before.

This, at least for my generation, was a natural outgrowth of something that we kind of always resented: always being in the shadow of the #%#%@ baby boomers.

Because of the baby boomers, for whom no degree of self-congratulation or self-absorption was ever too great, I think I was thirty before I ever read or saw something where a character was exactly my age...a story that was aimed squarely at me. I don't know if that had anything to do with why I knew who Jack Paar or Steve Allen was, why I got Uncle Miltie jokes or knew that Orson Welles had been the Shadow... but I know that it made my own explorations and creative efforts richer. In fact, it probably caused me to go back further. The crushing orthodoxy imposed by having to know the boomer cultural narrative meant that I went back further: that's how I discovered flappers and Jelly Roll Morton, and Sinatra and Cole Porter.

I've seen a lot of students over the last few years, when they try to sell themselves, say, "I know pop culture." As if that was something to be lauded; as if that wasn't the bare baseline these days.

Effectively, in my experience, I've found the cultural memory of a 20 year old today doesn't stretch much past about 1996. 1996 was "back-in-the-day." You can't make a literary, cultural, or other reference that pre-dates that time, and have any confidence that it'll land.

Unlike when I was growing up, today's newly minted adults (all of them budding screenwriters, or at least so-I-imagine,) have been culturally targeted and catered to all their life. The machine slices them ever thinner, trying to satisfy them by giving them exactly what they want.

Which is great, until you sit your ass down in the chair and actually try to say something.

The Internet is a crazy and amazing thing. It still surprises me that if I hear a snatch of a lyric of a song I haven't heard before, that I can Google it and know who sings it in a minute; not spend weeks hoping to catch an announcer telling me who's singing it on the radio. It stuns me that I can be writing something and wonder if it's a cliche, and Google that line and get 8000 hits and know for sure. I'm floored that I can run across a word or a name when I'm reading something and -- never mind have to write it down and look it up on my next trip to the library -- I can click, type, smack, boom, know it within ten seconds without leaving my chair.

We live in an age when it has never been easier to satisfy your curiousity and thirst for knowlege; and yet lots of you don't seem to be curious any more.

Well...not good enough.

If you haven't read your Bible, read it. Don't assume that reference was from Star Trek. It's easy enough to find out where it really came from. When you're working on a story, Google the particulars, ideas of plot, time, setting -- see what can you learn?

To some of you, this may seem, like, obvious. But trust me, I read a lot of newbie scripts every year.

It's not obvious.

If you're not curious, I don't know how you can be a writer. I simply don't know.

"It's Not a Too-mah...or Beneath The Planet of the Fans

I am fighting a lordy-loo headache today. Not grape or malt related, mind you. I think this is actually one of them meteoro...um...meteroil...weather things.

The split-focus splitter. Always a harbinger of a good work day. Let's take stock:

Bible on Project#1 is in. So that's something.
Specs read as favors 2 & 3 are done.
Student work in email box: count's up to 8 right now, but it wouldn't be fair to attack that without a fresh-head.
Let's see, that leaves Notes for Project#2 which I'm waiting for feedback on.
Second script pitch for Project#2 that I can't get too far on until the two Advil blues hit and do their sweet little relief dance.
Project#3 is awaiting story editor notes so I can go to script on it. No movement there.
Project#4 won't be up for another couple of weeks -- but it is going to be a few days in a Room -- so that's something to look forward to.

Mmm. Maybe I'll dive into the delighful new book I got at the book launch last night:

John Doyle's A Great Feast of Light (Get it here) is a memoir about growing up in Ireland when TV arrived in the 1960's. Doyle is currently the Television Writer for The Globe and Mail, Canada's National Newspaper (or as it's referred to outside Toronto, "Toronto's National Newspaper.")

There was a short excerpt in the Globe last weekend and it was funny and bracing and wondrous and the kind of sharp, puckish writing I expect from Doyle. But nope...those letters just swim on the page before me. I'm really screwed.

The only thing to do is procrastinate.

So let's go with that: in fact, let's give over to a special guest blogger. This is one of the charming rogues who hangs out on Television Without Pity. He's reacting to my recent posts, "Why The Room is Like Vegas" and "When Fans Attack."

Take it away, Guest Blogger...I'm going to go find a hot cloth for my forehead.

Putting my own two cents in, this McGrath boob sounds like he's trying to suck up to Abrams, maybe in hopes of getting a job on Lost. I'm sorry, but if said boob thought the hatch cliffhanger was good, when the show should have ended with Walt's kidnapping, then he's just another hack, to a long line of hack writers in the entertainment industry.

I also think there's a problem when the show's writers are making it up as they go along when it comes to a show like Lost. They're supposedly dropping hints to give you clues to the final solution and if they don't even know what that solution is, then the odds of them ever coming up with a satisfying answer to all these red herrings their dropping is pretty close to nil.

I'm someone who has watched hack writers like McGrath on daytime TV destroy the genre with their crappy writing and he sounds just like another hack who thinks his shit doesn't stink and every ridiculous thing he writes is pure gold that no one should dare question or criticize.

You know, it's find if Abrams and Lindeof want to make up some hyperfiction where they make it up as it goes along for their own entertainment, but when they start put it out to viewers, they should know where the story is going and how they plan to resolve it.

Wow. Thanks, Guest Blogger.

For those of you marking your scorecards at home, that's two boobs and four hacks.

I had no idea that my brilliant plan to vaunt from the depths of backwater Toronto to the writer's room on a show that draws over 20 million viewers a week was so utterly transparent. I mean, if it was that obvious, then I'm sure JJ Abrahms will see right through it when he spends his customary nine hours a day reading blog entries and snarky tv message boards. Damnit! If not for this headache, I'd go back to my plan B:

The hatch-shaped pie.

After all...everybody loves pie. Way more than they love Raymond, anyway.

In fact, there's a funny Toronto writer named Matt Watts who's been cooling his heels waiting for the CBC Strike to end. He's got his own very funny blog. He's practically obsessed with pie.

Why? Because Pie Works.

Anyway, if you had the kind of boring, apple pie parents I did, they probably also fed you that canard growing up about how you learn something new every day. I still try to convince myself that's true. Some days it's truer than others. Amidst the blood currently pounding behind my left eye I can say this, without a doubt-- here's the new thing I learned today:

Apparently, daytime tv has been destroyed by writers -- which seems to indicate that once upon a time, daytime tv was good. Daytime TV. Who knew?

As awesome as it is to post snark-hate levelled at you, and as much as I love it when people completely illustrate my points for me (seriously, our guest blogger above neatly shows the truth of the two posts the TWOPers fulminate over most) I also, to be fair and balanced, share this, from a writer friend I know and fear:

Have i ever told you i can't read your blog because i enjoy it too much? Sorry. Reading your blog is like sitting beside the cutest boy in class - I forget what I'm supposed to be doing. Your blog's too hot for me. Sorry.

Never mind the Advil. I'm taking a shower.

Doyle, you'll have to wait.

When Fans Attack!

Uh oh.

Wond'rin over the whole spike-in-the-hit-counter thing, and I see that My "Why the Room is Like Vegas" post has now been linked on Television Without Pity.

I love TWOP -- from the early days when it was still Mighty Big TV. It's the internet messageboard equivalent of the Second Cup steps at Church & Wellesley.

Yes, that's a Toronto reference. Deal with it. Like we love hearing about the Southland all the time.

The Second Cup steps at Church & Wellesley is the place in Toronto's Gay Village where people congregate and hang out and say the bitchiest things imaginable. About everything.

TWOP commentary wrapups are usually very entertaining. If you've read 'em, you know. If you haven't, you should go check'em out.

Where things get weird is, of course, the message boards. This board, famously, is where Aaron Sorkin used to confab with West Wing fans, til it got out of hand and he beat a hasty retreat, using the whole traumatic affair as a springboard for a funny and churlish West Wing subplot. Ah, those were the days.

Anyway, predictably, there's outrage over the post. Let's dip into some:

No offense to whoever wrote that article, but I think it's crap. It boiled down to the idea that viewers shouldn't criticize the sensitive writers because we just don't understand what it's like. We don't get what they go through, man. We should just appreciate the fact that anything is developing on the show at all, and overlook how ridiculous it is.

Mmm. Tasty.

If it is industry standard for writers to not be skilled enough at writing to get from Point A to Point Z in a way that is truly earned, then the writers need to suck it up and try harder. It's not our job as viewers to lower our standards.

"Lower our standards?" This is the point where I usually point out something like "American Idol is the top rated show on TV." Oh, and Yes Dear is in season 5. And JAG ran for, what, 19 years?

I know it's not the easiest thing in the world to write good TV, but that doesn't mean it's the writers' perogative to crap out a half-assed story and then feel all wounded when we notice. Saying we don't understand the business just makes the writers seem elitist on top of being lazy and/or untalented.[/RANT]

Wow. I mean...wow. "Crap out a half-assed story?" That's like...harsh.

Now, besides the fact that there's an excellent use of the word "perogative," this fan-screed is really informative. And it amply demonstrates several of the truths of why aspiring TV writers have to let go of the fan inside, before you can hope to move on to the heavy lifting.

1) No matter how well things start out, you will always be accused of being elitist.

It's amazing how fast it happens. Sure, writers are kind of, as a group, smartypantsers. But the real imbalance here comes from the fact that everyone thinks they can write. Really. We all tell stories, we all like to think that we're creative, and we all have things happen to us along the way. It's been my experience, in the years I've been teaching, that generally people way overestimate the effects of inspiration, and way underestimate the realities of craft. Someone who is motivated to write about a show like LOST on a message board is motivated entirely by passion; if you are a writer on LOST, you can be motivated partially by passion, sure...but it better be mostly professionalism and craft that motivates you, or...uh...no one will sit with you at lunch and you'll probably be known as Scooter, or the weird girl. If you are writing a spec script, you better be approaching it from a professional eye, not from a fan-place. Because if you do the former, you may have a shot of acing the template. If you do the latter, you're writing....shudder....fan fiction.

2) Ownership breeds resentment

Ideally, you want a fan to really invest in your show, your characters, and your world. That gets tricky after a while, because eventually, you're going to do something or go somewhere the fan doesn't like and they're going to hate you. And it's not nice, cute, "Oh, I hate Summer cause she tried to steal my boyfriend" hate. It's "you promised me we'd be together forever and now I'm going to burn your house down," hate. The very thing that makes fans loyal to a show makes them, sometimes, a little crazy. They hate that you can decide where it goes and they can't. In psychology, it's exactly like the effect where you help somebody out, and they grow to resent you for it. You can't defend yourself against this; they will always think they know better. And they don't -- see...shudder...fanfic.

3) They don't think like you do, and they don't want what you want.

Or, at least...they shouldn't. You know how every fan in the world (maybe that's too much..okay, say 95% of them) always want the hot girl and the hot boy to get together? Well, if you're a pro, you know that your job is to avoid this as long as humanly possible. Because happy couples do not conflict make. And conflict is your job. And once you get HG and HB (or HG and HG; HB and HB, whatever) together, you've blown your money shot. Bigtime.

Your task is to give them what they didn't think they wanted, but what they grow to understand they needed. This is especially true in shows with an element of mystery to them, like LOST. You have to answer some questions. But there's all these people out there who have their own theories and expectations freighted into the world and you are not going to be able to please any of them. I mean, there are still people out there who really want the island to be purgatory. You have to be bold enough to know that you are going to piss some people off when you go in a certain direction. That's fine -- so long as you keep coming up with cool stuff that gets them coming back.

A fan-run show would be...well...I dare say, it wouldn't be very good. Because the choices fans make are emotional choices, not choices grounded in dramatic necessity. There are still LOST fans out there pissed that they killed off Boone. Whereas if you were a writer, once you saw the flashback episode where Boone slept with his sort-of-sister you'd say, "oh Boy, your plot is SO OVER." Ian Somerhalder, great actor -- but that character? I now know everything I need to know about you. It's time for you to go.

Have you ever seen those testing things they use where you hold the dial and move it across the screen to say when you like something and when you hate it? I think those things are cool for something like a political speech. But they're worse than useless for drama. Because especially for an ongoing series, the journey is way more important than how the viewer feels at any one moment. You think that M*A*S*H audiences LOVED it when Henry Blake died and Radar came in and told everyone in the O.R.? Hell no. But it's one of the greatest moments in TV history. If you're going to be bold, be bold. But understand that you're going to have some people screaming at you along the way.

All the more reason to keep any spats en famille. No one needs to see Mommy and Daddy fight.

4) The Internet is for Porn

Heh heh. Sorry, I don't mean that. It's just my favorite song from Avenue Q, which everyone really needs to see.

What the internet IS for, at least when it comes to TV, is cranks. Just like you don't want a TV show where everyone agrees all the time, a message board for a certain TV show will always be fueled by people trying to out-do each other with their reasons for why the last episode totally sucked hard. Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons, people: worrrrsssst epppppisssoddde evvvverrrr. I have to admit, even when I troll through boards myself, I flit right over the "wasn't that awesomes?" and linger ghoulishly over the train wreck posts. Remember, please, that even today, the people who are going to go post on a message board, some three hundred word screed about the last episode of LOST is NOT a representative viewer. They may be your core -- but they're not your full audience. And anyway, a VAST majority of them will continue to watch week after week so that they can come back and tell you how much the show sucks.(I call this the Howard Stern principle: as seen in his movie Private Parts, they found when the ratings came in in the early days that the people who hated him listened longer than the people who loved him. I admit, this is also the only reason why I ever know what Bill O'Reilly is saying.) Through this cycle, some fans derive self esteem. Good for them. It has nothing to do with you. Get over yourself. Once it gets broadcast, it really does belong to them.

In any case -- these reasons, and a lot of others, are why if you are looking to really get in this game, you need to learn to disconnect the fanboy brain. It is not your friend, and it will not help you get where you want to go. That's why I recommend when someone's writing a spec, to NEVER spec your favorite show.

And it's also why, I hope to Dog that when/if (see how optimistic that is? time was I was a if/when man) I get one of my shows into production, that I will have the strength to limit my contact with the fans.

Not because they're not the single most important thing any show has going for it. But because you can't let them poison your experience of the world you've created. Just as you should not poison theirs. What does it matter if the symbolism you created in your show meant something different to someone else? So long as they're not willfully or crazily misinterpreting it (ie: "They're in purgatory!") let it ride. Allow them their ownership, and preserve your sanity, by maintaining the Chinese Wall between you.

Nothing in our culture gets to be mysterious anymore. Let's fix that. I firmly believe that our biggest duty is to get viewers to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Unless that man is Joss Whedon. Joss can do whatever the hell he wants. (Although in my secret heart of hearts, I hope he writes a movie for Geena Davis.)

Worshipping Moloch and Jeter and A.Rod...

A showrunner friend of mine, when I told him I was watching my beloved Yankees recently, said, "You may as well worship Moloch."

Maybe so.

But that game tonight was some heap fun.

Tomorrow is Canadian Thanksgiving. Happy Columbus Day, to all of you Yankees, unless it's officially been renamed 500 years of Oppression Day. I hope not. That's a downer of a title. Canadian Thanksgiving is much like the American Holiday, only they don't celebrate it much in Quebec, Grandma doesn't get drunk and your younger brother doesn't come out at dessert.

I hope to let loose with a review of the DVD of Buffalo Bill soon. Will it stand up to my 20 year old memories? And how will I deal with seeing a 25 year old Geena Davis again? Did you know she was in Mensa?

Will the Yankees defeat the Angels?

Will I be able to slip away from the Thanksgiving Dinner I'm attending tomorrow to see what's doin in Cali?

All this and more, still to be answered.

Thank you, Moloch.