Hey Baby! Let's Do Lunch!

If you have been paying attention for the last few months when I write this blog, you know I also write screenplays.  I have been fortunate enough to say that I have had eight of my scripts made into feature films.  Along the way, I have learned a lot.  Some of it good, some bad and some you would not believe unless you experienced it yourself.

Occasionally, someone will ask me what it’s like to sit in a dark theater and see your name come up on the screen.  It depends. Since the writer’s name usually comes up with the first few credits or cards, that you see, it depends on what happens after you see your name and the story actually begins to unfold.  It’s a long and nerve wracking, nail-biting, sleepless night and gin and tonic fueled journey to get to that point.  Example? you say.  Let me tell you a story.

I won’t go into a lot of details about the agony of trying to sell a screenplay, so let’s start when I had someone say, “Hey, that script ain’t so bad, I’ve seen worse. I think I like it and I want to make it.”  At that point in time, you are the most important person in the entire process. Enjoy it while you can.  I was invited to Los Angeles to sign contracts etc. and met some studio executives at a very nice restaurant in Beverly Hills.  We were waiting to be seated when one of them got a phone call.  Two minutes later he joined us at the table where we were talking about my movie and an idea I had for another script. “Sorry, but the studio has decided to kill the project.” My movie was not going to get made, but he assured me he would still pay for lunch.  The others talked about projects they were working on and all I could do was eat.

Lunch was finished after about an hour, and true to his word, the studio executive paid for lunch. As we were about to leave, he got another phone call.  He held up his hand for us to wait.  “The movie’s back on.”  In the course of an hour, it was a go, then a no-go, then a go again.  And you wonder why we drink.

Finally, after almost a year of on/off/on/off I was called and invited to the premier in Los Angeles. “A real premier like I see in the movies?  Will there be limos, search lights, beautiful women in furs and men in tuxedos and people asking for my autograph?”  “No, but there will be an open bar and munchie crunchies in the lobby after it’s over.”  Close enough. I’ll be there.

The night arrived and so did I.  I parked my rental Geo a block away and walked to the theater with my daughter. We took our reserved seats, listened so some people talk about how important everyone from the craft services person to the lead actor was in the making of this film. The only person they didn’t mention was the person who sat in front of a stack of blank paper and created as script.

The lights were dimmed and the movie began.  For the first five minutes I sat in my seat, squirming, jumping and swearing.  “Holy (%&*), I didn’t write that.  What the ^$*&(*P) is that?  Are the #$&*)(ing crazy? That’s not the story I wrote.”  I thought we were in the wrong movie.  My daughter finally calmed me down by reminding me that I got a nice check before they screwed up my story and that the check didn’t bounce.  Excellent point

Moral of this story. Do not, under any conditions have any pride of authorship if you want to write movies.  And if you ever meet a studio executive who shakes your hand or especially one who “air-kisses” on both cheeks and says something like…Kiss Kiss, let’s do lunch or KKLDL, stand by for a ram.

Writing White

I recently read an article that really disturbed me. No, it wasn’t the fact that at least four men have played Superman in the past or that the Great Pumpkin is not coming to see Charlie Brown again this year. It’s far more important to me and to anyone who reads this who is a writer.

The article said that as a white person I should not, under any conditions write a character who was not as white as I was. Read that again.  I had to read it twice myself.  It went on to say that if we had a character who was non-white we were not qualified to write anything about that person since we did not understand who they were or anything about them.  Let that sink in for a minute.

That means, if you ascribe to that philosophy, that you can never have a character from the country of…fill in the blank, or a person who speaks…. another blank unless they are from the English-speaking world for the most part.

Think of all the great literary works we would have lost if that idea had been floated a century ago.  Mark Twain would still be Sam Clemmons working on a riverboat.  We would never had met Atticus Finch.  Gone With the Wind would still be blowing in the breeze and we would never have heard the Tarzan yell.

I resent and reject that idea on a personal and a professional basis. I have two mystery series in print.  I have an African American character in both who shows up in every book and will continue to do so.  One of the series is set in Atlanta, GA in the early 1950’s.  It features a Private Investigator who works out of a pool room. The character is the combination janitor and rack boy.  He is patterned after a real person who held those two jobs in a real pool room.  I write him the way I remember his and the way he spoke.  He had a slight lisp and everyone knew it.  It was a part of who he was and, for me and my novels, he is a very important character.  I write him like I remember him and I don’t feel that I should make apologies for doing so.

If we are true to our characters without intentionally demeaning them do we do them a disservice by not making them a mirror image of us?  If you have a recent immigrant from a non-English speaking country how much credibility will you lose if that person speaks perfect English the day they arrive? We, as writers have an obligation to our readers and to our characters.  Our readers expect us to take them to places they may have never been or have them see or do things they would never experience outside the covers of our books.  By the same token, we owe our characters a chance to be themselves, warts and all.

We have to listen to them speak. Have dinner with them and see what they eat.  Spend an evening with them and see what they talk about and how they interact with others.

It’s not being PC, its being a responsible writer. 

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. 

Who’s on First…or Third?

 

The comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello did what has been recognized as the best comedy routing during a radio broadcast in 1946.  It was called Who’s on First and it holds up today as being just as funny as when it was first broadcast.  Costello wanted to know the name of the ballplayer on first base and Abbott said “Who” and it went downhill from there.

As a writer you, at some point unless you’re writing magazine articles, will have to decide if your character is on first or third.  Not base, but will the story unfold from the first or third person. It’s a monumental decision for a writer and it has a ripple effect throughout the entire project.

If you choose the first person then everything is revealed through one person’s eyes.  The reader sees only what the protagonist sees. When your protagonist is inside the house, he/she cannot see what is happening in the back yard, the garage, the hardware store down the street or in the Kremlin although some action in all of those places may have an impact on your character and the story.  That’s the rule.  However, rules are made to be broken.

Even if you are writing in first person, you don’t have to limit it to only ONE first person’s point of view.  If your protagonist is a housewife in Snake Navel, Arkansas and your bad guy is a spy in the Kremlin, tell a part of the story from his POV.  Nothing wrong with that.  It’s like two trains on parallel tracks both heading in the same direction, just make sure they reach their destination at about the same time.  Now it’s not who’s on first but how many on first if you do it right.

Just around the corner from first base is third.  Who’s on third?  I don’t know was his name in the comedy skit, but you know the name or names of those who are in your third person narrative. With third person narrative you have much more leeway to go places and do things that your housewife from Snake Navel can’t do.  Instead of everything beginning with “I did this or that” you can be the person who drifts overhead of the action, looking down describing everything that is going on. You are not limited by time, space or eyes.  You are the know all, see all, tell all narrator.

Go to the book shelf and pick up the last book you read. Take a look at it and try to imagine it written in the opposite person.  Does it work? Is it better?  Worse?  Do the same thing with the project you are currently working on. Don’t rewrite it, but spend a few minutes imagining it from another person.

And of course, it had to happen.  I saw a photo recently that was taken from the first base dugout during a ball game. There was a runner on first base.  The shot was taken from is back. The name on his shirt? Hu.  I know the announcer couldn’t wait to say, “Hu’s on first.”

Hu Currently Plays for the L.A. Dodgers