goldietaylor.bsky.social
COMING SOON. https://substack.com/@goldietaylor?r=184tc&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile
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Last thread.
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So, I will say it again: Writing is physical. Great writing takes sweat. You gotta be willing to work. The audience will know the difference.
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Anyway, I am particularly pissed off today b/c I've had the displeasure of reading some terrible writing from people who get paid a lot of dayum money to put words on a page. Bad shit gets published every day. Bad shows make it to screen. And, maybe, this one will too.
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Bad writers don't know which rules they're breaking, b/c they don't know the rules. Good writers do. Master form, master format, master the mechanics... and then decide when and how to break them.
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And this takes me to my last point, the second point about rules-- WRITING HAS RULES. It has form and format. Every story has the same damn arc. The beat.
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Taylor Sheridan knows this. That dude knows the history and the rules. And, he knows which ones he can break. His characters-- backstory for days, most of which doesn't show up in the script-- but it shows up in the character.
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If you break certain rules too early, you lose credibility with your audience. But if you get that trust, you can take them anywhere-- like Wakanda, the Galactic Senate, or a NY bank heist.
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Patterson? Well, his stories are basically a bag of Cheetos. No real substance. Why do they work? Because he knows shit. He's been in the car with cops. He knows how crimes scenes work. He knows the role of a DA. He knows every fucking thing before he writes.
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How does this happen? In the age of Google, writers are still lazy. A quick search would have solved his problems. The problems are so big, it would have changed the story.
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Perry wrote STRAW. Great fucking premise. Destroyed because he breaks rules he doesn't know exist. How banks work, employment laws, how evictions work in different states. The movie makes it b/c three Black actresses make it. They are damn good. But the script? Bullshit.
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I'm not necessarily a Tyler Perry fan. The man can take an amazing premise and destroy it by breaking the rules. On the other hand, James Patterson knows all the damn rules.
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Every setting has rules. Laws, policies, how shit works. You have to know the rules before you can break them. (BTW, this irks me something terrible.)
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Third, learn the gawddayum rules: of both the story and writing. Now, one at a time.
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Second thing: Place. Understand where they are and how that informs how they behave. A city, a house, a family. The context in which that backstory plays out. And, finally, but most importantly-- what the fuck do they want.
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They way they talk, they way they walk, the job they have, every friggin thing about them is informed by that.
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For the sake of this thread, I'll focus on fiction-- novels and screenplays. Every gawddayum character has a backstory, the set of things, the life they lived before the moment you meet them. No backstory, no character-- just a name on the page that does shit for no reason at all.
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It's not an attack on Free Speech for an individual to punch him in the mouth. Only if governor does it.
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OMGaaaaaawd!
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And now, with the news that the WH will target as many as five "blue" cities, he is all but begging for an uprising and a riot that he can bring to heel. He is out to destroy the very fabric of what it means to be an American. He is out to remake it-- the Constitution be damned. He wants a fight.
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So, how does he get there? Create a flashpoint. That inciting incident leads to an expansion, then a period of conflict, then a conclusion and aftermath.
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Just as the WH has attempted to confound the courts on other issues, we can expect an even more rigorous push here. Trump once called them "my generals." He meant that. And now he's eager for the chance to show it. For him, LA is the perfect target.