Writers Groups
When I first started writing, I wasn't confident in my own abilities or my contacts. I was writing screenplays, which generally have a few writers on them, through choice or not, and a friend of mine's sister wrote an episode of EastEnders (UK soap) and then got a movie produced starring Patrick Dancing Swayze!!! And directed by a man who made lots of Star Trek The Next Generation episodes!!!
That was enough for me. I asked Dan to read everything I wrote, he would critique it, I'd put his name on the front of the script with mine and he'd give it to his sister to read. That was the plan. Then I would obviously be making a movie with Patrick Dancing Swayze directed by a man from Star Trek TNG.
That didn't happen. Eventually I took Dan's name off the scripts I was writing. Who needs Patrick Dancing Swayze anyway?
But writing with someone is magnificent. It's like jamming in a band. You follow each other, sometimes into dead ends, sometimes finding a wonderful new riff.
As my script writing continued, I ended up writing with some incredible people. In my mind's eye, I was Billy Wilder with IAL Diamond. One of us always had to pace. It was the unsaid rule.
Novel writing is not the same as screenwriting. I started writing alone. Pacing alone is not as much fun as with a writing partner. You just look like one of those sad polar bears in a dirty pen pining after a friend.
I had friends reading as I wrote, a great incentive, and it worked with the Wonder series especially, which is written in the style of Victorian potboilers, full of cliff hangers, to keep them hooked.
But friends are not critical enough. Unless they're writers.
Hence my Writers Group. There's two of us ('Group' sounds better than Writing Pair or Writing Couple) and we read each other's work. Last night Phil told me he hated one character, a tiny character who doesn't add to the plot (but does to the world), he hated this character SO much, it effected the whole scene. Hated. The character's name is Alan. How can anyone hate an Alan?
He also asked an extremely pertinent question about the world of the 'big bad' that I hadn't thought of which gave me a marvelous idea that enriches the world of The Wonder and the work itself. I doubt I was as helpful to Phil, but I think we managed to find the elusive motivation he needed for one of his characters.
So yeah. Writers Groups. They're good. Indispensable in my mind.
This is Phil, by the way. The man who hated my Alan.Philip Adie
That was enough for me. I asked Dan to read everything I wrote, he would critique it, I'd put his name on the front of the script with mine and he'd give it to his sister to read. That was the plan. Then I would obviously be making a movie with Patrick Dancing Swayze directed by a man from Star Trek TNG.
That didn't happen. Eventually I took Dan's name off the scripts I was writing. Who needs Patrick Dancing Swayze anyway?
But writing with someone is magnificent. It's like jamming in a band. You follow each other, sometimes into dead ends, sometimes finding a wonderful new riff.
As my script writing continued, I ended up writing with some incredible people. In my mind's eye, I was Billy Wilder with IAL Diamond. One of us always had to pace. It was the unsaid rule.
Novel writing is not the same as screenwriting. I started writing alone. Pacing alone is not as much fun as with a writing partner. You just look like one of those sad polar bears in a dirty pen pining after a friend.
I had friends reading as I wrote, a great incentive, and it worked with the Wonder series especially, which is written in the style of Victorian potboilers, full of cliff hangers, to keep them hooked.
But friends are not critical enough. Unless they're writers.
Hence my Writers Group. There's two of us ('Group' sounds better than Writing Pair or Writing Couple) and we read each other's work. Last night Phil told me he hated one character, a tiny character who doesn't add to the plot (but does to the world), he hated this character SO much, it effected the whole scene. Hated. The character's name is Alan. How can anyone hate an Alan?
He also asked an extremely pertinent question about the world of the 'big bad' that I hadn't thought of which gave me a marvelous idea that enriches the world of The Wonder and the work itself. I doubt I was as helpful to Phil, but I think we managed to find the elusive motivation he needed for one of his characters.
So yeah. Writers Groups. They're good. Indispensable in my mind.
This is Phil, by the way. The man who hated my Alan.Philip Adie
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