Dispatch From The Quest: Waka Brown
Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.
Today: Waka waxes eloquent on the value of working with other writers:
In my day job, I write supplementary social studies curriculum units. There are a lot of similarities to screenwriting, (in particular if I were ever hired to write on a particular topic, or rewrite an existing one) in that I’m assigned a topic and then I come up with lessons. Sometimes an expert is called in to write the content handouts and I write the activities. Sometimes, I have to research from often a knowledge point close to “zero,” come up to speed on the topic, and then write lessons that are meaningful and accessible to a middle- and high-school audience. Especially when I’m the sole author of a unit, I ask for help. I scour the Internet for information. I write to people I don’t know for permission to use their photographs or their stories. I ask teachers to fieldtest my lessons. They ask their students for feedback. Always, ALWAYS their help makes the end product better.
For the story I’ve been working on currently, I’ve also been receiving a lot of help. Although my natural inclination is to hole up and write by myself, tell myself “this is genius!” and not ask for help, for this story, I’ve been offered a lot of help, and I’ve accepted it. Sandy has put me in touch with a friend of hers who works at a place similar to where my story takes place. Miranda sends me info about similar projects and initiatives similar to ones that are taking place in my script. I needed a business plan, and since the bulk of my entire career has been working for non-profits, I could only think of business ideas such as, “I wish there was something that would get my kids ready for school in five minutes when I tell them they have five minutes to get ready. Like a giant claw.” This business plan issue had been plaguing me for weeks, so this past week, I asked Troy and Christian (who have extensive tech and business experience) for help and BAM! less than a day later, they came up with something usable, unique, and better than anything I’d come up with after almost a month of trying to figure it out on my own. Since I’m quite a bit older than my protagonist, I asked Paul if he had any insights into my protagonist’s environment. He came up with some gems. And of course, over all of us presides Scott, who in addition to his guidance and insights, just sent me a disturbing article about an incident in a place similar to my story setting that I’m sure I can use somehow (Yes, I know I’m being very vague).
So even though this Dispatch doesn’t really have anything to do with the Four Themelines assignment we had this week, I’ve been thinking about this issue of asking for help all this week. I don’t think it ever hurts, and it always, ALWAYS helps.
Waka’s observations speak to two valuable aspects of The Quest.
First, it is a Writers Group. That is a select set of writers, all with a common goal — to pound out a solid first draft — and each committed to helping each other in the process. This is something you can do and should do, as long as the other writers in your group are both knowledgeable and in sync with your writer’s personality.
Second, it is a Workshop. This involves a Writers Group, but one with a specific time frame. In this case 24 weeks. There is something about a set of writers involved in a workshop environment with deadlines that can create amazing insights.
I’ve probably run 100 or more writing workshops in my time, online and on-site, 4 days, 1 week, 6 weeks, 10 weeks, up to 24 weeks, and I’ve seen this phenomenon over and over and over again. There’s something about a like-minded, focused set of writers working on each others’ stories that can generate incredible energy and remarkable discoveries.
I experienced this again just last week in Las Vegas for the Black List Screenwriters Lab. On Wednesday, I moderated three 2-hour sessions, the first in which I asked the writers to reflect on five questions about their current script draft as well as their goals, then went through each of their answers individually and as a group. In the afternoon, we spent about 40 minutes on each of their stories. And I think it’s safe to say those sessions were hugely successful, much of what those writers took away from the week emerging in that workshop environment.
It’s experiences like that which led me to create the very first Quest 4-Day Writing Workshop which I’ll running next week in Santa Monica. We have a great group of writers, each with an interesting story concept, each with an intriguing creative background. I am confident we, as a group, will conjure up some creative magic and key insights on each of their projects.
Just like Waka has discovered with The Quest: Writers helping writers. There’s something very special — and inspiring — about that.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch From The Quest.
About Waka: Kansan turned Californian turned Oregonian. Fan of Nat Faxon & Jim Rash, Richard Curtis, Tina Fey (who isn’t?), & I still use a $30 Tracfone @wakatb.