“Screenwriting & Solitude”

Scott at ScreenwritingFromIowa with this terrific post:

“(Screenwriting is) all pretty much sitting alone in a room staring at a screen. That solitude is interesting to me.”
Screenwriter David Koepp (Spider-Man, Jurassic Park)

“Solitude is the school of genius.”
Edward Gibbon (Writer of the classic book, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire)

Playing off the quote I heard and wrote about yesterday — “Solitude is creativity’s best friend.” — I thought I’d explore that a bit from the perspective of screenwriting. Of course, there are many layers and definitions of solitude than is fitting to cover here, so this is only meant as a quick overview.

In a happy accident yesterday I stumbled upon Anthony Storr’s book Solitude. I picked it up at a used bookstore years ago but never read it and had it in my car to donate to the library. So I read a chunk of it last night and found it an interesting read on the subject.

“The majority of poets, novelist, composers, and, to a lesser extent, of painters and sculptors, are bound to spend a great deal of time alone.”
Anthony Storr

So true. One of the reasons I’m drawn to writing late at night is because it accentuates my sense of solitude. I wrote about that here:

The night is my friend.
No phones.
No appointments.
Nothing to distract me.
No one to talk to…
Except the characters in my story.

Is there anything more profoundly intense than pounding out pages…
Yanked from that story universe you’ve created…
Then in the thick silence of night’s deep darkness…
Read aloud what you’ve written?
Not much above a whisper…
Don’t want to wake all the ‘normal’ people in the household.
Just you…
Your story…
And the blackness enveloping the both of you…
A silent witness to the magic of the muses you’ve managed to wrangle.

How about you? Do you like the solitude? Time alone? The quiet? Or are one someone who goes to cafes and coffee shops, needing the stimulation of the outside world to write?

For the rest of Scott’s post, filled with lots of quotes from screenwriters, go here.

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