Update: David Milch

So it all started with me posting excerpts from five lectures given by David Milch on “The Writer’s Voice”:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Then David McMillan made this comment:

Thanks for posting these, Scott. I’ve seen Milch at work in the writers room, and he’s pretty mesmerizing. But it’s great to see his words printed out.

My response:

@David: You’ve got the makings of great writer as you totally hooked me with your comment “I’ve seen Milch at work in the writer’s room.” If you’d care to share more, please do as I’m sure we’d all love to hear your insights. Short of that, if you want to email me and keep it private, that’s fine, too.

And David emailed me:

I did indeed get a chance to spend a day in Milch’s writers room for Deadwood and it was quite a memorable experience (as well as one that can’t really be duplicated in other writers rooms).

So I asked if I could post the rest of his email to which David agreed:

Having been lucky enough to work with, interview, and hang out with a number of professional screenwriters, one of the things I’ve learned is that while there are certainly fundamentals to the screenwriting craft, every writer discovers their own process for building a story. However, among the writers I’ve encountered, Milch’s process is certainly the most intuitive. And frankly, it’s not one I could see myself adopting, since he’s a genius and I’m not. Milch shuns outlines and discovers a scene in the moment he’s writing it…which is usually the day before the scene is supposed to be shot. This is typically done in the presence of the writing staff and several other “visitors,” and once a scene is written, or rather dictated to his assistant (Milch doesn’t type), he’ll then discuss the rationale for the scene and his creative choices in professorial fashion. It’s pretty exciting to watch, and Milch is a captivating lecturer — but it’s also not how most TV showrunners operate (nor could they really, given the enormous time constraints of most TV shows). Milch is quite fortunate to have found a patient and creatively understanding home at HBO.

My honest opinion about David Milch is that his methods should come with a disclaimer: don’t try this at home unless you’re a genius. Most writers I know (even the terrific ones) have to slog through an outline, work and re-work the structure, and spend a great deal of time and effort on building their story and defining their characters before it’s ready for prime time. It’s a constant back-and-forth between preparation and intuition. And I think the majority of non-genius writers (which is to say, the majority of writers) usually have to develop a process that maintains a healthy and productive balance between the two. Because ultimately, you need both. (Though in my experience, most novice writers tend to think they can wing it and don’t spend as much time on preparation. I was once of those writers. Now I’ve learned better.) 

That said, I think Milch is tremendously wise when it comes to his belief that writers should see writing as a spiritual vocation — not simply as a means to getting rich. So while my methods don’t exactly mirror his, I still find him, and his thoughts on the creative process, very inspiring.

Just as a reminder of what we’re talking about here, some clips. First from “NYPD Blue”:

Then “Deadwood”:

Being a spiritual sort myself, I’ve always been fascinated with Milch’s take on writing. We can nail down every jot and tittle of what we have to do to be a writer. But there’s always… always magic involved. You can not take a story from here to there strictly through the logic of plotting. It’s not a fill-in-the-blanks, paint-by-numbers thing.

Writing is a process. That’s the best we humans can do as we flail around, scooping our hands through the sky of ideas, hoping and praying that through persistence, faith, and plain dumb luck what we end up with in those 120 pages of three-hole paper captures some magic.

There are heralds out there who have insight into that process. None of them has a corner on the market as the process is organic and varies from writer to writer, story to story. But we can learn from these heralds.

David Milch is one such herald.

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