Summer of '84

[kleenexwoman]

I think I want to adapt things to screenplays for a living. I like writing, but I'm so shit at creating truly original characters, and adapting things to screenplays can give you a lot of leeway to fiddle with characters and dialogue and plot without having to spend the effort building your own stuff up from scratch. It's like fanfic, in a way.

The next project I want to tackle is turning 1984 into a romantic comedy. I THINK IT CAN BE DONE.

Comments

[ladybugandbee.livejournal.com]

Oh shit, I love 1984 so much- that would be amazing XD

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

I find that using real life characters and adapting them is the best route to 'original' characters. Either that or you just write and write and write until your characters become real.

When I was at school I used to do creative writing twice - once to get the plot right and a second time to make it read better. I'm now adopting that with my novel, which is a much bigger undertaking, but in the course of it, the characters are getting much more real (something that your advice has helped me with in one case).

[pianolessdevil.livejournal.com]

IT can be DONE, and IT will be EPIC. :D

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

The next project I want to tackle is turning 1984 into a romantic comedy.

I'd like to see it done as a musical. It needs singing and dancing!

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

I find that using real life characters and adapting them is the best route to 'original' characters.
aaah but what if people read my stories and know it's them they'll know
I still shy away from that--a lot of people in the first couple years of Fiction Collective used to base their stories on people they knew, and the stories were always flat and sort of pointless. It can be very hard to write about someone you personally know and be able to communicate their complexity to the audience, for the same reason that geniuses are often not good teachers.

OTOH if you mean basing them off of people you vaguely know or famous people in non-famous scenarios, then I am all up for that.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Didn't David Bowie try that? :( ...more dystopias need singing and dancing, though. Brave New World strikes me as ripe for this sort of adaptation.

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

the stories were always flat and sort of pointless

That's not my experience. But then I know some real 'characters' ;) One in particular not only lit up the story, but when he read it himself he was happier than I have ever seen him IRL.

Every year that goes by I become more convinced that I understood nothing about people when I was twenty, and not very much when I was thirty. As for how I could explain why that is to someone younger, it seems to have defeated everyone else as well.

[neverreal.livejournal.com]

Sounds good! I'm crap at making up characters, too.

[edna-blackadder.livejournal.com]

I know you said screenplays, but I feel I ought to link you to Quirk Books, a.k.a. the publishers behind Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. They might like that idea.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it might have just been the authors, who were largely using the other people to write about themselves...but it still scared me away from doing it. Perhaps when I'm older and have a better grasp of people.

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

"using the other people to write about themselves"

Basically that's just masturbation. Why do they bother?

From the poetry I've seen you produce I think you have something in you that is original and worthwhile, but when you refer to the writer's collective it gives me the impression that you would do better to develop self confidence and do what you think is right, or to study writers that you find inspiring, rather than spend time on the collective. I might be entirely wrong, but that's the impression I get from here.

One of the nice things about conventional poetic forms is that they act as critic and show you how to improve - you can develop an ability to write the same thing many different ways just by sticking to the task of fulfilling the form, and you get the benefit of rhythm. Rhythmic poetry is something that you can teach yourself to do well without a bunch of would be's to rely on for criticism.

I'm lucky enough to have a retired English teacher (Sylvia)working on my prose style, and her input is worth having (though she is scarily hard to please, she can be pleased!) and before that Sarah was much the same with my poetry. People are useful in different ways - some just for encouragement and kindness. But I wouldn't swap Sarah and Sylvia for any other group of people anywhere. Everything that they say makes a difference, and some of it you just can't get anywhere else; each of them is quite unique in their approach. If it works, do it. If it doesn't, why do it? That's my attitude.

[kleenexwoman.livejournal.com]

Basically that's just masturbation. Why do they bother?
The question, it has answered itself.

when you refer to the writer's collective it gives me the impression that you would do better to develop self confidence and do what you think is right, or to study writers that you find inspiring, rather than spend time on the collective
I learned a lot about style and ideas from the writers I find inspiring, but I also learned a lot about construction and editing from the FC...as well as what not to do and what I don't want to write about. They were a good mix of transcendent, competent, and terrible writers, and I got to see a lot of variance. Editing and development has always been the hardest thing for me to do, and while I can learn a lot from just reading, it's very hard to learn the writing and editing process from reading the finished product. Writing about thinly-disguised real people may be a good exercise, but it always seems to me to be a transitional phase; finished characters are composites of real people blended to create one. I am trying to experiment and write what I want to and what I find right; at the moment, I don't feel comfortable writing about real people, and I have very little desire to write anything as delicate and evocative as poetry. That may change, as it often has.

If it works, do it. If it doesn't, why do it? That's my attitude.
A very good attitude it is, and I'm glad you've found a process and peer group that works for you. I miss the Fiction Collective and their input, and the Poetry Collective and their playfulness, but I'm slowly finding other people who I'm on the same wavelength with and whose input I can trust. :)

[sir-dave.livejournal.com]

I may very well just be spoiled ;) Ever since writing mattered to me I have been stuck between two women, one of whom could see nothing wrong with what I did and one who could see all the faults and make positive suggestions. It hasn't even been the same two women! Five have shared the roles between them, always two at once. But it's a very powerful combination - good teaching in one and absolute belief in you in the other.