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“The smiles of the unhappiest are often the widest.” – Mokokoma Mokhonoana In Jerry Stahl’s memoir, Permanent Midnight, he shares his story of being a successful television writer by day and...

“Where did that come from?” I believe there is something we writers are collectively seeking. We are all attempting to convey an experience, a true moment, to tell a story that somehow...

What’s the point of an outline? Whether consciously or not, every writer is in search of a process. A lot of writers want to dive right into their first drafts and start amassing pages. Though...

A director told me once that if you put two actors together in a scene without directing them or staging the scene, the conflict would begin to diminish. If the actors were on opposite sides of the...

“Film is a dramatized reality and it is the director’s job to make it appear real . . . an audience should not be conscious of technique.” – David Lean Our idea of the story is never the whole...

“It is a parable of art that, to be universal, you must be specific. Otherwise, you are just talking about an abstraction. So you have to talk about a particular person and a particular place...

Some of you may be writing ensemble screenplays with multiple storylines and scratching your head wondering who your protagonist is. The key is two-fold. First, find the character that drives the...

Every writer hears the old song: “Write what you know.” This can be misunderstood. The fact is, we don’t write what we know, but rather, we write the nature of our experience. A plumber doesn’t have...

There are myths that prevent you from not only completing your story, but keep you from even getting started. Some of these myths are concocted by the world out there, and some are vague terrors that...

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” – Anne Lamott It’s funny how guilt...

Writers frequently come to me and say: “I have three ideas. Which one should I write next?” In the 90-day workshops, one of the first exercises we do is we write for five minutes...

It seems it should go without saying that you are uniquely qualified to write your memoir. And yet, the voices lurk at the edges of your consciousness: Who do I think I am? Am I a fraud? A wannabe? We...

Finding Your Way As you write each day, you discover your own process. You begin to see there is no “right way” to create and that your objective is simply to let the story live. The first draft is a...

What is the Truth of your story? OK, you’ve outlined your story and you’re getting ready to write your first draft. But something doesn’t feel right. You tell yourself that you’re not ready, that you...

Redundancy is not only a sign of lazy writing; it can also pull us out of the story by interrupting the narrative flow. There are many types of redundancies in writing, from rehashing story...

“I’ve given my memoirs far more thought than any of my marriages. You can’t divorce a book.“—Gloria Swanson Sticking to “What Really Happened” might cause a disconnect In...

Always keep your ideal reader close by in your mind asking “Why?” Our subconscious is perfectly designed for this process. It already knows the story. Our only job is to remain curious and...

Be open to possibilities When I wrote my first novel Diamond Dogs, I had the idea that my hero, a high school senior, gets rid of the body. He accidentally kills a kid while driving late one night on...