“What we learn to do in the beginning is what we need to do in the end.” (5)
“All the characters that we play are really subsets of ourselves. It’s ourselves in slightly different moods – ourselves carrying a little more emotional freight.” (9)
“Your job is to take that suggestion and discover a theme for the piece.” (17)
“You will find your relationship in the first three lines of your scene. Pay close attention ot those lines – it’s always there.” (19)
“When the players forget the focus of the scene and begin new relationship in every beat, the Harold tends to peter out at the end.” (19)
Del’s General Principles for the Harold 1. You are all supporting actors 2. Always check your impulses 3. Never enter a scene unless you are needed! 4. Save your fellow actor, don’t worry about the piece. 5. Your prime responsibility is to support. 6. Work at the top of your brains at all times. 7. Never underestimate or condescend to your audience. 8. No jokes (unless it is tipped in front that it is a joke). 9. Trust… trust your fellow actors to support you: a) Trust them to come through if you lay something heavy on them. b) Trust yourself. 10. Avoid judging what is going down except in terms of whether it needs help (either by entering or cutting), what can best follow, or how you can support imaginatively if your support is called for. 11. Listen!
“The only real mistake is to ignore the mistakes in their work.” (31)
“Watch the news, familiarize yourself with the classics, find your voice, and form an opinion. If you don’t have anything to say, what is there to be funny about?” (40)
“Confidence brings about calmness. With that comes the ability to think and take the time to come up with the best response possible, rather than quick silly joke.” (41)
“The worst thing that might happen if you look stupid is that people might laugh, and, since we are doing comedy, that’s not a bad thing.” (46)
“Being nervous is great! How often do we get nervous on a daily basis? Being slightly nervous means you care, and you’re alive, and you’re taking some kind of risk. Hooray for being nervous! A friend told me to substitute the word ‘excitement’ for ‘nervous.’ That was you acknowledge the physical feelings without putting a negative spin on things. So to answer your question, sometimes I still get so excited about ‘Weekend Update’ that I want to throw up.” –Amy Poehler (46)
“The audience comes to enjoy a show and escape their own lives for a couple of hours. They don’t want to see you argue and be reminded of how miserable they sometimes are in their everyday existence.” (50)
“People don’t pay good money to watch us judge ourselves.” (65)
“When you indicate that something is funny, it really isn’t.” (67)
“The more you wait to add to the group, the more the jump rope turns into a large steel cable.” (69)
“The people who loved the work were the ones who were noticed.” (81)
“Del used to say that the people who come here with tunnel vision to be stars usually end up in community theater somewhere.” (81)
“Just be devoted to the work, take the time to get good, and the rest will take care of itself.” (81)
“All of you must remember that you will never have done it all. Do not stop creating. The excitement is in the work.” (82)
I just finished reading “The Comic Toolbox” by John Vorhaus. Here’s the quotes I found interesting.
“In blind obeisance to the rules, I forgot to have fun. And jeez, if you can’t have fun in… any creative endeavor, why bother?” (xiv)
“Comedy is truth and pain.” (2)
“People who don’t “get” a joke, or take offense at it, often feel that way because they don’t accept the “truth” that the joke presents.” (5)
“What makes a thing funny is how it impacts the generally held beliefs of the audience hearing the joke.” (5)
“You often don’t have to tell a joke to get a laugh; sometimes you just have to tell the truth.” (6)
“The class clown tells jokes everyone gets while the class nerd tells jokes that only he gets.” (7)
“Most of us have more humor than we know. What we don’t always have is the will to risk, and the will to risk is really the will to fail… a willingness to fail is one of the most valuable tools in your comic toolbox.” (9)
“As it says in the Koran, if you knew how little people thought about you, you wouldn’t worry what they thought.” (11)
“For every ten jokes you tell, nine will be trash. For every ten ideas you have, nine won’t work. For every ten times you risk, nine times you fail.” (12)
“When you expect success, you fear failure. You have something to lose. However, with the rule of nine, your expectations start so low that you have very nearly nothing to lose.” (12)
“The process of failure is vital to the product of success.” (13)
“As long as I dwell on what it’s like to be a made guy, a winner, on can’t concentrate on writing this book – the very thing I’m hoping will make me a made guy in the end.” (14)
“Hope of success can kill comedy just as surely as fear of failure.” (14)
“Require of yourself only that you do what you can do now.” (15)
“Applaud every small victory, because every time you do, you create an environment in which a larger victory can grow.” (15)
“The better you imagine yourself to be, the better you become. And how did you get better? By abandoning all interest in getting better in the first place.” (16)
“You’re concentrating on the process, not the product.” (17)
“Push everything into pigeonholes and in the end all you get are squished pigeons.” (25)
“Make every effort tot move from the general to the specific. Life is better there.” (26)
“Every comic character begins and ends with his strong comic perspective… The comic perspective is a character’s unique way of looking at his world, which differs in a clear and substantial way from the “normal” world view.” (31)
“Comedy flows from a character’s unique, quirky, offbeat way of looking at the world.” (32)
“Take your comic character’s comic perspective to the end of the line.” (34)
“Most failed comic characters fail as a function of their limited exaggeration.” (34)
“Flaws in a comic character work to open emotional distance between a comic character and viewers or readers so that those viewers or readers can comfortably laugh at, say, someone slipping on a banana peel. Without this emotional distance, the truth and the pain of a situation hit too close to home for an audience to find funny. A thing is only funny if it happens to the other guy, and flaws in a character work to make him “the other guy” in a reader’s or viewer’s mind.” (36)
“A comic character, in at least one sense, is the sum of his flaws… A flaw can also be a positive aspect that’s taken too far.” (37)
“Find a flaw and you’ve found a comic character.” (37)
“What you really want is a synergy between flaws and perspective so that some flaws conflict with the perspective while others reinforce it… in the best comic characters, flaws and perspective go to war… flaws reflect his true nature; comic perspective is his fantasy self-image.” (38-39)
“Flaws create conflict within characters, and they create emotional distance between character and audience.” (39)
“We used flaws to drive a wedge between the character and the audience so that the audience could laugh. Now we use humanity to build a bridge between the character and the audience so that the audience can care.” (39)
“All comic characters have humanity. If they don’t, we don’t care. It’s as simple as that.” (40)
“That’s a classic definition of humanity: He’ll do the right thing in a pinch.” (40)
“For every flaw, there is an equal and opposite humanity. The worse you make some aspects of a comic character, the better you must make others.” (41)
“One of the surest ways to create humanity is to give your comic character an indomitable will. No character is more compelling, more engaging, than the one who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal.” (41)
“Be careful in assigning humanity. It’s not enough to say of a character, “ (Sure, he’s a hit man, but he loves his mother so he’s okay.” A character’s humanity must be a real part of his character. If it’s pasted on, you get a cartoon and not a character.” (41)
“Humanity, then, is the sum of a character’s positive human qualities that inspire either sympathy or empathy or both.” (41)
“Find your comic perspective and you have found your comic voice, the platform on which your humor can reliably and consistently stand from now until the day you die. Maybe even beyond. (46)
“Instead of thrashing randomly for inspiration, we can simply generate a list of titles, ask what promise each title makes, and then develop the most promising premises among them.” (48)
“Clash of context is the forced union of incompatibles.” (48)
“Pick a situation and ask yourself what the logical response to that situation would be. Then find the opposite of that response.” (50)
“A comic story is not about a setting or a situation or a predicament, but about strong and enduring lines of conflict between and among the characters.” (60)
“You have to drive them apart with their differences, and yet link them to an overriding common goal or struggle.” (68)
“A well structured story gives joke a place to happen. It tells the audience whose story to follow. If they don’t know how to follow, they don’t know who to care about. If they don’t care, they don’t laugh.” (76)
“Until you decide who your story is about, you have no hope of discovering what your story is about.” (77)
“An interesting and well-constructed comic hero has not one strong need but two: his outer need and his inner need. Put simply, the outer need is what the hero thinks he wants and his inner need is what he really wants.” (79)
“The most interesting heroes have many levels of comic need.” (81)
“If your story is tracking right, you’ll come naturally to the moment when your hero is poised between two things he really wants, two things which are clearly mutually exclusive.” (95)
“There’s no tension in the scene. No tension equals no release. No release equals no laugh.” (118)
“Here’s a guy with everything riding on that bet. There’s so much tension in the scene that the audience is practically begging to laugh, just to ease the tension. This is what you want.” (119)
“Logic and comedy are not always close friends, nor often even nodding acquaintances.” (120)
“It’s hard to find the humor of a scene just by asking, “What’s the humor of this scene?” But it’s easy to ask, “What’s at stake?” And when you know what’s at stake, you’ll know what’s funny, too.” (122)
“People laugh because they care, because they feel your character’s urgency and desire.” (122)
“Your audience has already suspended its disbelief. They don’t want logic, they just want laughs.” (123)
“When you’re confronted with a choice between story logic and story dynamic, always make the boldest, noisiest, most dynamic choice, even if it beggars credibility.” (123)
“Too much is never enough; you can always make a bad situation worse.” (123)
“We make logical choices because we assume that the audience wants them, but this is a false assumption. The best stories have so much boldness in their story choices and pot twists that the audience ignores or forgives lapses in logic. Comedy is not technical writing. If you build something genuinely funny, no one will care if there are a few pieces left over.” (124)
“To sum up comedy and jeopardy, then, take the unfocused, unproductive questions, “How can I make this scene funny?” and replace it with a simpler, smaller, detail-driven questions, “How can I raise the stakes?” Next, divide that question in two: “How can I raise the price of failure?” and “How can I raise the prize for success?” Break those questions down into specifics: “What several outcomes might my hero fear?” “What several outcomes might he crave?” End by asking and dismissing the question, “Is it logical?”” (124)
“The small conflicts reflect the big conflict. What’s being played out thematically is also being played out in the moment.” (126)
“But be aware that too much alliteration soon palls. What’s worse, it calls attention to itself so that your cleverly turned phrase may actually detract from the emotional impact.” (127)
“The best lines in comic writing do three truly marvelous things: They tell the story, tell the truth, and tell a joke, all at the same time. I call this kind of line a three-dimensional joke.” (133)
“You don’t need to pander to your audience, but you don’t want to alienate them either. Unless, of course, alienation is your act.” (137)
“Meeting an audience’s expectation is about the single most useful thing a comic creator can do to win an audience’s allegiance. Violating that expectation, on the other hand, is the kiss o’ death.” (137)
“Not everybody likes Howard Stern’s material, and not everybody’s going to like yours, no matter how carefully you shape and tailor it.” (138)
“Watch the new sitcoms. Try to be the first on your block to write a spec script for a smart new show.” (140)
“There’s no point in writing a spec script for a show you just don’t like, no matter how poplar or smart it may be, for the simple reason that you won’t write the script very well.” (140)
“Comedy is less about laughs than about willful, perverse destruction of a character’s serenity and peace.” (143)
“A sitcom is just a mirror on the world; it tends to tell people exactly what they want to hear. If not, it tends to get canceled.” (143)
“Another quick-and-dirty way to get a line on your sitcom story. Think in the following terms: introduction, complication, consequence, and relevance.” (146)
“If you shortchange your time in outline, it will only come back to haunt you in script.” (150)
“Once you’ve completed a first draft of your story outline, you want to examine it at length for two things: problems and opportunities.” (150)
“When dealing with story problems, you need to think in terms of two kinds of logic: plot logic and story logic. Plot logic is outer logic, the sequence of events that you, the writer, impose on your story. Story logic is the inner logic of your characters, the reasons they have for behaving the way they do. All of your story moves must satisfy both plot logic and story logic. In other words, your characters must do what they do to move the story forward, but their actions have to make sense to the characters themselves.” (151)
“As you rewrite your story outline, make sure that every move every character makes is justified by who that character is, what he wants, and how we understand him to behave.” (151)
“The more time you spend in outline, the better your eventual script will be.” (152)
“Always ask yourself, “What’s the worst possible thing that could happen to this person next?” and then find a way to make that worst thing happen.” (156)
“If you’re not willing ot commit to rewriting and editing, you might as well go drive a track.” (163)
“For every desire you have to improve the work, there will be an equal and opposite desire to protect your ego instead. This creates a dynamic conflict within, and it can make you very unhappy. Eventually you have to decide whom to serve. Will you serve your ego, or will you serve your work?” (163)
“It’s far, far easier to turn bad material into good material, or good material into great material, than it is to get everything (or even anything) right on the first try. Break it down. Mine it, then refine it.” (164)
“At every opportunity, present yourself with the challenge to cut. Why is this a good idea? Because if you force yourself to cut, say, 50% of your existing work, the 50% that remains will have withstood a fairly rigorous test. By natural selection, the strongest material is always left standing. Write long and cut relentlessly, to the benefit of your work.” (165)
“To move forward from this point, I’m going to have to give up some gains.” (165)
“Avoid falling in love with your jokes. Even though it’s funny, who says it can’t be funnier still? Avoid closure; the longer you put off saying you’re done, the better your finish will be.” (168)
“Peers make your best beta testers. Find people working at about your level and within your area of interest. Be willing to return the favor and beta test for them. This not only puts them in your debt, but also gives you a chance to learn from someone else’s mistakes besides your own.” (170)
“Once you tell people what you’re afraid of, you no longer have to worry about their finding that thing out.” (176)
“It’s okay to offend part of your audience if you connect with another part. If you offend too many and amuse too few, though, you’ll have no audience at all. And humor requires an audience.” (179)
“It’s okay if some people really hate your stuff. That means they feel strongly about it, and this admits the possibility that others will love it just as strongly. The place you want to avoid si the vast, bland middle ground where your humor is safe, innocuous, offensive to no one – and thus compelling to no one. You want your humor to move people, and that won’t happen unless your choices are bold.” (179)
“If you’re not as funny as you want to be, perhaps you’re not working hard enough. But rest assured that someone else out there is working hard enough, working twice as hard as you. If you want to be successful, you’re going to have to take a lot more batting practice than you ever imagined. And you’re never going to stop, not even when you become successful. Because as soon as you stop practicing, your skills begin to fade.” (182)
“Talent + Drive + Time = Success” (186)
“With every step I take, I’m moving farther from the beginning. I may never reach the end of the road, but I can always get farther from the start. Just as I focus on process, not product, I also bend my attention to journey, not destination.” (187)
I just finished reading Five Approaches to Acting by David Kaplan. Here’s the parts I found most interesting:
“The five approaches to acting are: identifying tasks, playing episodes, building images, learning the world of the play, and telling a story.” (xxiii)
“The essence of Stanislavsky’s thinking is that behavior and emotions are functions of wanting ot do something for a purpose on the stage.” (4)
“When you don’t know what to do in performance and rehearsal – or when an unforeseen circumstance happens – you can always fall back on the spine of the character, or hope that the super-task will swoop down from your thoughts and save you from disaster.” (18)
“When you define character by obstacles, you don’t define what you need, you define what you do when you don’t get what you need.” (23)
“The key to recreating a living truth on the stage: don’t copy the form of truth; repeat the structure of relationships that go you to the truth.” (24)
“Talent is a relative term. The ability to make love to the camera, for example, was not a recognized talent until film acting called for it.” (27)
“Although the character is an illusion, the emotions of the character are not. You experience real emotions onstage when you play your actions and attempt to accomplish your tasks.” (39)
“In his novel Resurrection, Tolstoy writes: One of the most widespread superstitions is that every man has his own special, definite qualities; that a man is kind, cruel, wise, stupid, energetic, apathetic, etc. men are not like that. We may say of a man that he is more often kind than cruel, oftener wise than stupid, oftener energetic than apathetic, or the reverse; but it would be false to say of one man that he is kind and wise, of another that he is wicked and foolish. And yet we always classify mankind in this way. And this is untrue. Men are like rivers: the water is the same in each, and alike in all; but every river is narrow here, is more rapid there, here slower, there broader, now clear, now cold, now dull, now warm. It is the same with men. Every man carries in himself the germs of every quality, and sometimes one manifests itself, sometimes another, and the man often becomes unlike himself, while still remaining the same man.” (39)
“Many people think a rehearsal process is a series of less bad performances. Their process is to criticize each rehearsal in order to eliminate more and more bad choices until, after painstaking attacks, the choices become stage-worth. A rehearsal process need not be a savage removal of bad choices, but a steady build-up of good and better choices. During productive rehearsals you plant the seeds of what works, watch what flourishes, and encourage what is successful so that it can overtake what isn’t. if you find something that succeeds, the chances are good you will abandon what doesn’t. What doe not help will often drop away naturally.” (42)
“Your earliest responses in rehearsal are like pencil sketches. The historical process of rehearsal and of art (and of life, by the way) is such that all sketches build depth to your eventual choices, even if they are replaced later by more effective ones.” (42)
[During read throughs:] “End and begin sentences with your eyes on the other person, not on the book.” (43)
“As with good lying, acting is slipping in a few untruths among many truths.” (43)
“For dealing with overly dramatic people in life: Let them have their little or gigantic fit. When they’re out of breath, you can pounce.” (45)
“It was intended by Stanislavsky that his audience have compassion for the actions of the actors. No character should be seen as a villain or a hero, but only as a human being with recognizable hopes, dreams, and ambitions with which the audience can identify.” (46)
“No art form, including acting, has any one way of working, any one true method.” (58)
“Episodic acting is where the play is best acted in segments, carefully separated from each other, without continuity.” (62)
“Brecht and Piscator said the actor should prod the audience to judge the action, not seduce them into sharing the character’s emotions. Empathy would confuse the audience about what was going on.” (76)
“Playing oppositions frees actors from thinking that inconsistent behavior is a puzzle to be solved by the revelation of consistent need. Playing oppositions makes incongruity fun, not a problem; the tension of contradiction makes such theater theatrical.” (81)
“As a society and as individuals, we all enter into contracts we don’t recognize, yet these transactions determine our lives.” (103)
“That sums up the intention of episodic acting: play so that everyone in the theater understands.” (116)
“Sarah Bernhardt’s body was unusually thin. She was teased about her thinness as a girl and ridiculed for it as a woman – until her own fame made being slim fashionable.” (122)
“Without personal content, performances are essentially inhuman, even when they are technically proficient.” (124)
“The first use of imagery in rehearsal might be crude, or halting, or just plain wrong. But images get you started; that’s their usefulness. Images give momentum to rehearsals in ways that working towards a task does not. In painting, you have to start with bright color to get bright color.” (133)
“Remember not to deal with other people in life as clichés, but do deal with the characters you are about to play in that way – at first, anyway.” (133)
“Polus brought a funeral urn that contained his own dead son’s ashes onstage with him, so that when he had to weep, he’d have something to cry about.” (146)
“The post war era remembered nostalgically for its stability was also a time of suffocating conformity.” (148)
“The intelligence of a film performance is in the hands of the editor and director.” (154)
“D.W. Griffith ordered pins stuck into babies to make them cry.” (154)
“Personalization is substitution made to correspond with personal history. The question to be answered is not What is this like? but rather How is this like me? This “finding the character in yourself, rather than yourself in the character” can be developed into an art.” (157)
“An emotional narrative is a form of expression, not communication. It unblocks a feeling for the person telling the story, but it ignores the audience.” (160)
“You act AS IF you were reliving the events. You are NOT reliving them; you are remembering them… If you really were reliving uncontrollable rage, you’d forget your lines and smash the face of your partner like a doll. This is not being in the moment; this is being an amateur. The ability to control what you do is what makes you a professional.” (163)
“Care must be taken when using an image from your past not to discuss it – to keep its potency by using it only in performance. The more explicit you are in performance, the better; describing an image robs significance from the experience of acting it.” (163)
“Carry an object onto the stage with you that will be your hidden motor for your work. Keep it small; keep it hidden.” (163)
“As an actor you’re responsible for knowing your lines and not rewriting them because you can’t remember them. On the next level, you’re responsible for understanding what the words you say and listen to mean… The final responsibility, once you do understand what you are saying, is to communicate that understanding to an audience while you’re performing.” (170)
“These may or may not be the values of the audience members, or the playwright, or even of the onstage characters. They are the values of the world in which the play takes place.” (175)
“A big mistake – and a common one – is to think that every character you play is wise, beautiful, strong, and a winner.” (179)
“The environment in which the play was written is often more important for a world of the play analysis than the period in which the play is set.” (184)
“Answering these questions defines the rules of the world of the play: In the world of this play, what is beautiful and what is ugly? In the world of this play, what is strong and what is weak? In the world of this play, what is wisdom and what is ignorance? In the world of this play, what is skill and what is ineptitude? In the world of this play, what is common and what is elite? In the world of this play, what is good and what is evil? In the world of this play, what is polite and what is not polite? In the world of this play, how do people survive? In the world of this play, how do people improve? In the world of this play, how do people win or lose?” (195)
“The value of a world of the play analysis for the actor doesn’t lie in its ability to reproduce history or imitate reality, but in its ability to create meaning. The words and behavior seen and heard in a play by Moliere, as in any other play, are dramatically significant because they establish dramatic actions and human relationships.” (198)
“Too much concern for period detail can divert a performer’s attention form the search for the more significant pattern of the whole text.” (199)
“As an actor, it is important you break the rules without calling attention to yourself or winking at the audience that you know better. Usually, the character breaks the rules without thought to the consequences.” (210)
“A Spanish theory says the second-rate literature of a culture reveals more about that culture than the first-rate literature.” (216)
“If the script is open to only one interpretation – the playwright’s – it probably won’t surive its author’s death, if it lasts that long.” (222)
“The power to place an image in other people’s minds, and to make that image vivid enough to arouse listeners to emotions of their own, is rightly called casting a spell – spell being related to the German word spiel, for “story.”” (226)
“What the audience watches onstage is how the speaker is transformed by telling her story.” (228)
“Improvisers can change what they say to respond to the audience. Performers who honor the words of the text by speaking them as written can still alter the meaning of those words in order to respond.” (248)
“Exclusive reliance on form has its own limitations, as when an outer image tries to mask an inner hollowness.” (292)
In Long Day’s Journey into Night, Eugene O’Neil drew on his father to create a similar actor named James Tyrone. Late in the fourth act, when family secrets are spilling, the old man has this to say about himself: … That God-damned play I bought for a song and made such a great success in – a great money success – it ruined me with its promise of an easy fortune. I didn’t want to do anything else, and by the time I woke up to the fact I’d become a slave to the damned thing.. I’d lose the great talent I once had through years of easy repetition, never learning a new part, never really working ..” (293)
“The founders and great practitioners of acting theories are more often than not synthesizers, not purists.” (296)
“Close-mindedness will prevent you from benefitting from what other people can give you, and over time, it will limit your expertise and freeze a supple response even in your chosen approach. Choosing more than one method is not a sign of weakness; it can be a sign of strength.” (297)
“Not every actor will be good at the same thing. It is self-sabotage to compare yourself with other actors’ skills.” (299)
“Seomtimes the speed and pressure of fast work bring out a bond-rattling intuitive response; sometimes a long time is just enough time to kill of good instincts and dull the spontaneity of execution.” (302)
“I still read books on writing. My philosophy is if I find just one thing of value, even if it’s only a new take on something I already know, it’s worth it.” (2)
“Sun Tzu understood that it was the accumulation of small advantages that added up to long-term victory. You need to view your manuscripts the same way.” (4)
“In any enterprise, quality is job one. Quality is defined by two things: 1. Appeal of the workmanship 2. Absence of defects.” (5)
“David Ogilvy once put it, “In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original unless you can also sell what you create.”” (9)
“Publishers want to publish novelists, writers who can build readerships and make money for the company over the long term. You need to position yourself as someone who can deliver the goods.” (10)
“The essentials of success for a long term writing career… desire, discipline, commitment to craft, patience, honesty, willingness to learn, business-like attitude, rhino skin, long-term view and talent. Talent is the least important. Everyone has some talent. It’s what you do with it that counts.” (11-13)
“A hero knows it takes hard work and a long time to get published; a fool thinks it should happen immediately, because he thinks he’s a hero already.” (16)
“A hero makes his luck; a fool cries about how unlucky he is.” (17)
“A hero recognizes the worth in others; a fool can’t believe others are worth more than he.” (17)
“A hero keeps writing, no matter what, knowing effort is its own reward; a fool eventually quits and complains that the world is unfair. Be a hero.” (17)
“It’s not the will to win that counts, but the will to prepare to win.” (18)
“Write a quota of words every week.” (18)
“Every moment spent whining about your writing career is a moment of creative energy lost.” (27)
“Status, worry, and comparison are ways to madness, not victory.” (33)
“To keep from turning off those who can publish you, you must not be desperate.” (37)
“Take one of your favorite writers, preferably one who has written a book in your genre, look in the mirror, and say, “Behold ____!” Then sit down and write.” (43)
“Playing an instrument, even badly, fires off neurons of creativity in the brain.” (44)
“Open a novel at random. Look at the first complete line on the left-hand page. Put that line in your book, and start a scene with it. After you’ve written the scene, cut the first line and substitute one of your own.” (44)
“The successful novelist will not worry about competition, but will concentrate only on the page ahead.” (47)
“Learn from the greats. Read and study those you admire. But never compare yourself to them. You are becoming the best you, not another them.” (48)
“Harlan Coben says, “if you’re not insecure about your writing, you’re either mailing in forgettable stuff or somebody else is writing for you.” (50)
“The next level holds those who write another novel, because the first one is probably going to be rejected. They do this, because they are novelists, not just someone who happened to write a novel. Next are those who get published. Above that are those who are published multiple times. At the very top is a Wheel of Fortune. This wheel goes around and lands on a book like Cold Mountain. Or The Shack. No one can control this. Your job is to keep moving up the pyramid. Each level presents its own challenges, so concentrate on the ones right in front of you. As you move up, you’ll notice there are fewer people, not more. If you work hard, you might get a novel on the wheel, and that’s as far as you can get. After that, it’s not up to you anymore.” (52)
“Preston Sturges considered the possibility that all he had might be taken away and said, “When the last dime is gone, I’ll sit on the curb with a pencil and a ten-cent notebook, and start the whole thing all over again.” (54)
“The way to get a brilliant idea is to come up with lots of ides, then set aside the ones you don’t use. Set them aside, but don’t delete them. They may come in handy in another project entirely.” (57)
“Create your own stock of visual motivators. Put them where you write. Look at them when you don’t feel like writing, but know you must.” (59) “I like to see a writer’s heart on the page. Heart = passion + purpose. Passion means heat. Strength of feeling. Purpose means you know what you want the reader to feel when she gets to the end of your story. Heart means direction passion so it serves your desired purpose.” (62)
“Finish your novel, because you learn more that way than any other.” (65)
“People may keep you from being a published author but no one can stop you from being a writer. All you have to do is write. And keep writing.” –Katherine Neville. (67)
“Melville can never be accused of writing mere fiction. He was going for it… There is too little time for anyone to be settling for mere fiction.” (69) [Or MERE jokes]
“A novelist takes the long view, the lofty view, and that does not include the price of eggs.” (70)
“Alfred Hitchcock’s axiom: “A good story is life, with the dull parts taken out.”” (72)
“Create characters readers will be drawn to and put them in desperate straits soon.” (72)
“Find ways to write without the infamous inner editor constantly shutting you down. Write hot, revise cool.” (76)
“When you write that first draft… write hard, write fast. Revise the previous day’s writing, then move ahead with what’s in front of you. That’s it. As fast as you comfortably can, until the first draft is done.” (77)
“A professional is someone who does his job, every day, even if he doesn’t feel like it.” (78)
“A pro is someone who writes, whether inspired or not, and keeps on writing.” (78)
“Publishers and agents invest in careers. They want ot know you can do this over and over again.” (78)
“Stephen King says he used to write 1,500 words a day, every day, except his birthday and the 4th of July.” (81)
“Writing “genius,” like any other kind, is 99 percent perspiration.” (81)
“Isaac Asimov, author/editor of seven hundred-plus books, was once asked what he would do if he knew he had only six months to live. “Type faster,” he said.” (83)
“Editors and agents are all looking for the “same thing” only “different.” That’s the elusive marketing angle that tells them: a) we can sell this because similar books have sold before; but b) there’s a freshness to it.” (86)
“Open up a new document and write for five minutes without stopping. Write a list of what can happen that’s worse, letting the thoughts come fast and furious. Don’t’ edit. Be as outrageous as you can be. Then stop, walk around for a couple of minutes, and come back and choose the idea you like best. Rewrite the scene now. Repeat the process for several other scenes.” (94-95)
“For your novel to blast off, your readers have to fall in love with your Lead character.” (96)
“First, figure out what the most positive characteristic of your Lead is… Now, list what battles against that characteristic… Next, create in your Lead’s background a reason for this struggle… Dramatize this, and you can well use the beat as a “reveal” in your novel.” (100)
“Remember, most inner struggle is not tied to the plot. It’s something the Lead brings to the plot from her past, and it is something she will carry with her throughout the story.” (101)
“A great premise will not stand without solid scenes to prop it up.” (107)
“Every scene should have that moment or exchange that is the focal point, the bull’s-eye, the thing you’re aiming at. If your scene doesn’t have a bull’s-eye, it should be cut or rewritten.” (113)
“Sometimes you’ll get stuck. When that happens, I use a pocket thesaurus. Say I’m writing about my character’s background. I need to know what her father did for a living. I pull out my thesaurus, open to a page at random, and take the first word my eyes fall upon. I read that word and all the synonyms. Invariably, I get a web of pictures and possibilities for whatever I’m looking for.” (114)
“People read to worry.” (119)
“People read because they want to have their emotions wrenched by the plight of a character to whom they feel emotionally connected. You do the connecting. You start connecting from paragraph one. If you want to sell your fiction, you must grab the emotions of the reader by putting a character in some kind of discomfort or danger or the possibility thereof. Immediately.” (120)
“The faster we worry about a character, the quicker the bond. And the greater our desire to turn the page.” (123)
“Editors tend to view dream openings with suspicion. I know some wildly successful writers have opened novels with a dream. After you sell eight gazillion copies, you can do it too.” (125)
“Give us the action first, then the setting information.” (127)
“Don’t wait too long to let the reader know why the scene is here, and why it is important.” (128)
“Saying “I love you” is manipulative and cliché. It’s a plea for sympathy. It’s flat. Instead, show your characters loving. Adding the words (or relying on them) actually dilutes the emotional content you’re going for.” (129)
“Characters all alone should do more than think.” (131)
“The Lead character should reach a point near the end where everything looks lost. This can be something outside or inside the character, or both.” (137)
“The Q Factor is something that is set up early in the story that will provide the necessary inspiration or instruction for the character when he needs it most.” (137)
“Backstory is what has happened before the present story begins, usually related to the Lead character’s history.” (142)
“Readers will happily wait a long time for the background if you have a character dealing with a disturbance. Using backstory judiciously is important because it helps bond the reader with the character. Backstory deepens that bond via emotion and sympathy.” (143)
“Go through your opening chapter and highlight every bit of backstory. Cut what can be delayed until later.” (149)
“John Howard Lawson said, “Dialogue must be viewed as a compression and extension of action.”” (152)
“Never have a character say anything that is unconnected to that character’s objective in a scene.” (152)
“Every character in every scene must have an objective, otherwise he shouldn’t be there. Replace him with a chair.” (152)
“Before you write a scene, review in your mind what each character wants at that moment in time.” (153)
“John Huston once remarked that the secret to a successful film was three great scenes, and no weak ones.” (160)
“Three scenes should be elevated relative to the rest. These scenes need to be packed with conflict, emotion, and surprise. All three. Conflict. Emotion. Surprise.” (161)
“A good comedy works when the characters in the comedy think they’re in a tragedy, but the audience knows they are not.” (163)
“You will be published, and compensated, to the degree a publisher sees you bringing value to their table.” (186)
“The market is set up to reward excellence. Although it is imperfect in this regard, you must become excellent to have a shot. You must constantly strive to be better.” (189)
“Decide, in advance, you will never quit. You are a writer. Not someone who wants to write a novel. A writer.” (195)
“If you can write each dya, do it, and meet a quota. Minimum 350 words a day. A baboon can do 350 words a day. Don’t be shown up by a baboon.” (199)
“Take a break, one day a week. I take one whole day off, and don’t write a word. It recharges my batteries, freshens me up for the next day. I find I’m more creative and more energetic.” (199)
“Isaac Asimov had several typewriters around his apartment, each with a different project sitting in it. He’d pick on and type for fifteen minutes.” (200)
“Michael Bishop says, “One may achieve remarkable writerly success while flunking all the major criteria for success as a human being. Try not to do that.” (201)
“A bad agent is worse than no agent.” (204)
“If you can’t take “no,” or if you can’t take criticism, or if you can’t take direction, go back to the dry-cleaning business. You obviously aren’t tough enough for the writing biz.” (205)
“Always ask a prospective agent who she represents, ask to talk with some of her authors, and ask what deals she has done lately.” (206)
“If you recognize a trend, it’s usually too late to jump on the bandwagon.” (216)
“The part of your proposal that is usually read first is page one of your sample chapters. Why? Because it saves time. If you can’t write, the reader doesn’t have to bother with the rest of the package.” (220)
“Unless you can generate a logline that has the ka-ching, you’re not ready to submit.” (223)
“Whether you write literary or commercial fiction, a potent logline is a must.” (223)
“Do not include a self published novel as a “credit” (it’s actually a debit).” (226)
“Don’t be dull and don’t be desperate.” (237)
“One reporter asks, “How did you happen to become a bullfighter?” The matador replied, “I took up bullfighting because of the uncertainty of being a writer.” (239)
“A rejection says one of two things: Either a piece isn’t right for the publisher at that time, or it is not up to their standards. The first is something you can’t change; the second you can. You do it by learning to write better.” (240)
“Writing is a craft. People can learn how to write.” (240)
“I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.” – General George S. Patton (240)
“William Saroyan collected a pile of rejection slips thirty inches high – some seven thousand – before he sold his first short story.” (240)
“Regarding Animal Farm, George Orwell was told, “it is impossible to sell animal stories in the U.S.A.” (241)
{Regarding Social Networking] “Just remember, people aren’t into reading glorified ads. You have to offer them something of value in everything you put out there.” (245)
“For long-term success, design a typical writing day and stick to it.” (247)
“Never end the day at the end of a chapter.” (249)
“Mickey Spillane recalls how, “I’m at a tea party and this guy comes up to me and says ‘What a horrible commentary on the reading habits on Americans to think that you have seven of the top ten bestsellers of all time,’ and I looked at him and I said, ‘You’re lucky I don’t write three more books.’” (253)
“Writing itself is the only known antidote for bad reviews, dings, nasty e-mails, returns, and skeptical relatives.” (255)
“If you want to get anywhere, you have to be authentic. That not only means in your writing, but also in your dealings with other people.” (257)
“Write hard, write with passion, because that is what you do. Don’t waste any time dissing other writers or whining about how tough things are.” (258)
“You are responsible for your own self-discipline. No one can find the time for you, or write the words for you. You must be strict with your standards, too. Don’t settle for the easy, the familiar, the cliché. And at the same time, do not let your aspirations and actions lead to anxiety and distress.” (259)
“If you treat every part as if it were a big one, you’ll book lots of small ones.” (1)
“Ad agencies and directors want to see someone that we believe. We want somebody who is that person in the commercial.” (4)
“If you come in and you’re not as serious as we are, then we don’t want you!” (7)
“The final decision between you and another talented actor who looks just as right for the part as you do may not be about being right for the part at all. It may come down to, “are you a person we want to work with?” An actor who seems to be taking the situation lightly isn’t somebody we want to work with.” (7)
“If your motivation comes purely from the idea that this looks like an easy way to make a few bucks, then you won’t last very long.” (8)
“What happens in that audition studio is really more important than what happens in the commercial.” (8)
“Every character written into any TV commercial, directly or indirectly, has something to do with what’s being sold. They know how they fit in with that program without actually being a salesperson.” (10)
“Dorothy Kelly looks for “a feeling of confidence. A feeling that the person is a professional. Someone who knows what they’re doing so there’s that certain bearing. That the person is in control.” (11)
“One of the things that hindered me as an actor was that I got so hung up on who I thought I wanted people to think I was that I forgot who I was.” (15)
“Advertising is a cutthroat business where agencies spend a lot of time landing a client and, once they ge tone, spend the rest of their time trying not to lose it.” (20)
“Advertising people don’t have much time to get things done, so the one thing that you don’t want to do as an actor is waste their time at an audition.” (20)
“Brand personality. Target market. Tone and manner. These three advertising elements are the DNA of a brand, and therefore, elements that are at the heart of a commercial.” (26)
“You’re always going to be confronted by scripts that don’t track. What do you do there? The best thing is to roll up your sleeves and look for the concept.” (29)
“The creative team wants to know, “Is this ad honest? … Believable? … Clear? … Memorable? … And lastly, they want to know: if we replaced our client’s logo at the end of the spot with one of our competitors, could they say the same thing we’re saying?” (31)
“As far as the client is concerned, their product is the star of the commercial, not you.” (39)
“A TV commercial concept will be directly related to the prospect of either selling something or creating a strong bond between the target market and the advertiser.” (43)
“One giveaway to a brand’s personality is its slogan.” (45)
“Reading for an advertiser where you’ve discovered the style of music they use in their ads could be helpful.” (47)
“Don’t Sell! Actors who can deliver “selly” ad copy without selling are number one in my book.” (51)
“Look for the approval date at the top of the script. That date – or its revision number – is your clue to a change in the commercial.” (58)
“MOS means filming without sound.” (61)
“The best way to play misdirection is with honest conviction.” (69)
“When scenes look short, that doesn’t mean that when you read, you must rush to do them in the allotted time.” (70)
“If they don’t include the name of the advertiser, ask who it is. If they don’t tell you what’s being advertised – a product or a service – find that out, too.” (107)
“It will be infinitely more helpful if you know something about the director’s style and the kind of spots he directs before you go to the initial call.” (108)
“Speak to the casting director or have your agent speak to the casting director and ask, ‘What types of spots does this director do? Is he a comedy director? Is he a drama director? Is he a people director?’” (109)
“When you put on any of these [audition] outfits, it should look like something you wear all the time.” (112)
“If you make it to the callback, wear the same clothes you wore to the audition. That little bit of recognition can go a long way.” (112)
“Never, never wear read; red bleeds on videotape.” (115)
“Don’t ask acting questions like, “What’s my motivation?”” (120)
“Be sure to find out when the callback is being held and when the spot is shooting.” (121)
“Believe that they’re looking for you.” (122)
“Ask if you’re being paired with someone. If so, find someone to run lines with, even if you’re not going to go in with them.” (123)
“The reason there are so many bad commercials on TV is that the scripts are bad to begin with, and only bad actors are willing to sacrifice their integrity to work in them.” (124)
“If you look at the script and think, “This is terrible! I’m not going to do this!” then go to the casting assistant or casting director and politely tell them that you’ve just gotten a call from day care about your kid (or some plausible excuse) and that you’re sorry but you can’t audition. Don’t tell them the spot stinks!” (124)
“The worst thing an actor can do is turn down the spot after he or she gets cast.” (124)
“While in the waiting area, find some place to read the copy out loud so that the first time it comes out of your mouth isn’t when you’re in the studio… If you’re going to go in to read soon, stand up. Stay on your feet so that you can maintain your energy.” (125)
“Always have a jacket and a tie with you so you can switch wardrobe. Likewise, have a ball cap and a denim jacket available.” (126)
“When you pick up the material, you must ask, what can I add to this to make them need me? Why do they need me? .. the most successful people in the business have this attitude: ‘What can I bring to this?’ Every script is a puzzle to solve, a game you can play to try to figure out what you can do with the material. The worse the commercial, the more work you should be doing to make it better.” (128)
“Whether you think it’s the wrong one of the right one, come in with a choice. Even if it’s wrong, you’re better off than having no choice at all.” (130)
“If you decide to make weird script interpretations or do something off the wall purely because you feel it’ll make an impression, that’s a bad choice. Make choices based on the truth you see in the scripts.” (131)
“Slate as yourself because good directors are always looking under the skin for the real person inside. According to director Danny Levinson, “If you slate your name and go into character they can see where you can go. If you’re automatically the character they never know where you started.” (133)
“Turning a line or lines, or a piece of business, into a statement that is overtly “selly” is the mark of an amateur… The last thing we want to see is someone selling something… Unless directed otherwise, please resist the temptation to hammer on lines like these.” (135)
“When you blow a line, or get lost or bobble a prop and you have the presence of mind to keep on going, after you finish it would be appropriate to say, “I know I screwed that line up there,” or, “Obviously I klutzed that prop, so would it be all right if I gave it another shot?”” (139)
“Even if you’re really pissed about being interrupted, don’t show it. Ever. Because if you do, then the director will feel that on the shoot, which is infinitely more chaotic than an audition, you won’t be able to handle it.” (139)
“One of the main reasons the same actors get hired over and over is because they’re cool and flexible; i.e., they’re reliable.” (140)
“Some of the better directors have worked with certain actors, and they’ll alert us to watch out for somebody they like. “Hey, keep an eye out for so-and-so. I worked with her and she’s really good.” An endorsement like that can color our opinion in such a way that even though this anointed talent didn’t really perform well, the director will make us feel that, “look, even if you didn’t see it today, this girl’s gonna do better than anybody else we saw.” In a case like that, it’s a lock that that actor is going to be called back – even if she doesn’t look right for the part.” (147)
“Michael Norman says, “Something I tend to do is, I may see somebody on an initial tape and I’ll think, ‘They’re totally wrong for this, but they’re an interesting character and a good actor.’ And I’ll bring them back to the callback just because I want to meet them. And I’ll want to get their Polaroid and save it for something else, ‘cause I think they’re interesting and I’ve never seen ‘em before. An actor may come in and feel like, ‘Why did they call me back for this? My agent sends me and I’m totally wrong and I don’t get it.’ Well, it may be that the director is interested in your for something you never even thought of.”” (149)
“The best actors I’ve worked with have either been highly intelligent, or they simply are the character that I’m looking for – in which case they don’t have to be intelligent, but they do have to be reasonably good at taking direction.” (150)
“There’s an air about true professionals – they seem to be in complete control, yet so loose at the same time. It’s immediately apparent that they’ve done their homework and that they’re comfortable in the situation. When we see that, our comfort level instantly moves into the warm zone.” (151)
“No matter what, try not to pick up on the energy of the room. Even if it appears that we’re dealing with some kind of bad mojo, don’t play into it.” (156)
“Bernard Hiller recommends doing this: “When you walk in, you’re not walking in to audition. See yourself as going into the shoot. It’s a different attitude. You’re not trying out anything. You’re there already. You’re part of the team, so you’re going in to meet people who are already crazy about you. And even if they look really serious, that’s how people look when they’re really crazy about you.” (156)
“Forget about all the other people in the room. Take focus and seek the director’s attention.” (157)
“If you say, ‘You know, this is a cute script. I like this,’ it sort of breaks the ice and they’ll say, ‘Do you want to take a pass at it?’” (157)
“Actors being too friendly turns me off.” (159)
“The director may decide to push you in a different direction just to see how you handle it.” (159)
“If a director likes you, he may ask for a take that’s a little forced, just so he has something safe to use to sell you to the client.” (161)
[At a callback] “Before they being, they strike out by not asking, “What is it that you’d like me to do?” Don’t ever assume. Just ask and you’ll have begun your dialogue with the director.” (162)
“As soon as somebody gives direction, the actor’s next job is to ask, “What do you mean? Do you mean like this?”” (162)
“It’s the job of the talent to enable the director to start the casting session as quickly as possible. So a crucial quality is the ability to listen.” (164)
“Never show off in the session. Don’t show off during the slate. Don’t draw attention to yourself by being a smart aleck. Don’t try and humor the agency or the casting director. Everybody’s trying to do that. The way to get noticed is to draw attention to yourself by being quiet, highly attentive, and charming. If you quietly communicate that quality, people will notice you.” (165)
“Don’t feel that, by staying longer in the room, you’ll in any way increase your chances of getting the job. On the contrary, you probably reduce your chances.” (165)
[In a callback] “I want to reassure what they did in the initial casting and see if they can duplicate that. It’s very interesting that some people have no clue what they did.” (166)
“Pros just say, ‘Higoodtaseeya,’ and then they get on with the work. No schmoozing, no war stories, just focus – ask the director a good question about the part and go to work.” (169)
“One sure way to lose a part is to play to the director or someone else in the room you think is important.” (169)
“After your audition, hang around for a minute or two in the waiting area.” (172)
“Be yourself, and you’ll find your niche. Or rather, the niche will find you.” (175)
“Headshots and those materials just get thrown away. Agency and production people just toss your stuff in the trash because they’re so busy creating and managing advertising that they don’t have time to pay attention to actors. That’s why casting directors were created, and they should be the focus of your personal advertising campaign.” (180)
