All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.
Robert MckeeRead
Secure writers don't sell first drafts. They patiently rewrite until the script is as director-ready, as actor-ready as possible. Unfinished work invites tampering, while polished, mature work seals its integrity.
Interpretation
Successful writers refine their work through multiple revisions to ensure quality and integrity.
This quote by Robert Mckee emphasizes the importance of patience and thoroughness in the writing process. It suggests that great writing is not produced in haste; instead, it requires careful rewriting and editing to transform initial drafts into polished scripts that are ready for directors and actors. The underlying message is that unfinished work is vulnerable to changes and misinterpretations, while well-crafted pieces maintain their intended impact and quality.
In practice
A motivational speech about the importance of diligence in creative endeavors.
All writing is discipline, but screenwriting is a drill sergeant.
Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.
Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today.
Good story' means something worth telling that the world wants to hear. Finding this is your lonely task...But the love of a good story, of terrific characters and a world driven by your passion, courage, and creative gifts is still not enough. Your goal must be a good story well told.
Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.
We rarely know where we are going; writing is a discovery.
If you interrupt the writing of fast narrative with too much introspection and self-criticism, you will be lucky if you write 500 words a day and you will be disgusted with them into the bargain. By following my formula, you write 2,000 words a day and you aren’t disgusted with them until the book is finished, which will be in about six weeks.
This grant gave me more than memories; it gave me a crucial experience that is formative to all writers: the ability to perceive that we become writers in exile, where what we write is the only link across distance and time…I became a Maryland writer because the community of Juneau took me in.
When I'm working on a book, I constantly retype my own sentences. Every day I go back to page one and just retype what I have. It gets me into a rhythm.
Write the best book you can, the one that demands to be written, no matter what genre it is. Even a trend the trades tell you has gone stale can be revitalized by a superb piece of writing. It'll never be revitalized by someone jumping on a trend bandwagon.
I'm not a very good writer, but I'm an excellent rewriter.
Composing on the typewriter, I find that I am sloughing off all my long sentences which I used to dote upon. Short, staccato, like modern French prose. The typewriter makes for lucidity, but I am not sure that it encourages subtlety.
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