Skills every writer needs: flexibility, curiosity, and conviction
🗳️ Kamala Harris’s VP pick is Tim Walz, spelling disaster for the proper usage of apostrophes. Is it Harris’ or Harris’s? Walz’ or Walz’s? Harris-Walz’ or Harris-Walz’s? And what about Tim Walz’s family? Are they the Walzes or the Walzs? Here’s a cheat sheet.
Issue #136: comedy vs. tragedy and finding your “why”
By Harris Sockel
Every day, veteran screenwriter and film studies professor Scott Myers publishes at least one new resource for writers. Yesterday, it was this list of 90 words with more personality than “looks” (ogles, squints, studies) and 115 words to replace “walks” (lurches, bounds, sashays). Myers sold his first screenplay in 1987 (K-9 with Jim Belushi, a movie starring a mischievous dog). Since then, he’s worked on 30 film and TV projects.
Go Into the Story, Myers’ Medium publication, contains over 30,000 nuggets of writing wisdom by now. Recently, he’s been close-reading Aristotle’s Poetics — a favorite amongst screenwriters, given that Aristotle was the first to define comedy vs. tragedy (one ridicules humans; the other venerates us). Sometimes, Myers zooms way out to discuss general principles of writing anything — like in this post about 10 skills every writer needs. A select few:
- Passion: Be obsessed with your field. If you want to write movies, you first of all have to love watching movies!
- Courage: Risk that readers won’t connect with it, won’t get it, and might hate you for it.
- Flexibility: Some writers see feedback as a gift, others see it as a personal affront — which it’s not.
- Conviction: Believe your story deserves to exist in the world.
- Knowledge: Continually seek out what’s new and challenging (or old and enduring) in your field.
These are skills for writing blockbuster screenplays, sure, but they’re also skills for being successful in whatever you set out to do.
Your daily dose of practical wisdom: on finding your why
The best way to get yourself motivated to do something hard, according to Bridget Webber, is to remind yourself why you’ve chosen to do it in the first place. Ask:
1. What do I want to achieve by doing this task?
2. How will life improve when I reach my goal?
3. What will happen if I don’t accomplish my goal?
4. How can I make doing this thing more enjoyable?
Quiz: Zoom In
Below is a highly zoomed-in version of an image related to one of the stories linked above. If you know what it is, email us: tips@medium.com. First to guess correctly will win a free Medium membership.
Yesterday’s winner: Siddhesh Satam for the correct answer of “milk under a magnifying glass.” Congrats Siddhesh!
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Edited and produced by Scott Lamb & Carly Rose Gillis
Questions, feedback, or story suggestions? Email us: tips@medium.com
