Pen to Paper: The Sitcom Writers’ Prayer

The week began appropriately somber for Memorial Day. Now, let’s start the weekend with something light.

Chuck Lorre is a sitcom writer and creator. His credits include Roseanne, Grace Under Fire, Cybill, Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men, and my favorite, The Big Bang Theory.

But even someone with those impressive writing chops occasionally looks upward and makes requests of a higher power.

Chuck Lorre: The Sitcom Writers’ Prayer.

Pen to Paper: The Great Poem that Almost Wasn’t

Lt. Alexis Helmer was killed and buried on May 2, 1915, a victim of the Battle of St. Julien, one of the four engagements of the Second Battle of Ypres during World War I. A chaplain was not available, and his service was conducted by his friend and former teacher Major John McCrae. McCrae was a surgeon and commanded a field hospital in the Canadian infantry.

The next day, McCrae stole a few minutes from the miseries of his work to write a poem. He had written medical textbooks and was an amateur poet. He looked up occasionally toward the little cemetery where his 22-year-old friend lay. After twenty minutes of writing, he had composed a fifteen-line poem in the rondeau style.

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Pen to Paper: Empathy in Fiction

In his book Homegrown Democrat, Garrison Keillor tells us, “Prizes for brilliance are a dime a dozen: what’s really special is to write something that speaks for others.”

Speaking for others requires empathy: the writer has to have it, and he has to get it into his story and out through his characters so the reader has a chance to catch it. Being merely brilliant suddenly looks pretty easy, doesn’t it?

Sue Monk Kidd, way back in December 2005, wrote about the encounter with a reader that shaped her thinking on writing and empathy. A month ago, Tayari Jones wrote that she can sometimes tell which stories are going to fall flat because their writers don’t have empathy; she also offers an exercise for developing empathy for our characters.

I wouldn’t mind winning one of those dime-a-dozen prizes, but brilliance in writing doesn’t have the kind of shelf life empathy does. Romeo and Juliet and Casablanca aren’t still popular today because they were technically perfect. They last because they speak to and for the human condition. We care about the characters and perhaps think a little differently about some things after encountering them.

Powerful writing gets not merely into our minds but also into our hearts.

ADDENDUM: After posting this, the results of a study were reported: today’s college students test 40% lower in empathy than their counterparts of two and three decades ago. What this could mean for society is pretty scary. What does it mean for writers trying to connect to readers who don’t feel the same emotions we do, or at least not to the same degree?

Pen to Paper: Words and Public Policies

I enjoy Kristen Hoggatt’s “Ask a Poet” column at The Smart Set, an online revival of the old magazine. One can dive in anywhere and be entertained and enlightened by her approach to life through poetry.

The current question someone has asked the poet is timely, coming straight from the headlines. More, it’s relevant to Hoggatt’s personal life, as she relates. Words matter, she reminds us, and convincingly illustrates this conviction with an Emily Dickinson poem.

(You can learn more about Hoggatt and how poetry saved her life here.)

Pen to Paper: Coping through Art

This is about writing in the sense that writing is an art, and being an artist of whatever sort can help carry you through difficult times.

The link is to a beautiful, bittersweet National Public Radio piece about a Smithsonian art exhibition titled The Art of Gaman.

“Gaman means to bear the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity,” says Delphine Hirasuna. She is a third-generation Japanese-American and was imprisoned with her family in one of the rude internment camps during the fearful days after Pearl Harbor. The exhibition is of art created in the camps by American citizens who were deprived of their livelihoods and their liberties because they looked like the enemy. (N.B.: Neither German-Americans nor Italian-Americans suffered similarly.)

The story and the exhibition remind us that art can, in some ways, triumph over the darkness. It can keep us sane and even something resembling happy when happiness is but a distant memory. And out of the darkness can come beauty.

Pen to Paper: Really Listening to ‘High Fidelity’

I’m not a big fan of the cinema, but occasionally I’ll latch onto a movie and not turn it loose until I’ve wrung it dry of its secrets. I have to know why I like it so much; I want to know what makes it tick.

One such movie is High Fidelity, directed by Stephen Frears from Nick Hornby’s wonderful book and  starring John Cusack in a world-class performance.  I’ve studied that movie and learned some valuable things about plotting.  One of the keys to this story is the use of surprise. This is where I learned how crucial surprise can be in fiction.

Hideous, terrible spoilers begin here for those who haven’t viewed the movie. Do as you like, but you’ve been warned.

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Pen to Paper: Best First Lines

I came across the American Book Review’s list of the 100 Best First Lines from Novels. Naturally, such a list can’t please everyone, if indeed anyone, but I don’t know how some of those fairly high on the list got there. Further, why is the 1st Baron Lytton’s infamous “dark and stormy night” on the list at all, let alone at number 22? Ah, well. That’s just what happens when I’m not consulted in such important matters.

I’ve got a couple of proposals of my own that were left off the list. We’ll get to those shortly, and I’ll look forward to seeing your thoughts and suggestions in the comments.

A good first line isn’t crucial. If the story picks up after that, it can survive a mediocre beginning. It’s all a matter of the tone a writer wishes to set for his story. But it’s so much easier to snare a reader with an introduction calculated to be intriguing. That’s always been useful, but in these days of Twitter and Internet-induced ADD it’s becoming increasingly important. Readers permit a writer fewer and fewer characters (not words, not paragraphs: characters) to say something interesting and lead them to the next set of characters. A writer, for his own sake, should quickly set a hook into the reader’s brain and drag him into the story.

Now, for my suggestions for the list. Perhaps neither was considered literary enough to be included, but they do their job beautifully:

“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died? That she was beautiful and brilliant? That she loved Mozart and Bach, the Beatles, and me?”
— Erich Segal, Love Story

“He’d tried. God knew Jor-El had tried. But the end would come sooner even than he had thought. Probably before the sky over Kryptonopolis turned red with daylight one more time. Only a superman could finish pounding together the family-sized starcraft before stresses at the core of the planet splattered Krypton across the galaxy.”
– Elliot S. Maggin, Superman: Last Son of Krypton

(For what it’s worth, I believe Maggin is one of the most underrated writers of our day. That’s what happens when you start in comic books, but his prose and plotting are every bit as good as Arthur C. Clarke’s.)

Your turn: hit the comments.

Pen to Paper: Using Song Lyrics in Fiction

Author and poet Blake Morrison has an article at the Guardian’s website about using song lyrics in your fiction. It’s an excellent cautionary tale, and the moral of the story is given in the lead. Read it here.

In the non-fiction editing I do, I have to let the publisher know if I come across three words or more of lyrics that aren’t in the public domain (generally regarded as anything written before 1923). So what Morrison has written isn’t surprising to me, but I’m glad he’s given us the benefit of his learning curve. (The sums of money are given in British pounds. As of even date, the exchange rate is £1.5 equals $1.)

Morrison’s article refers to the laws in Great Britain, but there’s no substantial difference (so far as I can tell) here in the United States in copyright protections and remedies for violations. All these years, whenever someone has sung The Birthday Song in a TV show or movie or play, or written the words in a work of fiction, they’ve had to pay for the privilege. It’s not in the public domain; the authors have passed on, but Warner Music Group still owns the rights. As a refresher, see the U.S. Copyright Office’s page concerning Fair Use.

There are two simple ways to get around this: use the song’s title to refer to it, or paraphrase the lyrics. Here’s a combined example: “That was Jerry Lee Lewis with his Great Balls of Fire,” the announcer said. Jeff turned the radio off. “The only nerve-shaking and brain-rattling I’m interested in will be when that rocket lifts off tomorrow. That’s the only ball of fire I care about, too.” Do it without the announcer and readers still can figure out what song you’re referring to and it’s safe.

If you’re serious about using some lyrics, you have to contact the person who holds those rights. That can get terribly tricky because ownership of lyrics bounces around like paperbacks at a yard sale. It may well be that neither the lyricist nor the publisher own the rights. If it’s an older song still covered by copyright, you may find the publisher has gone out of business. Then you’re into some detective work on top of whatever the rights owner will charge you.

The laws don’t change just because you’re writing for fun or are selling your work on a limited scale. Here’s an instructive anecdote: Broadway playwright George S. Kaufman discovered that one of his plays was being staged by a summer-stock producer who hadn’t paid for the privilege. The fellow told Kaufman, “It’s only a small, insignificant theater.” Kaufman responded, “Then you’ll go to a small, insignificant jail.”

Re-read Morrison’s lead. That’s the bottom line.