Best writing tip I have ever gotten?

Jule Selbo

Her words still haunt me – and I use them almost every writing day.

Where did the best writing tip I have ever gotten come from?

Back up twenty or so years. When I was working in Los Angeles as a screenwriter. I had a great friend in my book club. I admired her because she seemed to read three books a week, see every studio and independent movie that came out, raise her daughters to have a passion for art and literature, she was tall and blond and had married a short, funny guy – and she loved writing. I admired her because I found her to be warm, smart and a no-bull-shitter.

And she gave me this advice and although she’s moved to Australia and we don’t even correspond anymore – I’ll never forget her.

I was working for the networks and studios as a screenwriter and had been doing projects on assignment (meaning I had a lot of executives with their fingers in the idea/execution of the script I was getting paid to write and I, by contract, had to seriously consider their notes and thus I often felt I was writing to make someone else happy) and I was desperate to find out what was in my head. I wanted to write a story that belonged to me – with “no interference”.

So I gave myself a few months “off” to do that. Basically to write what is called a “spec” screenplay.  One that you are not getting paid to write and that, after its completion, you hope to take into the market as an example of “your own voice”.

Not to say that the screenwriting assignment jobs weren’t fun (for the most part I had a blast) and I was very happy to have them – (pay the mortgage, send the kid to school, put gas in the car and all that) but we writers – the reasons we put pen to paper or fingertips to our computer keys are often deeper than ‘it’s a job’.

Joan Didion if often quoted as saying: “I write to find out what I am thinking.” I looked up her quote and the Huffington Post actually noted that she went on a bit longer: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I want, what I fear, what I see and what it means to me.”

So I set out to do that. I wrote the spec screenplay (it was a Western that explored personal justice and dreams of early settlers). I had a great time, creating characters with ideas and actions, conflicts and dreams and struggles to find their place in a new America.

After I completed a pretty good first draft (100 pages, screenplay format), I asked my tall, blond, no-bull-shitter friend to read it.  Overall, her response to the script was positive and she had a lot of thumbs-up on the pages. But there were two pivotal scenes that she circled in red pen and wrote in the margins:

“YOU CAN DO BETTER HERE.”

Her note threw me for a loop at first.  I stared at the screenplay pages and remembered how hard I worked to find the right words and actions to make the scenes come to life. And if she thought something needed changing, couldn’t she be more specific? What exactly did she think needed changing? Plot? Character? Action? This comment was way too general!

After I settled down from the irritation, I looked more closely at the scenes.

Hmmm.

And I realized what my friend had given to me was really amazing advice. Because she was telling me that she had confidence in me and that I should have confidence in myself that I could make these two pivotal scenes “better”. That I had the capability, the skills, the determination and discipline to do BETTER.

The first word started to get to me: You.  Not “it”.

And “better” in my own way.  Think about it, it’s your story. Your characters. Your themes.

I’ll never forget those words she wrote in thick red felt pen. So simple. But her confidence fed my confidence and it worked for me.  When I hit a bump and I’m searching for the right word or sentence or plot point and come up with one that is almost okay, I circle it and write next to it in large letters:

Jule – you can do better.

Sometimes it reads:  Hey dingbat, you can do better.

Or: YCDB

Or: Fix later –  ‘cause you can do better.

Or: You lazy sack of doubt, just remember, you can do better.

Maybe not in that exact moment at the computer, maybe not a hour later when frustration or exhaustion or hunger or laziness or aggravation at the world is sitting on my shoulder. But LATER, when I am in a space to be nicer to myself and ENJOY digging deeper into that plot point or sentence or paragraph or idea…

You can do it.

I have the confidence that I can do it.

And when I do go back and work it again,  it usually—at least in my opinion—it does get better.

**

**Joan Didion: Year of Magical Thinking, Play it As It Lays, Notes to John and more: novelist and journalist.