Last night, I watched a bad television show. Every element in it was a loser: the story combined romantic comedy, slapstick farce, a wearisome detective story involving diamond smugglers who put the loot inside a frozen fish….you get the idea. I should have hated it.

Parts of the film did make me yawn. The 'exotic' setting – the filmmakers had gone all the way from sunny LA to sunnier Acapulco. The smoochies between hero and heroine. The insanely convoluted plot: who's in the honeymoon suite now? Whose side is the customs agent on? When is David Warner going to show up (he's on the cast list), and what ridiculous thing will he be required to say? (He does that so well.) And on and on.

But what kept me watching was the interaction of two of the characters. The 'hero' – he's a dodgy, but engaging fellow – and the teams' new partner, a plump, middleaged woman who knows no fear. It helped that the show in question was Remington Steele, and the actors were Pierce Brosnan, looking very young, and Doris Roberts, looking like Doris Roberts. That lady's amazing. She steals every scene she's in. You're in love.

Obviously, while the producers, writers, and other actors were trying to film a boring piece of formula TV, Brosnan and Roberts were making a buddy picture about a young man and a motherly woman. When she drives the speedboat (which she doesn't really know how to do) while he parasails across the bay to rescue the heroine, all to James Bond-style background music, you laugh and cheer. Somehow, something cool happened here. And it was due to the actors.

'Yes, yes,' you say. 'But we're talking about writing. We can never choose our actors. We have to be telling a story.' That is what I'm talking about.

You can do that too, as a writer. Take a tired old formula. Don't try to 'turn it on its head'. Don't try anything. Just throw in some more realistic characters than usual. Instead of the perfect honey-blonde heroine and the straight-out-of-GQ hero, try throwing in a schlub from a small town, or Brooklyn. Or an eccentric professional dog walker. Or anybody you know well.

Then – and this is the key – let them have their head. Don't try to micromanage the action. Figure out what they would do in the circumstances. Let them tell you how it feels, what they're thinking, how they react to the challenge. Naturally, comedy will ensue. Naturally, things won't go as planned. And naturally, you'll come up with what director Kenneth Branagh calls 'happy accidents'. Try it.

What you'll get, if you're lucky, is a natural deconstruction of the boring genre fiction you started with. It might be really valuable. At the very least, it will be a useful exercise, and a fun way to get the creative juices flowing. You might even invent a phrase or two, or try out a few narrative tricks you didn't know you had. And you might meet some interesting new characters.

Remember, until you publish somewhere, none of that is written in stone. You haven't messed anything up. Just as pencils have erasers, and computers back buttons, you've got the ability to restart your story as many times as you like. Your character can morph. Let her/him try on a few different costumes.

The key to all this is to keep a light hold on the reins. Too often, we try to do all the writing, instead of letting the material do the writing for us. Cultivate a sense of creative laziness. Yesterday, I wrote a 3-minute educational script. Half the work consisted of cut and paste. The trick was to know what to cut, and what to paste, if you know what I mean.

Do you remember the old joke about the washing machine repairman? He takes a look at the malfunctioning object, gives it a judicious kick, and it starts. Then he demands $80.

'What?' yells the outraged appliance owner. 'You only spent five minutes working.'

'That's right,' replies the repairman calmly. 'And $5 is for the five minutes' work. The other $75 is for knowing where to kick.'

Respect the need to develop those instincts. Let your narrative run a bit, while you nudge it with your foot here and there. The secret's in knowing where to kick.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

29.06.15 Front Page

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