[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: You talked about writing yourself into your process for the new book that you’re doing How to Be Yourself.
I’ve heard you say in another interview that you shine when you’re revising and you can see it from far away and then get into it and go,
“This is great. I love it. It’s going somewhere.”
John Vorhaus, Author/Artist/Screenwriter: When I’m writing a manuscript or a script, there’s a certain place where the words end and the blank page begins.
I call this place ‘The face of the wave.‘
I’m on the face of the wave.
I don’t know what’s going to come next.
As a personal matter, I’m not comfortable there.
It’s not my happy place as a writer.
And so I just try to blast through content without caring about quality just to get from the beginning to the end of the thing so that I can enter the place I feel comfortable with which is revising.
I love taking text and solving it like a crossword puzzle.
Story Questions: How To Unlock Your Story One Question At A Time (PDF) on Payhip
What am I trying to say here?
Am I saying it with the appropriate voice and with the appropriate music?
What do I mean by this?
Voice is my cleverness and music is the way the words sound.
Give you an example…
I was wrestling with this just yesterday.
The phrase was my self discipline comes and goes like fill in the blank.
And I was casting about for fill in the blank and I came up with two.
Comes and goes like sketchy Wi-Fi
Or
Comes and goes like hotel Wi-Fi.
And now I’m having an argument with myself because…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
BUY THE BOOK – CARTOONS FOR SMART PEOPLE: The First One Hundred
BUY THE BOOK – THE COMEDY WRITER’S COMPANION
BUY THE BOOK – THE COMIC TOOLBOX: How to be Funny Even if You’re Not
BIO:
John Vorhaus is best known for his comedy-writing classic, The Comic Toolbox: How to be Funny Even if You’re Not. He has taught and trained writers in 37 countries on five continents at last count, and created TV shows of his own in Nicaragua, Romania and elsewhere. His writing credits include dozens of teleplays and screenplays, plus seven novels and some two dozen works of non-fiction. His latest book is the little book of STANDUP. Vorhaus is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Writers Guild of America. He lives in Southern California and secretly controls the world from JohnVorhaus.com.
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New book from Film Courage! – See it on Payhip here
New book from Film Courage! – See it on Payhip here
