CBS’s drama The Unit, about the lives of the highly trained members of a top-secret military division, was canceled last year, but a memo to its writing staff from its executive producer David Mamet has just surfaced online. (The source appears to be the online writing collective Ink Canada.) If you think you know where this is heading, you might be wrong:
Besides the fact that it’s written in all-caps, there’s nothing particularly ranty, pejorative or potty-mouthed about it. Rather, Mamet lays down an extremely sensible case for what makes good television, imploring them to avoid expository writing for what he characterizes as authentic “drama.” Along the way, he refers repeatedly to the “blue-suited penguins” (probably the copious-note-givers at the network), while passing along some very useful advice (“any time two characters are talking about a third, the scene is a crock of shit”) and helpful writing exercises (“pretend the characters can’t speak and write a silent movie”). Screenwriters, take note: You may think you knew this already, but there’s nothing like Mamet for a good kick-in-the-ass reminder.
“TO THE WRITERS OF THE UNIT
GREETINGS.
AS WE LEARN HOW TO WRITE THIS SHOW, A RECURRING PROBLEM BECOMES CLEAR.
THE PROBLEM IS THIS: TO DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN DRAMA AND NON-DRAMA. LET ME BREAK-IT-DOWN-NOW.
EVERYONE IN CREATION IS SCREAMING AT US TO MAKE THE SHOW CLEAR. WE ARE TASKED WITH, IT SEEMS, CRAMMING A SHITLOAD OF INFORMATION INTO A LITTLE BIT OF TIME.
OUR FRIENDS. THE PENGUINS, THINK THAT WE, THEREFORE, ARE EMPLOYED TO COMMUNICATE INFORMATION — AND, SO, AT TIMES, IT SEEMS TO US.
BUT NOTE:THE AUDIENCE WILL NOT TUNE IN TO WATCH INFORMATION. YOU WOULDN’T, I WOULDN’T. NO ONE WOULD OR WILL. THE AUDIENCE WILL ONLY TUNE IN AND STAY TUNED TO WATCH DRAMA.
QUESTION:WHAT IS DRAMA? DRAMA, AGAIN, IS THE QUEST OF THE HERO TO OVERCOME THOSE THINGS WHICH PREVENT HIM FROM ACHIEVING A SPECIFIC, ACUTE GOAL.
SO: WE, THE WRITERS, MUST ASK OURSELVES OF EVERY SCENE THESE THREE QUESTIONS.
1) WHO WANTS WHAT?
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
3) WHY NOW?
THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS ARE LITMUS PAPER. APPLY THEM, AND THEIR ANSWER WILL TELL YOU IF THE SCENE IS DRAMATIC OR NOT.
IF THE SCENE IS NOT DRAMATICALLY WRITTEN, IT WILL NOT BE DRAMATICALLY ACTED.
THERE IS NO MAGIC FAIRY DUST WHICH WILL MAKE A BORING, USELESS, REDUNDANT, OR MERELY INFORMATIVE SCENE AFTER IT LEAVES YOUR TYPEWRITER. YOU THE WRITERS, ARE IN CHARGE OF MAKING SURE EVERY SCENE IS DRAMATIC.
THIS MEANS ALL THE “LITTLE” EXPOSITIONAL SCENES OF TWO PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD. THIS BUSHWAH (AND WE ALL TEND TO WRITE IT ON THE FIRST DRAFT) IS LESS THAN USELESS, SHOULD IT FINALLY, GOD FORBID, GET FILMED.
IF THE SCENE BORES YOU WHEN YOU READ IT, REST ASSURED IT WILL BORE THE ACTORS, AND WILL, THEN, BORE THE AUDIENCE, AND WE’RE ALL GOING TO BE BACK IN THE BREADLINE.
SOMEONE HAS TO MAKE THE SCENE DRAMATIC. IT IS NOT THE ACTORS JOB (THE ACTORS JOB IS TO BE TRUTHFUL). IT IS NOT THE DIRECTORS JOB. HIS OR HER JOB IS TO FILM IT STRAIGHTFORWARDLY AND REMIND THE ACTORS TO TALK FAST. IT IS YOUR JOB.
EVERY SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. THAT MEANS: THE MAIN CHARACTER MUST HAVE A SIMPLE, STRAIGHTFORWARD, PRESSING NEED WHICH IMPELS HIM OR HER TO SHOW UP IN THE SCENE.
THIS NEED IS WHY THEY CAME. IT IS WHAT THE SCENE IS ABOUT. THEIR ATTEMPT TO GET THIS NEED MET WILL LEAD, AT THE END OF THE SCENE,TO FAILURE - THIS IS HOW THE SCENE IS OVER. IT, THIS FAILURE, WILL, THEN, OF NECESSITY, PROPEL US INTO THE NEXT SCENE.
ALL THESE ATTEMPTS, TAKEN TOGETHER, WILL, OVER THE COURSE OF THE EPISODE, CONSTITUTE THE PLOT.
ANY SCENE, THUS, WHICH DOES NOT BOTH ADVANCE THE PLOT, AND STANDALONE (THAT IS, DRAMATICALLY, BY ITSELF, ON ITS OWN MERITS) IS EITHER SUPERFLUOUS, OR INCORRECTLY WRITTEN.
YES BUT YES BUT YES BUT, YOU SAY: WHAT ABOUT THE NECESSITY OF WRITING IN ALL THAT “INFORMATION?”
AND I RESPOND “FIGURE IT OUT” ANY DICKHEAD WITH A BLUESUIT CAN BE (AND IS) TAUGHT TO SAY “MAKE IT CLEARER”, AND “I WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT HIM”.
WHEN YOU’VE MADE IT SO CLEAR THAT EVEN THIS BLUESUITED PENGUIN IS HAPPY, BOTH YOU AND HE OR SHE WILL BE OUT OF A JOB.
THE JOB OF THE DRAMATIST IS TO MAKE THE AUDIENCE WONDER WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. NOT TO EXPLAIN TO THEM WHAT JUST HAPPENED, OR TO*SUGGEST* TO THEM WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
ANY DICKHEAD, AS ABOVE, CAN WRITE, “BUT, JIM, IF WE DON’T ASSASSINATE THE PRIME MINISTER IN THE NEXT SCENE, ALL EUROPE WILL BE ENGULFED IN FLAME”
WE ARE NOT GETTING PAID TO REALIZE THAT THE AUDIENCE NEEDS THIS INFORMATION TO UNDERSTAND THE NEXT SCENE, BUT TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO WRITE THE SCENE BEFORE US SUCH THAT THE AUDIENCE WILL BE INTERESTED IN WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
YES BUT, YES BUT YES BUT YOU REITERATE.
AND I RESPOND FIGURE IT OUT.
HOW DOES ONE STRIKE THE BALANCE BETWEEN WITHHOLDING AND VOUCHSAFING INFORMATION? THAT IS THE ESSENTIAL TASK OF THE DRAMATIST. AND THE ABILITY TO DO THAT IS WHAT SEPARATES YOU FROM THE LESSER SPECIES IN THEIR BLUE SUITS.
FIGURE IT OUT.
START, EVERY TIME, WITH THIS INVIOLABLE RULE: THE SCENE MUST BE DRAMATIC. it must start because the hero HAS A PROBLEM, AND IT MUST CULMINATE WITH THE HERO FINDING HIM OR HERSELF EITHER THWARTED OR EDUCATED THAT ANOTHER WAY EXISTS.
LOOK AT YOUR LOG LINES. ANY LOGLINE READING “BOB AND SUE DISCUSS…” IS NOT DESCRIBING A DRAMATIC SCENE.
PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR OUTLINES ARE, GENERALLY, SPECTACULAR. THE DRAMA FLOWS OUT BETWEEN THE OUTLINE AND THE FIRST DRAFT.
THINK LIKE A FILMMAKER RATHER THAN A FUNCTIONARY, BECAUSE, IN TRUTH, YOU ARE MAKING THE FILM. WHAT YOU WRITE, THEY WILL SHOOT.
HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.
ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.
DO NOT WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT. WRITE A RIPPING THREE, FOUR, SEVEN MINUTE SCENE WHICH MOVES THE STORY ALONG, AND YOU CAN, VERY SOON, BUY A HOUSE IN BEL AIR AND HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU.
REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. MOST TELEVISION WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE RADIO. THE CAMERA CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. LET IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS DOING -*LITERALLY*. WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY SEEING.
IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA.
IF YOU DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF THE CRUTCH OF NARRATION, EXPOSITION,INDEED, OF SPEECH. YOU WILL BE FORGED TO WORK IN A NEW MEDIUM - TELLING THE STORY IN PICTURES (ALSO KNOWN AS SCREENWRITING)
THIS IS A NEW SKILL. NO ONE DOES IT NATURALLY. YOU CAN TRAIN YOURSELVES TO DO IT, BUT YOU NEED TO START.
I CLOSE WITH THE ONE THOUGHT: LOOK AT THE SCENE AND ASK YOURSELF “IS IT DRAMATIC? IS IT ESSENTIAL? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT?
ANSWER TRUTHFULLY.
IF THE ANSWER IS “NO” WRITE IT AGAIN OR THROW IT OUT. IF YOU’VE GOT ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME UP.
LOVE, DAVE MAMET
SANTA MONICA 19 OCTO 05
(IT IS NOT YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW THE ANSWERS, BUT IT IS YOUR, AND MY, RESPONSIBILITY TO KNOW AND TO ASK THE RIGHT Questions OVER AND OVER. UNTIL IT BECOMES SECOND NATURE. I BELIEVE THEY ARE LISTED ABOVE.)”
[Photo: Colonel Scrypt]
Posted 23 Mar 2010, 1:55 PM
YES BUT, I CAN'T FIND THE 'FIGURE IT OUT' MODE IN FINAL DRAFT.
Posted 23 Mar 2010, 4:48 PM
There's gotta be an app for that.
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 11:42 AM
Indeed.
Posted 23 Mar 2010, 2:16 PM
Cram it, Mamet!
Posted 23 Mar 2010, 2:29 PM
he's talking to you, Hannah Montana writers
Posted 23 Mar 2010, 2:30 PM
So Mamet drunk-emails, too.
Posted 23 Mar 2010, 3:25 PM
A=Always
B=Be
W=Writing.
ALWAYS BE WRITING.
ALWAYS...
Posted 23 Mar 2010, 4:11 PM
IT IS NOT THE DIRECTORS JOB. HIS OR HER JOB IS TO FILM IT STRAIGHTFORWARDLY AND REMIND THE ACTORS TO TALK FAST.
How do I land a Director's gig? Sounds easy...
Posted 25 Mar 2010, 5:23 AM
It sounds easy to do anything in a straightforward manner. Execution, though, reminds us that we are thrown to be anything but straightforward. We would like to dress it up, to soften the blow, to explain, to put off that which seems unpleasant.
OTOH, you may be one of the select few for whom straightforward comes naturally. You may well be the undiscovered director that we all need, that we long for.
So what are you doing posting on the Internet?
Posted 23 Mar 2010, 5:03 PM
2) WHAT HAPPENS IF HER DON’T GET IT?
You gotta be kidding; there's no way Mamet wrote that.
Posted 25 Mar 2010, 5:31 AM
Rules are made to be broken.
Pay attention to the art, not the artist.
Moderation in all things, save moderation.
There are no absolutes.
What I love about this memo is the reminder that the bluesuits are not what they seem. Authority? In art? Yeah, right.
Posted 23 Mar 2010, 5:39 PM
Somewhere, probably in a stall of the ladies bathroom at Social, Jeremy Piven is dancing a jig.
Posted 01 Jul 2010, 7:10 AM
"There are no absolutes," and "Rules are made to be broken." "Pay attention to the art, not the artist," "Moderation in all things, save moderation." These are ALL absolutes. hahha No modifiers at all. Of course there are rules to writing, just as there are to building a house. Try breaking the basic rules on foundation and structure and your house will crumble.
Likewise in your writing. "Rules are made to be broken" is the kind of thing people who just don't want to learn say. Would you hire a contractor with that painted on his truck or a doctor with it on his business card or vote for a politician who boldly declared, "Rules are to be broken"? (Well, yeah, we DO vote in a lot of those people.)
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 4:27 AM
Very interesting letter, I was about to hope for a restart of the serie.
Well, the letter was written october 2005, long time ago.
I guess that was it.
...
Patrick(Switzerland)
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 6:56 AM
He's having a laugh. And throughout the books (and some of the movies), Mamet makes no bones about loving plain-folk hick talk. There's no way he DIDN'T write that.
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 6:56 AM
He's having a laugh. And throughout the books (and some of the movies), Mamet makes no bones about loving plain-folk hick talk. There's no way he DIDN'T write that.
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 6:56 AM
He's having a laugh. And throughout the books (and some of the movies), Mamet makes no bones about loving plain-folk hick talk. There's no way he DIDN'T write that.
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 6:56 AM
He's having a laugh. And throughout the books (and some of the movies), Mamet makes no bones about loving plain-folk hick talk. There's no way he DIDN'T write that.
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 6:56 AM
He's having a laugh. And throughout the books (and some of the movies), Mamet makes no bones about loving plain-folk hick talk. There's no way he DIDN'T write that.
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 9:56 AM
This reminds me of a rule I picked up from reading John Gardner's Art of Fiction: Show me, don't tell me. Show me is good writing. Tell me is lazy writing.
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 11:22 AM
@greg paulhus, david bordwell recently posted something interesting about that rule: davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=6625
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 11:36 AM
The answers are always simpler than we want them to be.
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 12:18 PM
Aaron Sorkin: you really need to read this.
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 1:34 PM
in case you can't get over reading ALL UPPERCASE TEXT. copy paste the text into your editor and select Change Case… for readability.
Posted 04 Apr 2010, 2:32 PM
thanks the UPPERCASE was giving me a headache
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 4:54 PM
See, this is genius. It is basic, all screenwriters know this (or better), but it shows that even "professionals" need their heads jolted every now and again. This is classic Mamet and you me gusta mucho. A good reminder for all of us, and yes, of course it is along the lines of the fundamental, show - don't tell.
Twitter: @BrandScottK
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 5:44 PM
Dammit, Mamet, I love you.
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 5:45 PM
Obviously he was no fan of "Dragnet"!
Posted 24 Mar 2010, 10:45 PM
Don't write crap apparently doesn't equate with don't write in (all) caps. Dear god Mamet, stop shouting.
Posted 25 Mar 2010, 9:50 AM
And I'd like to remind the class that his show was canceled.
Nobody knows nothin'.
Big mouth dope.
Posted 04 Apr 2010, 2:33 PM
a show being canceled doesn't mean anything
Posted 20 Jun 2010, 5:43 PM
It probably means it was a good show :p
Posted 25 Mar 2010, 10:04 AM
"Nobody knows nothing'."
What...a...charming...sentiment.
Shows are cancelled all the time - ALL THE TIME - you would be a big mouth dope not to listen to a few simple lessons from an acknowledged master of craft.
If more people DID listen less people, yourself included, would be "Big mouth dopes."
Posted 25 Mar 2010, 11:55 AM
Re: "And I'd like to remind the class that his show was canceled."
Arrested Development was canceled. Enough said.
Posted 25 Mar 2010, 4:49 PM
Remember, Mamet was talking to a specific audience in this memo - the writers of The Unit. So, while his points may be directly applicable to that one show - and they are certainly valuable to those of us early in the process of honing our craft - I'm sure Mr. Mamet would admit during a moment of calm that there's more than one way to skin Tabby.
I'm guessing Faulkner had a different set of rules than Steinbeck; that doesn't make one "right" and the other "wrong".
And to suggest as a sacred rule NEVER to be broken that "any time two characters are talking about a third, the scene is a crock of shit" is to say that Waiting for Godot is garbage and Becket was a hack.
That's pretty ripe coming from the guy who wrote The Duck Variations - a play in which two old guys sitting on a bench talk and do... well... nothing. (Come to think of it, "Duck" and "Godot" are very similar.) The characters aren't striving for or against anything so, by his definition above, that entire play is devoid of drama.
I don't think that's any truer than the idea that there's one universal set of rules for "good writing".
Posted 27 Mar 2010, 7:54 AM
The play is devoid of drama? You think the duck variations is devoid of drama? You're missing the device that allows the play to breathe and cycle forward, the reason for the love and the panic and the growth in the play-- it's the damned duck. Mamet's definition of drama, the hero in pursuit of a goal, is just one type of play, of which there are many. You reference Godot and The Duck Variations, and these are cyclical dramas, not episodic or linear dramas (like The Unit). A master author has a grasp on one type of writing, but a virtuoso has mastered many. Indeed there IS a universal set of rules for GOOD writing, and it applies to everything. Do read Glengarry Glen Ross, come back and read this, work it out in your head. Hint: Truth, simplicity, desire. PS. Duck Variations was written in the early 70s, can a person grow and change for god's sake?
Posted 25 Mar 2010, 10:28 PM
Ah... but let's keep it all in the context of screenwriting. This is not about writing your novel or play or whatever else. This is writing a screenplay. Different animal, different rules.
Posted 26 Mar 2010, 6:57 AM
Brilliant. Thank you.
Posted 26 Mar 2010, 12:53 PM
Great stuff. Get me rewrite!!!
Should pass this around to all my writer friends, including myself. In fact, I think I'll do that right now....
Posted 26 Mar 2010, 6:59 PM
RULES ARE BORING.
Posted 26 Mar 2010, 7:00 PM
AND A CROCK OF SHIT.
Posted 26 Mar 2010, 10:16 PM
Let's see if there's drama here.
Situation: David Mamet, writer slash executive producer is having a problem with the Penguins, so David sends memo to his team of writers.
Possible outcome:
1. Writers post copy of memo to the Internet after 5 years.
2. Show is axed.
3. Writer's house in Bel Air is foreclosed ( Where is he going to get the money to pay it?)
4. The highly trained members of a top-secret military division thinks that the show is a crock of shit.
Posted 18 Aug 2010, 11:24 PM
The creator of the show was an Operator from Special Forces Operational Detachment Delta. Artistic liberties taken for the use of television drama aside, the accuracy of most show related material was authentic.
Posted 27 Mar 2010, 12:06 AM
this is great shit. the kind that writers should swallow on a daily basis. everybody forgets the essential questions. mamet rules.
Posted 27 Mar 2010, 6:12 AM
mamet is a pretentious windbag
if he is so wise and able, why are his movies and tv shows so DULL?
mamet wrote 1-2 interesting plays
the rest is arty posturing
Posted 27 Mar 2010, 6:49 AM
I'm not a writer (or involved in writing) but this made me chuckle and think of that other gem, "You just don't get it, do you?" Then proceed to explain the plot or what's just happened in case the dumb audience has missed something. Quite patronising.
Posted 27 Mar 2010, 6:50 AM
I'm not a writer (or involved in writing) but this made me chuckle and think of that other gem, "You just don't get it, do you?" Then proceed to explain the plot or what's just happened in case the dumb audience has missed something. Quite patronising.
Posted 27 Mar 2010, 12:23 PM
Mamet was once a great playwright. (He's now an ideologue.) He knows drama—he knows how it works, structurally:
Need --> Action --> Failure --> Need --> Action --> Failure --> Need --> Action --> Failure -->
And so on, forever.
Art is ALWAYS about failure. It begins with failure, it ends in failure. Art teaches us that failure is the human condition. Any work that suggests otherwise is not art but propaganda.
If the work of art's last failure is terminal (Anna Karenina), the art is tragic.
If it's closing failure is merely the most recent of what we know to be a continuing series of failures (Tristram Shandy), or if it's but a brief reprieve in what will obviously be a life-long parade of subsequent failures (Twelfth Night), the art is comic.
The conviction that plot is structured upon failure points to the essential difference between the artistic temperament and the religious temperament.
The artistic temperament believes that life is failure. Depending circumstances essentially beyond our control, the failure will be comic or tragic.
The religious temperament believes that life is salvation. What happens to us is entirely within our control. Since failure does not exist, comedy and tragedy do not exist. Only justice exists.
Posted 28 Mar 2010, 7:24 AM
Eric, you make a very interesting point. I would just slightly qualify that by saying that maybe in the aesthetic world of a true believer comedy and tragedy don't exist. Many with a "religious" temperament struggle daly, even hourly with their faith. And for them life is a continuous passion play. Which is a very high form of drama, IMO. I offer Graham Green as an example. I think if you substituted the phrase "true believer admitting no doubt" I would agree with your sentiment. Also, I think it is pretty obvious that a religious temperament and a artistic temperament can reside within the same skull.
Posted 28 Mar 2010, 3:55 PM
Mamet's exposition reads like a paraphrase of Mark Twain's Rules for Writing.
Posted 28 Mar 2010, 9:25 PM
He's right, and he is still a great playwright.figure it out.
Posted 01 Apr 2010, 12:00 AM
Exercise for the class: Given that "art is always about failure," explain, with specific examples, how each of the following works of art is about failure (or, alternatively, how it is not about failure and therefore is "not art but propaganda"):
David Copperfield
Beethoven's ninth symphony
Michelangelo's David
Posted 06 Apr 2010, 7:19 PM
Thanks wench! I was hoping someone would prick that pretentious prick...Life is seen as a duality by those incapable if understanding anything except dualities. Art is expression, though perhaps Eric's art is always about failure? Perhaps in the eye of the beholder eh?
Posted 03 Apr 2010, 2:07 AM
Haverwench FTW!
Posted 08 Apr 2010, 7:33 PM
Haverwench makes a good point. Drama's about failure; art's about beauty. Yes, that can include the beauty of the sordid, the debased too.
I enjoyed Eric's post though.
Posted 20 Apr 2010, 1:30 AM
My next screenplay is either going to be about the beauty of failure, or the failure of beauty...
Posted 22 Apr 2010, 1:12 AM
Mamet is an un disputably brilliant writer, but I do maintain my belief that even though Paul T Anderson has violated every other rule that Mamet has dictated in this letter, "Magnolia" is better than anything Mamet has ever written or filmed.
Posted 28 May 2010, 5:40 PM
You're an idiot. There is no fucking way in hell Magnolia is better than Glengarry Glen Ross.
Posted 27 Apr 2010, 6:20 PM
david mamet is a genius of our time.
Posted 30 Apr 2010, 1:42 PM
I loved David's letter. It resonated with me. Drama is wanting but not getting and we need this in everything we do. It's why we wake up in the morning.
I talked about it on Narrative Control, episode 43. Over yonder: http://www.narrativecontrol.com/index.php?post_id=608767
Posted 20 May 2010, 8:09 PM
THANKS DAVID. WELL IF FIGURED IT OUT. BUT NO-ONE GOT IT!
Posted 03 Jun 2010, 10:09 PM
Poor David. But then, wasn't it he who hired a team of writers who didn't already know this elementary stuff? Maybe the penguins made him hire their nephews and nieces. After all, they think "anybody can write."
Posted 05 Jun 2010, 10:54 PM
Magnolia is pretentious, self-indulgent, and worst of all, boring. Guess THAT post is disqualified.
If you can't stick to these simple rules, its not because you're radical, revolutionary or expressive; its because you're lazy, and you're scared. You're scared that your spontaneous, instinctive, first-thing-that-comes-to-your-head idea is enough to make you an artist. It isn't.
Even Michael Jordan had to train for years and years before he qualified for the NBA.
Mamet's example is similar: the beatles played for THOUSANDS of hours in Hamburg before they became The Beatles. Hard to argue with that.
Posted 07 Jun 2010, 3:19 PM
Does Mr. Mamet understand that no matter who you're typing to, TYPING EVERYTHING IN CAPS MAKES YOUR PROSE APPEAR LIKE THE OBNOXIOUS RANTINGS OF AN ANGRY THIRTEEN YEAR OLD BOY IN A WORLD OF WARCRAFT FORUM?
After I cut and pasted his letter into Word and changed the case, there's some decent advice in here. But nothing spectacular. It's Mr. Miagi advice. Reminds me of when John Madden would explain the obvious during a play. "See, if the quarterback throws the ball to a receiver and the receiver breaks the plane of the goal line, then that results in six points for the offensive team." Aaaahhhh wise words.
Posted 14 Jun 2010, 1:39 PM
MISTER C.
YOU ARE A SENSITIVE LITTLE FLOWER, YES?
Posted 20 Jun 2010, 11:09 PM
Anything written in uppercase takes much longer to read. The brain recognizes words much faster based on the shape of the letters. Anything written in lowercase nullifies that.
Here is the memo reprinted in lowercase.
Posted 20 Jun 2010, 11:11 PM
That should be: "anything written in uppercase nullifies that"
Posted 07 Jul 2010, 4:43 AM
i've been cramming myself insane with alot of shit about writing,one academic even went as far as saying you need to write stories about experiences you can relate to,i think that's bullshit.what mamet says is gr8,it beats the shit out of anything else you'll read out there including that formulaic structure shit Syd Field raps about.
i don't think it needs to get harder than what mamet proposes.