REVIEW: 'The Crimes Of Grindlewald'

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Adam Sandler Has The Secret Of Writing

Adam Sandler. On the Internet, you don't hear much praise for the guy...and for a very good reason. His films, for a variety of reasons which may or may not have anything to do with Adam Sandler himself, are more pleasant than the sound of bagpipes at a mass crucifixion.

But Dr Sandler actually mastered the secret of writing. Yes. Chances are that Adam Sandler is a better writer than you. Please don't mention my name anywhere on your suicide note.

The Peril of Re-Writing

Rewriting is not the same as revising. Rewriting is when you tear the page up and start all over again.

Or, at least, that’s how I do it. I get a strange pleasure out of spending ages writing something, printing it off, opening a new word document, and writing it all over again. Granted, I usually highlight sentences and sections that I definitely want to keep – so that I don’t accidentally lose those moments when a perfect line smacks me from nowhere. But chances are that the second draft will be completely different to the first. 

One thing I hate about modern technology is that once the story is done, I can’t do what Roald Dahl did and have a massive bonfire where I burn all the first drafts so that society never has to find out that I’m actually crap at this writing lark and get by through constant revisions and peer-feedback.

Because it’s all very well and good to just go ahead and write a story, then throw it down declaring it a masterpiece. Unless you're Mozart, who apparently wrote without needing to draft or revise (though, I’m hoping that one day someone’s going to stumble across thousands of sheets filled with really awful music and Mozart drafting his suicide note in the margins) then it’s not going to be a masterpiece. More likely than not it’s going to be more unpleasant than having your prostate examined….by Hitler. 

Your first draft of anything is going to be rubbish, because what you give birth to will be a blob of antimatter. A twisted, uncontrollable mess. Buried in there somewhere will be a fine piece of writing, the real problem is bringing it forth. Anyone in the world can dig for diamonds, but you need the tools to dig…and once you’ve found the diamond you need the skill to cut it. Everyone has a novel in them, but it takes an effort to commit it to paper – and afterwards you need to rewrite and rewrite until you’ve extrapolated all the goodness found therein. 

A lot of writers say that once you’ve completed the first draft, you should leave the novel for a few weeks before returning to start again. Honestly, I would only leave it a day. The longer you leave it, the more bulbous the blob of antimatter will become. Finish the first draft, take the night off, get drunk or watch a film or play a game or have intercourse or do whatever you do to relax and clear your mind after a long day. 

Only distance yourself from the novel once you’re pretty certain it’s there. Once you feel you have a perfect representation of your talent as a writer, then put your work in a drawer and forget about it for a few weeks. Return, and if you still think this is what you’ll be remembered for – then great! Do a quick proof-read and send it off for the world to see. If not, start again. 

Just keep starting again. No matter what.

A PLAYWRIGHT IS NOT AN AUTHOR...YOU POOP-HEAD!!

I was recently forced to read a load of academia about ‘The Death of the Author.’ (I’m not a literature academic because the only people who read critical essays are critical essay writers, and I’m not going to elbow my way into such a vicious cycle.) It was interesting that whilst the academics would quote Samuel Beckett and Bertolt Brecht at will – because quoting famous people makes you intelligent – Beckett and Brecht were not authors. They were playwrights. 

OK, authoring and playwriting may seem interchangeable…and they are to an extent. Both a play and a novel are written, and it usually begins with one person sitting down and banging away at a keyboard whilst longing for death. The creative spark for a novel and the creative spark for a play are usually the same spark; often I’ve begun to devise a play only to realise it would be better suited as a novel – and vice-versa. 

But this is where the similarities end, because once a novel is completed then the story is completed. The characters and setting are locked within the plot, bound within the pages and the novelist can go and drink him/herself to death. When a playscript is completed, then the torment truly begins. 

First you have to find a theatre-company, unless your already part of one. Once you get to the company, you’ll realise that they only have two female actors – so there goes your female ensemble cast. Then you get to the theatre the plays going to be performed at to find it’s bloody tiny, so you’ll have to cut out your golden fortress. Then you begin rehearsal to find that the director wants to have everyone perform naked – meaning the costume department basically gets a free pay check. Then you find that your lead actor can’t be naked without also doing a little dance, so that’s another re-write. Then the lighting technician says it’s impossible to simulate rain, so there goes your tribute to Singing in the Rain. 

Your script now looks completely different, re-written by both the company and circumstance. Whilst this often means that the material is actually stronger, sometimes it can ruin the piece. Either way, the playwright cannot be considered the author because the play is not the sole voice of one person. 

Does that mean a playwright can still be an auteur? Well of course. Beckett and Brecht are immediately recognisable in their work. But even Brecht and Beckett had to undertake large re-writes during the rehearsal period. They would have had input during the creative process, and would have had to deal with the biggest obstacle a writer faces: Compromise. 

Even Shakespeare would have collaborated very closely with his actors and directors, tailoring his plays to suit the place it was being performed and the people performing it – which is why Shakespeare obviously wrote all his plays and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t understand how theatre works. 

Yes, Shakespeare is not an author. The works you were forced to study at school were probably re-written by the actors that worked on them. So, in a weird way, Shakespeare didn’t write his plays…except he so obviously did.