Howdy. I don’t concern myself with followers or readers or what have you. I’m paid to write (sometimes fix) stuff that not a lot of people watch or have heard of, but hey it’s a living. I’m on “a journey” (barf) to become more prolific and… come to think of it, I really have no idea what the hell kind of journey I’m on. Maybe it’s just to write something that outlives me. Who knows. I’ll send a postcard if I get there. Anyway, I figure this is a good way to keep a journal of my efforts to improve. I’ve been a screenwriter for about fifteen years and the only thing I know for certain is that the day I stop trying to improve is the day I stop breathing. Not sure which will come first. I digress.
People always say “write what you know.” We’ve all heard that, but we don’t often hear write what you feel. I’m an ex-pat, which is to say I’m a stranger living in a strange land. Strange to me anyway. So today I’m at a boxing class and there are these two other students chatting away in their native tongue (which I speak well, but they don’t know that.) They’re talking about weekend plans, very convivial, and I realised in that moment for some reason I suddenly felt very foreign. I was overtly aware of my “foreign-ness” and I felt very alone, not lonely, but alone. I thought to myself, if this were a scene, where would the focus be? On me, undoing my hand wraps? On the couple having a conversation? There’s a camera in every writer’s mind but perhaps we don’t think of camera placement quite as often as we should. This brilliant scene from Freaks and Geeks came to mind. See below. It reminded me that sometimes we need to include moments in our characters lives that allow them simply to exist. Call it emotional liminality, those instances between moments. They may not advance character or plot or what have you, but they allow your audience to bear witness to their humanity and in doing so create a kinship. We see a soul. We see ourselves, and in the end isn’t that kind of the point?
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