Thursday, September 12, 2013

"Write About What You Know"


Ricky Gervais Tells A Story About How He Learned To Write

41 comments:

bagoh20 said...

Of course that's ancient advice, but that's the first time I heard it explained where I got the real message underneath the surface.

It's not because you write better about things you know - it's because it reads better when it's close, personal, and real.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I think that's right bags.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I hope Chip is ok.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Lem -
Woke up to 8" of water in the basement today.
Last night the rain was so fierce, it was unreal. Waded across the street to check on a neighbor's house, as they are out of town. That was surreal. What is odd is the water isn't the usual freezing - it's somewhat warmish, almost tropical.
Boulder - Longmont to Fort Collins are all saturated with no place for the water to go. Water running over the banks of rivers and tributaries turning roads into rivers.

If Chip lives up high, he's OK - Denver didn't get it so bad. Although, it's still raining currently. I'm not looking forward to another sleepless night.
Good times.

bagoh20 said...

I suspect Chip has an unfolding popup safe house that he sitting in right now saying " Dammit! Why paper? Why do I always use paper?" At least it's not wildfires.

chickelit said...

Doesn't Chip live near Capitol Hill? He's high and dry.

Synova said...

Since no one has been to another planet on a spaceship (that we know of)...

Or Dorothy Sayers: “A man once asked me ... how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. (...) I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings."

The idea being that, as a woman, she could not "write what she knew" when she was writing about men.

I can see, certainly, how Gervais being forced to write about what he thought was very boring meant that he noticed the people and the details in a way he never did when he was writing an action story about a rogue cop. Visual artists (or those young people making attempts) do the same sorts of things if you make them draw from a model instead of just drawing "a person" out of their head.

The difference is *observation*, and not necessarily knowledge... we do all know what a person looks like, after all.

So at this point writing the exact same rogue cop story becomes something with observed depth, smells of lavender and mold and sounds and emotions, and the rogue cop develops complexity and motive, etc., because the writer is writing what they know.

Even though the writer has never been and never will be a rogue cop.

chickelit said...

Boulder - Longmont to Fort Collins are all saturated with no place for the water to go. Water running over the banks of rivers and tributaries turning roads into rivers.

Boulder and Fort Collins sit near two different canyons which eventually all feed into the Platte River. Denver's watershed is larger and more able to cope with heavy runoff.

Synova said...

Wow, the flooding looks intense. We're getting wet down here, but it's all a nice gentle rain.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

We're getting wet down here, but it's all a nice gentle rain.

Same here.

Chip Ahoy said...

I survived gulp blub blub blub a long blub gulp rain storm.

I live on a hill near Cherry Creek where it is sunken fifteen feet between lanes of Speer Boulevard as it flows around the edge of Denver by Auraria Campus and at Confluence Park joins South Platte draining away from the city.

What a good flush that was. Sorry about all the sudden pollution, folks downstream.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

El Pollo-
Yeah - I think so.
To name a few canyons that run south to north starting in south Boulder: Eldorado, Boulder, Sunshine, Lee Hill (I was just up Lee Hill yesterday!) Lefthand Canyon then onto various canyons that run into Lyons. Lyons is usually a dry spot- but they are getting hammered with run-off and rain right now.
St. Vrain, Little Thompson, Big Thompson, Poudre and on and on..

The run-off is great for the Platte river. The eastern plains are bone dry and suffering severe drought.
This storm is parked on top of the front range and it won't budge.
I wish it would travel in the opposite direction and sit on top of the San Luis Valley in Southern CO - where it is needed. We've had enough.
Boulder sits right at the base of the foothills. Denver is spread out and also sits a little ways out from the foothills.

The Dude said...

Keep your Poudre dry.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

There a big fire down south jersey, Seaside Heights.

The area hard hit by Sandy.

The fire is along the newly rebuilt boardwalk.

chickelit said...

I live on a hill near Cherry Creek where it is sunken fifteen feet between lanes of Speer Boulevard...

After the war, 'Dolf's architect headed west and kept on designing streets and cities.

chickelit said...

Keep your Poudre dry.

And well cached.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Anyone know it a furnace and a water heater will survive after sitting in 8" of water?

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Yay, Chip.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Cache La Poudre.
Good one.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

(to clarify... the Big Thompson runs into Loveland and the Cache La Poudre runs at the north end of Ft Collins (not into Lyons))

Does the Poudre run into the Platte?

Highway 34 along the Big Thompson is closed. The last place anyone should be during this kind of rain.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

A Seaside Webcam live feed is down. But the last archive shows the beginning of the fire.

chickelit said...

Does the Poudre run into the Platte?

It joins the South Platte at Greeley. Then on to the Mighty Missouri...

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

This one is further away and it still running.

chickelit said...

AprilApple: Have you been up to Horsetooth Reservoir? I saw recent photos and it was way low. It serves as a catch basin for excess water around there.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

El Pollo-
Horsetooth is down along with most of the lakes and reservoirs along the entire front range.
I drove around the south end of Horsetooth about a year ago. I recall it was low.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

There is a rain delay in Baltimore, Philly and I just received a flash flood warning til 8:30.

Synova said...

A whole lot of people can now talk about dealing with bad flooding.

:)

Synova said...

Grr... WRITE about dealing with bad flooding.

rhhardin said...

My electric furnace and electric water heater survived 12" of water once.

If you lose an electric furnace, you can replace it by running lights or TVs or anything electrical in the winter.

All the energy goes into heat eventually. It might as well do something useful first.

Conservation law: running electrical stuff is free in the winter if you have resistive heating. The more stuff you run, the less the furnace runs, watt for watt.

Conversely it costs double in the summer, if you have air conditioning.

rhhardin said...

My best stories are under 100 characters.

john said...

I could never keep track of 100 characters.

XRay said...

Humour in the face of adversity. I bet true since the first face rose tall on the savannah.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Well said.

Ricky is not right on everything, but he is right on what he says in that video.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Jiminy Christmas.
Pray for Lyons, CO.
What a mess.

ndspinelli said...

Well Chip, I saw Mike Seidel in Denver. If you see Seidel or Cantore in your town, YOUR'RE FUCKED!

I'm Full of Soup said...

I have been in my current Philly suburb house for six years now and we have had one hurricane and Sandy [the hurricane was worse fro us] and three summers in the six years where the rain was often and very heavy. I think if my house has survived these deluges, it is pretty safe [fingers crossed knock wood]

I'm Full of Soup said...

I don't think I have ever seen Ricky Gervais in any films or TV shows. Althouse used to say he was pretty good.

chickelit said...

AJ wrote: I don't think I have ever seen Ricky Gervais in any films or TV shows. Althouse used to say he was pretty good.

He's OK except for his politics.

Titus said...

Gervais said bad things about Palin. He is a total Sullivanist.

I can link a video to what he said about her if you like?

I have it in my excel liberal postings database.

rcocean said...

Gervais writes about assholes, like his character in "The Office". So in Fiction he writes what he knows.

Sadly, he also writes about atheism, politics, and life in general, which he doesn't know. Y'see he woke up one day in Junior high and decided God didn't exist. He was the smart guy -y'see- who saw what everyone else didn't.

Where's the DVD of God? Ricky said. I can't hear, taste, or touch him. Later, he decided Christ didn't live up to Hollywood's or RG's moral standards and was against Gay marriage, so Christianity was for losers.

Smart guy, that RG.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

There's an episode of the first Star Trek where there's a seemingly perfect society, maintained by the computer remnants of a charismatic philosopher-king named Landru.

Individuality is suppressed with lethal force, if necessary, for the good of the body.

There is an underground resistance, but none of the freedom fighters are comedians.

I'm pretty sure about that.