Why Do Screenwriters Fail When Writing Their Personal Stories? - Erik Bork

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#writing #screenwriting #writing101

[ClintLoweTube]

Your life story may not be exciting, but your life values, dreams, heartbreaks will. Write your beliefs and core values with passion, and you will inspire the audience.

[MiguelExhale]

Great sales pitch for the book. Leaving out the 7 things kind of forces you to buy the book. 👌🏾

[richardadesmond]

well said Mr. Bork. Great question, great answer:)

[gnarthdarkanen]

This bangs around the old ideal of "getting too attached" to a story or "getting in too deep" with the personal angle of the work... Great video, of course.

It's worth mention that for aspiring storytellers and writers, maybe just avoid overtly personal inserts and stories in the beginning. Even as you reach to that level of "professional writer" and break into publication or production, returning to a "Beginner's Mindset" might be worth it at the start... AND even waiting until you've accomplished some good work and practical applications of all the various rules and angles for genre, audience demographics, analytics, and appeals, etc... etc... Then finding someone to Collaborate with on the very Personal things. Having that "third party perspective" to run the work past or bounce ideas off of might really help finely tune and hone the thing into the best it can be. AND for what it's worth, it takes time in practice to find others who might be interested in some dubious collaborative tradesmanship... where you listen and help with their very personal inserts, and they (in trade) help you with your own... Rather than try pitching something that YOU feel absolute and powerful about but might very easily get ridiculed as a flaming dumpster-fire by the very target you hand-selected...
Business is tough and impersonal. It's hard, though, to walk away from a "shoot-down" without some personal feelings hurt.

AND to be completely honest... It's very CLEAR that I have a LOT of work to do yet. ;o)

[marieb]

The simple answer is regular people's lives are generally not that interesting.

[FlyingOverTrut]

I'm very guilty of this as well. Hopefully I've gotten it out of me with one screenplay, but it's always a challenge to avoid the trap of writing about things I experienced and assuming that others will find it interesting.

[cheesecakelasagna]

The usual reason for this is that most (amateur at least) writers naturally assume people understand something that they have a natural akin to, so it's ever important to have 2nd (and 3rd, and 4th...) perspective on a story you're working on especially if it's a story you know so well on your own.

[muzikmanner]

When writing a personal story, the author can embellish or fictionalize plot and characters to make it more interesting and still get the point of their personal story out there. If your story is interesting, take a little "artistic license" and go for it!

[quentilpompey]

I think starting out in a draft or two you should scribble all of you personal ideas, agendas and fears. It's impossible for someone out there in the billions not be touched. Yet the final draft shall only have your voice.

[meg-k-waldren]

Clear as mud. Jk. He's right and I've heard this thinking before, but the way he explains it is so much more empathetic, intelligible and better. I haven't tried my hand at a true story yet - my personal emotional experiences I normally embed in analogus subplots - but his explanation no doubt will help if get around to a doing a main plot that's based on a true story.