BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR PAUL D. MARKS

Today we have something a little bit different for you on Book Club Friday. Paul D. Marks is the award-winning author of over thirty published short stories, but his day job was as a "script doctor," and he’s going to share a bit of that with us today. 

Paul is currently finishing a novel featuring a recurring character from his short stories.  Bobby Saxon is the only white musician in an otherwise all-black swing band at the famous Club Alabam in Los Angeles during World War II. Bobby has appeared in three published stories: The Good Old Days, in the anthology Murder Across the Map, Sleepy Lagoon Nocturne, which appeared in the LAndmarked for Murder anthology, and Santa Claus Blues, published in Futures Magazine.  

Paul has won several awards.  His novel White Heat took second place in the Mystery-Suspense-Thriller-Adventure category of the SouthWest Writers Annual Writing Contest and his story Netiquette won First Place in the Futures Short Story Contest.  Endless Vacation received Honorable Mentions in two prestigious literary contests: the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Competition and the Lorian Hemingway International Short Story Competition.  Visit Paul at his blog or website.

Paul has generously offered a copy of the Murder in La-La Land anthology, which opens with his story Continental Tilt and a copy of the Deadly Ink 2010 Short Story Collection with his story Poison Heart to two lucky readers who post a comment this week. -- AP

Thank you for having me, Anastasia.

Though my background is as a writer, I come to short story and novel writing from a different perspective. After you meet someone, sooner or later – usually sooner – the conversation turns to, "What do you do?"  I'm never quite sure how to respond to that.  Not because I don't know what I do (though some people may find that arguable) but because they probably won't know what it is and then I have to explain.  Which is not the end of the world, but you know what they say, if you have to explain something to your reader (or listener), most likely you've already lost him. 

What I do – or did – is script doctoring or rewriting screenplays.  When you see a movie there are usually one or two, sometimes three, writers' credits.  But there are often several other people who've worked on the script who don't get screen credit.  I guess I'm one of those unsung heroes, though I'm not sure everyone would consider us heroes. There are script doctors who specialize in one thing or another, such as dialogue or adding humor or action.  Others are generalists.  Some are in the Writers Guild; some aren't.  I've been both.

No one likes being rewritten.  And sometimes rewriting betters a script.  But, to be honest, sometimes it makes it worse, depending on what the producer wants.  On top of that, you can work on a script, whether as a rewrite or having written and optioned a spec script, and it ends up in "development hell," never to see the light of day or at least the light of a projector.

And even rewriters get rewritten.  Once I was hired to do a major rewrite on a comedy script.  Several writers pitched their ideas on how to go about it to the producer.  I said I thought it should be an updated, sophisticated screwball (not slapstick) comedy, like those of the 1930s. And I outlined several of the changes I would make to various characters and situations.  They loved the idea.  And I gave them exactly what I said I would.  They hated it!  So they hired someone else after me to do another draft and the first joke on the first page was a girl peeing in her pants – it went downhill from there.  Now that's sophisticated.  That's Hollywood.  That's why I'm turning to fiction, though I'm not sure I can compete with Snooki: Novelist.

As I say, the problem with being an uncredited writer on a film is that no one knows what you do.  My father still can't figure out what I do all day since he never sees my credit on the silver screen (of course, considering some of the masterpieces I've worked on, that might be a good thing).  Which is one of the reasons I decided to start writing more short stories and novels.  Both so he and my mother could see my name on something, and, well, for me, too.  But, even being unsung, being a script doctor has helped me in terms of being a better fiction writer.

Some of the tricks I use as a script doctor are also useful on stories and novels.  One of the most useful is knowing when to get into and out of a scene, a sequence or even the entire project, whether it's a screenplay, story or novel.  You've heard the expression "cut to the chase" and this is what it's all about.  Most people start scenes too early and end them too late.  I've found that often by cutting the first and last thirds of a scene you really get to the meat of the scene, (unless you're a vegetarian, but I digress).  Sometimes, of course, you need some piece of information in one of those lost thirds and it can be worked into what's left of the scene or another scene.

On one occasion, I deleted the entire first act (the first quarter to third, give or take) of a screenplay, starting it on the second act. There was some information in the deleted scenes that had to be inserted, but overall the first part of the script was back-story, exposition, etc.  And not missed.

Granted, it's harder to take a butcher knife or even a scalpel to your own work.  And I do believe that in novels one should have a bit more luxury of back-story, exposition and, of course, internal dialogue and introspection.  Still, this is a good tactic to consider if you want to make your writing tighter. 

I've used this, as well as other script doctoring techniques, on most of my stories, though the transition from writing screenplays to short stories and now a novel hasn't necessarily been easy.  In screenplays, less is more – there's very little character or scene description.  And to some extent that's true in modern novels.  But in novels you can have more of some things.  The hardest part for me is writing description, as that is so bare in a screenplay.  When I first started writing fiction, people said my writing read too much like a screenplay.  It was too abrupt.  Too much shorthand.  I think I've improved in that department. 

The techniques I learned doing screenplays help me write better, tighter stories.  Though sometimes it's nice and necessary to indulge in back-story, atmosphere and description.

So next time you sit down to write, think "cut to the chase."  Now get out that scalpel and start trimming the fat.

Thanks, Paul! What an interesting post! What did you think, readers? Let’s hear from you, and you’ll be entered into the drawing for the anthologies Murder in La-La Land and Deadly Ink 2010 Short Story Collection. And be sure to check back Sunday to see if you’re one of the winners. -- AP