Magician Brain Brushwood tells a story on his blog about talking to Teller of Penn and Teller and how Teller ended up responding to a letter he wrote when frustrated by his industry. He’s talking magic, but isn’t that what we do, too? I think you will find it good advice for anyone writing a book.
Here’s Teller:
Try stuff. Make your best stab and keep stabbing. If it’s there in your heart, it will eventually find its way out. Or you will give up and have a prudent, contented life doing something else.
Surprise me.
That’s it. Place 2 and 2 right in front of my nose, but make me think I’m seeing 5. Then reveal the truth, 4!, and surprise me.
Now, don’t underestimate me, like the rest of the magicians of the world. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that I’ve never seen a set of linking rings before and I’ll be oh-so-stunned because you can “link” them. Bullshit.
Here’s how surprise works. While holding my attention, you withhold basic plot information. Feed it to me little by little. Make me try and figure out what’s going on. Tease me in one direction. Throw in a false ending. Then turn it around and flip me over.
Read Rouald Dahl. Watch the old Alfred Hitchcock episodes. Surprise. Withhold information. Make them say, “What the hell’s he up to? Where’s this going to go?” and don’t give them a clue where it’s going. And when it finally gets there, let it land. An ending.
It took me eight years (are you listening?) EIGHT YEARS to come up with a way of delivering the Miser’s Dream that had surprises and an ENDING.
Love something besides magic, in the arts. Get inspired by a particular poet, film-maker, sculptor, composer. You will never be the first Brian Allen Brushwood of magic if you want to be Penn & Teller. But if you want to be, say, the Salvador Dali of magic, well THERE’S an opening.
I should be a film editor. I’m a magician. And if I’m good, it’s because I should be a film editor. Bach should have written opera or plays. But instead, he worked in eighteenth-century counterpoint. That’s why his counterpoints have so much more point than other contrapuntalists. They have passion and plot. Shakespeare, on the other hand, should have been a musician, writing counterpoint. That’s why his plays stand out from the others through their plot and music.
Here is the link to read the whole letter:
Talk tomorrow,
Kathy
Filed under: Advice, inspiration, Writing Tips Tagged: Alfred Hitchcock, Brian Allen Brushwood, Penn & Teller, Rouald Dahl, Salvador Dali, Shakespeare
Wow, Kathy, I just read that whole letter (and what led up to it). I REALLY enjoyed that, and considering I wasn’t a huge fan of Penn and Teller (though they were good!), this is a good example of how much more there are to people than what we see…or “think” we see…sort of like magic (which I know some basic tricks, having done clown work).
And from that letter, a stunning simile: “But I really feel as if the things we create together are not things we devised, but things we discovered, as if, in some sense, they were always there in us, waiting to be revealed, like the figure of Mercury waiting in a rough lump of marble.”
Great stuff! Thanks for posting this
Donna