5 Ways to Inspire Your Writing: Part III

3. Write from a Place of Creation, Not Negation

Student: But I don’t want it to be obvious. I also don’t want it to be cliché. I’m afraid the audience will expect that.

Professor: So what DO you want to do?

It’s 2014. We’ve all been watching movies basically since the moment we were born. We’ve seen great films in our lifetime and clichéd films. For some reason, the great films intimidate us and the clichéd films terrify us. Most young writers tend to have the idea that they’ll never be as good as Chayefsky or Tarantino and deep down, they’re no better than Ed Wood.

The good news, you’re most likely not as bad as you believe you are unless you have sincere ego problems. The bad news, you’re not as good as Tarantino—not until you’ve practiced more.

So relax. Don’t worry so much about doing a cliché. Does The Shining still have knives and ghosts and a haunted house? Does The Godfather still have Italians with tommy guns and abusive husbands? Does Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind still have romance? The answer to all of these is an unequivocable, yes. While you were worrying about the clichés you can avoid, Charlie Kaufman was busy writing real things he fears, desires, and loves through his characters. Just because we’ve seen two people fall in love in a film doesn’t mean we won’t care about your characters in your universe falling in love. Why? Because life is love, death, sex, hunger, survival. Of course there will be narrative repetition because you’re not the first person to live on this planet, nor will you be the last.

Does this mean write nothing but clichés and Hollywood endings? No way. My personal experience, however, is that more is lost worrying about the cliché than simply putting words and characters on the page that feel authentic (again, truth).

For Practice:

A)   Write 5 movie clichés you dislike.

B)   For each of the 5 cliches, identify a true life experience you had that was similar. If you have no true experience similar, choose an analogous situation. (I.E. man being saved from death row is like you being saved from getting in trouble with Mom).

C)   Choose one of these, freewrite fiction for 10 minutes starting with the true life experience. In other words, begin where the real life story ended and create new conflict to follow. 

Stay tuned… Part IV coming tomorrow. 

Ben Cohen is a Brooklyn-based comedy filmmaker and Screenwriting Instructor at the New York Film Academy. He studied at the Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Theater. He co-wrote and directed the “Godamsterdam” web-series and wrote and directed the short film, “Is It Because of My Penis?” He performs improv and sketch in New York with indie groups, “Diddler on the Roof” and “2 Single Guys.”