Gary Phillips

My advice on getting from the dreaded first page to the last? What’s the ad tagline…Just Do It? It’s a cliché but it’s true. Even if you think what you’re writing is dreck, that it isn’t the story you have in your mind, you’ve got no choice but to get the words down. You have to have something to work with in front of you.  My goal then as a mentor is to help the student write the story they want to write. Particularly as I write mostly in the mystery and crime genre (but am open to working with all sorts of material), how is the dialogue illuminating character without being expository and balancing that with advancing the plot; balancing the narrative segments; the pacing, the highs and lows of the story and so on.

I’m not much on books about writing but of the few on my shelf I always recommend Bill Johnson’s A Story is a Promise. This is a wonderful book about the art of storytelling and breaks down the various components. Bill also maintains a blog. Plots and Characters: A Screenwriter on Screenwriting by my late buddy Millard Kaufman is another book I recommend. You don’t have to have an interest in penning screenplays to get something from Millard’s book on the construction of these fundamental elements of story. Millard, a WWII vet, was nominated for an Oscar for his screenplays for Bad Day at Black Rock and Take the High Ground.  He also wrote and directed this cool B prison movie, Convicts Four, that included where a crazed Sammy Davis Jr. manically kills some bed bugs in his cell – a scene that says something about the character and the setting.

Additionally, Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. I believe you can download the rules but I think it’s nice to have a bound edition – my wife gave me an illustrated one for a birthday from William Morrow. You might not agree with all of Mr. Leonard’s rules, but they are informative, and he has published his share of books and short stories over the decades.