The trap into which all writers have, will, or should fall into, of writing The Great American Watchamacallit, is such an uncluttered and inviting one that from time to time I'm sure even the greatest have to pull themselves up short by the Shift key to remind themselves that it is story first that they should write.
Interpretation
Writers often face the temptation to focus on grand ideas instead of telling a compelling story.
Harlan Ellison warns against the common pitfall that writers encounter when they become too focused on creating a significant or grand piece, referred to humorously as 'The Great American Watchamacallit.' He emphasizes that the essence of good writing lies in prioritizing the narrative itself over the allure of grandiosity or complexity, reminding writers to center their efforts on storytelling first and foremost.
In practice
A writer's workshop could use this quote to emphasize the importance of story over concept.
People on the outside think there's something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn't like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that's all there is to it.
The more you know, the more unflinchingly you deny casual beliefs and Accepted Wisdom when it flies in the face of reality, the more carefully you observe the world and its people around you, the better chance you have of writing something meaningful and well-crafted.
When you're all alone out there, on the end of the typewriter, with each new story a new appraisal by the world of whether you can still get it up or not, arrogance and self-esteem and deep breathing are all you have. It often looks like egomania. I assure you it's the bold coverup of the absolutely terrified.
I think [religion] is presumptuous and I think it is silly, because it makes you believe that you are less than what you can be. As long as you can blame everything on some unseen deity, you don’t ever have to be responsible for your own behavior.
Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you – as if you haven't been told a million times already – that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.
I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. For without pain, there can be no pleasure. Without sadness, there can be no happiness. Without misery there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned. Adult. You have become adult.
I suppose when you do it correctly, a good introduction and a good outro makes the song feel like it's coming out of something and then evolving into something.
A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.
The essential elements of singing are voice, musicianship, and story. It is the rare artist that has all three in abundance.
A film ingeniously directed does indeed give the impression of having been laid end to end, but a film ingeniously edited gives the impression of having suppressed all direction.
A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick -- a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.
Every form of theatre has something in common with a visit to the doctor. On the way out, one should always feel better than on the way in.
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