1. RMBROWN

    RMBROWN Senior Member

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    How would you rate your people skills?

    Discussion in 'General Writing' started by RMBROWN, Sep 20, 2020.

    The power of observation, the key I believe to understanding how people interact and respond. As a writer those skills are what makes your characters come alive, seem personal and let you identify with them.

    Reading people in real life? The little ticks, the subtle body language, the unspoken word, those awkward silences, the raised eyebrow or pause before answering.

    What made me think of this, is watching one of my nephew's shows that he has written for tv; he writes for the tv show Swat. It is pure garbage, the characters are one dimensional cartoon characters that all fit a stereotype. The plots and story lines completely unrealistic. Shaun Ryan who did the Shield and is the man in charge of Swat, 'almost impossible to believe the shows came from the same guy.' Says that this is what the audiences what, simple straight forward garbage dumbed down, all wrapped up in 42 minutes

    My nephew makes a good living as a writer, doing what a lot of writers would dream of doing. Yet he writes unrealistic scripts with unrealistic dialog. None of what makes it to the final cut, is anything more than comic book trash.

    He has the ability, to go to any police station and get an invite for a ride along. Based on the shows popularity I am sure he would have a lot of police officers share a thought or at least let him hang out with them, he has made no effort to do any of this. When I see the dialog it is obvious that his people skills in observation seem non existent, people just don't talk that way or act that way. This really kind of blows my mind, think of the number of people who form opinions based on what they saw on tv or read, by lazy authors.

    How much of a responsibility do you feel as a writer to portray reality? Your ability to either do good solid research, or have strong observational skills are key, if your going share anything worthwhile, even good fiction has to be believable.

    So how do you rate your skills as a writer in this area of life?
     
  2. John Calligan

    John Calligan Contributor Contributor

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    I feel a responsibility not to post photos of my own name and face and then savagely bad mouth my family's artwork.

    Dialog isn't like real life chatter. "Suh duh, how's it going? Just chilling. Nah, I would have stopped by but, ummm... I would have stopped by but I got hung up working on shit in minecraft. But yeah, umm, when are you free? Nah. Is Sunday ok?" Is there anything so boring as reading the transcript of a meandering phone call? The NSA won't even do it.

    Even dialog that people claim is "realistic" is usually just half witty dialog with people either talking over one another, or cutting each other off, sometimes so thickly laden with subtext that neither actor's lines even relate to the other's. But it isn't "realistic." It just sounds like good tv writing.
     
  3. RMBROWN

    RMBROWN Senior Member

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    John honesty is a valuable commodity, it makes both praise and criticism worth something.

    Anyone familiar with Shaun Ryan's work would not dispute what I said.
     
  4. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I focus more on asking questions than making statements in my writing. I think that's another lens through which your question can be engaged.

    The kind of writing you mention (sadly ubiquitous these days on US TV) asks no questions. The masses for whom it is intended do not want questions. They want simple, clear, predigested statements they can swallow without even chewing. Which was the cause and which was the effect is a part of the past. What we have to deal with now is the fact that "This is what they want" is just the backside of the coin, the front of which is stamped with "We shall pander to this given segment and confirm and bolster every one of their biases, ensuring that they continue to ask for more of this because MONEY."

    But questions are uncomfortable for many people. Questions are the preferred cuisine of a bright but impoverished and very small segment. That river occasionally fills and flows, but it is ephemeral and fleeting. Hence, I have no aspirations of writing ever being lucrative. Not for me anyway.

    Also, I was raised in a rather itinerant fashion. I've slowly circled the globe twice now. I know for a fact that there are as many ways of being a Human Being as there are Human Beings being, and since I come from one culture but was raised in another, I have none - in truth - to which I am particularly beholden. Both cultures have a lot of things to say about how I'm not really part of either, so... That sounds kinda' sad, and sometimes it's frustrating, but it does mean that I am quite open to being critical about any and all. It means I can and will ask questions that demand that the core of a thing - not the satellite issues we pretend are the real issues - explain itself. It's never pulled any punches about questioning my place in it, so I feel no compulsion to accept its "truths", from whichever side they come, as sacrosanct.
     
    RMBROWN and Not the Territory like this.

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