Essentially, I think of it [fiction and non-fiction writing] as story-telling. Act one, two and three. As someone smarter than me said, 'Chase a cat up a tree, throw stones at it, then bring it down.' I’m making it sound easy, but my first attempts at each form were on the shaky side. There was a seven-year period –– in my twenties –– of trying to write a novel that wasn’t any good. But I learned to write a good one by writing a bad one. I presented the first 100 pages or so of a first screenplay to the director Alan Pakula. He pointed to a line on page 100 and said, 'Let’s begin here.' Annoying, but he was right. I’d spent all that time clearing my throat. And I learned that Hollywood wasn’t interested in the alleged unique quality of my voice. Movies were pictures. If I have any strength, it’s in the short story… probably because I don’t have quite as much patience as others.
Interview in Pif Magazine [October 2004]
Use the links below to read the full October 2004 interview with North American novelist and screenwriter BRUCE JAY FRIEDMAN and read a short 1976 non-fiction piece by him titled Some Thoughts on Clint Eastwood and Heidegger:
http://www.pifmagazine.com/2004/10/bruce-jay-friedman/
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/263509.html
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