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Thursday 23 March 2017

The Write Advice 091: BRUCE JAY FRIEDMAN


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


 

 

 

You might also enjoy:

 
The Write Advice 045: AMY HEMPEL

 
The Write Advice 021: AL KENNEDY

 
The Write Advice 016: NORA EPHRON

 

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