Be the Reader
Writer: David Weinberg
What story should I write? I’ve been writing mostly screenplays for the past thirty years, and 12 years ago found myself wanting to be a film producer. I’ve come close to getting all the pieces of film puzzle assembled twice. They say close only counts in ‘horseshoes and hand-grenades.’ For entrepreneurs, writers and producers, there is often more to be learned from failure than from success.
First and foremost, you must understand your target audience…for both fiction and non-fiction. The world does not need more great authors. Take a walk-through Barnes and Noble. We are drowning in great writers. What the world wants and needs are great stories. What is a great story? Put simply, it is a story your target audience wants and needs to read.
For my current novel I wanted to write a contemporary romantic comedy involving the real Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley. Their lives were ruined by their best friend, Charles Dickens, when he wrote and published A Christmas Carol. My novel was born from a screenplay. A Netflix reader felt it wouldn’t resonate with their young audience, as Dickens and Scrooge have been tossed off to the dustbin of history…relics of a different age. Committing to this story universe allowed me lots of latitude in creating the spirit world my characters live in.
The first thing I had to do was story map my main characters. We all hear, ‘write what you know.’ Nonsense. I knew nothing about the Gentlemen’s Club and Boys Schools of Victorian England. That’s the world of my characters and it needed to become my world as well. Fortunately, researching those worlds is pretty easy on the internet. You must do research…for non-fiction, and especially for fiction. Readers are pretty sharp. You can invent your entire universe and all who inhabit it. However, if your universe has rules that don’t make sense, your readers won’t buy into it…and your book will crash and burn.
The McGuffin in Hollywood is what propels people into the story. In my case I took two characters that many people know well, and reimagined them with real lives. I added God and Lucifer, and two relatable heroines for the audience to root for. Make sure it’s funny where it needs to be funny, and sad where it needs to be sad. More than anything, make your characters three dimensional and relatable.
Back to my question. What story should I write? Is it about a cat, or have a cat in it? YouTube proves people love cat stories. No…I’m not suggesting a flood of cat inspired novels…unless they make me laugh or cry…and then I am. Maybe you should put some sex in your story? Sex is universal and most people like it. You make that decision at your own risk. Sex will lose you more readers than it brings you…unless you’re writing a Harlequin Romance. Once again, it all starts with asking yourself what your audience wants to read…which to me trumps the idea of writing what you may have wanted to write.
Where to begin? LCD…Least Common Denominator. David Kirkpatrick, a former President of Columbia studios once said, “People go to movies to gather in the dark and share in the community of emotions.” It’s the same with books, except we’re not all sharing the community of emotions all at the same time. The community of emotions? Ever hear of Stephen King? Boy is he good at scaring the crap out of people…some people love to be scared in a controlled environment. To me, his books are scarier than any of the movies made from them.
Love, hate, fear, belonging, hunger, loneliness. Start with your list of the things that bind you to your family and friends. Ask them if those same things bind them to you? The list you put together will drive you to finding your story and your characters. Of course, there is the 800-pound gorilla in the room…
You need to be able to write your story. Your prose needs to be well crafted and your dialog believable…both your characters and the world you have created need to be authentic. Spelling counts, grammar counts. Write the story that your audience needs to read and they will beat a path to your door. If it has a cat in it, and maybe some really good sex, I’ll buy the first copy.
About the Writer
David Weinberg is a writer, film producer and musician. Most recently he was a quarter finalist in the 2022 Creative Screenwriting Pilot competition for his sitcom entitled ‘Potus.’ He is divorced and owns the two most spoiled cats in America.
Website: davidweinbergauthor.com