Reality TV for Writers

April 30, 2024 9:02 AM

The Top Six Lessons I Had to Learn From Reality TV Because Chabon Said No About the Couch Thing
posted by BWA (12 comments total)

Also, sometimes people bounce off your work for stupid reasons! Tom C. is prejudiced against okra of all things, the "regular person" you were asked to design for is mad you didn't put roses on the wedding dress, praemunire is deeply put off by the covers of your books. (Genuinely feel bad about this one. It truly is subjective! But The Great Believers's cover aggravated my eyes for a year plus in bookstores. Though it was still leagues better than A Little Life's.)
posted by praemunire at 9:09 AM on April 30 [5 favorites]

I have frequently justified my fondness for reality competition shows by how much I learn, though I've attempted to apply none of it so well as the author has. I just enjoy collecting shiny little tidbits of information about arts and crafts I will never practice, with a side of manufactured drama.
posted by EvaDestruction at 9:24 AM on April 30 [1 favorite]

That is not at all what I expected it to be from the presentation here on MetaFilter, but I liked it very much, just in a different way than I expected to.

I love reality competition shows that focus on the craft instead of the interpersonal drama, though I am a little tired of 'up against the clock' as a mandatory element of every show. I think it's cool that Ms. Makkai has taken useful information from them.

I think the thing I would most take away from reality TV is that while craftsmanship matters, creativity and meaning matters more, and when you want other people to like your work, the story you surround it with (marketing) may matter most of all.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:42 AM on April 30 [6 favorites]

I'm neither a writer nor a reality TV watcher, but I enjoyed this piece a lot! Thanks for posting, BWA!
posted by mpark at 10:15 AM on April 30

Let me watch you draft your next novel, please, Mr. Chabon! You won’t mind if I camp out here on your couch for the next six to seven years, will you?

She asked the wrong writer. For Reacher Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me, Andy Martin sat "a couple of yards behind [Child], peering over his shoulder ... for the next 8 months."
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 10:44 AM on April 30 [2 favorites]

I learned a lot that I've applied to proposal and grant writing from Project Runway. Don't bore Nina!!!
posted by Tesseractive at 10:45 AM on April 30 [6 favorites]

The main thing I learn from watching reality TV is how to predict the winner of a reality TV competition... Great British Baking show was great for this, in the first season they didn't bother constructing a narrative around the participants so it was a shock when the "underdog" won; in the second season they were too obvious about the narrative-making, and the participant who'd go on to win suddenly got much more confident with about 2 episodes to go, as if she'd been told the outcome in advance; and then every season after that they honed the formula so they would be working up a narrative around halfway through the season, to make you feel good about the eventual winner, and you could watch them make the narratives and predict who the favorites were. Though those favorites still had to hold up their end of the bargain in the final, and not blow it.
posted by subdee at 10:56 AM on April 30 [2 favorites]

Funny thing. Long ago, when I produced radio dramas for a living, I had the idea of producing a podcast series where we ask [random playwright within our sphere of influence] to self-record an audio diary as they worked all the way through a newly-commissioned play. Everything from the first phone call with the funders, through their private brainstorming/ideation sessions, and onward as the piece coheres around themes, characters, settings, etc., up until the first production. Nothing spared, no prettiness. All the ambition, the transcendence, and the agony laid bare. There were so many logistical hurdles with this idea, not least of which would be finding a decorated playwright willing to barf their psychic pain into a Voice Memo for 2+ years, but I have to admit, I really wanted to make that series. (A decade on, someone's probably made something similar by now anyway.)
posted by mykescipark at 11:16 AM on April 30 [2 favorites]

That was really unexpectedly nice.
posted by mittens at 11:51 AM on April 30 [2 favorites]

My wife and I watched the British "competition" show The Victorian House Of Arts And Crafts; after the first episode we almost gave up because it started out with some annoying reality TV tropes, they tried to emphasize conflicts and make one of the competitors a villain...but it didn't really work and I think they learned their lesson and it quickly became a show about artisans being given restrictions in order to make something interesting that they never had before. You do feel bad for them when they fail, but it's not portrayed as "losing," just part of the creative process. There's weekly "winner", chosen by judges, and I went back to try and figure out if there was a winner of the whole series, and if there was they mentioned it in passing, no big ceremony, the series ended on a party where everyone enjoyed all the art that was created.

I could watch a lot more shows like this, something spanning multiple episodes that is creative and generative but open-ended and uncompetitive. "Making It" here in the US is probably the closest but it leans very heavily into the competition part.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:28 PM on April 30 [2 favorites]

She asked the wrong writer. For Reacher Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me, Andy Martin sat "a couple of yards behind [Child], peering over his shoulder ... for the next 8 months."

I just might have to read that, though I've never read (or watched) anything Jack Reacher.

I love the premise of this piece because as a beginner writer, there is so much mystery into how the sausage gets made. I've found a few YT videos of some people who sort of outline or plot on camera, and I've seen a couple of videos of someone actually writing (that is, it shows their computer screen as they write) and I find it utterly fascinating. Writing's one of those things where there is lots of written or oral advice but few opportunities to actually watch a master at their craft.

(And yes, I'm aware that watching these videos is satisfying in part because it tricks my brain into thinking that I'm in fact writing instead of procrastinating down another craft rabbit hole...)
posted by synecdoche at 2:06 PM on April 30 [1 favorite]

For anyone who wants the no-holds-barred over-the-shoulder view of how writers make their sausages, John Steinbeck's diary during his writing of The Grapes of Wrath is available in book form as "Working Days", just FYI.

I... don't really have the words to describe it, even superlatives feel like an insult. It feels so sacred to me that I can't bring myself to read it properly (I read a couple of entries, IT IS THE REAL THING) until I start working on my novel again.

Anyway forget me and my anxieties about writing. Here's The Marginalian's blog post describing the book. It includes a link to the Amazon listing for Working Days.
posted by MiraK at 12:02 PM on May 1 [1 favorite]