TIME FOR YOU AND ME

I make my living out of non-fiction screenwriting.

That means I research and write audio-visual scripts for anything that needs to be sold, including ideas and people. I do that for them who prefer not to write their own stuff. Since there are quite a few such benevolent souls out there, I have been running my friendly neighborhood gymkhana of non-fiction muscle-building for close to 25 years. 

Now, sometimes, I feel like sharing those experiences. Earlier, I didn’t.

That’s because I always believed we non-fiction screen-writers are much better off as social misfits.  We are not meant to be seen. Let me explain.

You see, while others engage with events, we stand aloof and search for scenes and sequences in them. People meet others, we are conditioned to read them. They talk, we look for sound-bites. They make friends, we make characters out of them. We probe, sometimes a bit too much, and make everyone uneasy. We are strange.

Whatever genre of non-fiction we write, life becomes our thesaurus.

Hence, our best asset is our ability to remain unseen. Our mind is always busy breaking everyday life into sequences and scenes; every sound we hear, every image we see, and every discomfort we avoid eventually finds  its way into our narratives – as elements of our storyboards. Most of the days, we don’t even wake up; we fade in. 

Yes, we are odd. I am starting this blog because I believe this inherent oddity of non-fiction screenwriting deserves to be institutionalized.

That apart, the scripts we write for films and videos are meant to be visualized, not read, so it reaches no one apart from the director and his crew. That leaves people like me high and dry. Today, when I look at the vast quantum of my work across genres, I feel I have nothing to share with you. We own nothing.

Occupational hazard, I know, but it sucks.

Maybe then, if nothing else, I can share my experiences with you. All along, it’s been an incredible journey, and it’s still ongoing.

Perhaps, in the process, I can talk about how I approach non-fiction screenwriting.  During the course of that, I  can connect with other writing experts from other domains, and we enrich our learning curves in some way. 

The process of non-fiction screenwriting, especially the version that brings home the cash, is more of a hit and miss – I must say. Your clients hit, and you try your best to make them miss you. It’s true for all forms of writers. There’s always someone who knows ‘better’, but can’t define it, hence can’t write it. We get paid to write their thoughts for them.

Non-fiction screenwriting of this kind is often the subtle art of being poignant and passionate with words that do not mean anything significant , but sounds great when heard on-screen. Writing for others is simple. All you need to do is to confuse them with high sounding catch-phrases, clever word-plays and tall promises. Do it well, and you never know, you might end up becoming a prime minister’s speechwriter someday.

Am I joking?? Yes, I am. Don’t take me seriously on that one.

We are ghost writers, which also suggests we have a zombie-like anti-social sense of humor. Chuckle!!!

On a more somber note, I believe its great fun being who we are.

Its people like us who actually make  films happen. Without us, they would be stillborn. Often we start the process of non-fiction screenwriting out of just a few random thoughts. The documentary writer creates a convincing argument out of what is almost always a truckload of information, mostly written in texts that are not expected to be understood. We make molehills out of those mountains to filter out their intended meanings, if any.

Heck!!! We even find meanings that the clients never knew existed.

Then, we create draft shooting scripts that outlines the first framework of the film to the camera unit; brief them about how we feel their shots could be; go through hours of gibberish to pick up twenty odd seconds of sound bite; spend hours with the video editor looking at the footage and find areas that could be factored in to make the film interesting; continue rewriting scripts till they start showing signs of blistering their puss, and then, with a wide grin that would give the Cheshire cat an inferiority complex, start licking our wounds again because the client now wants something ‘different’ – the exact nature of which they (once again) can’t define.

Like I said, we are much better off unseen.

Now you see me !!!

I intend to use this window to share and relate. Mostly my personal experiences about non-fiction screenwriting, about the places I visit, books I read, films I write and a few first-hand insiders’ tips to weather the storm for fellow writers. 

At times, here, we will meet others to explore their techniques of dealing with non-fiction screenwriting; they will be experts – both with and without the written word, across genres, but each with a different shade of what I would call a ‘documentary’ mind. 

I believe this journey would enhance my own writing skills as well. Most of us will agree that being able to reach out simply and sensibly is an incredible gift. It would be such a shame not trying to improve it.

Sense is a good thing to make, isn’t it?

Every one of us writers have a unique way of approaching words and spinning them around our thoughts;  everybody thinks, but it requires a fair amount of discipline, and a coherent, constructive and somewhat ruthless approach to turn those thoughts into legible and tangible stories.To do that there’s a lot to learn from each other; that’s true for me and for you, my reader, if you have actually reached this far reading this crap.

On a different note, while everyone thinks of running away from reality, life will always need people to stay back, to explain its contours and appreciate its nuances. Life is real, and reality improves through reflections. We reflect. 

It’s the mandate of writers like us to create those first drafts of alternate reality to ease our universal pain of existence; pick up a newspaper; switch on the TV; browse the web – there’s always a non-fiction writer somewhere out there, shaping your reality for you.

They are the ones who inspire us to question our collective being (and sometimes, the latest poll results).  The form of reality they create helps everyone to come back to life everyday, with renewed interest. 

So then, if there’s a little bit of me in you, let’s connect .

Maybe, together, we can set up a way of life we don’t need to escape from.