THE RISING LINE

On creative writing, free association, and getting to the good bits.

Don’t Make Waves 1967, directed by Alexander Mackendrick

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A student came to me last week with a short film she'd made and we watched it several times on DVD, in my front room. I made suggestions and she said she'd go away and re-cut it. What I wanted her to do was get to the story quicker, to what I called the 'good bits' and she was rather bewildered by this, particularly when I said things like 'can't you put all the good bits together and hand it in?' She liked the other, slower, parts because she felt that to put the good bits in a sequence would make everything, as she put it, 'too sudden' I knew what she meant and couldn't help but agree that the 'proportions' had to be right.

Under my sofa there are two novels written by former students, which I feel compelled to read. The first is about a girl whose father dies and her mother joins the Orange people, taking along the teenage daughter. There are, as you can imagine, some excellent sex scenes, full of hairy New Agers and embarrassment and sadness. The other novel is about a young man who joins a writers group, not unlike the one I ran at the Royal Court at the end of the 80s, and that book is full of anxiety and competitiveness. If the writer does what I say it could turn out to be a decent comedy.

I wonder what I am supposed to give to these students, whether I can be any use. I could be a good parent, encouraging them to try new things, and I could be their first audience, telling them what I feel as I experience their work. I take this 'teaching' seriously, because they listen to me seriously and I'd feel guilty if I couldn't give them anything useful. Do they have anything in common, these three? It could be that the story they are telling isn't in focus, that there aren't enough ‘good bits’ in the right place.