Books |
Jesse Kornbluth/Head Butler Creative Services
By
Published: Feb 28, 2016
Category:
Writing /Creative Services
For decades, writers and would-be writers alike have asked me to read their work before they send it out. Maybe it’s because I was an English major who read shelves of books. Maybe it’s because I’ve developed a writing style that’s easy to read — I believe that stories and anecdotes are more memorable and powerful than the ideas expressed by those stories and anecdotes. Or because I have a hard time saying no.
Now I’m saying no to free editorial advice to all but close friends.
And I’m saying yes to Jesse Kornbluth Creative Services — an enterprise that hopes to help writers do their best work.
Why me? And why now?
In the last few months, writers sent me two unpublished books and a screenplay.
The novelist had hired a coach, the kind of writer who gets a B in every subject and wins no prizes at graduation. The result was a novel that colored between the lines, like a ladylike book from the 1950s. Style? None. The writer’s voice had been completely flattened. I didn’t feel guilty when I stopped reading.
The memoirist had hired a professional writer as a collaborator, and the collaborator apparently hadn’t read a single memoir published in the last few decades. No Cheryl Strayed. No Mary Karr. No Elizabeth Gilbert. No Jeanette Walls. The manuscript read like a privately published family history. A total nothingburger of a book.
The screenplay was the most mystifying. The story that inspired it was fascinating, but instead of telling that story, the writer had made a PowerPoint dramatization of the least interesting characters. The script was a clean miss.
In each case, money had passed hands, possibly quite a lot of it. In each case, the writer had the expectation of good advice. In each case, the writer lost time and wasted resources.
Surely, I can give better advice that those writers got.
My services will include:
— brainstorming, so you can describe the book/script you’re writing in a sentence or two (the “elevator pitch”).
— editing your draft, both at 30,000 feet and line by line.
— reading and commenting on your draft.
— referring you to talented Web designers and publicists and, very rarely, to agents I know and like. If I can’t get you to an agent, I’ll tell you how to identify the right agent for your work. And edit your pitch letter.
My fees? As appropriate.
Interested? Write me at HeadButlerNYC@AOL.com.
If you’re not at the stage where you want this kind of help but wouldn’t mind some general advice, here you go:
THE DAVID MAMET MEMO
Ok, he’s a jerk. And this is for TV writers. No matter. It’s smart smart smart.
STEPHEN KING: ON WRITING
King and I agree on almost everything. We believe in what George Orwell called “prose like a window pane” — that is, prose the reader doesn’t notice and admire as “beautifully crafted” writing. Instead, you put the reader in the room, you involve the reader with the people you’re writing about. The way to do that: subject, verb, object, subject, verb, object. Action verbs. Adjectives when absolutely necessary. Adverbs never. Listen to Isaac Babel: “No iron can strike the heart with as much force as a period in exactly the right place.”
BIRD BY BIRD
Anne Lamott’s classic.
TWYLA THARP: THE CREATIVE HABIT
Thesis: Creativity is muscle memory. Start exercising.
BETTER WRITING
My one-screen screed.
