This spring, Creative Screenwriting is expanding its horizons to explore documentary films. As usual, our emphasis will remain firmly on the writing process. And what better place to begin than with Louis Theroux, an award-winning documentary maker whose latest film, My Scientology Movie, is in US cinemas now.
Louis Theroux is perhaps best known for his Weird Weekends series, in which he explores various American subcultures, often taking an ostensibly light-hearted approach. However, his more recent films have tended to explore more serious subjects, such as criminal gangs in Lagos, Neo-Nazis in America, paedophilia, meth addiction and alcoholism.
In all his films, Theroux takes a non-confrontational approach, concentrating on the stories and lives of the individuals whom spends time with. At times frustrating for the viewer, who might wish him to probe more directly into the issues, the result is a series of remarkably intimate portraits of members of society towards whom we might not usually expect to feel any empathy.
His most recent film, My Scientology Movie, focuses on the Church of Scientology in the US. Unable to make contact with individuals who are still in the church, Theroux concentrates on former church official Mark Rathbun, whilst producing a number of dramatic reconstructions of incidents that Rathbun witnessed.
This leads both Theroux and Rathbun into increasing conflict with members of the Church of Scientology, who resort to ever-more bizarre tactics to impede the making of the documentary, including filming the filmmakers.
Creative Screenwriting spoke with Louis Theroux about the attraction of the weird and the dark, shaping the story, and finding the right questions.
<div id="attachment_17978" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17978" class="size-full wp-image-17978" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/3.jpg" alt="Will Pugh filming Louis Theroux in My Scientology Movie, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. " width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/3.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/3-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/3-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/3-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Will Pugh filming Louis Theroux in My Scientology Movie, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.</div>
<h2>How did you get started in the business, and what made you want to be a documentary maker?</h2>
My first job in television was working for Michael Moore – in 1994 he hired me as an on-air correspondent on his NBC show TV Nation. I had never thought seriously about getting into documentaries prior to that.
Before that I’d been a print journalist on a local paper in San Jose, California, and then at Spy Magazine. I’d thought a little bit about working in television but more as a writer of sit-coms, never as someone on screen.
Michael hired me because some friends who were then working for him as writers had recommended me. It was his idea to put me in front of the camera. I think he liked the idea that I was inexperienced. Basically I was a slightly awkward, gangly British guy with glasses, and I think he realized it would be funny to send me out to meet American extremists.
<div id="attachment_15717" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-15717" class="size-full wp-image-15717" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bowling-for-Columbine-2.jpg" alt="Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine © 2002 - MGM" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bowling-for-Columbine-2.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bowling-for-Columbine-2-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bowling-for-Columbine-2-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Bowling-for-Columbine-2-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Michael Moore in Bowling for Columbine © 2002 &#8211; MGM</div>
<h2>Since your early Weird Weekends series, it has almost become a cliché for critics to point out that your subject matter has become progressively darker. But it seems to me that there was a dark strand running through your earlier work as well. What draws you to these subjects?</h2>
Thanks for noticing that. There was almost always a little undercurrent of seriousness, even in the early days of Weird Weekends, with the possible exception of one or two episodes, like the UFOs one or the Infomercials ones.
I’ve always been fascinated by the weirdness and darkness of the human condition. The ways in which we sabotage ourselves. In some ways I think I find it reassuring that we are almost all of us grappling with the same unacknowledged craziness.
<h2>At first glance, My Scientology Movie seems an unusual film for you – your approach is usually to get to know individuals personally, whilst this film focuses on a group who are not even available for interview. But as the film progresses, it seems that your subject is not the Scientology movement, but Marty Rathbun. Was this always your intention?</h2>
Someone commented that they thought it was more My Marty Movie than My Scientology Movie. The intention was always to examine both sides of the story: to accept that the ex-Scientologists are also fallible, and that they have their own version of events.
I’m also drawn to paradoxes and apparent contradictions. I was on a journey with the ex-Scientologists and Marty in particular. He’s a fascinating man; very complex. I liked that he resisted seeing everything in Scientology as bad. He was still attracted to aspects of the tech and the military discipline. He’s got a whole spiel he does about non-binary thinking.
<div id="attachment_17982" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17982" class="size-full wp-image-17982" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/My-Scientology-Movie-2.jpg" alt="Marty Rathbun and Louis Theroux in My Scientology Movie, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. " width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/My-Scientology-Movie-2.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/My-Scientology-Movie-2-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/My-Scientology-Movie-2-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/My-Scientology-Movie-2-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Marty Rathbun and Louis Theroux in My Scientology Movie, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.</div>
<h2>Critics have described the film as being funny, and by the end the scientologists and their tactics seemed almost risible. Was this your intention?</h2>
Scientology is quite funny. A religion founded by a Science Fiction writer who had a habit of making up words and embellishing his CV. Religion has a silly side to it, especially when you look at it logically.
In general, when you look at Scientology material – the videos and books – they take themselves so seriously. It’s always over the top and epic. Some of the promotional videos released in the mid 2000s have the quality of infomercials. It’s the aesthetic of QVC applied to the timeless mysteries of the human spirit, which isn’t a natural fit.
<h2>You show the process of casting, scripting and filming scenes about Scientology. Did you ever intend to present these scenes as a finished product?</h2>
Early on in the development process we discussed making an actual film within a film – that we would maybe screen in Hollywood or release on the internet. But it came to seem a bit arch and artificial.
Then we – myself and the director John Dower – realized the re-enactments should just nestle inside the documentary, and that they would function both as illustrations of what Scientologists think and do, and also an excavation of Marty’s thinking. And also, I suppose as a way of looking at the Hollywood process itself.
<div id="attachment_17977" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17977" class="size-full wp-image-17977" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2.jpg" alt="Louis Theroux and actors in a reconstruction from My Scientology Movie, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. " width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/2-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Louis Theroux and actors in a reconstruction from My Scientology Movie, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.</div>
<h2>You seem interested in turning the camera on itself, and including yourself as a subject. What are your thoughts on the effect of the observer on the observed, and the extent to which this should be avoided or embraced?</h2>
I do think the non-interventionist school of documentary making can be a little overrated. You are there as a filmmaker, interfering, questioning, producing, so why not embrace that fact?
Many of favourite documentaries – and indeed works of literary non-fiction – are about immersive first-person journeys. As a participant in scenes you can shake things up, you can provoke and question. Especially in a story like this one, it was about making myself a lightning rod for the attention of the Scientologists, since so much of what makes them interesting is how they react to perceived criticism from “suppressives”. Like me.
<h2>Presumably you hoped to provoke the kind of response you got from the Scientologists, or at least were expecting it. To what extent do you approach a project with a narrative already in mind, and does this ever change during the filmmaking process?</h2>
Well, the hope was always that they would come back at us. That’s their MO. That’s what they’re known for. But I wasn’t sure whether they would do it.
The first time I noticed an unidentified camera crew filming us from across the street, it was a huge relief. The thing is, they can’t help themselves. It’s in the “tech” – the tenets and teachings of Scientology – that you have to strike back at suppressives. Having said that, they reserved their worst behaviour for the ex-Scientologists. Marty Rathbun bore the brunt of it.
<div id="attachment_17983" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17983" class="size-full wp-image-17983" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/My-Scientology-Movie-3.jpg" alt="Louis Theroux being filmed by Scientologists in My Scientology Movie, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. " width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/My-Scientology-Movie-3.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/My-Scientology-Movie-3-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/My-Scientology-Movie-3-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/My-Scientology-Movie-3-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Louis Theroux being filmed by Scientologists in My Scientology Movie, a Magnolia Pictures release. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.</div>
<h2>In a documentary you are ostensibly just presenting facts. But clearly you are also telling a story, through your script, your choice of footage, and how it is presented. So how do you go about writing your script, and to what extent do you think in traditional storytelling terms, such as the 3-act structure?</h2>
I do try to think in terms of three acts. It’s another way in which it helps to have me as a presence in the film.
We have some control over how I engage with the material – there is a kind arc to my involvement in the story. It’s not too formulaic, but I am always thinking – both in the movie and also in my television work – about the shape of the story.
In the Weird Weekends, there was a generally moment of participation, which would be somewhat climactic. But there was also sometimes a moment of attempting to challenge or even “rescue” (in a very mild sense) one of the contributors. A huge amount of the work of shaping my television documentaries is moving blocks of scenes around. The actual scripting of my voiceover is subsidiary to that, and generally just tries to support the actuality.
<div id="attachment_17975" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-17975" class="size-full wp-image-17975" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/weird-weekend.jpg" alt="Louis Theroux and 'Sarge' in Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends,&quot;Wrestling&quot;" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/weird-weekend.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/weird-weekend-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/weird-weekend-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/weird-weekend-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Louis Theroux and &#8216;Sarge&#8217; in Louis Theroux&#8217;s Weird Weekends,&#8221;Wrestling&#8221;</div>
<h2>One problem writers often face these days is not a lack of research material, but too much, so that it is easy to become lost in it, and be unable to find the story. Do you have any advice for screenwriters on how to approach and to use research?</h2>
I think it’s a common problem – I’ve faced it in my print journalism and my documentaries. In my television work it’s generally easier. We choose a handful of characters and let them to the work of telling the story – taking us through scenes, illustrating process.
My Scientology Movie was harder because we were having to generate the momentum of the story – by helping to stage these re-enactments. It’s easy to get lost in Scientology research, there’s so much there. But in general you have to identify the core idea.
In fact, there’s almost always a more basic, more obvious question that you’ve forgotten to explore, because you’re so deep inside the story. In My Scientology Movie it was basically, “Who are they? What do they believe?”
Then the deeper questions were: “What is the yardstick for abusive behavior?” “When does religious commitment become something more sinister?” “How much protection should we afford religion – and are there such things as good and bad religious faiths?”
<a href="http://amzn.to/2m2RwHq"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-17984" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Humanism-and-Terror-1-188x300.jpg" alt="" width="188" height="300" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Humanism-and-Terror-1-188x300.jpg 188w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Humanism-and-Terror-1-94x150.jpg 94w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Humanism-and-Terror-1-110x175.jpg 110w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Humanism-and-Terror-1-150x239.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Humanism-and-Terror-1.jpg 313w" sizes="(max-width: 188px) 100vw, 188px" /></a>Many years ago I read a book called Humanism and Terror by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It was about Stalinism, and his basic point seemed to be that it would be hard to take issue with Stalinism and the show trials if they really had led to a genuine socialist utopia.
Or to put it in the context of Scientology: If you truly believed that the planet’s only hope was through the mass application of pure unadulterated Scientology, and that without that we would be charred ruins drifting through space, what would you not be willing to do to make that happen?
<h2>Do you have any other advice, either for documentary makers or for screenwriters?</h2>
Work with good people. In general you’re only as good as your collaborators. On My Scientology Movie I had a terrific director John Dower. We had a brilliant editor, Paul Carlin. Simon Chinn, the producer, is obviously a docs legend. And I would also include Marty Rathbun, because it was only through his commitment to the filmmaking process that the concept of the re-enactments – which could have been gimmicky – actually became something deeper and more interest.
I’d also say: choose stories that you think are interesting, rather than because they feel socially important. Not that they’re necessarily mutually exclusive. But it’s a lot to ask of someone, that they give you an hour or 90 minutes of their time. The first duty is not to be boring.
<h2> </h2>
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[addtoany]
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“The first duty is not to be boring.” Louis Theroux on My Scientology Movie

On the face of it, musicians and writers do not have much in common. Musicians perform in public, writers work alone in private. Music is fleeting and intangible, writing endures forever. Musicians are often extraverts, writers tend towards introversion.
But there is one thing which both have in common, whether they know it or not: the need to practice. So this article will explore the importance of that practice, and what lessons writers can learn about it from musicians.
&nbsp;
<h2>Muscle Memory</h2>
<blockquote>
Researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours.
Malcolm Gladwell; Outliers: The Story of Success
</blockquote>
<a href="http://amzn.to/2cthKkJ"><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-16252" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Outliers-by-Malcolm-Gladwell-198x300.jpg" alt="outliers-by-malcolm-gladwell" width="198" height="300" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Outliers-by-Malcolm-Gladwell-198x300.jpg 198w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Outliers-by-Malcolm-Gladwell-150x228.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Outliers-by-Malcolm-Gladwell-115x175.jpg 115w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Outliers-by-Malcolm-Gladwell.jpg 329w" sizes="(max-width: 198px) 100vw, 198px" /></a>Gladwell based this conclusion on research by Anders Ericsson, who studied violinists. And musicians know all about practice.
Watching someone up there on stage, you see the act, the performance, the illusion. What you don’t see is the reality: hours a day spent alone in a small room, repeating the same movements over and over and over again.
What is happening during all that time spent practicing? Simply put, the development of muscle memory. The mental processes required to perform particular patterns of muscle movements shift from learned to instinctive: they are memorised so thoroughly that they require no further thought.
Of course we all know this, because we have all gone through the process many times, such as when we learned to walk, ride a bicycle, or drive a car.
At first we have to think about every part of the activity, how to move each limb, and how to fit those movements together into a chain of actions which achieve our goal. Then, gradually, we think less about the individual movements and more about the whole, until finally we don’t think at all. We walk, we cycle, we drive. We have established our muscle memory for that particular task.
And what musicians know, so do athletes, martial artists, and anyone else who needs to master a physical or mechanical skill. Practice does not, in fact, make perfect. But it is certainly an essential prerequisite of perfection.
<div id="attachment_16251" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-16251" class="size-full wp-image-16251" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Once-Upon-a-Time-in-China-2.jpg" alt="Jet Li as Wong Fei-Hung in Once Upon a Time in China II" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Once-Upon-a-Time-in-China-2.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Once-Upon-a-Time-in-China-2-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Once-Upon-a-Time-in-China-2-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Once-Upon-a-Time-in-China-2-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Jet Li as Wong Fei-Hung in Once Upon a Time in China II</div>
Yet all too often writers forget this. Because writing, of course, is not a mechanical craft: it is art. No, in fact it is Art, to be spoken of in hushed and reverent tones. And to write is to become a “vessel for the muses”, to give oneself over to inspiration, and to bleed one’s heart onto the page.
Well&#8230; yes&#8230;but it is also a craft, and craft requires technique.
Technique is the vehicle for artistic expression. And if you put the world’s best race driver into a clapped-out old car, they would lose every race.
Have you ever tried to put a thought into words, and become frustrated because you couldn’t quite express yourself the way you wanted to? Ever heard a character speaking in your head, but been unable to get that voice into your script? Or found yourself thinking about the nuts and bolts of verb and adverb, plot point and inciting moment, when you should be lost in the flow of creation? That’s all due to lack of practice.
If you are a musician, and if you practice enough, you get to a point when it seems that you are not actually doing anything: it is as if someone or something else is playing through you. And in writing, too, there are moments when the words seem to come from outside, or deep within, and that you are just a vessel or tool for the creative force.
But in both cases, this is not what is happening. What is happening is that so much of the techniques required have become muscle memory, and are happening unconsciously, that the unconscious self is playing, writing, doing the heavy lifting, leaving you free to guide and direct that flow. Or, if you are like most musicians, free to wonder what you are going to have for dinner.
So the importance of practice, whether you are a musician or a writer, cannot be overstated.
But that’s not enough. Not nearly enough.
<div id="attachment_7775" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-7775" class="size-full wp-image-7775" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Whiplash-Teller-and-Simmons-Drums.jpg" alt="Miles Teller as Andrew and J.K. Simmons as Fletcher in Whiplash" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Whiplash-Teller-and-Simmons-Drums.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Whiplash-Teller-and-Simmons-Drums-150x84.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Whiplash-Teller-and-Simmons-Drums-300x169.jpg 300w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Whiplash-Teller-and-Simmons-Drums-500x281.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Miles Teller as Andrew and J.K. Simmons as Fletcher in Whiplash. Photo by Daniel McFadden &#8211; © 2014 &#8211; Sony Pictures Classics</div>
<h2>Throwing It All Away</h2>
<blockquote>
Write a million words – the absolute best you can write, then throw it all away and bravely turn your back on what you have written. At that point, you’re ready to begin.
David Eddings
</blockquote>
Practice is not performance. This is another thing musicians are told from the time they first pick up an instrument. Practice must be solely for the sake of improvement, freed from need to impress an audience, freed from the need to get it right first time.
That is why musicians lock themselves away in small sound-proofed rooms to practice. Because they have to be free to make mistakes.
In music practice, the music itself – in the sense of the resulting harmonious sound – doesn’t matter. It isn’t listened to, it isn’t judged, it isn’t recorded for posterity. And the same should be true of writing practice.
But it isn’t.
As writers, we each of us have this belief, somewhere deep down, buried beneath the doubts and the neuroses, that what we have to say is of value. Or might be, to someone, somewhere. Otherwise we wouldn’t be writers.
This means we find the concept of writing something just to throw it away almost incomprehensible. We keep our ideas, our drafts, our scribbled notes, because we think, or hope, that they might contain something of worth.
But all the time you are writing with the idea in the back of your mind that it might be worth keeping, you are not practicing.
So your writing practice, like a musician’s practice, should be for the sake of improvement, and for that alone. And when you are done, throw that page away, delete that file.
I know, this seems counter-intuitive. But only when you free yourself of the need to create something good or of value can you actually practice.
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-12856" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/idea-by-Jack-Mareh.jpg" alt="Hand drawing the word idea with lightbulb sketch" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/idea-by-Jack-Mareh.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/idea-by-Jack-Mareh-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/idea-by-Jack-Mareh-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/idea-by-Jack-Mareh-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />
But what if you come up with a great idea when practicing?
That is a good question. Personally, I don’t believe in the uniqueness, or even inherent value, of a single idea. Most writers, in any medium, have more great ideas than they know what to do with. And the more you have, the more you seem to get.
So my advice is to throw it away – if it is that great, it will come back to you in another form, and if it isn’t, or doesn’t, then there will be plenty more fish in that sea. The value of practice without pressure outweighs the potential loss of any good ideas.
But, if you really can’t bring yourself to do that, then when you have finished your practice, note down that good idea elsewhere, then discard the practice itself. Just, whatever you do, don’t try to come up with “ideas for keep” when practicing.
<div id="attachment_7756" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-7756" class="size-full wp-image-7756" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/the-shining.jpg" alt="The Shining" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/the-shining.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/the-shining-150x84.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/the-shining-300x169.jpg 300w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/the-shining-500x281.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />The Shining</div>
&nbsp;
<h2>Eat Bitter</h2>
So music practice is not performance, and writing practice is not writing something you should keep.
But equally importantly, nor is music practice just playing. Playing is fun. Playing is doing what you are good at. Playing is burning through that guitar riff or that presto Vivaldi movement for the sheer joy of doing something you excel at. But it is not practice.
And the same is true of writing. Writing what you are good at is not practice. It can be enjoyable, and when you come to write with an eye to publication you should of course play to your strengths. But it is not, in terms of improving as a writer, useful.
Instead, you must specifically and relentlessly practice what you are bad at.
And this is tough. Acknowledging your weaknesses in the first place is hard enough. Working to improve them is harder still. But it is made a little easier if you bear in mind that no one is listening, no one is reading over your shoulder. It is made easier, in fact, by the very act of throwing away the result.
Not sure what your weaknesses are? Then ask someone who knows your writing. Writers groups can be helpful in finding people only too happy to point out your flaws!
In fact, even if you think you know, ask anyway. Because I bet they aren’t quite what you think they are.
<div id="attachment_10781" style="width: 610px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10781" class="size-full wp-image-10781" src="https://creativescreenwriting.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/stuck-writing-nicholas-cage-as-kaufman-in-adaptation.jpg" alt="Nicholas Cage as Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation" width="600" height="338" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/stuck-writing-nicholas-cage-as-kaufman-in-adaptation.jpg 600w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/stuck-writing-nicholas-cage-as-kaufman-in-adaptation-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/stuck-writing-nicholas-cage-as-kaufman-in-adaptation-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/stuck-writing-nicholas-cage-as-kaufman-in-adaptation-500x282.jpg 500w" sizes="(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px" />Nicholas Cage as Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation</div>
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<h2>Warming Up</h2>
Finally, to borrow from the world of music one more time, there is another kind of practice which is worth mentioning: warming up.
All musicians warm up before performing, and as writers we would do well to do the same. It doesn’t much matter what you write. Anything will do: a diary, a film review, a scene you have just witnessed, a description of something you have seen or overheard. Just words, words, words, to get the fingers moving, the brain in gear, and the thoughts flowing.
But remember: when you’ve finished, throw it away!
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