Quantum Storytelling

Some ideas:

• Some of the top showrunners in television form a new broadcasting corporation that offers a strong royalty rate for creators. Oh, but we can’t have that because that’d be starting a corporation, and all corporations are only ever always evil.
• One of the existing TV networks decides to stick it to the competition, by offering a nice royalty and therefore grabs the better industry talent. Oh, but we can’t have that because competition is bad. Not to mention, most corporations suck at it – so it’s better to not have to do something you suck at anyway. On top of that, the union wouldn’t allow a network to negotiate a good royalty without involving them, so forget about that one.
• Writers everywhere form a non-union, independent coalition that does nothing other than defend the free agent model, and basic rights. This coalition does not collect dues, and does not form a collectivized, centralized agenda other than promoting independence. Oh, but we can’t have that because that’d be in support of free market competition/capitalism, and those things are evil. Not to mention most people suck at them.
• Individual writers and/or showrunners negotiate royalty rates individually with the networks they work for. I’m not sure if/why this doesn’t happen already. Probably because individuals aren’t allowed to negotiate their contracts, because the union does it for them?

  Maybe if the union didn’t only do it once every 20 or 30 years, and left it up to the individual, more writers would be compensated better on an individual level? Ya know, maybe there hasn’t been progress since 1988 because the union didn’t do anything other than collect dues? In this entire time, I’m sure writers could have negotiated better salaries and royalties with the networks — IF they were allowed. I know if I wanted more, I’d ask for more. If I didn’t get it, I’d seriously think about changing jobs. That’s how most everything else works, right?

I don’t expect anyone to make any attempts whatsoever towards any of these alternatives. It’s far easier to trust in the Big Brothers & Sisters of the world. I think deep down we all want to be mindless drones, subjected to the agendas of oppressive collectives. We must want it, or we wouldn’t let the collectives — governments, corporations, and organizations (unions) do all the heavy lifting for us.

And yet… we hand them the keys to the city because we simply don’t care. We can’t be bothered with hassles like starting businesses, organizing productions, having books printed and shipped, nor negotiating our own contracts. That’s asking far too much of feeble-minded creative types, isn’t it?

Ok, I’ll curb the sarcasm for a moment. Actually, I don’t think that it is too much to ask for us to do these things. But… and this is a BIG BUT — apparently the world disagrees with me.

I say if you want more, do more. And I’m not just talking about writing. I’m talking about looking after your own interests with some amount of assertiveness, instead of letting others do it for you and rip you off in the process.

Very interesting…

“it is important for you to report to the Guild the name of any non member whom you believe has performed any writing services for a struck company and as much information as possible about the non member’s services.”

So, if a person is not a WGA member, and that person writes during the strike, they can be reported to the WGA, but on a blacklist by WGA members, and barred from joining in the future? You mean, a career can be potentially damaged by writing right now, even though a person is not a member?

Mafia anyone?

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On September 27th, 2005 I decided to launch a place where I could talk about my hobby of writing. It all started with this post. Two years have gone by in the blink of an eye. As I look back on the various incarnations of this site, it’s fun to get a bit nostalgic over what I think are the more memorable bits.

As any reader here knows, I’m fond of structure. For me, most of the creative process, its burps and hiccups, revolve around structure and the role it plays in shaping the overall work. Story DNA was probably my first post focusing on this apsect, and little did I know there would be many more to come.

As I strafed the topic of my fiction, I discussed dystopias, and battled it out between fantasy vs. sci-fi. 2005 was my first time for NaNoWriMo. I had a hunch about geneplore long before my 2006 discovery of the geneplore model.

Of course who could forget my debates with Melly over art vs. entertainment.

Another 2006 revelation was 7 Secrets of Writing Scene by Scene. That was a huge one for me, as the blindly-draft-hundreds-of-pages method has never been anything but failure for me.

I have fond memories of the folks over at Writer Unboxed getting a kick out of my writing on the wall. I still have the shower crayons, and yes still use them.

2007 brought some finality to my evaluation of writing methods & techniques, along with good habits to help you see the light at the end of the tunnel. It should go without saying that great software always helps.

Thanks for coming along with me on this crazy adventure, and may we have many more!