Jack Fitzgerald's Blog

Hello Friends

For nearly three years I have been the host of a blog dealing with tips on writing (mainly screenplays), my adventures which have been included in my writings, and sometimes my philosophy. At first, the blogs appeared every Thursday. I found that with the marketing of my books and writing new ones, it was too much to crowd in a weekly blog. Therefore, I went to an every–other-week format. This lasted for over a year.

Then came “the noises of life”, meaning illnesses. I had been a rather robust person. A little over a year ago I went on a 16-day tour of Turkey. Changing hotels and packing and repacking daily almost got to me but I did see a lot of marvelous things and I collected a lot of new memories and made a lot of friends. I returned in the fall only to be invaded by a long list of illnesses. In all they left me so I could not walk for several months. Thus the “Encore” blogs began. These were favorites that were printed intermittently with fresh blogs. Then I broke two bones on my right foot and got struck in the hip with an attack (and I do mean attack) of arthritis.

I am glad to report that I can walk again and my spirits are high and I am working on a new book entitled THE DOMINO EFFECT. As well I’m e-writing a screenplay of mine which an agent in Beverly Hills is interested in representing. This proves you’re never too old. I’m 84. I keep telling people in these recent days that there is nothing old about me but my birth certificate.

The reason for this special blog is to let you my readers know that my blog will no longer actively be published. As of this issue, the blog will not be dead—only sleeping. That means that occasionally I will wake up and send you a new blog. The good thing is you will have to do nothing to receive it because you will automatically receive the new blog.

Thanks for being with me on this journey and I hope my tips, life stories, and my thoughts may have helped you, entertained you, and inspired you. Take care, write me if you ever have a question. My best to each of you,

Cheers,

Jack

Letter Writing

(Originally posted June 27, 2013)

You may think I have come full circle by starting with SCREENPLAYS and now today jumping to LETTERS. In a former blog, résumés were not only mentioned but discussed in terms of readability. Today’s blog goes into the twin of all forms of writing: THE LETTER.

You have application letters that go with résumés, you have query letters you send out to agents, publishers and producers and you have normal all-event business letters. If you fail at any one of these three, your writing career could possibly never get off the ground. So, let’s discuss the most vital writing of all—THE LETTER.

Jack acting in The Paris English Theatre production of his play HELL’S ARMY.

Modern business puts a high value on writers who can express themselves concisely and well in letter writing. The simple fact is that the person who is a good writer of letters has a skill that can prove very helpful in his or her career.

Many people who think they are decent business-letter writers are NOT. They think business writing is supposed to be cold, vocabulary impressive, full of wordy, worn-out and meaningless expressions and a way of making simple things sound complex. They use “I” and “we” much more than they do the reader-friendly “you.”

When average people sit down to write a business letter, they completely change their personalities. Instead of being friendly and cheerful and writing the way they talk, they become as cold as a clam and as unfriendly as a presidential bodyguard. As has been stated in earlier blogs, you must write to express—not impress.

Good business correspondence should read like someone speaking. Letters should sound as human as if they were being spoken. You hope the reader will respond in exactly the same way. When you are writing a letter, write to the person, not to a piece of paper or a computer screen.

Techniques for GOOD letter writing are rather rigid. This is needed to maintain a certain “quality control” on your output. The following techniques will serve you well if you follow them thoroughly and make them a habit.

The two basic elements of a letter are paragraphs and sentences:

PARAGRAPHS : Usually letters have four paragraphs. That number of paragraphs will make your letter look well thought-out, laid out and easy on the eye. Your letters can have more paragraphs but you risk boring your reader. Unless it is absolutely necessary, keep your letters to four paragraphs. An exception is a sales letter, which is trying to sell you a special book, a miracle weight-loss product or get you to contribute to some cause. You get tons of them in the mail (junk mail) and they’re always two or three pages long. They require special training to produce. Also an exception is a letter of inquiry or request, which can be only three paragraphs.

SENTENCES: You should have from three to six sentences in each paragraph. A long paragraph with 7 or more sentences will easily tire a reader. You should vary the number of sentences. Sometimes have three, four, five or six sentences. To have the same number of sentences in all of your paragraphs does not look serious and professional. A one-sentence paragraph appears to be a headline to the reader rather than built upon information. Headline paragraphs can be used in letters of inquiry and request. (The next blog will go into detail about all these different types of letters.) In your ordinary business letters, try to have at least three sentences in each paragraph. This will give your letter a fuller look.

GOODWILL YOU: Remember to use the “Goodwill You” in your sentences instead of “I” and “we”. The reader will enjoy your letter because it concerns his or her favorite subject—himself or herself.

For example:

(bad) I have enclosed a copy of my script, A Piece of Cake, which I believe to be the best thing I have ever written.
(good) Enclosed you will find a copy of A Piece of Cake for your review.

ADD-ONS: Sometimes you do not find it easy to think up extra sentences to flesh out a paragraph to the required 3, 4, 5 or 6 sentences. You must then fabricate them out of thin air. These are called add-ons. Let’s say you have only one sentence in your paragraph and you need at a minimum two more. You haven’t any idea of what they can be. If that is the case and you are clueless, then you must use the add-on system.

In the above example you have one sentence:

“Enclosed you will find a copy of A Piece of Cake for your review.”

You need two more sentences to fill out the paragraph. Look at your one sentence. You must find 2 “seeds” in the sentence. These seeds will be the topics of sentences 2 and 3.

Underline possible seeds:

“Enclosed you will find a copy of A Piece of Cake for your review.”

In this case you can underline the name “A Piece of Cake” and the word review.

Then use each to construct a new sentence:

(sentence 2) “The title of the screenplay comes from the maxim of how easy something is. “
(sentence 3) “You will see as you read the script how this saying is the basis of a very unique plot. “

NOTICE: You DO NOT re-use the words you underlined but you make use of them in an offshoot sort of way. If you get stuck on a word like “review” look it up in a thesaurus to find a similar word, meaning or idea. Let’s say for example, you are stuck and can’t think up a sentence based on “review. “ If you get totally stuck on “review” then jump to your newly manufactured sentence number 2 and you will find several words there to use as seeds: title, screenplay, maxim, easy.)

ADD-ONS from “seeds” are your basis for making a full, interesting and sound paragraph. Once you have the habit of writing in this manner, all of your letters will become logically constructed from beginning to end. This of course will go far in getting you the necessary attention for a positive reply.

The next three blogs will come to you from Paris, France, where I will be on vacation until July 18th visiting with friends. Good letter writing.

Questions on the Fog Index

(Originally posted June 20, 2013)

This blog consists of questions brought about by my previous Fog Index blogs. My hope with this blog is to open you up to the vast cosmos of readability. This is a world where we understand one another because we are aware of what is being said or written.

Is the Gunning Fog Index the only readability tool available?

No, there are quite a few. I only settled on the Fog Index because this program is the one I use the most. The Pentagon several years back via Columbia University developed an excellent readability program. Their object was to streamline military messaging which had become bloated and confusion laden. Needless to say once the new program was put into practice, the results were like night and day. All of a sudden people at the Pentagon could actually understand what was going on.

Linsear Write Formula is a readability program the United States Air Force developed so their technical manuals could be more easily read.
China: Up until about four years ago, all manuals or instruction sheets that came out of China (with all the stuff they manufacture) read like bricks falling on the brain. The powers that be in China finally wised up and re- graded all specialized writing to the 7th grade level. Nowadays, manuals and technical writing from China won’t terrify you.

Here are some other readability programs:

Coleman-Liau Index
Automated Readability Index
Flesch-Kincaid Index
Flesch Reading Ease Formula
The Smog Index.

The beauty part of all this is Google. Go there and you can find out all about these readability systems. If you like, you can go directly to http://gunning-fog-index.com. There you can cut and paste your passage and have an immediate readout of your level. You might be surprised at the rank of your writing.

Are we promoting dumbness by the use of such programs as The Fog Index?

Yes, in a way, but it’s due to Capitalism. You see, we live in a system that declares MONEY is the root of EVERYTHING. We teach many of our citizens to read just enough to part them from their money. During slavery times in the USA, it was against the law to teach a Black person to read. The logic was that slaves were born to work—not share in the Capitalistic/Free Market system. After slavery, the floodgates were opened and these “free” people were soon welcomed into the world of money. The Free Market readily embraced them for their potential purchasing power. Society didn’t give them much education—just enough to make them able to sign for credit. This has continued down to the present day where many people are educated just enough to sign for a credit card purchase (If such intrigues you, I suggest you read my book VIVA LA EVOLUCION. It delves into all this sort of stuff.) So, yes, bottom line—ignorance is bliss in the capitalistic world. Hence, dumbing down our writing so you can reach the most people and make the most money is the name of the game.

What about religion? Does The Fog Index fit in there somewhere?

Yes, absolutely. I have it on good authority from a retired minister that for a while, he didn’t enjoy much success with his sermons. He lowered his Fog Index to the 5th grade level and his church newsletter to the 7th grade level. He was amazed at how well both all of a sudden went over with his congregation. He quickly added that his parishioners were made up of well educated people. Then think of the TV evangelists. Their rants are probably at the fourth grade level and they’re swimming in money. Remember, Jesus is only a two-syllable word.

What about TV sit-coms and movies and Hollywood films? What level would you say they are?

First of all, most readability programs affirm that oral delivery has to be below the written. Mass appeal for the written is generally between the 7th and 8th grade levels. Action movies and sit-coms would have to be around the 5th grade level or they would have no audience at all. (I just saw yesterday a film entitled THIS IS THE END and in its first weekend of showing, it has recouped all of its production money. I am totally convinced this film is on the 3rd or 4th grade level. It has adults acting as though they are children—and naughty children at that. Well SUPERMAN in its first weekend brought in over a hundred million dollars. Go figure up The Fog Index!

Films that are talky and actually engage in social issues would hang out in the 9th grade level. That is flirting with disaster. At this level you have very little audience and only a trickle of money coming in at the box office. If you’re living in the world of aliens, zombies, vampires, adults acting like children and teen-agers getting it on for the first time, then it’s the 4th grade level for you for sure.

Why can’t we understand all words alike?

You would ask a technical question and make me have to move up to the 10th grade level. So here goes, Brainy. In applying communication practices, one basic principle is very important. You must adapt your exchange of ideas to the receivers of your writing. This is done though the mind’s filters. (Notice how much harder the 10th grade level is to read and understand in comparison to the 7th grade level of the other answers in this blog.)

Filters include everything the mind has retained from all the perceptions that have passed through it. No two minds have had the exact same experiences. Some have more education, some have more experience, some have both. Therefore, no two mind-filters are identical. When you engage in general-population correspondence, you must write to the filters that cover the largest percentage of people. That would fall between the 7th to 8th grades for reading and the 5th grade for oral. The chances are that the filters of your mind as a writer are more developed than the ordinary person’s. Don’t let your audience find that out the hard way or you’re lost in your quest to turn a buck out of them.

Therefore, the writer should for the sake of good communication present the message in elementary words and concepts. That will cause the filters of experience of your audience to kick in and make reading or listening an enjoyable and effortless task. (See, this answer is neither enjoyable nor effortless because it has too many three-syllable words and the sentences are longer. You’re going to have to read this answer TWICE to get any meaning out it.)

Proper readability results in a more positive attitude on the reader or listener’s part. Just bring on the sex filter and you’ll easily match the filters of most people alive. Perhaps you have been to Timbuktu. You loved the native food there with all the quaint names and exotic ingredients. You write an article covering such issues. Whoops, you just mismatched your filters with your audience. The chance is only one in a hundred that any of your audience has ever heard of Timbuktu, much less know where it is. So, match filters or lose your audience.

Now you’re all set to begin thinking about the writing process itself. We’ll explore that in the next blog. In the meantime, work on those filter levels.

How to Become a Better Writer

(Originally posted June 13, 3013)

In the last blog, you may have discovered for the first time The Gunning Fog Index. This tool calculates the readability level of your writing. As you found out, the index tells you the years of formal education needed to grasp the text at a first reading or listening. Hollywood and the publishing community use The Fog Index to confirm that text can be read or understood by their intended audiences. If Hollywood produces a motion picture that has a high Fog Index, then that film will for sure have a very limited audience and probably will not make any money. The same with publishers of books and magazines. What do you think The Fog Index is for popular magazines like People or Entertainment Weekly? What about Harlequin romance novels?

You can safely say that People Magazine, Harlequin and your favorite sit com all have two things in common: (1) very, very few three-plus syllable words and (2) sentences that are never longer than 15 to 16 words. The bottom line in writing for commercial outlets is to watch the above two items and thereby try to place yourself as closely you can to a 7th or 8th grade index.

Lets look at another item: A résumé. Most people write résumés loaded with tons of three-syllable plus words and sentences that are far too long. Let’s say that the person reading all those résumés received 80 submissions. If he or she takes thirty seconds (7th to 8th grade level) to read each résumé, it would take 40 minutes. However, if the writers of the résumés used a lot of many-syllable words and long sentences, it could take them two to four minutes with each resume. That could well result in over two to three hours of reading just for 80 resumes. What if the personal director received 200 résumés? Dire fatigue would set in. Even so, the reader will probably pick the résumés that can be perused and understood quickly, which is only about ten percent. If you were the person doing the reading, wouldn’t you like to do the job faster? The chances are that the ten percent will get noticed and the other ninety percent will be relocated to the garbage can.

Our brains get tired when we read, especially when we have to spend too much time in the process. If you can use the word “boss” instead of “manager”, you’ve gone from three syllables down to one and saved your reader some time in brain energy. Do this a lot, and your reader will love you for it. So, whether it be for a résumé, magazine article, book or screenplay, watch the number of three-syllable plus words and sentences over 16 words.

You can see that READABLILTY is truly the heart of money-making writing. If you’re aiming for a profitable career as a writer, then you must write directly to your audience. Studies show that writing slightly below the reader’s level makes for the most comfortable and meaningful reading.

Most amateur and unskilled writers tend to write at too difficult a level. The most likely idea behind this is the desire to impress the reader. Perhaps it may be that some of you think good writing has to be stiff and formal.

Jack in Sapporo, Japan, last year with his youngest group of writing students ever.

Writing in language that is adapted to your reader is not as easy as it may first appear. For openers, you may have the “literary mode” ingrained in you, which stresses ego over reader and unusual words over familiar ones.

To promote good writing habits, be sure to severely limit the number of three-plus words you use, and make sure your sentences are fewer than 17 words. In addition, make the following rules routine in your writing:

Use familiar words (use the world old not antiquated)
Choose a short over a long word. (final not definitive)
Use concrete nouns: These are nouns you can touch such as chair. Try to limit the number of abstract nouns (nouns you cannot touch) such as cancellation, idea, reason, thought, etc. Abstract nouns tire the reader more because the brain is stressed when it is trying to visualize things you can’t see or touch. Working with concrete nouns is not tiring because it’s a simple thing to visualize them. Too many abstract nouns will cause a reader to stop every now and then to give his or her mind a break.
Use “to be”, “have/has” and “get” as few times as possible. Try for an action word in their place.

(no) They are busy.
(yes) They work a lot.


Get rid of too many words to say the same thing:

(no) I took the test and passed it.
(yes) I passed the test.


Be specific, not general.

(yes) A 53% loss
(no) a significant loss.


Use positive rather than negative.

(no) I can’t pay you until June.
(yes) I can pay you in June.


Excessive sentence structure: Only have TWO different thoughts in a sentence. Never have THREE or more thoughts in the same sentence. Otherwise the listener or reader will forget one of the three. (If it’s on the stage or in a film and this is done, you can bet lots of people will ask the person next to them, “What did she or he say?”

(bad) I go to town on Tuesdays and I go to the shopping mall and I check out the bargains.
(good) I go to town on Tuesdays. I go to the shopping mall and check out the bargains.


Be very careful using the word IT. IT stands for something. Try to tell what “it” stands for and try to find some way to replace “it” without sounding repetitious.

(bad) I like ice cream but It isn’t good for me because it has too many calories.
(good) I like ice cream. Such deserts are not good for me because of the calories.

The next blog I will be answering your questions. Be sure to send them in to me. In the meantime, GOOD WRITING!

Readability – Part 2

(Originally posted June 6, 2013)

Jack in 1958 with rebels in Havana during the Cuban Revolution.

Since writing my last blog, I still notice many examples of people “writing to impress rather than express.” I fear that a lot of folks can’t be broken of the habit that the more three-plus syllables they use and the longer their sentences are, the better writer this makes them. No, no, no. Three-plus-syllable words and lengthy sentences are the foes of good readability.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a satirical novel by the name of VIVA LA EVOLUCION. Two of the things I poked fun at was our national trend toward being dreary and dumb.

At the beginning of my book, the directors of The National Esoteric Foundation (a bogus name) are choosing government grants for the coming year. Each director seems to have his or her favorite. One grant is a study to determine if eating meat from uncastrated hogs causes homosexuality in humans. Another, a comparative study of the rectal temperatures of Husky sled dogs and how their thermal variations impact Artic winter transportation in Alaska. Another director calls for an in-depth study of the mating habits of the Costa Rican blue-throated toad. Finally one director calls for an overhaul of the English language into something called Bureaucratic Latin or BuL for short. (Note: Believe it or not, all of these grants are real and were funded by the government. Hard to believe, right?)

I figured this week’s blog could be the passage from VIVA LA EVOLUCION dealing with BuL. It will be the best example of what you can and cannot do with writing. Your weapon in this fight is The Fog Index even though it is not mentioned in the selection below. It will, however, definitely help you tell the difference between BuL and good readability.

So, here from VIVA LA EVOLUCION is Dr. Elizabeth Strickler, the sponsor of BuL:

Dr. Elizabeth Strickler, a rather hefty, masculine woman in her early fifties, spoke up with authority and said, “I would safely say that my project takes precedence over any other here. Dr. Sydney Pinkwater, the noted linguist from the Advanced Language Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, has applied to author a Bureaucracy Dictionary.”

“A what?” said Dr. Reichler as though he had no idea what she was talking about.

“The new language that is evolving in our country—Bureaucratic Latin—BuL for short. Dr. Pinkwater states in his application that before many more years, a totally new language will have been put into effect by our bureaucracy. He believes that it’s high time we had a dictionary so we can understand this new language.”

She walked over to a nearby table and turned on a slide projector. “Gentlemen, allow me to demonstrate with some visual examples of Dr. Pinkwater’s work. I will progress from the simple to the sublime, thereby giving us positive proof of the validity of this project.”

She flashed a picture of a trailer in a park up on the screen. “Voilà, gentlemen. In bureaucratic terms, this is no longer called a trailer but a mobile estate.”

She began changing photos in rapid succession. “This is not a bus driver but an urban transportation specialist. Likewise, this apparently foreign person is an undocumented worker. And, gentlemen, this is not a manhole cover but a sewage access structure closure device. She showed a slide of a man being beaten in a prison. This prisoner is not being tortured to get information. Instead he is the recipient of enhanced interrogation. The man in this following picture is no longer referred to as a junk dealer but instead as a reused metal processor. And this is not a classroom but an instructional module. And these children are not learning to read but are involved in text processing analysis. And now a little something extra for you gentlemen, especially you, Dr. Pencock.”

She flashed a nude beach scene up on the screen. Dr. Pearlmutter was embarrassed but the others openly gawked. She smiled triumphantly.

“No, gentlemen, this is not a nude beach. It is now referred to as a clothing optional zone.”

She turned off the projector and in a flourish of bravura glared at the others. “This is a whole new breathtaking world, gentlemen. A universe in which someone who is fired from his job is labeled a headcount reduction or you may prefer to say selected out. Lying is no longer lying but is a strategic misrepresentation; a malpractice case is a therapeutic misadventure and a common accident is an unmotivated event. Hookers and prostitutes will now be called happiness coordinators.”

Dr. Botsford raised his hand, “I’m sorry to interrupt your presentation, Dr. Strickler, but what good does all this falderal serve?”

“That should be quite evident, Dr. Botsford. Dr. Pinkwater’s book will revolutionize the English language to a new and loftier level. No longer will our hands be tied through dry, ordinary written and oral forms. We will be able to tell the truth without being ashamed of our words. Indignities in communicative intercourse will be a thing of the past.”

Dr. Hopkins politely raised his hand. “In a way, Dr. Strickler, I do see where you’re going. As a former government CPA auditor, I can safely say that numbers in the last 15 years have evolved into a new language themselves. Numbers can now convey whatever we want them to, and quite beautifully I might add. Creatively speaking, the numbers game has now become an amazing array of beguiling flattery. So what you’re saying is it’s now time to do the same thing with words.”

“Absolutely,” replied Dr. Strickler vigorously.

Dr. Pearlmutter had a smile that indicated he was completely lost. He raised his hand to speak. “Do you think, Dr. Strickler, it would be possible for you to give us an example of your project in action?”

“I’d be pleased to” she said with energetic gusto. “From Dr. Pinkwater’s application papers, I will read to you an article that appeared in The Pawhuska Gazette, Pawhuska, Oklahoma, dated August 12, 1921:

Willy Riley, local convicted horse thief, was sent to prison two years ago to serve a sentence of 15 years. After serving only 11 months, he managed to escape. He later was involved in several train robberies. He was chased down and caught by the famous federal marshal, Dan Truegood. Willy was quickly convicted and hanged last week at the state penitentiary.”

“The fellow got what he deserved,” shouted out Dr. Botsford.

“Dr. Botsford, that is not the point I’m trying to make,” she said gruffly.

“Then please get on with it,” he fired back.

With an agitated smile, she continued. “That was how the article was written then and for the most part how most journalists handle things up to the present time—just brimming over with indignities and mono-syllables. With The Pinkwater method, here is how the same article would be written:

Willy Riley, an indigenous person to Pawhuska, being economically challenged, recently was cause of a certain celebratory activity. The entrepreneurial skills of Mr. Riley in the past included the acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and vigorous dealings with several Oklahoma railroads. Two years ago, he devoted over a year of his life to service at a public institutional facility, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. Last year he was a decisive participant in a prestigious investigation actuated by the renowned Federal Marshall Dan Truegood. Three days ago Mr. Riley passed away during an important civic function held in his honor at a government facility. The platform upon which he was standing collapsed.”

So, there you have it. Do The Fog Index for both Willy articles and you will see what READIBILITY really is all about. In the next blog you will begin working on what it takes to become a good writer and how to effectively put The Fog Index into action.

Readability – Part 1

(Originally posted May 30, 2013)

Jack was often a guest at the Liberace house in Palm Springs.

The art of WRITING means getting something from your brain onto a piece of paper or, in these present times, onto a computer screen.  Even so, the printed page is still king. Screenplays may be written on a computer but when they are given to actors, they come in manuscript form. Novels for the most part these days are written on a computer but their sales are in paper back, hard back and e-book forms. Kindle and Nook are doing quite a business in screening books these days.

The heart of WRITING is READABILITY. This means your job as an author is to provide writing that can be easily followed by a reader or an actor. Readers want to progress fairly quickly through what you have written and actors must be able to instantly translate what you have written into spoken speech. This demands that you have good readability.

Therefore, the most important part of writing is its readability. You may wonder if this is a god-given talent or if there is someway you can control it. The answer is the latter.

This brings us to something called THE GUNNING FOG INDEX. This is a test that will tell you at what level you are writing.  Are you writing at the fourth grade level, the eighth grade, the tenth grade, a senior in high school or at the university level? With the Fog Index, you can find out the level of your writing and adjust it. Sounds neat, huh?

First of all, let’s look at some readability levels. Such magazines as Reader’s Digest are written at the eighth grade level. Time magazine is at the freshman college level. Most college text books are written at the senior high school level with a Fog Index of 12.  Some are written at level 10.

Your target audience shows the level of the Fog Index you want to achieve.  For the general public to be your goal, you have to be below the eighth grade level. That means most popular fiction is written at that level so it is very easy to read. Most sit-coms, movies and TV shows are for sure below the eighth grade level. The Fog Index is highly used in the publishing business and Hollywood.

This week you will learn how to use The Fog Index. You will quickly learn if your writing is matching or not matching your intended target audience.

HERE IS HOW THE FOG INDEX WORKS:

Select a passage of around 100 words that you have written. 

Model: In this blog, I took the first 116 words, which includes the first paragraph and two sentences of the second paragraph.


Find out the average length of your sentences.  You do this by counting the number of sentences in your passage and dividing it into 100 (or the exact number of words of your selected passage). The result is the Average Sentence Length.

Model: I have 7 sentences in the 116 word passage I selected. I divide  116 by 7 to get the average length of my sentences.  The result is 17, the average length of my sentences.


Count the number of Complex Words in your passage. These are words of three or more syllables. (Note that you do not count the following: proper names, common slang words, or –es, -ed, -ly or –ing. Count each complex word only once even though you may have used it several times.)

Model: In my selected passage I have 3 complex words.


Add the Average Sentence Length with the number of Complex Words.

Model: Add 16 plus 3 which equals 19.


Multiply the total by 0.4. This will give you the Fog Index of your passage.

Model: Multiply 19 by 0.4. This will equal 7.6. This means that I am writing my blogs at the high seventh grade level. I am writing for the general public and not a special audience.

You will now be able to know your writing level. Most of us want to hit that eighth grade level or seventh grade level if we want to have a wide group of people in our audience. IMPORTANT: Remember, easy readability is the goal if you’re writing to the broad public.  For them, you write to express—not impress!

The Fog Index was developed by Robert Gunning, an American businessman, in 1952.

In the next blog you will learn how to adjust your Fog Index to your needs as a writer. Begin right now checking all of your writing with the Fog Index. Most publishers and Hollywood people do, so be on their same playing field. Good writing.

Self-Promotion

(Originally posted May 23, 2013)

Do anything to draw attention to yourself.

In the last blog, I was pretty tough with my thoughts concerning getting your screenwriting work produced. I imagine there are readers who think I am the cynic of all ages and that I am promoting the sugar daddy syndrome. (I prefer using the term “sugar daddy” to “mentor” because SD is more realistic and M is showing you still aren’t facing reality totally.)

I’ll tell you what I am promoting. I think people should look at their circumstances realistically. This amounts to self-promotion. Here are three concepts that will help make that job easier for you.

Concept 1

FAULTY THINKING – All of us in the USA are taught from kindergarten on the “happy ending” philosophy. The guys (Goldwyn, Lasky etc.) who started the motion picture business in the very early days realized life was tough. They sold dreams in their new art form called “movies”. They quickly realized you could get somebody’s nickel for admission over and over again if you fooled them into thinking that in life everything will always work out with a silver lining. Hollywood became synonymous with that particular wrinkle in our national psyche. Some films were made with a Hollywood ending (happy) and a downer finale for Europe where they loved sad endings. An example of this was the film LOVE (Anna Karenina), with Greta Garbo, which had two endings. A happy one for Hollywood and a tragic one for Europe.

ACTUALITY: YOU must get over the happy-ending thinking that in real life has got a half-Nelson on your brain. Use such cockeyed beliefs in your writing of course if you want it to have a ghost of a chance in Hollywood—AND by no means have a downer ending or you’ll never get to first base even with a sugar daddy. Just stop believing in consistently happy endings in real life—meaning that good is just bound to happen. Look at your last three days. Did everything work out in your life hunky dory? So don’t get your real life mixed up with your fictional life.

Concept 2

FAULTY THINKING – We are a church-centered society since the days of the Pilgrims—and those Pilgrims were a tough group of people. Most churches exist on the premise that if you attend them and give money, Jesus or someone else will bring you relief and make all your dreams come true. This causes many people to feel there are options in the “getting what you want” world.

ACTUALITY: Such thinking is like both teams in a sports match praying to God to win. It just doesn’t work like that. So don’t think Jesus is going to be your sugar daddy no matter how much you appease him with money or homage. However, you could use the churches in Beverly Hills or Malibu for your scouting activities in trying to run into Mr. or Ms. Right.

Concept 3

Make friends. Here are a couple of my friends from our summer stock days at Ogunquit, Maine: Lane Smith (film My Cousin Vinny) and Henry Hasso, son of actress Signe Hasso. Henry as you can see is anticipating becoming a screenwriter.

FAULTY THINKING – If I go to a psychic or a therapist or some esoteric toro poo poo artist, they will, for a price, tell me what is going to happen and when and how. So many people spend many hundreds of dollars on these charlatans and all they get for their dough is a few feel-good moments. Also don’t get addicted to writing workshops. All you’ll get for your money is some rarefied toro poo poo at an expensive price. Use that money to buy people drinks at a bar in Malibu, etc.

ACTUALITY: Don’t pay anybody any money. The idea is for somebody to pay you money. If you pay, you’ve got the handle and the brush mixed up. Go to any show-business-connected social networking get together but preferably those that are free or have a very small price tag. Social networking means just that—being SOCIAL.

In the next blog, I will actually begin a series of the nuts and bolts of writing. Even so, remember that your major job is to find someone who can help you. The nuts and bolts will just make you a better find.

Good and Bad Movies

(Originally posted May 16, 2013)

I venture to say that most of you who are engaged in screenplay writing activities are more influenced by BAD movies than GOOD movies.

We all know what a really GOOD movie is. It’s a CLASSIC. We see it over and over and it remains fresh with each viewing. Even though the actors, the director and technical aspects are excellent, the screenplay for the most part seems as though it were written only yesterday. The year 1939 seems to exemplify a moment in film history when every film nominated for an Oscar as best picture that year resulted in a classic. The ten film are: Dark Victory, Gone With The Wind, Goodbye Mr. Chips, Love Affair, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Ninotchka, Of Mice And Men, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, and Wuthering Heights. Gone With The Wind won.

Each of the above listed films is shown over and over on TV, mainly via Turner Classic Movies, and many, many people own their own personal copies of them. Within the last few week I re-saw Goodbye Mr. Chips (my own copy) and The Wizard of Oz (TCM) and both were about as fresh at the current screenings as they were when I first saw them many years ago.

I doubt if any of these 1939 films caused you to enter the screenwriting business. They certainly DIDN’T in my case. I have always admired them as something for me to emulate in my writing once I managed to get my toe through the door in Hollywood.

Here’s what got YOU into writing screenplays. You saw some perfectly dreadful films and you said to yourself, “Hey, I can write something better than that with my hands tied behind my back.” So, your mind hatched out the idea that screenwriting couldn’t be all that difficult.

Here’s the unfortunate part behind such thinking. Those dreadful screenplays were made into films not because someone thought they were good. They came alive on the silver screen because of the author’s special relationship with a person we shall call a mentor, which is a highfalutin term these days meaning “sugar daddy.” As I said in the last blog—such miracles happen only because someone likes you better than your writing.

The only reason I’m putting together this particular blog is to try and convince you that “quality writing”, which is ballyhooed as the Holy Grail in the screenwriting business by most other bloggers, producers, directors and potentates, is just nothing more than malarkey—or toro poo poo as I like to call it. You did not join in on the screenwriting game because you wanted to write a classic people would view over and over. You merely wanted to see your words up there on the screen and you thought it was easy due to all the crap that hits the screen weekly.

It’s a tough game and, believe me, if you’re going to ever see your words being spoken on the screen, you’ll spend most of your time promoting yourself as a person instead of a writer. I personally know someone who attended Alcohol Anonymous in fashionable areas like Beverly Hills and Malibu until they found a Mr. Right who became captivated with them and later with their writing. That writer has had several of his projects produced.

I think once you realize that playing Pollyanna (altruistic) will get you nowhere with your writing, you might just start realizing some success. In certain socialistic countries in Europe, the government helps poor souls with not a sugar daddy to their name. But here in the USA, we practice the FREE MARKET via the Sugar Daddy route. It’s WHO YOU KNOW that counts in the USA when it comes to upward mobility—especially with your being a screenwriter.

Reactions to Roger – Part 2

(Originally posted May 9, 2013)

Jack readies for writing combat.

In this week’s blog, we continue with some of your questions about Roger and the screenwriting business.

Any recent news that Roger types are still alive and active?

Yes, most definitely. I read an article just yesterday in the film blog WRAP about one of the largest talent agencies in Hollywood and their agents who represent writers. A short while ago, the agency sold part of its business to an investment corporation. The first thing the new guys did was to get rid of the “dead weight”. That meant get rid of five agents there who were too easy when it came to green-lighting projects. Each of these agents now has to fend for themselves in securing employment at another agency. To do this, they will have to swear on their mother’s Bible that they will be a true and active ROGER. Yes, being a Roger is still the major way for one to get ahead in the film business when it comes to writing. Yikes!

Are there any ways at all one can buck the system?

Yes, of course. Roll over in bed and see who is lying there next to you. If it is a gorgeous person with no connections, then you and the Titanic have a lot in common. If the person next to you is ugly as homemade sin but their aunt owns a studio, you might have a great chance of bucking the system. Another idea for you is to send your script to one of the screenwriting contests. It costs about 60 bucks a pop. This means that a frustrated screenwriter found a way to bring in at least sixty thousand dollars off of others’ frustration and hope. So, start your own contest or send them 60 bucks. Even if you win, so what? Look at who is occupying the other half of your bed. Just as a practical note: Don’t send anything to producers and big- time agents as they will return it to you unread. That especially regards manuscripts but they won’t even look at an innocent flyer. About 20 years ago one out of a hundred people might reply but in today’s Hollywood, you had just as well send your thoughts to the dead-letter office directly.

This is awfully cynical. Surely it can’t be that bad.

Sorry but you should not use the word “cynical.” It makes you sound super naive and amateurish. The word you want to lock horns with is “truth.” You should take romance lessons and learn to be a writing lover. Yes, it does sound cynical—but it’s not. You must realize how limited your chances are in the screenwriting business. Take it from me, the only way through the door is via someone who likes you more as a person than a writer.

You survived. How did you manage to get a toe into the business?

Definitely I’m not going to name names but yes, it was who I knew—and that includes from when I was a budding playwright in Paris up until I met the person who got me into the WGAw. (Writers Guild of America, west). I wish I could say hard work and talent were my guiding lights but if I did that, I’d just be serving you a tall order of toro poo poo.

Actually these last two blogs were to let you have it squarely between the eyes of what it takes to get to first base in screenplay writing. The next blog will begin a series of what it takes to do a first-class job of screenplay writing. Even though you have to hook up somehow with Mr. or Ms. Right, it doesn’t hurt to have a good product to peddle.

Work on that rhinoceros skin. It’s the only thing that will steel you against all the truths out there—and stop using the word cynical. It just slows you down.

Reactions to Roger – Part 1

(Originally posted May 2, 2013)

Grandmother Lilly, Mother Ruth and Jack the year the writing bug bit him.

Since I began this blog two months ago, each Thursday has brought you a lot of dish about a man named Roger. As I explained this is not the person’s real name. When I began writing my book ROGER SHOULD HAVE SAID YES, I was going to use his actual name and the studio where he worked. Then the word “litigation” popped into my brain and suddenly I realized it wasn’t exactly necessary to name names.

What I basically had in mind in writing those blogs was to pass along the actual environment in Hollywood for a person who wanted to engage in screenwriting whether it be as a hobby or a career. I wanted to let you know the general greeting you could expect when you knocked on doors in Tinsel Town. The salutation for a “newcomer” (anyone without a track record of making money) ranges by and large from hostile up to denying the fact that you are even alive.

Some of you contacted me with queries about certain of these thoughts contained in my blog. I am glad to reply to you from my vantage point. No, I did not strike it rich but yes, I did make a living off of screenwriting principally as a script doctor. So, believe me when I tell you I am an insider, I speak from genuine experience. So let’s answer some of your questions.

Is Roger still to this day in the film business?

Yes, most definitely. I looked him up on Google the other day and saw his smiling photo connected to an article stating that he had become president of his studio. How’s that for still being around and obviously making “no” pay off? In checking him out, he does seem to have said “yes” to a few things but I would bet the farm that each and every one was a safe bet. This means he wasn’t ever involved in giving the initial yes. He always had someone else to take that risk more than likely. Then as luck would have it, he was involved in several very respected and successful productions. That’s almost like winning the jackpot on a slot machine with someone else’s nickel.

How much luck and coincidence therefore is involved in the film business?

Very little actually as it concerns writing. About 95% of any success you have in the screenwriting business is going to come from “who” you know. I was acquainted with a young man who worked on publicity for one of my plays in Los Angeles. He couldn’t spell cat. Even so, I took pity and gave him the job because of his girlfriend who was outstanding in her role in my play. I had to redo everything he wrote. Yet, two years later he was a staff writer on a very popular weekly TV series because he was bedding the daughter of the producer. I could give tons of examples. Believe me, it isn’t the quality of writing that everyone would have you believe is the most important thing. It’s who you’re cuddling with—otherwise, they’re all going to say NO like Roger did. Obviously Roger and I didn’t cuddle or my book ROGER SHOULD HAVE SAID YES would never have been written.

Next week’s blog (Part 2) of questions will give you some specific information to help you realize what you’re letting yourself in for if you choose screenwriting as a career or a hobby.