Attention Kenyan creative writers// We need to talk:
If you ever went on
strike, would anyone ever notice? What is your worth? Perspective: Today the
writers' guild in the US just averted a writer's strike. In 2007 creative
writers in the US went on strike for 100 days. It cost the industry $200
billion in losses. The studios probably thought they could bring in other lean &
hungry writers to replace the professionals. After all, the industry always has
struggling artists willing to intern for free. But you can't have an intern
pilot a commercial flight.
Serious creative
writing is complex and demanding and time-consuming. Anything short of that
will produce a shabby and mediocre industry plagued with silliness and theft of
other people's creative material. In Kenya, we need to move away from this
mediocrity, one interrupted by very few bursts of genius. Not because we lack
genius writers, but that they are underdeveloped. Kenyan creative writers need
to understand this:
1. Know how to write on
demand (work when the industry demands a product).
2. Master the different
structures and genres of storytelling (know your engine models).
3. Research your
content as intensely as an engineer runs experiments in their lab. Writers in
vibrant industries spend grueling hours in research and consultation in order
to write the medical, court or political dramas that keep our adrenaline
pumping (enjoy the intense process of discovery).
4. Understand the
history and philosophy storytelling so you can reinvent it-- dithyrambic hymns
to script, passion plays to Shakespeare, orature to Soyinka... (go to school
and learn how quality engines were made).
5. Understand audience
psyche by doing productions over and over. Great writers' stories fail many
times in pilot runs and stage premieres before the product becomes a hit (test
the engine many times over).
PS: Those of you
that do the comedy improvs assume it does not need writing (reason they get
silly). In fact, the art of improvisation requires the most intense on-demand
form of scripting where the writer makes changes on the spot everyday 24-7
during the creative process till opening night, and the actors roll with the
punches adapting to every new change. Now you know.
Remember, as
creative artists, you are the conscience of the nation. If you put out
mediocrity and borrowed art, that's what the world sees of Kenya- a people with
a mediocre and borrowed mind.
