The Forest For The Trees

I've begun reading a book entitled The Forest for the Trees. It's written by a big-time editor turned agent, and directed at writers. But this blog as about SCREENwriting, you say? That's true, but the book applies to all manner of writing. One portion of the book early on discusses the importance of form. The author is convinced from her extensive experience that all writers have a particular form--or, at most, two--which they are skilled at, which they can truly excel with. She also believes that writers only have talent in one or two genres. She does acknowledge that there are the occasional writers who seem to be able to do everything well, but suggests that they are exceedingly rare. Both of those ideas caught my attention because I've been struggling with related questions for a while. Is it possible that screenplays aren't my format? Anything is possible. She suggests that the way to determine what your forms and genres are is to consider what you've ever written, what you love to read, what you write about in your journal/blogs/emails, etc. Be brutally, and utterly, honest with yourself. If you realize that you love reading and writing about nature then perhaps your form and genre are nature essays. DO NOT concern yourself with what is currently selling and "hot." That's her advice, not mine, though it makes loads of sense to me. The reality is that if you're meant to write nature essays then you'll write them far better than you'd be able to do a novel. The author points out relevant examples of books recently released who would've never seen the light of day if their authors hadn't ignored current trends. Books like How the Irish Saved Civilization, and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, don't seem like obvious best-seller material. Anyway, it's a helpful book and entertaining read.