Foolscapping the B-52
There was a great article in the L.A. Times of August 19 about the B-52 bomber. Remember Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, straddling a hydrogen bomb in the bomb bay of a Strategic Air Command plane, then dropping into thin air while cutting loose a Rebel yell?
That was a B-52.
Slim Pickens as B-52 pilot, Major T.J. "King" Kong, in "Dr. Strangelove."
In real life the aircraft first saw service in the 1950s. It’s still flying today. With the latest upgrades, the B-52 is expected to remain as the Air Force’s #1 workhorse bomber into the 2040s.
But here’s the sentence from the article that leapt out at me:
Now the plane, which was designed on the back of a napkin over a weekend in 1948 by three Boeing employees …
The longer version of the design story, from the Boeing website, relates that Boeing had proposed earlier in 1948 a six-engine, all-propeller model, called the XB-52. Chief engineer Ed Wells and his design team happened to be in Dayton, Ohio, when the air force phoned: “Scrap the props. Give us an all-jet version.” The team holed up over the weekend in a Dayton hotel. By Monday, they had designed the plane.
That’s the Foolscap Method.
In other words: brass balls, back-of-a-napkin, see-the-thing-as-a-whole. Don’t hesitate. Don’t overthink. Use instinct, use common sense. Don’t give Resistance time to screw you up.
Next Wednesday we’ll get into this in detail on the blog with the first of two ten-minute videos about how to use the Foolscap Method in writing a novel. But I couldn’t resist, today, taking notice of the B-52. There must be a million stories just like this, of bridges built, skyscrapers designed, businesses launched, and screenplays written.
The Boeing B-52, still flying after all these years.
Why does the back-of-an-envelope system work? I know how Shawn would answer. He’d say “Genre.”
No enterprise—no matter how complex or ambitious—is as difficult as it first seems. Every project falls into a genre, and every genre has conventions. Conventions take the mystery out of it.
A plane is a plane. It has wings. It has a fuselage. It has a powerplant.
A play is a play. It has Act One, Act Two, Act Three. It has characters, it has a theme, it has crisis/climax/resolution.
Suppose the Air Force had locked you and me in a hotel room on a Friday evening: “Come out by Sunday with a new bomber.”
We could have freaked. We might’ve panicked. We could’ve drained every bottle in the mini-bar. Or we could’ve gotten out a No. 2 pencil and solved this bastard on the back of an envelope.
Would such a solution be shallow? Superficial? Temporary?
With any luck the B-52 will still be flying in 2048—one hundred years after that Foolscap weekend in Dayton.
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
I love the way you deliver the message, Steve.
Are you a writer or something? 😆
Steven,
The historical context is great and certainly right up your alley. I’m enjoying this ongoing lesson on constraints and clarity as a setup to the method.
And, then there are those of us who go to Amazon and spend an hour researching Foolscap. I need to hear this stuff regularly – thanks!
Such a great historical example to launch us thinking or maybe not but just doing…
The B-52 approach and the Foolscap Method is the antithesis of what is taught in every discipline from high school through university level graduate programs. The MBA, engineer or even the writer (I did not say author…there is a difference) is taught to follow the process. The process is what matters and is judged. The process injects systematic resistance. The process is what stands in the way of creating and producing great work. Foolscap injects a required brevity and clarity into a foundation of “shipping”.
Thank you for illustrating a method to help get us beyond analysis and into focused action.
I have Do The Work, but I love these posts because it reminds me again of distilling my manuscript down to its simplest forms. Don’t over-think it.
As always, eternally grateful to you Steven.
Genres, conventions, structures, patterns, foolscap, fractals: back-of-the-napkin, see-it-as-a-whole works because that sees to the essence, the skeletal design or framework. Once we have that, we fill in and flesh out. Steven, I think you’ve used the phrase “Resistance cripples” what cripples a person is a broken bone. That is, a broken or cracked or dislocated structure. Hence, foolscap.
Thanks, as always.
Wow.
War of Art / Do the Work / Foolscap Method in a nutshell:
“brass balls
back-of-a-napkin, see-the-thing-as-a-whole
Don’t hesitate , Don’t overthink.
Use instinct, use common sense.
Don’t give Resistance time to screw you up.”
Thank You Thank You Thank You!
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This is a fascinating introduction to the Foolscap Method! Using the story of the B-52 bomber design as an analogy is brilliant.