Steven Pressfield Blog
Is Theme Important in Nonfiction too?
[This is the seventh post in our series on Theme. Special thanks to Joe Fontenot, who asked the question above.] Answer: Absolutely. Maybe even more so. Lemme offer an answer based on my own process in structuring and writing The Lion’s Gate. The Lion’s Gate was published by Sentinel/Penguin in 2014. It’s a narrative nonfiction book about the Arab-Israeli war of 1967—the Six Day War. Theme was everything in my process, not just in researching and writing the book but also in writing the Book Proposal. A book proposal is that essential 50-page document that agent and writer…
“Help! I Can’t Find My Theme!”
Don’t worry, it happens to me all the time. It took me ten years to figure out the theme of The Legend of Bagger Vance, and five before I could articulate what Gates of Fire was about. It’s a running joke between me and Shawn, in his role as my editor, that he’s the one who has to explain my stuff to me. “Oh!” I inevitably exclaim, “so that’s what it’s about.” Then he gives me eight more pages of things I’ve got to fix because I was flying blind and operating entirely on instinct. That’s what great editors do….
Tell Us What Your Story is About
[Continuing our series on Theme in fiction, nonfiction, and movies … ] I’m a big fan of Blake Snyder. If you haven’t read Save the Cat! and Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies, please rectify that oversight at once. One of Blake’s lasting legacies (he died tragically in 2009 at age fifty-one) is what he called BS2, the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet. The beat sheet is an all-purpose template for writing a screenplay. It breaks down a movie story into fifteen structural beats, e.g. Catalyst, Debate, Break Into Two, Midpoint, All Is Lost, etc. Number Three, following…
The Magic of Snow (and Emerging Stories)
This piece hit about this time two years ago. Bringing it back today as the days grow longer and the snow days (hopefully) shorter. Ezra Jack Keats clipped a strip of four images from Life magazine in 1940. One child. Four endearing expressions and poses. As the next two decades passed, the little boy in the images remained the same age, with the pursed lips and ballooned cheeks so often worn by children no more than three years old. Bundled up in a long puffy jacket and pants, he lived on Keats’ wall as the artist illustrated one children’s book after…
The Truth is Out There
As writers we want a big theme. A theme with power and scale. But, even more, we want a theme with depth, a theme that has level after level of meaning. The theme in Jurassic World, we said last week, is “Don’t mess with Mother Nature.” Let’s examine how deep that theme goes. How many levels does it work on? On the surface, on Level #1, what Jurassic’s theme means is “Don’t resurrect and genetically mutate creatures with very large teeth and extremely aggressive carnivorous instincts—and, if you do, pen them up very, very securely.” Level #2 of the…
Chayefsky’s Rule
This is our third post in succession about Theme in movies, plays, and books. I’m probably gonna do another six or seven over the coming weeks, so brace yourself. This stuff is important. Let’s go back to that seminal quote from Paddy Chayefsky, cited two Wednesdays ago. As soon as I figure out what my play is about, I type it out in one line and Scotch tape it to the front of my typewriter. After that, nothing goes into the play that is not on-theme. Paddy might not approve if he knew I was about to…
Girl Scouts, Pot and Thinking Outside the Obvious
A Girl Scout in Los Angeles made the LA Times this week for setting up shop outside a pot dispensary. She sold 117 boxes within two hours, almost a box a minute. Let’s pretend for a second that there aren’t adults in favor and adults against this young lady’s location choice — and just look at the location. It’s an example of thinking outside the obvious. For decades Girl Scouts have been going door-to-door throughout their neighborhoods and camping out in front of local grocery stores, Walmarts and other “family friendly” locations. These are the obvious locations — sell where…
The Difference Between Subject and Theme
What do we mean when we say a book or a movie is “about something?” This question is a lot trickier than it seems. Did you see the movie The Break-up, starring Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughan? A facile answer regarding this film would be, “It’s about a break-up.” Wrong. The subject is a break-up. The story theme is something else entirely. The subject of the Jurassic Park movies is dinosaurs. The theme is, Don’t mess with Mother Nature. The subject of Out of Africa is Karen Blixen’s experiences in Africa. The theme is possession. “Is it possible,” the movie…
What is Your Novel About?
I was talking to a friend who runs a successful Hollywood literary agency. She represents screenwriters. Before she opened her doors, she said, she spent a year doing nothing but reading scripts, searching for promising young writers. She read well over 500 screenplays. “How many,” she asked me, “do you think were worth representing?” Before I could reply, she answered. “None.” I believe her. I’ve read a boatload of screenplays and novel manuscripts myself. Many have interesting, even brilliant premises. Fascinating characters abound; there’s lots of clever dialogue, surprising plot twists, mind-blowing set-pieces. And a lot of what I…
Finding Atticus
After Atticus pulled Calpurnia away from Aunt Alexandra and the Maycomb missionary circle ladies, Aunt Alexandra asked Miss Maudie when it would stop. (Chapter 24, To Kill A Mockingbird) “I can’t say I approve of everything he does Maudie, but he’s my brother, and I just want to know when this will ever end.” Her voice rose: “It tears him to pieces. He doesn’t show it much, but it tears him to pieces. I’ve seen him when — what else do they want from him, Maudie, what else?” “What does who want, Alexandra?” Miss Maudie asked. “I mean this town….
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.
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.
THE WAR OF ART
Read this one first.
It identifies the enemy—what I call Resistance with a capital “R,” i.e. fear, self-doubt, procrastination, perfectionism, all the forms of self-sabotage—that stop us from doing our work and realizing our dreams.
Start here.
Everything else proceeds from this.
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?"
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.
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.