The Writing Chops Bookclub: Austin Kleon’s ‘Show Your Work’
Welcome to the first-ever Writing Chops Bookclub, where we break down the best business, branding, marketing, and strategy books available, pulling the key takeaways that will specifically help screenwriters.
For the inaugural session, I thought we should take a peek at Austin Kleon’s seminal book Show Your Work!
A punchy, fun, and inspirational book “for people who hate the very idea of self-promotion.” A perfect starting point for screenwriters looking to kick off their strategy, but don’t want to feel icky in the process.
Alright, Rascals! Let’s Begin
One of the biggest points that Kleon makes in this book is that self-discovery can make a far greater impact than self-promotion. Basically, this means, don’t pretend you are the expert with all the answers. Instead, bring people on a journey with you. Share your progress with people - both online and off.
By being true to yourself and sharing your genuine interests and thoughts, you are going to attract a much more passionate and loyal audience. This kind of thought process speaks volumes for screenwriters.
One of the greatest things about your job is that it’s an ongoing learning experience. Every time you pick up the pen, keyboard, or phone (Whatever you’re writing on, these days), you are looking to take some sort of experience you’ve had or lesson you’ve learned and apply it to your script.
Now, the traditional way of doing this would be to show your final, fully-realized end result, ensuring that you don’t burden people with the process. I mean, who wants to invite an audience to see the sausage getting made, right?
Well, Show Your Work! looks to break away from that thought process and highlights the benefits of bringing people on your journey, rather than trying to meet them at the destination.
But How Can Screenwriters Actually, Practically Show Their Work?
How do you engage, entertain and inspire your audience outside of providing the finalized piece of work? Well, that’s where the ‘show your work’ concept comes into play.
Say a screenwriter has a new idea for a sports story. Let’s get deeper than that and say that it is a film about competitive eating (why not? 😅). The screenwriter wants to frame this unique and unusual activity just like an underdog sports film, with a shy, up-and-coming challenger who has to battle adversity and maybe some personal challenges in order to become the champion.
Anyway, this is the initial starting point for a screenplay: the hook. The concept. The one thing that made a screenwriter intrigued. And they want to start testing the water to see if it is a viable option.
The theory behind Show Your Work, is that you don’t hide out of sight and quietly perfect this story. Instead, bring your process into the light. Maybe you want to conduct some interviews with previous competitive eating champions? Look for inspiration and real-life stories that can inspire your work.
Instead of just taking notes and keeping them hidden on a Google Doc, how about you record the interview (with permission, of course) and then put it online. Tell people what your intention is. And show them the steps you are taking to get there.
If you continue to do this, as you progress, you will slowly, but surely start growing engagement with people online. And then, if someone sees something about competitive eating, they’ll think of you and drop you a link: “Hey, I just came across the article and thought of you!”
Now, there is probably the question: why do this? How is this helping to get my film made?
Well, this is one of those indirect activities. If you’ve been networking at film festivals or just engaging with people in your local industry, you probably have connected with a few of them on social media.
By showing that you enjoy the process and you are actively working, you are also advertising yourself to any producers online who may scroll past your updates on your feed.
Instead of hiding for months at a time, you are reminding people that you exist and that you are working on something unique (and hopefully, giving it a unique angle as well).
And, as highlighted in a previous article, simply being a part of the industry and reminding people that you exist is a huge part of success.
Also, this kind of self-progress campaign feels much more natural, transparent, and honest in comparison to the more uncomfortable self-promotion tactics.
There’s another great section of the book that dissects the phrase “My work speaks for itself.”
It’s usually used by creatives who want their work to be appreciated for what it is, rather than how it came to be. However, Austin discusses how the concept of “My work speaks for itself” is a bit misguided. Human beings are so interested in understanding where things come from, how they are made, and who made them that this idea of the work speaking for itself is actually off-putting.
Here is a quick excerpt from the book that you might enjoy:
Art forgery is a strange phenomenon. “You might think that the pleasure you get from a painting depends on its color and its shape and its pattern,” says psychology professor Paul Bloom. “And if that’s right, it shouldn’t matter whether it’s an original or a forgery.” But our brains don’t work that way. “When shown an object, or given a food, or shown a face, people’s assessment of it – how much they like it, how valuable it is – is deeply affected by what you tell them about it.”
Many times, it is the story behind something that creates the value.
The same goes for the story behind your script and your screenwriting. You may think that value comes from the work. But if we take Austin’s point of view, the value actually comes from the person creating the work.
And that is something that makes the entire experience much better. Not just for the producers or decision-makers you are looking to work with… But for yourself as well!
But How Much of Your Work Should You Show?
We believe that screenwriting success comes from small steps taken often. And this is exactly what Kleon is preaching. Throw away the concept of overnight success and instead look at daily documentation. And it doesn’t have to be much:
“Once a day, after you’ve done your day’s work, go back to your documentation and find one little piece of your process that you can share. Where you are in your process will determine what that piece is. If you’re in the very early stages, share your influences and what’s inspiring you. If you’re in the middle of executing a project, write your methods or share works in progress. If you’ve just completed a project, show the final product, share scraps from the cutting-room floor, or write about what you learned.”
You will be amazed at how much you can get done when you focus on small, easy-to-achieve steps. This is why we love to promote the concept of sending one email a day - Read more about that here.
And don’t worry about things not being perfect, either. Perfectionism usually has more to do with the inability to make minor decisions more so than the demand for a higher-quality end result.
Personality, Punctuality, and Prolificacy will always get you further than Perfectionism.
“Science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon once said that 90% of everything is crap. The same is true of our own work. The trouble is, we don’t always know what’s good and what sucks. That’s why it’s important to get things in front of others and see how they react.”
Finding the Time to Start the Show!
If you don’t think you have the time, simply look in the nooks and crannies of your day-to-day life and dedicated these moments to sharing your progress and your work - Skip that second episode in the evening or simply use your commute time tomorrow.
And if you’d like an idea for what you can share first, how about you make it this article - What?! Too on the 👃?
And finally, if you are feeling a bit overwhelmed by some of these ideas, Austin has one more piece of advice, on, um… advice:
I hope you enjoyed this summary of Show Your Work! By Austin Kleon. I had a genuine blast reading it. And we definitely recommend checking out the full thing. You can find it online and in most bookshops 📖
Are there any other books that you would like us to discuss in the Writing Chops Bookclub?
Thanks for reading
The soundtrack I listened to as I wrote this: Journey to the Line, The Thin Red Line, Hans Zimmer
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