Scripting - A Superpower, a Coping Mechanism
I have been writing pretty consistently since the sixth grade. Maybe the seventh grade. It was definitely middle school. It was definitely because a teacher said “you’re kinda good at this” and apparently that stuck in my head.
My exact medium is pretty cyclical. I started with short stories and then jumped to NaNoWriMo. I did a lot of fiction through highschool. There’s no longer evidence of what I would have called my Magnum Opi, between ISOCHRONAL: The Clock Tower Sphinx or ONE DEGREE, which was a multi-generational sprawling story of twelve different characters across the globe culminating in a brawl against a self insert that was the American Time God.
I have evidence of these buried some where in the archives. That’s neither here nor there.
There was a stint with poetry (they say like they weren’t a slam poet for several years and incidentally instrumental in solidifying the Button Poetry livestreaming empire) and a short stint with TV scripting and comic scripting (which were actually short), before settling into my current niche of pop culture journalism and assorted blogging.
I also ended up a professional technical writer. That also matters. It all matters.
I pride myself on being good at what I do. This is a recurring theme, a resounding refrain. We are good at things because we put in the work to be good at things.
Take… interviewing.
One of my first opportunities at Black Nerd Problems was an interview with Ben Percy, which went fine outside of my office being an accidental Faraday cage and I had to take the call outside which completely ruined the audio quality so I had to rely on my poorly scrawled notes drenched in sweat.
Taking a Knife to the Nerve of the Moment - Talking Tech with Nightwing Author, Ben Percy - Black Nerd Problems
We had a chance to sit down with Benjamin Percy about Nightwing and technology in preparation for the release of Nightwing #45
I took the learning opportunity in stride, and develop protocols and systems for interviews. I found better recording set ups. I hired a friend to do my transcription. I prepped questions even farther in advance and constantly iterations. I looked at the final write up and ask if I did enough. I made the process interesting for me, the subject, the reader. I got good at it. I got asked to do more interviews. I successfully managed interviews in new formats.
I got good at making scripts. I got good at pivoting on scripts. At the ebb and flow, the push and pull.
When I told my therapist about my habit to script out conversations, they’re the one to call it a superpower. Which makes sense. It’s something I know how to do as easy as breathing. A thing that I am good at. A thing that I can rely on. A thing that I become reliant on. A thing like many things that needs to re-contextualized every so.
Scripting is useful insofar if you’re able to change the script. Scripting, a superpower so long as long as you allow for the script to change. Scripting, a wayfinding tool to imagine the path. Scripting, a coping mechanism to avoid the path.
I am the type of writer, type of person really, who gets really fixated on things, really set on, determined, locked jawed, and narrow eyed. I feel this. I know this. I have come to understand this.
When the script does not get revisions, it’s not a good script. The script has to change. The script is not actually a script. Maybe that’s the lesson. The script is an ideation, and what is actually said is what matters more.
I write these videos out before I record them. I change them as I read them. As it turns out, I am particularly verbose and prone to typos. But perhaps that the charm. It’s not like I’m doing this for anyone else but my own entertainment (and I guess yours, but I’m already far past any reasonable word count to rediscuss the author/audience/allowance/aim paradigm).
Anyways, happy August. Tune in next month for… something.