I’ve posted before about the spot-on-ness of Ira Glass’ advice about storytelling. I’ve also posted about a rather splendid animation of the most import bit of that advice.
Well here’s another, equally splendid animation of that key bit of advice. Let’s face it good advice bears repeating, great advice requires it, and when the advice is presented so beautifully it should be hardwired into people’s eyeballs. Seriously, this a lovely piece of film.
(Not really) Short version of the above: If your starting out and you keep banging your head against the fact that your creative work is not anything like as good as the stuff you like, it’s just you have great taste and need to do a ton of work to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be.
Me? I’m still working to bridge the gap between what I produce and my ambition for my work but I can say that with every page I’m failing better.
Now, go write something.
Dan Powell 
7 Responses to The Gap
Love this.
It is great. Have you listened to the whole of Ira Glass on storytelling? If you haven’t, the four or five youtube videos it is cut into are well worth diving into.
Ah, I love Ira. A thought I’d add is this: the more work you do, more the stuff you finish, the better your taste becomes too. So, really, while you’re work improves, you never close “the gap”. But that’s a good thing. The need to close the gap keeps you going forward.
Indeed Neil, we’re constantly playing catch up. Which is why writing is such a challenge and also so rewarding when you get it half-way right.
Ewh Gawd, sorry for adding such an illiterate post to your blog. I’ll blame my iPhone for that “you’re work”! But you’re right – challenging, rewarding, frustrating, infuriating; the most important thing in the world one minute, the most utterly pointless the next. What an odd activity to choose. Or does it choose us?
By the way, I see you’ve added “To Kill a Child” to your “fiction I like” list. I read it for the first time a few days ago and thought it would be something you’d like. Stunning story.
Stig Dagerman’s collected short stories are well worth a read if you liked ‘To Kill A Child.’ It is a great story. ‘The Games of Night’ is also one of my all time favourite short stories. I wrote a post for Thresholds on his short story collection. Pop over here if you haven’t already:
http://blogs.chi.ac.uk/shortstoryforum/games-of-night/
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