10,000 hours. That’s the amount of time author Malcolm Gladwell speculates it takes a person to master a craft; this from his most recent best-selling non-fiction book “Outliers”. And in this LA Times article, journalist Rachel Abramowitz takes up the question with some notable Hollywood folks including Dustin Hoffman:
Hoffman famously did not land his career-making role in “The Graduate” until he was almost 30 years old. He spent the previous 10 years (the amount of time Gladwell says it takes to accumulate the 10,000 hours) struggling to make it in theater and film in New York City, but most of that period he actually wasn’t working as an actor. “I know I’ve said it a million times, but it’s not the worst thing in the world to be unemployed, because a writer can write, a painter can paint, but an actor can’t act without a job. That’s what’s painful, you’ve got to have the job,” says Hoffman.When asked if 10 years primarily waiting tables or doing temp jobs counts in the quest for 10,000 hours, Gladwell, reached by phone, explains: “The question is not at what point you’re capable of doing your job. The question is at what point you’ve mastered it.”
Gladwell notes that “there is a raging debate among psychologists whether there is such a thing as innate talent. I’m on the side that says there really isn’t. If it does exist, it plays a small role. I’m much more convinced of the contribution of practice and effort to make excellence.” Before making “The Graduate,” “Dustin may not have been acting, but he was thinking about acting. He was studying. He was engaging mentally, emotionally, psychologically in the difficult art of assuming a character.”
I’ve heard that a writer needs to write 1,000,000 words before they can really understand writing. There’s even this poet and short story writer who set out to write one million words in 2008.
I attended a session one time featuring screenwriter-director Larry Kasdan in which he talked about how he wrote 10 screenplays before he sold anything — and it was my impression that he felt like he had to write all of those scripts before he ‘deserved’ his shot.
10,000 hours? 1,000,000 words? 10 screenplays? Is there some actual minimum level of work we need to put in to understand what we’re doing as writers? Granted, some writers may have a more innate grasp of the craft than others, but that still presupposes everybody needs to to put X amount of time into actual writing to master it.
And then the next question: Can we actually master the craft? Does a writer ever stop learning?
Scott,
I believe that a writer MUST be open to learning at all times — how else can we EVER be the best writer we can be? But…. because we become the best writer we can be it does not necessarily mean we have mastered the craft.
Which begs the question: who is qualified to determine if or when any writer has mastered the craft?
Happy Holidays and Keep Writing!
Mike
Excellent topic Scott.
I started down this strange (and yet inescapable) path around 1991, after graduating with a degree in mortuary science (more on that some other time, heh heh).
But when I accidentally discovered Syd Field’s book SCREENPLAY, a hundred birds sang, a thousand bugles honked, and a million alarms went off. I grabbed 120 sheets of lined paper and handwrote my first screenplay. It felt great. And the script? Godawful.
Seventeen years and about thirty scripts later and I STILL only feel like a beginner… but in a good way. I DO have more confidence when I approach the page. I DO feel a better, more innate sense of story. And, best of all, I’m completing everything I begin (crucial!).
I get the sense, though, that I’m only at hour 5000 on screenwriter odometer with the next 5000 ahead.
Lookin’ forward to it!
Jeff, you’ve written 30 screenplays?! Dude, you’re my hero. You should get a lifetime acheivement award for that. VERY impressive.
Do believe in talent, BUT with any talent you have to be willing with hard work. With Hard work equaling 10,000 hours.
You will be a master when OTHER people rave about your work, and OTHER people place that moniker on you. Till then it’s nose to the grindstone, and like Mike Scherer says, “… be open to learn at all times.”
All that said, I don’t feel like I’m a master at screenwriting, BUT I feel quite confortable with it.
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
P.S. Just spent a hour of my life digging in the dirt, ice and slush after my dad got his truck stuck on the neighbors hill. Got 5″ of snow turning to slop now. Good time to write…
Mr. Henry, thanks for the kudos but I must interject that 15 of those thirty were utter dreck, 5 were done in collaboration, and the rest? Well… y’know… hard to say.
Two of them were produced by a small outfit in Chicago and both of those I am actually rather proud of, even though their miniscule budgets were almost their undoing.
Interestingly enough, my two BEST scripts happen to be the ones that were purchased and produced. Funny how that works, eh?
Anyway, now I must go remove 8″ of snow from my driveway. That’s how we remain humble, E.C. We can master a craft all we want but in the end, it’s all about pushing dirty snow around.
Mike’s point is an interesting one. Who’s to judge a master? I guess it’s usually clear when someone is working at a high level.
I’m not a numbers guy. I suspect in writing, like anything in life, your results will vary. You’ve got to work work work until, suddenly, something clicks–the light bulb comes on and you’re working with more command and ease and, I would add, abandon. (using cliches like ‘the light bulb’ shows it hasn’t clicked in me yet). I’ve seen people take forever to ‘get it’ in all walks of life-writing, sports, management–and I’ve also seen people who have a grasp of the game almost intuitively–right from the start. Most of us aren’t prodigies, so we’ve got to keep working, stay open, and be ready when something clicks.
I would say it's like anything else in life: the more you practice, the better you'll get.
I always go back to King's quote regarding the difficulty in making a good writer into a great one. It's not that it is impossible, but that it requires a lot of work.
No matter how awful a writer you might be, the more you write, the better you'll become. Is King right when he says that you cannot make a bad writer into a competent one? Perhaps yes and no. I imagine that he believes it would require more time than life can provide to make that bad writer into a competent one. But, that bad writer will get better and the same can be said of the good writer.
It's not as if a light bulb suddenly flickers on when someone reaches their one-millionth word or ten-thousandth hour; instead, it is around that point that someone will have written so long that they are bound to understand their craft better than they did one million words ago.
That's why we read the scripts and write every day. With every page we turn, a little bit of wisdom is earned.