Writers, Embrace the Epic Fail
By: Joshua Todd James
Tags: Writing Prompts, Writers Life, Writing, Writing Tips, Writers On Writing

The number one FEAR most, if not all, writers have is a simple one. Failure.

They are, to a person, horrified that they may create something that will suck and folks will let them know about it in no uncertain terms.

And, let’s face it, that’s a distinct possibility whenever you’re creating something. It may not turn out how you hoped. It may not be received as you had hoped. It may be good but you didn’t find the right audience for it, or it may be good but misunderstood… or, more likely, it isn’t good and you failed.

The latter is more common than either of the former. And here’s the thing.

It could be the best thing that ever happened to you.

Because if getting good at your craft matters all to you, it will cause you to think about why it failed and ask questions to address said failure.

Why did failure happen? There’s only two answers, really.

It’s either you or the audience.

Now often the author will blame the audience first.

And this is true, sometimes the audience is the wrong one. Sometimes they didn’t get it. It does happen. If you’re telling raw Andrew Dice Clay-style jokes at a church potluck, chances are you’re delivering your product to the exact wrong audience, and that’s why you failed.

(If you want to see this in action, go on youtube and watch Stephen Colbert roast GWB at the WH Correspondents dinner way back in the early aughts, it’s brilliant, hilarious and clearly NOT AMUSING to most of the people in the room at the time).

However, if every audience (other than your parents) is giving you the thumb’s down, it’s not the audience, it’s you. In the recent documentary on Showtime, THE COMEDY STORE, comedians talk about the different audiences in different rooms, and a joke may bomb in one room, work in another… but if it bombs three times, with three different audiences?

They cut the joke. It’s gone. It’s not the audience, it’s the joke. The joke failed.

This is true of screenplays, novels, etc. Everything. I have a couple scripts that I believe in, and they just don’t work for anyone else. Which means, after enough trusted friends have read it, it’s not them, it’s the script. It doesn’t work, for whatever reason.

It doesn’t make me a failure, it means I swung and I missed.

And that’s a good thing. You have to fail in order to grow.

Otherwise you’re telling the same jokes, over and over again. You’re not learning, you’re not evolving. You’re just pulling that one trick.

Jim Carrey famously had a great career as a standup, he did celebrity impressions, he was making a lot of money in Vegas, and he was miserable. He didn’t know why, but he felt unfulfilled. So he kicked his entire act to the curb. Ditched it. And went out before audiences with nothing.

And BOMBED. Bombed HARD.

But from that failure he discovered his true voice. He found his unique comedy (and birthed his anti-comedy persona Ace Ventura).

He was a success already, but to level up, he had to fail. Again and again.

Fail as fast at possible, in fact.

The first novel I wrote was terrible. In hindsight, I see that now. But I remember the sting when the agent told me, “our readers think it’s a great idea very badly executed”, I mean, that kinda rejection leaves a mark.

But instead of giving up, or just repeating myself, I put myself into the job of improving. I leaned into what I didn’t know and vowed to learn it.

And evolved. And got better and better. Until I succeeded.

The mantra is, TRY, FAIL, TRY, FAIL, TRY… SUCCEED.

Now sometimes, sometimes we hit a solid base hit our first time out. It happens. I optioned the first two screenplays I ever wrote, and had a third one filmed (which, sadly, got sacked by a national tragedy, but that’s another story for another day). So I felt more than confident I had this all down.

Boy, was I wrong. I wrote some STINKERS after that. Epic fail.

But, it was also good that I did. Because I learned from that experience. I learned how to expand my craft, my technique and my reach. I needed those failures to be who I strive to be. You cannot reach great without passing through awful, bad, fine, good, too.

As I tell my students, everyone fails. Everyone. The best in the business, any business, has failed. Even Spielberg regrets directing 1941.

Stephen King cannot remember writing THE TOMMYKNOCKERS (writ before he went into recovery) and he hates it, thinks it’s badly written.

The main difference is, King has a wife who tells him when and how he’s screwed up, and HE LISTENS TO HER.

Spielberg, back in the day (and I bet it’s still the same now) had a solid ring of friends, like George Lucas, Brian DePalma, Frances Ford Coppola, who gave him feedback on what worked, what didn’t work… sometimes brutally.

And HE LISTENED.

I would say that the number one reason writers don’t grow is they don’t listen to constructive feedback or, any feedback. They’re so afraid of failure they close off anything negative. And good feedback from TRUSTED sources is the most valuable resource an artist has. But you have to listen to it. You don’t have to follow it exactly, but you need to process that information.

Two things to end with. One, I tell my writing students thus.

THE AUDIENCE NEVER LIES.

They may make mistakes, they may be biased, but they won’t lie about it. This is why live performance, such as theatre and standup, is so unique. The feedback is direct, immediate and undeniable. I often have my students have their scripts read out loud, and they’re shocked at how well some things are received, and how badly others are. But I stress that what we’re doing is connecting with an audience, and it’s on US to figure out how to connect WITH THEM. And when you hear a script read, you witness it in real time.

This is why standup comedians will eventually toss a joke they love that fails over and over. Because they know, for whatever reason, it doesn’t work.

Because audiences don’t lie.

This is why they embrace the fail, lean into the suck, to find the great.

Two, I tell my Brazilian Jiu-jitsu students thus (yes, I teach that, too.)

IF YOU’RE NOT DYING, YOU’RE NOT TRYING.

If you’re not taking risks, you’re not going to grow. In Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) that means getting choked out or submitted. Lemme tell you, no one likes being choked out, it’s not fun. But if you’re NOT getting choked out on a regular basis, especially in the beginning, you’re doing it wrong.

If your BJJ game becomes avoiding failure rather than achieving greatness, you won’t take any risk, you won’t expand your game, you won’t improve.

Fear of dying leads to death and stagnation, basically.

In writing, if you’re simply repeating a formula, over and over again, you’ll grow stale, your audience will grow bored and, eventually, you’ll die.

Jim Carrey did not want the mantle of the Next Rich Little. He wanted to be his own person. And so he died and was reborn. And became more famous than Rich ever was. Ironically, Rich Little hosted a WH correspondence dinner just a few years ago, and was still doing Nixon and Johnny Carson impressions. Both men are long dead. Like, sadly, his act.

The beauty and value of BJJ is every time we step on the mat to be submitted, we die and yet, we’re reborn in the very next roll, the next match. We experience a rebirth. But we carry with it the knowledge left over from that first death, that first failure. Again and again.

If you’re not dying on the mat, you’re not trying.

In art, in writing, we have the same beautiful deal. We are born with each work, and die with it once it succeeds or fails. After it’s birthed, we close the book on it, and are reborn again with the next book, the next script, the next song or poem we write.

Each failure is a blessing in that it’s a death and rebirth.

Lean in to the suck, embrace the fail to be reborn anew.

Try, fail, try, fail, try… succeed.

You want to know the description of every great success story? Diane Court describes it the clip of this movie. Watch it, and wait for the DING.