yes, Jeff Somers IS brilliant (don't tell him I said so)

Jeff Somers has a terrific substack going that uses movies to illustrate points about writing. It's true-to-form Jeff: hilarious, and helpful.

Here's one of his recent points that really hit home for me:

Restraint can be challenging when writing a story, because it sometimes feels like it’s not writing. Depicting something in a realistic fashion sometimes feels like you’re simply describing an experience and not value-adding as a creator, or something¹³. The urge to dress everything up, to make every character “quirky,” every scene emotionally loud, every speech a brilliant soliloquy often has the opposite effect: The scene in question feels over-written, overwrought, and artificial.

¹³ You know you’ve spent too much time in Corporate America when you casually drop a phrase like “value-add” in everyday footnote conversation.

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