David Mamet lesson #6 Story Ideas

“I always used to tell my kids- they’d say -‘ dad where’d you get your ideas,  ‘I’d say, there’s this little Mexican guy in Encino, Ok and he drives in on weekends and sells them off the back of a truck’ we all have ideas all the time. Our minds, Swinburne, I believe said, is a raging fire. We have all these ideas all the time. What if that person turned around and said I love you…? what if we got a thing in the mail that said, he’s not your real father..”

David Mamet used his life in Chicago. What can you use from your life? Your life is different, unique with your own experiences.   

He admits he ‘wrote about the ‘underbelly’ of life’. His life in Chicago.

He isn’t interested in themes.  He is interested in telling a story. He said,  “no one ever left a great play humming a theme”

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UT1VBkW9y-U[/embedyt]

He said, “a good writer kept what a bad writer threw out”

“If it doesn’t make sense- work it though,-and see where it leads you”

He said that writing is like a dream, pick out in that dream what doesn’t belong. Then,  focus on that thing that wasn’t supposed to be there.

I found this interesting PDF : Notes from a David Mamet workshop

If you are interested in David Mamet’s Masterclass click here.