How To Drive A Writer Crazy
When he starts to outline a story, immediately give him several stories just like it to read and tell him three other plots. This makes his own story and his feelings for it vanish in a cloud of disrelated facts.
When he outlines a character, read excerpts from stories about such characters, saying that this will clarify the writer's ideas. As this causes him to lose touch with the identity he felt in his character by robbing him of individuality, he is certain to back away from ever touching such a character.
When a rumor has started that a writer is a fast producer, invaribly confront him with the fact with great disapproval, as it is, of course, unnatural for one human being to think faster than another.
Always correlate production and rate, saying that it is necessary for the writer to do better stories than the average for him to get any consideration whatever.
It is a good thing to mention any error in a story bought, especially when that error is top be corrected by a script editor, as this makes the writer feel that he is being criticized behind his back and he wonders just how many other things are wrong.
Never fail to warn a writer not to be mechanical, as this automatically suggests to him that his stories are mechanical and, as he considers this a crime, wonders how much of his technique shows through and instantly goes to much trouble to bury mechanics verry deep--which will result in laying the mechanics bare to the eye.
Never fail to mention and then discuss budget problems with a writer, as he is very interested.
By showing his vast knowledge of a field (sic), a script editor can almost always frighten a writer into mental paralysis, especially on subjects where nothing is known anyway.
Always tell a writer plot tricks, as they are not his business.
