WriteHook

It's almost Oscar time again. Are you watching closely?

The Oscar telecast is a three-hour SNL skit from the 80s. And most of the 90s -- a good idea gone horribly, horribly overlong, punctuated by polite applause for limp jokes by people trying not to look like they know they're hot shit.

mm-hmm!

Still, where would we be without the Oscars? (Hint: 1926.) They're the perfect office pool subject between football season and March Madness; and, to the observant scribe, a fantastic lesson in writing.

1. A great start isn't enough. The Academy Awards broadcast is itself a perfect model of the three-act structure -- lavish beginning, creamy middle, and high-note ending. The trouble is, while the beginning and end are usually all right, that 37-hour ordeal between Best Actress and Best Picture would be more fun if you duct taped yourself to another roll of duct tape and hugged a greeter at Wal~Mart.

You need more than bad jokes, drunk presenters, and the occasional crazy-ass redhead to keep things moving in your story.

"Kanye, WOOOOO!"

You also need to know the difference between racing through the dead people just so you can get to the end and being interesting the whole way through.

With apologies to your memories2. Memorable doesn't mean good. Remember when Angelina Jolie tongued her brother? Or when Roberto Begnini thought the best way to celebrate an Oscar for a concentration camp movie was to huff meth and dance on the seats?

Yeah, good times. Writers fall easy victim to trying something outrageous just to make their stories stand out -- shocking violence, tacked on sexual subplots, whatever. But go too far and readers will close you up and put you out in the recycle bin.  I stopped reading Dean Koontz for this very reason. After a while, I remembered how much worse a person I felt like for having endured the horrors in his stories than for the true suspense and solid characters he'd constructed. Which is a shame, because he's a kick-ass writer, with or without the mustache.

They can't all be the Man like Robert Forster3. You need an editor. The Oscars are live, and look what happens to people you thought were cool. Nervous Clint Eastwoods?  Weeping Gwyneth Paltrows? Please!

You know why you thought these people were cool in the first place? Editors. People who trim the incest and the uncomfortably anti-Semitic revelry out of the thing you actually see. Editors keep you from making an ass of yourself. At least until your acceptance speech, when you're on your own.

4. You can rock and suck at the same time. Not everybody's going to get what you do. You could either look at Jack Palance's one-armed pushups and sex jokes as feisty and entertaining or as crass attention-whoring; Sacheen Littlefeather's acceptance of Marlon Brando's Oscar as bold and timely or as idiotic posturing; Jennifer Hudson's obviously unprepared speech as genuine and human or as an embarrassing fiasco.

Hilarious? Or Freakin' Hilarious?

The point is, when you throw yourself out there, in writing or on stage, some people will love what you do and some will hate what you do. Fuck the ones who don't like it. Which leads me to…

5. Critics don't count. Fans count. Embrace the fans. You'll never see Twilight win a Best Picture. But you'll sure as hell see lines outside the theater. Like I've said, some are going to love what you do, some are going to hate it. Know your audience/readership and you will give the people who count what they want most -- you.

"And your bank account is HOW big?"6. Shameless self promotion works. Hollywood loves to stroke itself, and the Oscars -- the entertainment industry putting on an internationally televised pageant to promote the entertainment industry -- is as lubed-up a circle jerk as you can get.

But consider the ratings. Consider how serious journali… ahahahahaha!!!... I'm sorry, I tried to keep a straight face there…. OK, for real this time… how people who play journalists on TV (like Barbara Walters) have spent Oscar Sunday doing interview shows disguised as news features. Consider how many people play office pools and surf the internet for Oscar trivia.

In other words, the rampant narcissism of the entire Oscar pageant achieves an enormous amount of notoriety. It is a shameless, self-congratulatory spectacle that proves that if you want an audience, you need to goddamn go for it, without apology. When it comes to promoting your work, be shameless, be relentless, and be bold. No one cares for your book, your stories, or your articles like you do, so don't be shy when trying to promote your work.

And hey, if you can actually put together a tuxedo-and-unflattering-gown pageant to get the word out, all the better.

Write for the jugular, folks.