I Think You're Totally Wrong Read Online Free PDF Page A

I’d like to say that that writing mantra “show—don’t tell” is bullshit.You don’t show stories; you tell them. Too many writers “show.”
    DAVID: No kidding. I’m the one who taught you that twenty years ago.
    CALEB: Write expediently. Speak expediently. Okay, Samantha and Harv were colliding into each other. Backstory: Ten years earlier, Harv had a fling with Jen while Jen had a boyfriend. Six months later Harv bumps into Jen at a party and she’s six months pregnant. Harv says, “Mine?” Jen says, “It’s not yours.” A year goes by and Jen calls. “Harv, my boyfriend made me give the baby a paternity test. It’s not his. Come on in.” So Harv goes in and boom, he’s a dad. Ten years later Harv and Jen are together, and then Samantha comes into the picture.
    At the time Samantha was seeing Jefferson, a meth head ex-con. Jefferson and Samantha dated for four years. Anyway, when Jefferson was five, he saw his seven-year-old sister hit by a car. They lived in a trailer park and the local drunk nailed her. Jefferson went home and told his mom. His sister died. Later, Jefferson married young, at twenty-two, and has a two-year-old son. Son contracts a disease, they perform tests on Jefferson, and Jefferson discovers he’s not the biological father.
    DAVID: At this time is Jefferson with Samantha?
    CALEB: No, this is years before Samantha. Like I said, it’s backstory. Jefferson confronted his wife, she confesses—big blowup and breakup. Since then Jefferson learned a trade, he works, but when things get bad he turns to drugs. He’s nice, quiet, introverted, and not an idiot. He once was reading
Moby-Dick
. I tried to talk to him about it. “Whatdo you think?” And he gave one-word answers. “Good.” Or: “Interesting.” He’s fifteen years older than Samantha. Samantha’s young, cute, and fun. We don’t know why Samantha keeps going back to him. She wants out. It just drags on and on.
    So when Harv and Samantha hook up, they carry unhappiness. Harv tells Samantha he and Jen are kaput, invites Samantha to Skykomish. Samantha and Harv spend a couple days here, everything’s great, and then Jen calls and says she’s driving to Skykomish with their ten-year-old son. Evidently, Harv and Jen are not kaput. Jen’s an hour away. Harv is trying to get Samantha out the door. Six weeks later Samantha finds out she’s pregnant.
    DAVID: Have these people not heard of birth control?
    CALEB: Go figure. Samantha’s sweating for a few days. It turns out the fetus is Jefferson’s. Samantha dumped Jefferson and now has a four-year-old son. Jen left Harv, got a degree from the UW, and now works at Boeing. Harv’s derailed but hanging on. Same with Jefferson.
    DAVID: You’ve got a good bad novel on your hands. I don’t really have anything to say other than “There it is: real life comin’ at ya.”
    CALEB: What sort of response is that?
    DAVID: There’s no particular larger—
    CALEB: It’s just what happened. It’s not a—
    DAVID: Do you know the Danish TV show
The Killing
?
    CALEB: My sister lived in Denmark for four years. When she was here this summer, she dropped off the whole series. My parents are watching it now.
    DAVID: Twenty one-hour episodes. It’s not great, but it’sgood. You watch it in Danish with huge English subtitles. By the end, you’ve convinced yourself you know Danish. It’s an endlessly elaborated investigation into the murder of a high school girl.… This song is so beautiful.
    CALEB: “Jesus Don’t Want Me for a Sunbeam.”
    DAVID: That voice, the bottomless sadness of that voice.… I get bored easily by the plot, it takes a million times too long to get there, but it finally builds to something very beautiful. Brag points: I figured out who the killer is in the first episode.