Jack Grapes, Artist, Writer, Author, Instructor: I want to make people better writers
not better plotters.
Film Courage: What is the invisible motor?
Jack: The idea that a work of art is a mechanical thing that's an analogy I use but I discovered it
goes all the way back to the Russian formalists who looked at the form rather than the content in
other words not the story but the devices you use to make the story come alive and they felt that a
work of art was like a machine and it worked as I said uh and one of the analogies this guy
used the man named Viktor Shklovsky he said it was like a car and uh he said some other things but I
go slightly different direction uh there's three things with the car
there's the engine there's the inner structure and decor and is what the car
looks like on the outside what the car looks like on the outside is your story
that's your story a lot of people write their stories and there's no engine and there's
nothing inside it's like a fake set on a movie you know movies lot that's the outer trappings of it
but to me the motor that's under the hood that's the invisible motor that powers a poem or story
and when you work on your story or whatever you're going to be writing the techniques that I teach
are the mechanics of that invisible motor that powers your story so that's what I mean when I say
the invisible motor and most writing classes don't really go to the invisible motor they go with the
design of the car the story how it looks from the outside but they don't really get into writing.
I want to make people better writers not better plotters
when you're on a plane and someone says to you what do you do you don't say oh I'm a plotter
I want you to be you know the one who makes the story go because of the engine
if I got in the car the most beautiful car in the world turn on the key it doesn't work
I don't want the car it's got to go what makes the car go the devices that we learn how to write in
an authentic voice then learn how to use the other four voices then I have other levels where I teach
other devices but these are devices that actually facilitate the creative unknown and what's the
oil in that engine what if I'm low on oil and now these gears and these different parts are
going to start grinding and pretty soon the car is going to stop working what is a good question no
one's ever asked me that what's the oil whether it's synthetic, vegetable, whatever I'm running
on what what is that oil that's keeping this story your emotional truth that's the oil
if it's not coming out of here it's not worth it it's just imagination which is good up to a point
but it has to have an emotional truth what's the emotional truth
so that's the oil okay look at the oil you had a little while ago that's true
I mean that was a lot of oil kiddo it was it was an oil spill and if you can hold on to that oil
not just for the story you would write about being stuck but other experiences you might write about
that that same oil applies now your story is going to be compelling for the reader right you
don't need an outline you don't need a plot you don't need that if you don't have the deep voice
and you don't have the oil of some of the other techniques the emotional truth you're just
you're doing what uh uh when Jack Kerouac wrote on the road and he showed it to Truman Capote it was
he wrote it on butcher paper you know rolls a butcher paper which you just stuck in the
typewriter Truman Capote said that's not writing that's typing now he was wrong but
that's a good analogy and if you don't have the emotional truth it's just typing it's not writing
okay so the way you're nodding your head yeah and but I was actually thinking of the movie Kill Your
Darlings [2013] which I did a show part part of it I had Jack I was trying to picture what he was
going through I believe he was that his character was in the film so that's where I went to I was
thinking of right did he go to France and people think he was homeless or am I getting him talking
about Jack Kerouac am I getting him mixed up with someone else where he went to France and he became
very disillusioned because people thought he was homeless no no I'm thinking of someone no he lived
with his mother okay wrong person all his stories about him being on the road he went on the road
a few times he basically lived with his mother and and and typed and timed but he drew on his
experiences he was a great writer and he drew on his experiences and boy you read on the road and
man that that book is in the the poetry in it comes from the emotion of his deep voice just
every once in a while I read the last paragraph on the road you just read that last two or three
paragraphs the last page man it's great and I just read it and it sometimes helps me find my voice
try it sometime what's this do you remember what exactly the paragraph is
not word for word but I can't quote it you'd have to read it if I had it here
I could read it but fair enough yeah you know it's a beautiful beautiful piece of writing.
You know it's like a piece of music sometime I will read
a paragraph or a page out of a book that I know the way I would put some music on
because I know it somehow gets me in the mood or it touches me in a certain way so
same with writing I'll read something and it just I'll read the end of Ulysses with Molly
Bloom's speech [soliloquy in “Penelope”] where you know they're on this bluff and he's been
trying to get her to be romantic with him and finally she thinks oh what the heck as him as
anyone else what the heck and then she asked him to ask her again and he asked her and she said yes
I said yes I will yes I'll read those last words and Ulysses and man it just I hear the rhythm of
that voice and it just really connects me there's a lot of books things that I'll go and read
I'll read the opening of Dante's Inferno midway through the journey of my life I found myself
lost in a dark wood I found myself lost in a dark wood how do you find yourself by getting lost
I midway through the journey of my life I found myself now literally it means I
suddenly I was there you know like I found myself at the east gate I found myself in the
back room but if you think of it literally midway through the journey of my life I found myself lost
that's how I found myself by being lost in a dark wood you know in the dark truth of your soul and
and of being stuck and where you went when you went to the deep voice that's your potent place
that's the oil that will make your engine run and if the engine is put together right
and you've got these techniques that you know how to use indy 500 winner.
Question
For The Viewers: Does it take a mechanical process to produce a work of art?