Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Q&A with Aaron Sorkin

Elisa asks:
Aaron-
Do you write for yourself, or do you have a specific audience in mind, even if it's just one reader?
Elisa

Aaron Sorkin answers:
Elisa,
That's a good question. First, what I don't do is try to guess what the most amount of people will like and then give it to them. I don't think I'd guess right and I don't think I'd be able to give it to them but mostly I think it's a bad recipe for writing.

I write what I like and what I think my friends would like and then hope that enough other people like it that I can earn a living.

Also, and I don't mean this at all in the snooty way, I write for the least passive members of the audience. I write for people who love movies and love television and love plays. I write for the people who watch the DVDs over and over and notice that the coffee cup isn't full.
Aaron

So now, I ask you: Do you write for yourself, or do you have a specific audience in mind, even if it's just one reader?

2 comments:

Elspeth Futcher said...

I'll side with Aaron. I write about what interests me - which is WHY people do what they do. If I don't care about the subject matter I can't write about it because simply, I don't care.

Bless him for writing about noticing the coffee cups. What a nice hug.

Beth

Elisa said...

"Bless him for writing about noticing the coffee cups. What a nice hug."

It really was a hug for our gang, wasn't it. :)