The Bernoulli Principle of Writing

I was driving with the windows down one Saturday and I was using my arm as a "wing" creating lift by cupping my hand and having the air float my arm up in the air.  This led me to the internets where I looked up the Bernoulli Principle.  That was totally un-helpful because the internet is too smart.  But what I did gather from the kids version, was that the curve of the top forces air to move faster over the wing, so that the slower moving air on the bottom side of the wing helps create the lift and eventually force the wing upwards.

Seriously, why do I suck at science?

I would like to try and apply this principle to writing if I may.

The wing (or plane) is your screenplay.  The air is your writing (or physical exertion).

The pressure elevates your screenplay until you can eventually take off.

Now this is where it gets technical:

To write very fast, you glide over the screenplay so quickly that the screenplay has the freedom to lift upwards.  In other words - you give the screenplay an opening to take off.  Often when you get out your ideas quickly in a vomit draft (or quick draft), the writer is able to see what is working and what is not.

That's when the slow moving air comes in.  You go through the draft, very carefully.  Sometimes you rewrite the entire thing.  This process takes a long time.  Even the process of coming up with a great idea and "breaking" the story take the longest amount of time, but this is where you will be getting the greatest amount of lift.  At times I've simultaneously written my first draft while crafting the story - getting out the bad ideas while forming a great plan.  I think outlining can fall under this category as well, but if you never push the writing past outline you'll never get lift.

It also helps to have a better wing (solid ideas in the first place).

Spencer and I just finished the first draft of a pilot.  The idea was pretty solid and we came up with the characters and plot fairly quickly.  After writing the vomit draft, we rewrote.

We rewrote that darn thing four times in five days.  We had some pressure to get it done quickly, but mostly we just wanted it to be really good and the existing storylines just weren't working.  The faster we wrote, the better our ideas came.  Slowly but surely the great ideas were clear and once they were we incorporated them.  The script was able to eventually take off from the ground.

There is still a lot of lifting left to do, but I feel we've done the hard part - taking off.

Anyway, that's my take on it.