Robert McKee and Tim Kashani argue that visible trends are already 5-10 years old, so chasing them produces stale work. Instead, writers should stay present and infuse contemporary attitudes into any genre. Game of Thrones feels modern because its characters act like today's CEOs, unlike Lord of the Rings.
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I know that there are trends. People come to me constantly in my lectures saying, you know, what should I be writing? What's going to be the next big thing? What should I, you know, how do I get into the business and what train should I get on? And I absolutely discourage thinking like that. Because if you try to write in a trend, you're always 5 to 10 years out of date. Whatever is happening in the world now, whatever trend there may be, that trend began 10 years ago in the mind of a genuinely original artist or artists who sensed something happening in the world around them, began to express that, It took years to get that work written. It took years to get that work produced. And now it's in the world and there's a trend. And that trend, as I said, is 5 or 10 years old from its inception to where it's finally reaching the world today. If you then imitate that trend, you're out of date. By the time you get your work written and try to get it into production, people say, no, we've done that, been there, seen that. And so what I urge people to do is to be in the now, be alive in the present tense, feel what's in their heart, what they think, what they see, what the world around them— be an antenna for life around you, and then write, you know, Write Game of Thrones, create something that's a hybrid of all of medieval culture and magic and all the rest, and do it in a way that is absolutely contemporary for the audience. Game of Thrones is not Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings is old-fashioned. Game of Thrones is today. The characters act like CEOs. All those— all the royalty of Game of Thrones, could you just put a suit on them and they're CEOs in competing corporations, right? You know what I'm talking about? And that's why that series is so immediate and so hip, because these people are modern. In their sensibilities and their attitudes and their ambitions. And the setting just makes it wonderfully expressive of what these writers understand are modern people in their hearts. And so, you know, the word that we would have used back in the '60s is that Game of Thrones is hip. Okay, and so that's what I urge writers to do. I don't care what your genre is, realism, non-realism. One of my writers, Michael Hirsch, is creating this great series Vikings, and Vikings is hip, man. It is so hip. And because Michael has a modern sensibility. And so you— it doesn't matter what genre you write in, you just have to be in the world today, feeling what is around you and in yourself, and then put it into whatever genre or medium you choose. But be an original, for God's sakes. Don't copy, don't get trendy. Just be yourself and be, be in the world today and then write your heart out. And if it's good, people will love it.
