Babylon 5 used to be my favorite TV show. I loved the 7 year arch. So, being me, I jumped on its creator’s book on screen writing. In one of the chapters he talks about writing for one of B5’s most self centered characters, Londo Mollari. He said Londo’s sentences had Londo at the center of the sentence because he was most important to him.
It was the first time I realized writers think at that level. They decide where to put the subject of the sentence based on the character’s personality. And it made me think about sentence structure and personality.
One of the things I catch myself doing, especially while blogging, is starting every sentence with I. The first thing in the sentence is me. I consciously try to vary that. Not because I think I’ve got me at the beginning of everything, but because I don’t like all my sentences to have the same structure.
But I just read a new model’s profile on OMP and was struck that every sentence started with I. In one long run on paragraph. And it told us all about how she was going to be successful as a model and was a good person.
My first thought was “think about your audience!” People reading your portfolio don’t care if you are good person. You are apply for a job. Talk about what you have to offer a potential photographer. Its not all about you.
The writing was really just bad, not selfish. A good essay writing class would help with that. But it puts you off when you read it.