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Noise and Signal

David Gane
David Gane
— 1 min read

During the construction of a story, how often do you allow the noise to hide the signal:

  • How much sensory input do you allow in (RSS, email, social networks, television, books)?
  • How many commitments of time do you make?
  • What is your level of output (blog posts, journaling, other projects)?

In the article Why We’re Powerless to Resist Grazing on Endless Web Data from the Wall Street Journal, Lee Gomes quotes Dr. Biederman:

“It is something we seem hard-wired to do. When you find new information, you get an opioid hit, and we are junkies for those. You might call us ‘infovores.’ ”

When we are writing, we need to change where we receive our information from and what we do with it.

When you cut the amount of information coming in and the amount coming up, your mind will hear the real signal of the story.

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David Gane

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Co-writer of the Shepherd and Wolfe young adult mysteries, the internationally award-winning series, and teacher of storytelling and screenwriting.

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