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- Originally appeared in APeX Attack #3 (January 1999)
- Tricks of the Trade
By Brad Farmer
Have you ever asked yourself after watching those wacky APeX
boys how they come up with those stories? Or perhaps you want
to fill your own spare time writing hilarious skits with a message
to present to your relatives or youth groups... Well, sir (or
ma’am)... today’s your lucky day! We hired a team of
the best scientists a youth minister’s salary could buy
to work around the clock until they discovered the secret formula
to successful writing, and now, at absolutely no cost to you,
the reader, we will reveal this ancient knowledge... Write about
what you know, and know about what you write! When we write a
skit or workshop about a specific topic or theme, we research
it like crazy before anything. Even before that, though, we take
a few moments for prayer, and invite the Holy Spirit to guide
our work and help us to minister to His people. We are simply
instruments, and in recognizing this, we want to be able to let
the creativity of the True Artist to be played out through our
ministry. We take time to do this each and every time we sit
down to work on anything. After recognizing the true source of
all our gifts, we then spend a lot of time talking about what
stood out for us in our researching the topic, and what angle
we want to take. Every subject we work with is so huge and we
generally only have 45 to 60 minutes to address it, so we spend
some time narrowing all our information down to what specifics
we want to deal with. (All of this can take several days, or
even months depending on what your schedule is like, what your
topic is, and how much time you set aside specifically for research
and writing.) Next we brainstorm skit ideas and jokes. When brainstorming,
we leave, even what at first might seem like a stupid idea, in
because it may evolve into something great. When writing the
funny stuff, we just bounce ideas back and forth and write what
cracks the two of us up. We hope that our sense of humor isn’t
so distorted that what we find funny won’t appeal to other
people (but sometimes that is the case). These steps don’t
always happen in order, or even at different times, but these
are some of the basic steps we usually take. And remember, the
only way to get better at anything is to do it more often...
PRACTICE! The more you write (and try to write well) the better
you’ll get at it. The most important step, however, is in
taking time before each creative session to thank God for the
opportunity and to invite the Spirit to work through your work.
You can never really take full ownership of what you come up
with. Praise God and His awesome sense of humor! |