Screenwriting : How important is your writing to you? by Kwame Agyapong

How important are your writings to you?

I asked a number of students the above question when I needed an assistant to help interview a notorious gold smuggler for a project. The first girl answered tapping her laptop where she had a script written and said, “this is my ticket to be noticed in the world,” and explained how important her writings were to her.

“Would you have written the story if there were no money to be made?”

“Of course not, nobody works for free,” she said clearly affronted. I nodded, she was right, but I needed a passionate writer than that. I needed a writer who enjoyed crafting stories even if the rewards are not immediate. It’s great to write for the needs of bread and butter and sweet to see others point at you in a crowd. But that was not what I needed.

I talked to more people and had different versions of the same answer. I wasn’t disappointed just that they were not what I needed. The last person I met was a young man who hardly contributed to discussions in class. I dismissed him as not worthy of my time, but on a second thought, I put the question to him. He looked at me for a long moment as he processed. Gradually, I saw life on his face and instantly was animated with purpose. I had touched the core of his being with a dose of something new.

“Sir, I won’t be here otherwise,” he said.

“Would you have written if there were no money to be made? I repeated making sure he understood my meaning.

“No doubt in my mind.”

“Why would you do that?”

“‘Have you had a loved one in hospital with a bad condition the doctors can’t help?” he asked me.

“Have you?”

“My mum has covid and nobody knows what to do. We don’t have the vaccines in this country. I called my brothers abroad but they can’t help because the vaccines are not sold in the market. I don’t know what to do, sir.’

“I understand, but what has that got to do with writing without reward?”

“My stories are like this vaccine I need for my mum. She might not make it without it. I don’t need money to do that. Neither do I need fame or recognition to save my mum. I just need her to stay alive.”

“What does your mother represent here?”

“My country, and all people who share my outlook. We in African swallow all sorts of contents and offer none to the world and therefore nobody knows who we are. What the world knows about us is from bad press and bad leadership.

I want to share my stories with the world for them to know that we share the same things in common –the fear of tomorrow and the joy of today. I don’t need money for that.”

I invited him to come with me. We drove in the city of Accra for a long period that afternoon. The young man talked most of the time giving me what he considered as story-purpose. I wondered aloud why he hardly spoke in class.

“I just process what is offered and when I get the meaning, I don’t see the need for any long debates. Two by two is always four. That principle cares less about opinions and debates; it’s take it or leave it. “

We ate dinner together, gave him a spare room and started working together. I had found what I needed just by overcoming my dismissive arrogance. We were about to interview a notorious gold smuggler who had been a torn in the flesh of the largest gold corporation in Africa.

When the corporation sets their machines in the East, Yaro would camp in the West to mine, regardless of the relentless efforts to arrest him. When the corporation moves to the North he’d move to the South, and for thirteen years succeeded through bribery and intimidation of employees.

The corporation also accuses him of killing employees who resist him.

Yaro arrived wearing a disarming smile contrary to his notoriety as a ruthless killer, and charitably asked of our welfare. After a minute or two of small talk, I asked about his childhood. He gave us a vivid narrative of his life as a five –year old with compelling details. I gaped as I listened and my young friend like me was spellbound.

That version of his young life alone could engage our scripting for several weeks. I asked him to pause and wet his parched throat. But shook his head and went on.

“When we dig we don’t stop till we are 100ft underneath. We then build a camp and start to dig sideways also for hundred feet. We could hit gold in the process if we were fortunate.

“Is it not dangerous?”

“The real danger is when you’re not aware that others watch you in the shadows. They could pounce on you when you have come upon a gold deposit and tell you to vacate the pit. You’re caught unawares and they have their weapons on you. You either leave or die. If you thought you could take them on you fight. Or you just leave and time them till they have mined the deposit a week or so later and attack them for the gold.”

“You’re Yaro, why wouldn’t you have your people watch out for you?”

“I think you’re looking at the invincible image the media created. We have more dreadful Yaro’s in the pits than me. When you’re in the pit you don’t get what is happening out outside. The enemy could take your agents as hostages, kill them, and in some cases they may be double agents..”

‘Do people die a lot?’

“You’re bound to die if you play a double agent. Death is a daily event, either through gang fights or a pit collapsing on you.”

“Is it worth the effort at all?”

“We get a lot of money. Sometimes too you could come upon a huge gold deposit in a rock but you’re so tired, you’ve worked from morning till nightfall that, you decide to leave everything for the next morning. You go back the next morning and the gold is gone. The rock is there alright but the gold is gone out of the rock. You know gold is a mysterious metal,” he added

I was baffled listening to Yaro. I had not heard anything like that. I pondered, wondering how an inanimate matter could just travel to another part of the earth. Then I got his meaning. I shook my head and I tried to explain. “Yaro, I don’t think gold travels anywhere.” And for the first time I saw contempt in his eyes for challenging a known fact.

“You know the stars and the moon sparkle in the skies with light in the night and not in daylight. The stars and the moon are just like our earth; they don’t have any lights within their caverns. The gold could sparkle in the night but not in daylight when you return in the morning. It must still be in the rock but can’t sparkle without nightfall.”

Yaro looked at me for a long while and when he thought I was right he bursts out with a large laugh. He laughed so infectiously that we couldn’t leave him to laugh alone, and when it was over he resumed, picking up from exactly where I interrupted him. Yaro had a knack as a narrator with attention to details, which prompted me to ask, “Chief, why don’t you just write about your typical day, give us some anecdotes, tell us about gang rivals and so on? We could ask questions later.”

Yaro smiled shyly and said, “I don’t know how to write.’

“What, how come you’re talking to us in English?”

“I picked the language when I was little working as a garner in the mines. My little sister also helped, reading for me when she returns from school. But I didn’t have time to learn how to write. Yaro had worked to sponsor his little sister to school when he was only 9 years old. I thought he has a heart of gold in his make-up.

I thought I’ve had a hard life but I could not compare tomatoes with stones. I stared at him and nodded humbly till I heard my young friend’s prompt. “Sir, I have everything covered. Do you want us to ask questions now?” He had written furiously apart from having Yaro on a recorder. “Alright, let’s do that.” I said. I had written what I wanted clarified. He had gone beyond the points and had sketched a map on his jotter as if he was a storyboard artist. We worked with Yaro for a greater part of the day and the night. And what satisfaction it turned out to be. My young friend proved to be an amazing treasure, a gold mine that Yaro could probably envy.

“Everyone has unique power interred within. It’s the king and queen rendered dormant in the psyche for lack of engagement. We get the best of our neighbour when we call his/her royalty to life.” My old man once told me.

As writers, we need passion to sustain us in the evil days when all gates seem to close and unresponsive producers would not answer mails or take our calls. When we pray it is to meet the right literary manager, a producer, or an agent who is not dismissive to steer us through the industry.

I think Shakespeare, if he were to re-enter the world’s stage of writing today may get the exit early. Shakespeare might need someone to manage his enormous talent to create contents in originality. All of us have different views of the universe. Our mythologies, aspirations and fears are formed differently based on our environments. But all the above converge to form the complex combination of strength and frailty known as human.

I designed content for television five years ago and for lack of a platform the concept remained on my laptop. Two days ago, someone who knew about the concept called and pointed my concept on Netflix, and said it was one of the hot products attracting over 30 million households when it was released.

I guess as writers living in Africa, we don’t need sympathies or charity. We just need partners to help get our contents stuck on laptops and dust- collecting manuscripts to the market and let them stand or fall by their merits. Don’t be dismissive quite yet we may be first born among equals.