The Play’s the Thing
Last night I finished up the first draft of my first for length stage play script. (I’m calling it All Five for now.) This was a major writing goal for me in 2014.
Being an actor myself, I know the importance of a good script. This doesn’t make me an automatic great playwright, but I know from where I speak when it comes to good scripts vs bad in the theatre. Good actors will do their best to give life to any script, nut if the characters are flat and the dialogue forgettable, a play is in trouble. (Unless it’s a jukebox musical with a multi-million dollar budget. Even that is no guarantee.) So from the start of this project, I’ve considered my experience as an actor when writing the scenes and lines.
It’s a first draft, and like that of a novel, it has many flaws which will be corrected during revisions. But the importance of three-dimensional characters that reveal themselves through memorable lines informed this project from the very first word. A script is more than well-drawn characters saying pretty things, but the more actors enjoy playing the parts and saying the lines, the better the production will be for the audience, trust me.
This particular script is not action packed. It’s character-driven to be sure. But those characters, if I have done my job, are solid, realistic and memorable. Each of them wants something, and they converse pursuant to those desires. This to me has always been enough for great theatre and great fiction in particular.
Writing a play is in most cases all character. Unless you’re a legend, as a playwright you don’t have the luxury of describing settings in poetic detail. Broad strokes. Simple prose. Suggestions. The same with action. Short, to the point, and without sentiment. And of course goals of characters are revealed most often through what they say, no internal exploration or point of view being practical in a play script. While I enjoy writing stories and novels, it’s nice to get away from all of that sometimes and concentrate almost totally on what everyone is saying. (Without the need for constant dialogue tags of “he said, she said” and such.)
Then again, writing in such a character-driven medium, (which theatre is, even when the play is more action-oriented) can be helpful for writing novels and short stories. Vice-versa is certainly true. It’s all about people, in the end for me. Creating people that want and experience things in a way that moves the imagination of readers or viewers.
An Open Letter to An Act Turned Friend
For the purposes of this open letter, the subject will be addressed as Meg. –Ty
Dear Meg,
I think you and I both know we were never going to sleep with one another. Yes, we talked about it and pretended it would happen for years, and naturally it’s fun to think about and discuss such things. Throw in a few exaggerated “turn ons” and the game is complete. But you being on a different part of the country, plus other issues made it basically impossible. Which was fine by me, because after years of that, even past the point of knowing how much of an act it was, our friendship was certainly no act to me.
I like to believe it wasn’t an act, at least. Ten years is a long time to carry on an act, even with a three year hiatus. After we lost touch, and gained it back, we seemed to pick up right where we left off. Goofy comments about our alleged liaison, but mostly just talking and emailing as always. And phone calls.
You remember the phone calls, right? Sometimes they would last for hours. Sometimes pointless, and sometimes with me trying to help you with your writing assignments. I wasn’t an especially good teacher, but I tried. Sorry for not being very helpful there. But then there were the times I we read entire Shakespeare plays to one another over the phone, switching off the roles. That was fun. Nobody else has ever done that before, and it was your own idea. I liked it.
I also always liked you for what you are, despite the fact we had some ridiculous argument like any two longtime friends are bound to have. Some were my fault, and some were yours, but to me it never changed fundamentally what I thought of you.
Until you started losing the weight.
I knew your body image was always something your struggled with. And I know that technically you were overweight. So I was happy for you when you lost the weight you wanted to. But then over the course of those two years, (during which we started writing less and less, and we never spoke on the phone anymore for whatever reason) your Facebook pictures displayed a continued weight loss that was at first impressive, than surprising, and then worrisome. I know you joined a gym, and started a juice diet and all other such things, but I remained concerned.
I could see the bones in your face, Meg. Maybe to a doctor that isn’t a big deal, but I thought that despite how much you loved your new look, you might have been going too far with it. So, despite my general belief that people ought to do with their body what they think is right, I expressed my concerns to you about it.
Your reaction was a bit hurtful to me. You told me I didn’t know a thing about it, and you also said you didn’t “have to justify” yourself to someone like me. You were mean about it, and all I had done was express a concern. You could have told me if a doctor said you were fine. You could have thanked me for my concern. You could have reassured me you were being careful. Instead, after years of confiding in one another about various things, you basically told me to butt out, because you weren’t going to justify yourself to me. (As though that is what I expected you to do.)
I still don’t know what you actual medical status is, but I have learned that such an angry reaction to someone’s concerns about your weight loss is typical for someone who knows they have gone overboard. That it’s often how people with eating disorders react at first. I am not suggesting you have a disorder, in fact I think you probably don’t. But I am suggesting that your reaction to my concern probably indicates that something about what I said struck too close to home with you. But instead of taking a few steps back and listening to me like you used to, you struck out at me, and paid more attention to all of the people who were telling you how hot you were becoming.
Obviously, things were different after that, though we still talked. Less, and you seemed uninterested in regular conversation with me. (Though I did get text pictures of you as everyone else did from time to time.)
I think my concerns are really the reason you stopped talking to me and blocked me on all social media. I realize the actual last conversation (or should I say confrontation) was about Paula Dean’s racist remarks. (About which I still think you are wholly incorrect, southern or not.) But could my thoughts on a crazy celebrity chef really have warranted an end to ten years of friendship? If it really did, than perhaps we weren’t friends like I thought we were. Perhaps being friends was as much of a fantasy as the known fantasy of us ever sleeping with one another. We originally met in a role playing game environment online. Perhaps out whole friendship was you playing a role for ten years.
Yet in the end, I think it was my concerns about your weight that pushed you away. If that’s the case, I regret that it hurt you, but I don’t regret saying it. i would say it again, if I thought someone’s health was at stake. Perhaps I was incorrect in my assessment of your weight, but you were wrong in your response to it.
Still, I hope you are in fact healthy. I hope I was wrong about your weight loss. And despite how completely unfair it is to have cut me off without warning over these things after so much time, I hope you really are at last happy with how you look.
And I hope you still read Shakespeare sometimes.
sincerely, Ty
–This post is part of the Open Letter Continuum.
Using Common Threads to Spur Creativity
Writers, when in doubt, use a thread.
That’s what I started out doing a year or so ago, as I often do. I wanted to increase my short story production, and I decided I’d pick a loose thread or theme common to the next few stories I’d write. Three or four ideas for stories sprang from that decision almost right away. As the weeks and months wore on and I feared I was running dry on ideas, I went back to that main theme. I played with tense, tone, point of view and everything else, but kept that common theme alive for those stories.I ran toward it over and over. Like a tall landmark in a strange city to which I could always orient myself while traveling.
And you know what? It worked. Worked so well in fact, that the theme I started with, theater antics, became even tighter, as I set all of the stories in one place. Once I did that, other more nuanced themes occurred almost in their own right. When I put them together, I had a collection of which I am quite proud.
Yes, my friends, Thank You For Ten: Short Fiction About a Little Theater (Published a month ago today!) started off as a decision to use a common thread or vantage point for the next several stories I was writing. The idea of a collection came later; it didn’t just descend from the heavens, believe it or not. At first I just wanted some focus for my fiction writing for a while. Out of that came my first ever self-published book.
Writers have done this probably as long as their have been writers, but that’s because it works so well. Collections of stories about cats, a hometown, a single family. Choosing such themes can initiate great creativity. Many minds are wired to be more productive when they can focus on a single item or two, and launch from there. That’s why themes work so well, for readers and writers.
Yet what if you don’t want to produce a collection like mine? Can you still make use of themes and threads? Without a doubt. I’ve been doing it for years before Thank You for Ten came along.
Many times I’ve established themes and commonalities as a beacon to myself, and then written a few stories to fit them; these are not collections, but merely stand alone stories that posses a similar common component. It’s not always as obvious as Thank You for Ten, and in fact often it isn’t. Many times the theme I’ve used is known only to myself. You can use the same tactic for your stand alone stories.
For example,you could decide that in August, all of your short fiction will will demonstrate doubt. You ask, “Whose doubt? Doubt of what?” Exactly! It’s wide open. An astute reader may catch the theme, if they happen to read all of the stories in one sitting. But if you are just using “doubt” as a catalyst to write several stand alone stories, nobody has to know you used a theme unless you want them too.
Then again, themes can also be specific. You might tell yourself that in the next five stories you write, the character will get lost while driving somewhere. More concrete, but certainly not confined to only a single narrative.
Then of course you can tell the same exact story from a different point of view each time.
The best part about using a thread outside of a planned collection, is that in pursuing it you often get ideas for stories that don’t connect at all to said theme. And behold, you’ve got more writing to do.
Threads then, are a bit like writing prompts, but broader. Less specific. Yet they achieve the same purpose; inspiring possibilities within your fiction, and motivating you to write even more often. And writing more often is a thread all writers would love to run through their day, I would think.
Be a Fan of Your Own Work
-All first drafts are terrible.
-You need a beta reader or two, or five in order to help you see your work more objectively.
-Invest money in an editor before you either publish a manuscript yourself or before you send it off to an agent; you’re too close to your own work to see it for what it is.
-Take to heart the changes that an agent or an editor tells you to make to your work, even if they are painful and a bruise to your ego. They are professionals and know better than you do how to turn your work into what it should be, a manufactured product that can be sold.
-Kill your darlings.
If you’ve been a writer for I’d say, at least 45 minutes so far, you’ve encountered some variation of each of the above pieces of advice. You’ve also encountered advice I haven’t included here specifically, but which points in the same direction. In short; don’t fall in love with your own work. Keep a distance from it, be skeptical of it, detached from it. Hand it over to others in order to get a true sense of what it should be in the end.
There’s some wisdom and practicality to this advice. Anyone, not just a writer, can get too close to the forest to see the trees when it comes to their projects and creations. A little help and some constructive criticism from those we trust will benefit us more often than hinder us, if we are open to what they have to say. Editors and agents are useful people for those who pursue that route. And if you’re only in it for the money, by all means abdicate your own personal preferences. The problem is not with the advice itself, but with the culture that has sprung up from its accumulation over the years. That culture, though not universal, can be damaging to writers at any stage. It’s this notion that loving and enjoying our own work is de facto suspect.
We aren’t going to love everything we write. Some things are just going to be there. Some things are going to get shelved. There are even a few things we may write and get out there which readers enjoy more than we do. All of that is normal, as is a desire for a more objective assessment of our work, as noted above. But when writers begin to feel that something must be wrong if they love what they’ve slaved over, (as opposed to merely pronouncing it marketable and professionally competent), something has gone off of the track along the way.
I’m quite fond of some of the things I’ve written over the years. I’ll reread my work at times, and enjoy it even more the further I get from it being written. Some things I’ve written I admire so much in their totality that I see no reason to change them. Not for an agent, not for a writers group, not for anybody. And certainly not merely for the sake of changing. I don’t assume that because I, the author, enjoy the result, there must be something amiss with either me, the piece, or both. There’s no nobility to blindly eschewing my own creation until someone else alters it, makes it “marketable” or gives me permission to love it. “Kill your darlings” has morphed into, “If you find it darling, you have to kill it,” and that wasn’t the original intent of that now ubiquitous expression.
When I do love my work, that is to say when some of it is a “darling” to me, it’s not because I wrote it. That’s the lesson here; don’t assume that because something came from you that it must be fantastic, because it won’t always be. I’d venture to say it may usually not be fantastic. Yet if you’ve written something, put thought and energy into improving it, and it feels complete to you, then by all mean let yourself enjoy it. Be a reader of your own work. That’s what I do. Like any work by someone else I read, if my work has attained a certain mood, rhythm, pace and purpose that speaks to me, why shouldn’t I enjoy it? Because “kill your darlings?” I don’t think so.
Any writer will tell you that a certain percentage of what they do is outside of their conscious effort and understanding anyway. When we enjoy our own work, we combine pride in our accomplishment with an admiration for how well it blends with that transcendent quality. At least that’s what I do.
I may be wrong on this, but we don’t deride a baker for indulging in her own desserts, or a fashion designer for wearing his own clothing. When exactly did it become detrimental to the craft for authors to enjoy their own writing? Or shall I say, enjoy some of their own writing, because I can promise you that any sane writer also hates plenty of their creations. A little bit of love should be permissible in wake of that.
In the end, I, the author, know what I like, and I need to trust that. If people don’t like my current book, I can only say that they aren’t seeing in it what I see in it, just as I would say about any art that I enjoy but other people dislike. Yes, this may sound delusional to some, but I don’t think I care. If I can be the only person in my family or circle of friends to have heard of and enjoyed a movie that bombed in the box office, I can also be the only one who likes my own stuff any given time. Not out of ego, but out of personal taste. That’s one reason I self-published this time around; so I could follow my own tastes and not those of an accountant. I am proud of and enjoy the stories in Thank You for Ten, even though I wrote them. I killed plenty of darlings along the way, had several restarts, and scrapped a few ideas altogether. But in so doing I got to a place I could be proud of, not to a place of total detachment and lack of interest in what I wrote as the fad seems to be.
So be all means, seek beta readers, get advice, learn from the best and the not-so-best. Restructure stories and listen to your agent if you’ve got one. You’re not perfect and neither am I. But once you’ve put the work into your creations, you’ve got as much right to be a fan of it as anyone else does.
It’s Crucial to Write When You Don’t Want To.
I don’t write every single day. Nor do I write at the same time every day that I do write. If doing either or both of these things helps you as an author, by all means continue. If you think my rejecting both creeds and stating as much on my blog is heresy, then label me a heretic. I happen to feel that a writer understands their own proclivities and routes to producing work better than I, or any instructor or online writing guru ever could.
One thing is certain, though. Whether you take the hard-nose daily route at the same time each day, or you take the slightly more chaotic approach of this writer, the time will come when you will not want to write. It will probably come often.
This can happen as a whole, when you find yourself not wanting to write anything, or it can be confined to a specific project. (As it has been with me lately. I blog with ease, but tiptoe around some of my longer fiction.)
Who knows why these doldrums arrive when they do? There are plenty of superficial reasons, such as wanting to be outside, or engage in petty distractions like Twitter. Then there are more substantial reasons; you might be ill, or fatigued. There are also psychological reasons for you not wanting to write any given day or week; maybe you’re experiencing doubt as to your worthiness, or you can’t stand being unsure how to fix the current chapter. You fear the failure or success that may come with finishing the piece. There are even a few instructional reasons why you could be putting it off; perhaps you’re brainstorming, or you’ve been sucked into a research black hole out of which you cannot, (or do not wish) to escape.
Whatever the reason, you will at times totally lack any desire to write. If you’re like me, you indulge that feeling here and there. Yet the time will come when you will have to write when you do not want to write.
Writing when you don’t want to is not a choice when you’re on a deadline. You do it or you get fired, or don’t get paid. No need to explore that motivation. But what about the times when you are accountable only to yourself and your creative vision? If you don’t have a deadline from elsewhere or yourself, what’s the big deal about avoiding work that isn’t setting your creative soul on fire? I’ll tell you.
First, you’ll never get it done otherwise. Unless you are willing and able to spend a literal lifetime on one or two projects that you don’t need anyone else to ever see, you’ve got to get on with it. For a change, I agree with the conventional writing wisdom, when it states you cannot wait for inspiration. Writing is work and like any work it doesn’t do itself on days you don’t feel like doing it. Some days you’re sculpting the vase, and other days you’re just lugging that dirty, heavy, unseemly hunk of clay onto the potter’s wheel. But no clay, no vase.
Making yourself write on days you don’t want to write is not just about getting on with it, however. It’s about your identity as a writer.
By working on a piece when you’re too tired, too sick, too occupied or distracted, you’re sending a message into the ether. (Define that according to your own belief system.) You are telling yourself and anyone/anything else out there that the act of writing is a priority-a priority over minor health issues, a priority over fatigue, over boredom, over distractions, over whatever else you want to be doing that moment. By projecting such priorities, you are also projecting your identity as an author.
The product during these times of no desire may not be voluminous; it may only be a paragraph or two. Nor is the work you force yourself into likely to be your best writing. It’s often not even going to be your mediocre writing. (Though sometimes when we force ourselves to write when we don’t want to, we find ourselves suddenly inspired a few minutes later.) Either way though, doing this represents a commitment to the process of writing, and it leaves an impression on the universe, or the deities, or the ether, (whatever persuasion you happen to be in such matters.) Before long, that impression reflects back at yourself, and you will then see yourself as a writer more clearly. Which in turn feeds your writer’s identity that you project into the world, and so on.
Your desire to write is not what makes you a writer. I suspect about 90% of humanity on some level for at least a few minutes desires to be a writer, and they may even write for a few days or a few hours. It’s one of those things, like New Year’s resolutions that nobody keeps. But they stop when they don’t want to do it anymore. (Like me watching the World Cup here and there.) What actually makes you a writer is a steady commitment to identify yourself as such by actually writing whether you want to or not on any given day. If you never want to do it, and have no stories to tell, than of course don’t write, now or ever. But if tales live within you and wish to see the rest of the world beyond your heart and mind, give them, and the craft what it deserves and requires; priority status.
Ty Unglebower 