Play/Script

Two questions:

1. How visual should a play be? They've got to rely on the cheapest of tools, good dialogue. But I think visually. How can I put that in my script without stepping on the director's toes?

2. How big is too big, for a play? How many scene changes are too many? How many extras/characters? For a film script, my story is relatively small scale/low budget. But for a play...what's the proper scale?

Play Mate

I'm adapting the forty-page "short" story I wrote about yesterday into a play. In order to apply for the playwriting opportunity I'd like to, I've got to have the play done by Jan. 1.

The story is finished, so now I can start the adaptation process--but it's turning out not to be as tough as I thought. There have already been several pleasant surprises:

1. Structure. Though I didn't realize it, my story is already in perfect 5-Act structure. The relative act-lengths are even solid. That means that the story might be even stronger than I thought, AND that I've finally absorbed good story structuring!!!! I didn't outline this story, I didn't edit it with act structure in mind, BUT it came out well-laid-out anyway. That makes me unbelievably happy--because it means I'm learning, because it makes me more confident that the story is good, and because it will be relatively easy to adapt.

2. Scenes. My story is heavy on real-time scenes, as opposed to back-story and interior monologue. Not that it has no blathering or philosophizing, but it is mostly dialogue and action--which will translate well onto the stage. To me, constructing a plot using real-time scenes is a mark of professionalism--one I'm delighted to have! It also makes reading the story easier and more fun for the audience, and makes adaptation much easier, too.

So, turning this story into a play may be fun and rewarding--and DO-ABLE!--after all. Right now I'm most worried about the logistics of playwriting, ie, what *can* be done on a stage, what would look good on stage, the terms/shorthand people use, and play-script formatting.

The Control Continuum

How important is being true to one's own vision? How faithful can one even be?

Being true to oneself is the only way to create truthful work
V.
The writer understands the subtexts and themes and intricacies the *least*, because she is too close to the work to see it clearly.

I've worked over the past six months or so to be totally myself in my writing, readers be damned. Not that I threw all structure, grammar, or pragmatism to the wind... I've just tried to become more comfortable with the unknowable, even when the unknowable is my own mind. I've tried to stop trying to control *everything*, and let myself (as a writer, and my work as art) loosen up, be free, shelter from judgment-- relish instinct.

But now that I've found a novel writing groove, and a short story writing groove (finally!), I've got to make this claymation.

The claymation's been sitting in my head for months and months, and now that I've got people who want to see it, I've finally got to finish the damn thing. And it's bizarre to have full control over an entire production like this.

1. Find the idea
2. Write the script
3. Create the clay creatures
4. Build the set
5. Film
6. Edit
7. Soundtrack
8. Get it out there

I'm on the tail-end of #4 right now, and it's suddenly hitting me that even if I *don't* like it, I'm in total control of this project-- even down to the production values. The (lazy) demon on my shoulder says, "cut a few corners-- who cares?" The (masochistic) angel on my shoulder says, "You'll care, if you're going to show this to anybody, knowing it's not your best possible work."

The control issue is bizarre in writing, I think, because each media needs such different levels of it. On the one hand, there are short stories that are limited enough in scope that they can flourish on an absolute minimum of plot, and a maximum of whimsy. Novels require a bit more in terms of logistics, simply because they're so big-- but their logistics are all writerly. No extra lay-out of money required to help those logistics along. I think the medium that requires the MOST writing control is television.

Television writing is *incredibly* constrained; you've got a certain set of characters, a certain location, a certain basic set-up, thematic limitations, and everything's got to be done to a strict time/page/action formula (approx. 8-pg pulses), and all in about 55 script format pages.

And yes, with television writing there are certain physical concerns-- please don't expect the sets or the CGI to be fancy. Please don't require athletic feats that will take weeks to prepare. But no way you've got to stage the thing.

That's where the play/movie continuum takes over; not only have you got to write the thing with at least a novelistic level of writerly control, you've (at least as an unknown) got to actually make it *happen* in a physical way.

So on the one hand, I've taken great pains to give up control and give more say to instinct for my short story writing-- which has taken a turn for the much better. And on the other, I'm making a movie-- in which I've got to build the "actors" no less.

Why am I making myself schizophrenic? Well, because it's fun. And fascinating, to stretch those control/instinct muscles in all kinds of new ways.

Literate Activity Spikes: Winter TV Programming Lull to Blame?

Happy News?

For the last two months, I've been sending a one-act to a bunch of festivals.  So far: one rejection, and one rejection with a request to see more work.  

This is the first play I've tried to have professionally produced, so I would (should?) feel pretty happy about that request... except it was written as part of an email.  I don't really know how personally to take that encouragement.  Maybe that theater company just has a very sweet form letter?

Oh well, I'm gonna go ahead and be happy about it, anyway :)  Does my bubble need bursting?!

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Have: novel rough draft.

Need: to weave in a subplot... figure out where that subplot fits in, and how it will effect what I've already got.  

Question: has anyone ever tried to plot their novel using index cards?  I've heard that it's a good way to outline a screenplay so I decided to try... but now I've got about a million index cards and total confusion.  Did anyone find this method helpful?  Did you do it in a specific way?