Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

The Continuing Saga of Lesson 3

The Continuing Saga of Lesson 3

I am learning more and more with each student. I tend to classify them into several general groups. One group consists of the technicians and the artists. It isn’t that some are one or the other, but rather that like being right or left handed, some tend to one aspect of the literary process and some to the other. It’s sort of like the order in which you eat the food on your plate. There are those who eat the nourishing stuff first and save the dessert for last and vice versa.

Anyway in writing a Drama I definitely think the Dramatist should begin with the science. Indeed lesson 1 and 2 of the course deal almost exclusively with that aspect. I worry about the scientifically inclined. They excel at the early requirements and get bogged down when it comes to the creative part. I had a great student last semester quit when she got to lesson 3 thinking the process was going to serve her as it had in the first two lessons. She simply could not make the transition from the science to the art. All the ingredients were there, all the rules of thumb followed, and the character sketches done to perfection. In her play the integration didn’t work, the drama was anemic and the dialogue was hopelessly out of touch with reality. In other cases I see students who have the art gene in spades and struggle with the science of writing. The reason so many don’t make it as writers can usually be traced to one or both of these areas.

My mentor and hero for the One Act Play course is Buzz McLaughlin. I love to quote him because what he says rings so true. The first symptom that something is going amiss in a drama is the Central Character.

“It is critical that your thinking focus on one central character. Probably the single biggest problem I’ve run up against over the years as a teacher and dramaturge is that people can’t decide who their plays are about. I find myself reading ten, twenty, thirty pages into the script wanting to know who I’m supposed to be attaching myself to and identifying with and I don’t have a clue. Sadly, I too often still don’t by the end of the play.”

I build restorations… old cars, born again. There are two phases to this process. These are essentially getting one running again and then doing the body work. Some call this substance and form or use other words but you get the idea….One deals with the science of the project and the other deals with the art. For me the science needs to come before the art. Just as in doing a restoration I begin with the frame, suspension, engine, transmission and drive train. Then you crank it and see if the mechanical parts operate in harmony. Only then should you begin to think about doing the body work which is the real art of the restoration.

If however, someone is artistically inclined it will evidence itself in an agony over words before the structure is set in place. To be sure you have to write words once the outline is completed and the character sketches are firmly in mind, and yes those words should be crafted to the best of the writer‘s ability but in a first draft the dramatist needs to keep up with their inagination that is the vehicle which is relating to them the story line of the drama. If you try and polish every word, the muse will be in the next county before you get to the end of the first sentence. When you finish a first draft it should be pretty bare bones and then you need to go back with a check list to make sure all the components and ingredients are included. Where they are not add them in and then go back to the supporting documentation (Outline and Character sketches) and bring it all up to date.

Then take the draft and write a synopsis of the play. Scene 1, 2, 3, just the basic thread of the parts that compress the story line into its essential parts. Then read this over several times to get it firmly in mind and have the synopsis sitting next to you in the work area. Then go back to the first draft and add in or strike out anything that is not included in the synopsis. Make sure every line moves the story forward from beginning to end. When you finish, the manuscript should be about half the length of what it will expand to when it comes to full fruition. In other words as you polish and refine and build resonance into the monologues and crispness into the dialogues the play will expand but everything the playwright adds will move the basic threads of the story along. So how hard is that? Duh!….It’s hard as heck.