  Drama
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"If a person is to get the meaning of life he must learn to like the facts about himself -- ugly as they may seem to his sentimental vanity -- before he can learn the truth behind the facts. And the truth is never ugly."
-Eugene O'Neill
"Writing is utter solitude, the descent into the cold abyss of oneself."
Franz Kafka
"The writer without a sense of justice and of injustice would be better of editing the year book of a school than writing novels."
Ernest Hemingway --From George Plimpton's, An Interview with Ernest Hemingway: The Paris Review 18, Spring 1958
Hello, I am Joy , this week's drama editor. In this issue, we are going to talk about the moral argument or moral quality, as sometimes called 'deep-writing.' |
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Welcome to the Drama newsletter
Most of the writers who have mastered the basics of writing and constructing a story can tell a good story to keep us interested to the end, but only a few can affect us deeply in an unforgettable way. When you write a story, a play, or a novel, you are telling your readers that something happened. The question is: Are you also saying that something happened, but it also came out offering a life lesson by making you and your readers think deeply, feel strongly, and empathize truly?
John Truby says in The Anatomy of Story, “Write something that will change your life.” He calls this the moral argument of the story. Moral arguments may be injected through the themes like good vs. bad, tragedy, pathos, satire and irony, and black comedy.
When we look at the time-tested classics or the stories of our time that move us deeply, we see that each one of them offers a moral argument or projects a moral quality. This moral quality offers a true drama, the drama of the human condition, which is more than any momentary entertainment.
In Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham, the main character Philip learns to love, asking the question "Will I ever be free?" possibly referring to freedom from his internal demons that make him a victim. The story examines Philip’s struggle with moral circumstances, his self-absorption, his pursuit of physical beauty and the dilemma it creates for him, his internal growth, and his battle against the societal norms.
In The Sound and The Fury, William Faulkner offers moral arguments about the corruption of aristocratic values, the families losing touch with the reality of the world, the value of purity and innocence, and the relevance of past and present in human life.
The moral argument or the moral quality in a story leads to what is called deep-writing, which the most prestigious awards like the Pulitzer and the Nobel hunt for.
Deep-writing is more than entertaining or even establishing a conversation with the reader, because it begins by going deep into one’s own being, which brings us to the subject of self-awareness. Self-awareness is veering away from our idealized selves into whatever lives inside our shadows. This undertaking is a brave venture that each serious writer needs to take on, to face his moral problems because moral problems lead to moral choices, and then, to successful work.
Most deep-writing starts with a moral need. The moral need may be applied to individuals or to societies, or both, thus generating moral arguments. To create a moral need:
 Start with a weakness. Then figure out what kind of immoral action this weakness may create. Identify the origins of the weakness.
Push the strength of a character or society too far and turn it into a weakness.
Find a value a character believes in or a value common to a society. Then, create the opposite of that value.
An important thing to keep in mind is, a psychological need is not the same as a moral need. Give your characters a moral need as well as a psychological need. An example to a psychological need can be the need to be loved, and an example to a moral need can be making the right decision to choose between going to war to serve one's country or staying to mind his exceptional child.
Keep the character’s finding out what he really needs, moral or psychological, as a secret from him until the end. If he finds it out too early, the story may be over too soon. You may, however, give your main character a superficial desire or a yearning for something other than his real need, to work on in the beginning.
Then, as a tip related to this subject, try not to open a story with the main character’s true desire. Weakness and need make better openings.
Most importantly, reading good writing but reading with consciousness is the best way to learn deep writing.
Until next time.  |
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Thank you for reading our newsletters and for supplying the editors with feedback. Now, let's take a look at a tip.
This Issue’s Tip:
Stay away from vague or marooned modifiers such as most, almost etc.
"Most admit that..." (Most who?)
Correction: Most of the theater-goers admit that...
"It was almost the next day."
Correction: 'It was 11:45 P.M.' or 'A new day was minutes away.'
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pooja_sr
Good one, Joy. For a long time I believed that the first draft was the best.
It was only recently that I realised that even your best pieces can look incredibly shocking to you when you look at them after even a brief period of cold storage.
Well, how exactly would you define drama? I mean, I've been thinking for a long, long time that it's only the stuff they do in plays with conversations-isn't there more to it than just that?
If possible, could you write a newsletter on that? I'm relatively new to this genre, please walk me through.
Thank you very much, pooja_sr.
In general, drama is not really a genre, because drama exists everywhere and in each genre, and it offers tension and excitement inside any piece of writing. In other words, where there is tension and excitement, there is drama.
Drama, in particular, refers to stage arts such as movies, TV shows, and stage plays.
In these newsletters, I usually talk about what may make a successful dramatic writing in most types of writing, be it a novel, play, screenplay, short story, or poem.
What drama is has been discussed in detail in the earlier newsletters (late 2007 and early 2008) by Turkey DrumStik  and StephBee  . You can access those newsletters here:
http://www.writing.com/main/newsletters/action/archives/topic/Drama
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flex
Good newsletter on prewriting, Joy. I find the idea of a body journal a fascinating one. I will have to try it.
Thank you, Felix. 
A body journal is a good idea, but then, all journals contain so many ideas.
It is a good idea to keep at least one journal and incorporate many ideas into it, time permitting.
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StephBee
Joy, I loved your look at pre-writing. For me, I print off maps of the area I'm writing about. I draw maps, I work on character bios and outline plots. I also draw up time lines. All this helps when I go to sit down to write. Steph
Thank you, Steph.
Sometimes, the best part of writing happens before we write the first sentence.
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Acme 
I just wanted to let you know that I'm loving your tips section. Don't get me wrong, the information in the rest of your newsletters is always useful and informative, but those bite-sized chunks of wisdom really stick with me. Thanks!
Thank you, too, Acme.
I found that tips stick to my head more powerfully, too, than reading an entire book on any subject.
As to the tips here, I come across them in books, and sometimes, I think of them while I review other writers' pieces.
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Drama: March 25, 2009 Issue [#2944]
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