 Drama: March 29, 2006 Issue [#954] |
  Drama
This week: Edited by: Elisa: Snowman Stik  
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| If all the world is a stage, then where are the scripts? In an increasingly TV and movie-oriented society, the theater gets pushed out of the spotlight. Along with pushing a form of acting away from the vultural perspective, a form of writing creeps closer to extinction. So let's explore the stage play, bringing it out of the classroom and out into the general public eye. |
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The modern stage play has endured a long, strange journey through the history of England to arrive at the form modern readers identify as the drama (as a form of writing as opposed to a genre). Starting in the latter decades of the Middle Ages, skits were used to physically depict events described in the Bible, the Gospels in particular. The skits evolved in length and complexity but did not stray from using religious material until the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Under her reign, the use of the Bible or religious material as the basis for a stage play was outlawed due to the persistent conflict between Protestants and Catholics in England, as the sect of the ruling monarch had dominated the stage in regards to the interpretations of religious material used. The queen's ban paved the way for secular material to become mainstream in the theater, thus bestowing careers to gentlemen such as Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. However, the secular drama faced fierce opposition from the Puritan sect which sought to shut down the theater and succeeded in its mission for two decades. Eventually, the Puritan lockdown on the theater came to an end, allowing the secular drama to resume delighting audiences.
Likewise, the stage play has also undergone some changes in form throughout history. For centuries, many plays were written in verse. Normally, playwrights favored dialogue in iambic pentameter, as it most closely simulated typical human speech patterns. As well, stage directions were brief and open to vast interpretation. Fight scenes were not detailed to say how a punch was thrown and by whom. Instead, the playwright would only write "They fight.". However, towards the end of the 19th century, plays in verse and terse stage directions began to fall out of fashion with playwrights, as elaborate stage directions and non-metered dialogue crossed over from experimental (during Heinrik Ibsen's career after he composed Peer Gynt, his only drama in verse) to mainstream. Today, the stage play has expanded into a varieties of sub-forms, from the skit to the musical, each type of stage play having certain rules in the construction of the script. All the forms, though, have two unifying characteristics: specific stage directions (especially at the beginning of each act) and dialogue which does not always follow any particular meter.
So, what experiences have you had reading or writing the stage play? Myself, I enjoy reading plays more than any other type of literary work, but sitting down to write one can be difficult for me. To me, the greatest obstacle in writing scripts of any sort is adjusting to the physical form of the writing. Scripts look more abstract on the page than prose works and even some poetry. Typing character headings before lines of dialogue is a bit of a reverse from prose, when in most cases readers anticipate the tagline of the character's speech after a quotation. However, it is a dream for those who enjoy writing dialogue, as the dialogue is the focus of the script, perhaps moreso with the stage play than with screen scripts. So how does a novice playwright (or screenwriter) overcome the physical obstacles of writing a script? It's simple; revise until (s)he goes cross-eyed. If you find it difficult to maintain the centered placement of headings, then write your first draft with all the lines and headings to the left and revise it a couple times before centering. There are programs available for those who write scripts on a regular basis (which I will discuss in my next newsletter), but for those writers with tight budgets, general centering is a good start for properly formatting your scripts once you've revised your script. So don't be afraid to try writing a script. It may be foreign to your eyes at first, but it is a fun way to flex your writing muscles.
Until next time,
(sig by me) |
With this week's items, I selected scripts that would work well on the stage. The actual formatting varies from the standard with these scripts, but I was more interested in the items' development in regards to stage directions and dialogue. Feel free to peruse, and if you have any stage scripts lurking in your portfolio, send them in to be featured in my next newsletter. 
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Some more thoughts on dialogue! Hopefully I'll hear from more of you on stage scripts next time around.
from gaeliciriquois: For all that dialogue is an art form that requires work to construct it properly, I've had people from all walks tell me that my character's conversations flow easily and really help to connect them to the reader. My 'problem' is that I don't work hard to get the character's speech patterns down. Rather, I tend to find myself 'listening' to my characters and just type what they say. And typing seems to be key for me. Hand writing dialogue seems harder for me than typing it for some reason, probably because I can type the words faster than I can write them. It's kind of like taking dictation, I imagine. Has anyone expressed this same, or a similar situation to you?
Oddly enough, I'm better at hand writing dialogue first, although I'm comfortable either way with composing dialogue. Your method of constructing dialogue probably lends itself to typing if you are good at actual typing. As a hunt-and-peck specialist, my typing isn't that fast, so it's easy for me to switch between typing and writing dialogue.
With developing the characters' speech patterns, it boils down to revision. Once you've written your first draft, you'll have a better understanding of your character, from his or her background to nervous habits. Once you have this much information about your character, you can go back and rewrite various lines of dialogue to establish these patterns.
From ftrinta: Hi Elisa
Thanks a lot for having the time to focus on my question. Your newsletter is great and full of useful hints!
Cheers,
Nanda
You're welcome! I'm glad my newsletter helped you understand dialogue better.
From Nikola~Asked Santa for a Pony!  : Bravo Elisa! I love to write dialog. I think it's one of my favorite parts of working on a story. Great newsletter!
After writing the dialogue newsletter, I think a good numbers of site members would agree with you, Nik. I admit I'm fond of writing dialogue, as you have more wiggle room with word usage and character development.
From Brians Next Novel Almost Done!  : I think how much dialogue you use in a story and how much you use depends partly on your intended audience. Folks who like literary novels that take their time, perhaps college educated people who like details and background, can sometimes withstand dialogue that runs for paragraphs at a time before someone else even speaks, let alone before the author makes an interjection.
Others though are going to like the dialogue to be quick and to the point, usually the sort of thing you see in action novels or thrillers.
Ultimately, though, I believe drama is going to play out over a broad range of possibilities, so whether a page-long diatribe is needed from one of the characters, or merely a whispered word is needed to creatice the appropriate dramatic effect, the situation the writer has created ought to help dictate how the characters respond, be it succinctly or with verbosity.
Indeed, Brian, and we authors who enjoy writing dialogue sometimes have to tap on the brakes when it comes to our love of dialogue. Of course, as with all aspects of writing, there are exceptions to the rule. I have read a few short stories in my English courses that were composed of primarily dialogue, and they proved to be fascinating stories. I agree that for some audiences following speakers can be tricky, but extended dialogue is feasible. Still, it won't always be enjoyed by everyone, so the author has to decide how much dialogue is necessary and be willing to risk a few confused readers. Society will eventually catch up and be able to understand long dialogue constructions.
And a word on scripts....
From merlin  : Dear Elisa, in my stage &TV scripts, I find it even more important not to use the word 'said', but to give the actor direction by using; whispered, snarled etc, and to leave 'said' to being part of the dialogue, ie. "He said he was going to do that, he said he would."
Best Wishes, Wyvernz
Actually, in my introduction to scriptwriting class, we were also advised to not overdo the action verbs when describing how the actors should execute particular lines. The form doesn't give us much room to allow such verbs to be inserted, and even if they're written in the script, it's the director's discretion to follow through on using that particular mannerism and to what extent. You can state action verbs for some lines to emphasize a particular tone, but generally such verbs are reserved for special occassions.
For the next newsletter, I'd like to know how many people have tried writing a stage play. What did you enjoy the most? What was challenging about writing for the stage? What resources (if any) did you find helpful? I'd love to hear what people have to say about writing for the stage.
And if you happen to miss or misplace a newsletter, feel free to stop by "The Drama Box" [13+]. |
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