Subtext: A key to the script writer's art

One of the most significant elements in this difficult game of script writing is working with that elusive and dynamic "thing" called subtext--that submerged nine-tenths of the iceberg underneath those words on the page.  How do you use it to drive your dialogue and your characters' motivations and behavior and to fill those silences and pauses with potent energy and lightning-like insight and meaning?  Why is it that some writers are able to have the words that are actually spoken in a scene consistently take on a power far beyond what they are communicating on the surface? How do they do that?  What strings are they pulling to create that kind of special excitement between characters that pulls the audience ever further into the story that's unfolding?

The answer to these and similar questions involves backing up quite a bit when it comes to the process of creating a new script.  It demands that you know your characters inside and out before you attempt going into draft--what makes them tick, what specific milestone events have emotionally shaped their lives and how, and in what ways have they been involved with the main issue of the story that the future script is going to focus on--meaning knowing thoroughly their involvement with life in the past, before they first enter the action of your tale.

Subtext is that baggage--emotions, memories, and relationships--that every character is carrying with them as they enter your story.  And if your story is a good one, it will create its own ways that that baggage is felt and exploited as your characters face the dilemmas placed before them.  How they behave in certain moments of crisis or accusation, how they relate to other key individuals, how they respond to a sexual advance, and on and on....   And much of this behavior is nonverbal and very subtle.  A silence when a question is asked.  A hand going for that third drink when a certain topic is broached.  A shift in tone or volume in a character's speech.  These are well-crafted signals good writers constantly weave into their work and that point the audience to that subterranean place where the real story is continually percolating.

One of the masters at this is Harold Pinter.  His work is a study in the dynamic use of subtext.  Here's what he has to say about the famous silences in his plays:  "There are two silences.  One when no word is spoken.  The other perhaps when a torrent of language is being employed.  This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it.  It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in it's place. When true silence falls we are still left with the echo, but are nearer nakedness.  One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness."

That nine-tenths under the surface.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs January 3-11, 2015 and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program at the following residency that runs June 19-28, 2015.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

This script writing "business"...

It's often been said that the script writer's real work begins once a play or screenplay is written.  And there is more than a smidgen of truth to this.  It's worth taking a look at what kind of "work" this refers to.  

First of all, it's important to realize that once you are absolutely convinced that your script is ready to be released to the world--once you've been through that "final" draft a dozen times and every page is perfect--you have arrived at the threshold of a whole new phase in the project's life.  And this phase has to be handled just as carefully and thoroughly as the writing, rewriting, and early testing of your script.

Of critical importance is that you do your due diligence on the possible places your script could be sent and whose hands you want to get it into.  This is a vast task if it's done right and demands serious research into the various possible venues and people, contests and festivals, theatres and other organizations that are constantly putting out a call for new material.

Every writer--especially those in the early stages of their careers--play the wishing game that all they have to do is land a good literary agent and all their babies can then be handed off to this hard working professional dedicated to finding a home for your brilliant creations.  As all writers realize the longer they are in the business, this could not be further from the truth.  Agents negotiate contracts once serious interest in your work has been obtained.  But with very rare exceptions, they do not find the production opportunities for a writer's work.  And that goes for both the theatre and film/TV.  In other words, it's the writer who finds the interested parties who in turn make an offer.  The agent then becomes activated or a theatrical lawyer is found to deal with that offer.

So that leaves the burden on the writer to shepherd his or her work through its post writing life.  And that means a careful investigation of all possible avenues that that script can be sent down.  It also means developing a realistic strategy or game plan in terms of possible scenarios for the future of each script--from the most modest introduction into the world to the most ambitious and far reaching. For starters, playwrights should join The Dramatists Guild and then carefully investigate their annual Resource Directory (I'd be wary of buying the latest available edition of The Dramatists Sourcebook published by the Theatre Communications Group because it is now seriously out of date).  Screenwriters for starters should scour the Without A Box festival screenplay competition list and investigate every other screenplay competition (a simple Google search will open the door to hundreds of possible opportunities).

The point here is that it's up to you, the writer, to get things going, both for your script and your career.  And you have to be thorough, smart, and assertive.  Believe in your work and be it's biggest supporter--no one else is going to be that for you.

I remember years ago walking into the study for the first time of my friend and successful playwright Richard Nash (The Rainmaker among many others).  It was a small barn on his farm next to his country home and I'd been invited out to work with him on a new play that my theatre was producing.  I noticed that he had a long series of shelves against one wall that held dozens of scripts neatly stacked, one after the other.  I asked him why he had all these different scripts in stacks on shelves.  He said without missing a beat that he was a playwright and this was his business--he had to do this because he was constantly sending work out to theatres and producers.  Then he smiled and said that he was his business.  And it struck me that here was a true professional writer who took himself seriously and who knew that there was only one person that his long career depended on.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs January 3-11, 2015 and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program at the following residency that runs June 19-28, 2015.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

Wendy Wasserstein on script writing

The late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein was a lovely person whom I had the privilege of knowing.  And I was fortunate enough to interview her twice on her script writing process some years ago, at the Dramatists Guild in NYC and at Drew University where I was teaching at the time.  Both were in front of rather large audiences.  She was a straight shooter and told it like it is regarding her writing and how she managed to create so many successful plays.

You can find a condensed audio version of my Guild interview with her on the Guild website here.  She offers many words of wisdom to the script writer.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs January 3-11, 2015 and we are currently accepting applications.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

A cardinal sin in script writing...

For many years now there's been an issue that's come up repeatedly as I've been working with script clients and playwriting and screenwriting students.  I find myself listening to my own voice laying out the same piece of advice over and over again.  And that is a simple truth in the script writing business:  don't ever send a script out into the world before it's ready.

I can understand a writer's impatience to get their baby out there in the "marketplace of ideas."  All writers crave positive feedback and are sometimes even approaching desperation to break out of their lonely writer's life and see their work embraced by the many artist/collaborators in theatre and film and become a member of an artistic team that wants to bring a script to life. But that impatience can easily overrule good sense and, alas, scripts are continually sent out long before such a move should even be considered.  

So my advice is this:  When you think you've dotted the last "i" and crossed the last "t" on what you are convinced is your final polished and perfect draft of your play or screenplay, including fixing any and all formatting issues, having it carefully copy edited for typos, etc.--when you think you've reached that point after months and months of work--instead of immediately sending it out to those contests and festivals with their looming deadlines, and/or the agents or producers you have an even vague connection with who you are now certain will embrace your script, put it away for a month and forget all about it.  Don't worry about missing a couple submission deadlines, even with the bigger, more significant venues.  And don't pull it out and look at it at all in the interim.  Allow yourself (or force yourself) to get some honest distance from it.  Instead, start work on your next writing project and forget all about that "finished" script in the drawer. 

If you do this, nine times out of ten when you do pull it out and give it a fresh read, "things" small and sometimes large will suddenly pop out at you that you totally missed earlier.  Things that you now can see need more work.  Things that competition readers and producers will spot right away. And in the vast majority of cases, those professionals on the receiving end of your submissions will only read your script one time and one time only.  Rarely, if ever, will that later and stronger draft be picked up again by any of them.  

I'm confident that if you take this advice, the script you actually finally do send out into the world will stand a much better shot of garnering serious attention and perhaps even eventually find it's way into production.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs January 3-11, 2015 and we are currently accepting applications.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.  

Script writing from the heart...

The other day a script client of mine told me that he thought he was "spinning his wheels" with the kind of story he was working on and that he needed to start paying more attention to what the market is looking for.

This is what I wrote back to him:

"There's always a danger lurking when you start thinking about what the marketplace wants.  The best scripts (and the ones that make their way to the screen or stage) fall into that likability orbit by sheer accident because the writers are writing from their heart and not trying to manipulate their stories to fit what they think the public and the marketplace will be attracted to.  Those that try to write to the market are often left out in the cold because by the time their script is up and out there in the world, all sensibilities have shifted and the "public" is getting turned on by something different--not to mention that the writer's heart connection with the story is at best frayed from the start.  And so the writer is left with a script that's quickly passed over because it was "manufactured" to fit what he or she thought the world would want to devour. 

This game of script writing is all a mystery--including what will turn people on and the luck of the draw that you as the writer just happen to have the right connections to allow your baby to slip into the hands of the perfect person who will champion the story and take it the distance.  I say mystery because in my many years in this business and in talking and working with many, many people in the biz, it has become clear that there's no formula for success except genuine talent, a sense of a good story that rings true to the writer's heart, and more than a little luck that the right opportunities just happen along at the right time and your script ends up in the right hands.

So don't ever shy away from that personal story your heart is urging you to write.  Don't be swayed by what you think the "market" will get excited about.  It's your heart connection with your material that makes it interesting and enduring.  And it's those kinds of stories that tend to attract positive attention and that eventually make it to production."

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs January 3-11, 2015 and we are currently accepting applications.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

MFA student wins Screenplay Competition

This has been a great summer for the family of writers who make up our low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen program.  We had a highly productive residency in June with all eleven student writers and our small army of professional faculty.  And all of our students are now working on new projects with their mentors.

And to top it off, one of our current second-year students, Vicki Peterson, has just won the Best Screenplay award at the California Independent Film Festival with her feature Zoe and the Zebra that she wrote in our program during her first year.  Needless to say, Vicki, pictured below with her daughter, is making us all proud.

I take a special pleasure in this achievement because Vicki, along with all our other MFA students, are a part of a program that stresses story structure and form as well as extensive pre-writing exploratory work on backstory and the characters' emotional makeup.  I have no doubt that her screenplay quickly rose to the top of the stack of contenders for this award because of the strong forward movement of her unfolding story and the richness and depth of her characters.  Not to mention that we gave her screenplay its first read at a recent residency with professional actors--something that allows students to actually hear their scripts given voice for the first time.

Actually, the CAIFF award is the third festival where Vicki's script has received recognition.  Earlier this year Zoe and the Zebra was featured in a reading at the Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto and is also a finalist and official selection at the upcoming  Southern California Film Festival.  

So congrats to you, Vicki.  Can't wait to see you at our next residency in January so we can celebrate these successes!

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs January 3-10, 2015 and we are currently accepting applications.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant. 

MFA Script Writing Residency June 2014

Last month (June 20-29) I ran the residency for our MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen program offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Held at a 700-acre conference center in the foothills of the famous Mt. Monadnock, it was a jammed-packed ten days of table readings, classes, screenings, endless discussion, and give and take among our nine student writers and our faculty of five established playwrights and screenwriters as well as with the eighteen professional actors who joined us and were cast in multiple roles for our readings of student scripts.

Everyone involved in the Writing for Stage and Screen program was also mingling on a daily basis with students and faculty in the other MFA programs in Visual Arts, Photography, and Creative Writing running simultaneously with ours.  All involved experienced a stimulating and exhilarating time full of discovery and breakthroughs and the residency's success made clear that our MFA program is indeed working full throttle.

The highlight of our program's ten days together were the readings of our student scripts--a play, the book to a musical, two screenplays, and a TV pilot.  The caliber of talent evidenced by the work itself and the actors who were brought in to give it first voice was exceptional.

As the days went on, we experienced over and over again that special excitement when new material suddenly lifted off the page and became alive in the room.  One of the most important elements of script development is that first read with talented actors cast appropriately for the roles.  And I'm happy to say that our student writers were well served indeed in this regard and I was especially gratified to be a part of and witness to this initial lifting off the page that took place for these well-crafted stories.  I definitely see a bright future for every one of these scripts and it was clear everyone around the table could sense the same.

To my way of thinking, the point of any MFA program in script writing is ultimately to help student writers create beautifully crafted stories for the stage or screen.  Period.  Simple enough.
But how to do that in the best possible way?  That was the challenge I put before myself as I agreed to put together a new professional degree program in my field--for students to learn what works and what doesn't both in terms of their creative process and the resultant finished works that process produces.

And a critical part of that process is for writers to hear and experience their words brought to life by the other wonderful collaborative artists who inhabit our creative world of theatre and film.  Because in the final analysis, the script is only a means to an end, and the sooner that the playwright and screenwriter understands this the better.  In other words, we craft our scripts to get produced and to be "born" into a whole new life of their own.  Anything less and they remain silent and a promise unfulfilled, merely taking up space on an office shelf.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs January 3-11 in Peterborough, NH.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

Screenwriting panel at Moniff

The Monadnock International Film Festival runs this week in Keene, New Hampshire and I will be heading up a panel this Friday, April 11th from 4-5 pm on the process of screenwriting with Hollywood screenwriter Clare Sera, whose latest film, Blended, starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, opens nationally on May 14th.

Clare and I have known each other for many years and she is on the faculty of the MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen that I run out of the New Hampshire Institute of Art. The two of us will discuss the multi-layered process involved with creating a successful screenplay and the experiences she has had in Hollywood developing her career as a screenwriter.  It should be a lively and informative session. I'm looking forward to this and hope you can join us.

The panel will be held at the Courtyard Mariott Hotel Bar and Lounge in downtown Keene from 4-5 pm this Friday afternoon, April 11th.  The event is free and open to the public.

Please join us if you can.  And check out the Monadnock International Film Festival website for all the films and events being offered in this jam-packed three day festival.  It's a very special weekend and the films being screened--all in pre-release--are some of the best new projects out there, many of which have won major awards this year at Sundance, South by Southwest, and other leading festivals.

Hope to see you there!

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs June 20-29.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

Script Writing Master Class April 5 2014

Under the auspices of the New Hampshire Institute of Art, I'm teaching a day-long Master Class/Workshop in Writing for Stage and Screen on Saturday, April 5 from 10 am to 4:30 pm in Manchester, NH.

This intensive class is designed to be an introduction or review of the process of developing an idea into a working draft of a play or screenplay.  It will cover the basics of formulating your story idea, techniques of in-depth character exploration, investigating the back story, analyzing the story structural components, inventing plot, charting out the dramatic shape of a story, techniques of good dialogue writing, and tips for writing of the first draft and beyond.   Numerous exercises and handouts will guide you through the writing process as it unfolds.

I've taught a version of this master class for several years around the country.  It's always been a lively and stimulating time for me and participants.  If you're within shouting distance of Manchester on April 5, I hope you'll consider joining us.

More details can be found here and you can register here.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art and we are currently accepting applications for entering the program at our June 2014 summer residency, although the April 1st deadline is fast approaching.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

An essential step in the script writing process

I often wonder why so many playwrights and screenwriters--both beginners and experienced--don't consider pre-writing exploratory work more essential in their creative process.  I know that I harp on this a lot on this blog and certainly to my students in my MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen.  But I am continually amazed by the number of writers I consistently come in contact with who don't have a tried and true method of initial exploration of their characters and other aspects of their story before tackling their first draft.

Is it simply impatience trumping common sense?  Is it a belief that the writer has such innate talent and genius that he or she can just make up a brilliant script as that draft is written?  Or that the backstory is so closely based on the writer's own life experience that there's no need to spend any time upfront exploring it?  Or that these kind of "discoveries"--including what the story is ultimately communicating to the audience--are best left to be surprises that pop out of the writing of that draft?  Or that if thorough pre-writing work is undertaken the sense of adventure of actually writing pages of script somehow vanishes or is reduced to drudgery?

What I do know is that when writers are introduced to a method of thoroughly exploring a story's backstory before plunging into draft, a whole new world opens up for them in terms of their own creative process.  Suddenly characters become more alive and begin to breathe.  Subtext takes on a power the writer hasn't experienced before.  The story being developed opens up and the characters themselves begin to dictate action and behavior to a much greater degree, and as a result true and genuine surprises present themselves.  The writing of the draft becomes much more an experience of writing from the inside out instead of from the outside in.

Because stage and screen stories are about people taking journeys from one place to another and the changes that those people undergo in the process and the discoveries they make about themselves and their world, it only stands to reason that the writers of these stories need to know who their characters are in the most thorough possible way as they walk up to the starting line of the tale they are about to enter.  It's the only sure way that the writer can hope to produce a script that has power and any real legs.

There are a number of useful exercises out there that lead the writer into this pre-writing discovery phase.  Several are laid out in my book The Playwright's Process, where the emphasis is on character exploration, both in terms of straight forward and detailed biography and deeper, emotionally rich backstory events in a character's life that have shaped who they are up to the start of the story the script is going to embrace.  I suggest you try some of these explorations or others with the same focus if you haven't already.  I have little doubt that your writing process will be greatly enriched, taking on a new sense of adventure, and that your work takes on a new power and depth.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  We are currently accepting applications for entering the program at our June 2014 summer residency.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.    

What actors can teach script writers

The process an actor goes through in getting inside a role and bringing it to life has a lot of similarities to what a writer should experience in creating a role on the page.  I know that sounds obvious, a given in our business.  But I think it's worth looking a little deeper.

In my career I've always been struck by how many good writers I've worked with started out as serious actors.  And they have often shared with me that, to them, the creative process is much the same when creating roles, whether on the page, the stage, or in front of a camera.  Of course, not all writers are actors and vice versa, but even those who haven't combined the two artforms in their careers still acknowledge that the similarities are striking and that getting inside a role requires the same prep work and inner emotional connections between artist and fictional character being brought to life.

One of the most important attributes of a great performance on stage or film is the ability of the actor to play the subtext of a scene.  All successful actors possess the gift of being able to bring to life what's really going on under the surface when their actual lines are often saying something quite different.  This is a critical aspect of the actor's craft and what separates the brilliant from the average and raises acting into the realm of art--the ability of inviting an audience into a character's unspoken thought processes and inner life.  The actor who can dig deep and pull those hidden but very operative strings of his or her role in a story is the actor who will build a successful career and often reach stardom.

My contention is that the same principle applies to playwrights and screenwriters.  And that studying the actor's craft and how great actors prepare for and pull off amazing performances will pay huge dividends in terms of the aliveness of a writer's work.  It all starts with thorough preparation, exploring a character's past and present, and discovering what makes him or her tick.  It involves asking the right questions, like what baggage both emotionally and memory-wise is this character carrying with them into my story?  What is really going on under the surface of each line?  What is the throughline of each character and how does the experience of the story change them as human beings?  What does the diction and "voice" of the character tell us about who the person is and what they think of themselves and the world around them?

All good actors ask these kinds of questions in preparing for every role they play.  And it's the writers who supply the answers or at least hint at the answers who will be rewarded by great performances and who will stand a much better chance of experiencing their stories brought to life with richness and depth.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art and we are currently accepting applications for entering the program at our June 2014 summer residency.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant. 

Exposing the subtext of your story

Okay, so you've done a lot of character exploratory work, maybe even written some backstory scenes between major characters.  You've been thinking about plot and central character arc and where you want your script to land--in other words, you've been working at a structural framework or basic bones of the script that seems reasonable.  And you're now finally sensing that maybe you're ready to move on in the process, leave all this pre-writing work behind, and take the plunge into the writing of your first draft.

Here's something to keep in mind as you stand on the edge of that diving board preparing to jump off.

It's basically very simple, actually.  Just remember that your script is only the tip of the iceberg--the surface layer of a deeply submerged whole.  Your job now is to write your pages in such a way that there are constant albeit often indirect glimpses into that submerged part of your story, or subtext--that rich stew of intellectual and emotional "stuff" always hovering just under the surface--that you've explored in your pre-writing work. And you tap into this deeper level and make it felt and understood by what you leave unsaid. As a result, your audience is seduced into making its own connections between the surface and what lies underneath and in the process becomes fiercely engaged with the script to get the whole story.  

Take Downton Abbey for example (there, I admit I'm a fan of this lovely period soap opera).  One of the things writer and creator Julian Fellowes does well is constantly invite us as viewers to "lean into" the unfolding story by never having a character say something that we already know or suspect--especially when it comes to the smouldering subtext that hovers underneath each character's conscious present reality like hot coals in an ash bin.  We are allowed to engage with this inner life of the overreaching story and the characters that bring it to life because the subtext is always operating and "exposed" moment by moment, yet is never directly referred to nor ever actually allowed to crack the surface.  And this is one of the main reasons that the series works so well, episode after episode, year after year.

So always write with this dynamic in mind.  It's this quality more than any other that separates good scripts from bad.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art and we are currently accepting applications for entering the program at our June 2014 summer residency until April 1st.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.






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"Who are you trying to kid?"--pushing the writer's panic button

I recently had an MFA student of mine email me about feeling overwhelmed as she was in the initial stages of developing a new idea for a play.  She’s a brilliant wordsmith and has a wonderful ability to infuse her characters with beating hearts.  But she sensed the immense journey ahead of her and how so much of the route before her was uncharted, full of potential pitfalls and misleading and seductive byways and crossroads with no directional signposts pointing the way to an eventual destination she wasn’t sure she’d even recognize when and if she ever got there.  She as yet had no road map to guide her through the wilderness of a story as yet untold.  And she confessed to me that she at times was succumbing to pushing the writer’s panic button labelled “who are you trying to kid?”

This is what I wrote back to her: 

Hi--  Writing a full-length script is a big thing.  It's easy to fall into the trap of feeling overwhelmed.  I fight it all the time.  But the thing to keep in mind constantly is that scripts are written baby step by baby step and one day at a time.  It's that wonderful word "process" that you have to keep before you always. Diligently working through pre-writing character explorations, diving into backstory scenes, slowly experimenting with plot elements and the order that potential scenes might be laid out.  Trying things, rejecting things, trying other things.  Sleeping on problems or roadblocks and letting the subconscious work on it.  Playing into your obstinate side and not giving up when answers and solutions don’t automatically present themselves.  I have often told my students not to be intimidated when reading a published play or seeing a professional production of a hit play or film and instead to constantly remind themselves that that writer went through the same step by step process that you're going through, with the same struggles and doubts and frustrations and peeling off one layer at a time, and that only after a lot of work, false starts, and perhaps several rewrites did they finally arrive at the amazing work you're reading or experiencing in the theatre.   

So take a deep breath (or as many as you need) and keep at it.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art and we are currently accepting applications for entering the program at our June 2014 summer residency.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

Starting with story fundamentals

I realize that in the past I've written several blogs hitting on the absolute necessity of laying down the basic building blocks of your story before plunging into draft.  And, of course, I'm not alone in stressing this essential first step.  Chris Volger (The Writer's Journey) and Blake Snyder (Save The Cat!), among many others, have written wildly successful and very good books on the subject.  I've even written a book on it.

In spite of all the excellent how-to manuals out there, however, for some strange reason a lot of writers insist on finding the foundational elements of their story only through the process of writing seemingly endless pages of script.  I'm not sure why this is so prevalent when common sense says that you can't build a house on sand. Nevertheless, these writers insist that truly authentic stories can only emerge organically from trial and error and through the process of actually writing what they think is their first draft.

In truth, these writers, in my opinion, are not writing a draft at all.  Rather, they're exercising their right to do a ton load of exploratory writing to find their story.  There's nothing wrong with working this way, of course.  It's just that it should be understood that it usually involves taking a long circuitous route to go a very short distance.  And there is a real danger always lurking with this approach and I call it the tyranny of the written.  What should happen at some point in this exercise, when most or all the story structural discoveries have finally been uncovered, is that these writers need to stop this work, start pulling out the story building blocks from the multitude of pages they've produced, build their structural framework, and then, and only then, plunge into their real first draft.  The problem with a lot of these writers, however, is that they think they've already written their draft when they get to a hundred fifty to two hundred or more pages of this exploratory work.  But, alas, in almost all cases, what they're looking at is a slough of pages that have only helped them uncover what their real story is all about.

All that's required is an initial process of developing an idea for a story so that you're sure you have the proper footings upon which to build your play or screenplay.  It's not rocket science.  And there are many guides available to help you do this.  But as almost any successful playwright or screenwriter will tell you, it's a critical first step in the creation of a script that'll have legs.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art and we are currently accepting applications for entering the program at our June 2014 summer residency.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

Testing our new scripts

In my last post, I talked about the low-residency MFA program in Writing for Stage and Screen  I run offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  At the time, I was about to enter into a ten-day residency with faculty and students and other artists.  Well, that residency took place earlier this month as we gathered for ten jam-packed days in Peterborough, NH.  And in spite of a snow storm and some very cold weather, our collected group had a wonderful, productive, and stimulating time.

The highlight of the residency was the table reads of three new screenplays that continuing students had been working on during the fall semester.  We invited ten professional actors in to spend three afternoons with us, including an Emmy Award winner and others who had played leads in significant indie films. We sat around this huge seminar table and, with the pros assigned the principle roles and students and some faculty assigned to minor roles, we tackled one script a day for three days.  Then, following the reads, we spent the rest of each day discussing the project--what worked and what didn't. The student writers heard extensive feedback about what everyone heard and experienced with each script.  As a result, the writers gained invaluable insights and what the next steps might be in making adjustments, additions, and other tweaks to their screenplays.

What was most gratifying for me, however, was the quality of the drafts being read and the commitment and considerable talent that the actors brought to the table as we tested these new works.  These afternoons were magical in the sense that they were a coming together of collaborative artists in our fields who were all focused and dedicated to bringing these scripts to life.  And the group effort succeeded in spades.  It's what we love to do most--sharing our talents and our work and then discussing it intelligently and with sensitivity.  And as any writer for stage or screen that actually develops a productive career will testify, it's this collaborative process--working with all the other artists involved in making our art happen in the fullest sense--that is the most stimulating, fun, and exciting part of the journey.  Granted, this was only the first leg of the journey for these projects, but it was the critical initial launch for each script.  I'm happy to report that the three screenwriters left the residency fully charged and feeling very positive about their projects.  So was everyone else who took part.

The rest of the residency was taken up with classes, writing exercises, discussions of new projects to be tackled in the spring semester, and lots of talk and networking.  Four new students joined us on this MFA journey at this residency and they, along with our continuing students, are already deep into work with their mentors on their major project for this semester, with the four newbies already totally plugged in to our growing family.  And all of us--students, faculty, and guest actors and other artists--are eagerly looking forward to our next gathering in June as this MFA adventure continues.

Oh, and by the way, we have a very limited number of slots for more new students to join us in June. Just thought I'd throw that out there...

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In addition to being an independent film producer and script consultant, I'm the Program Director for the low-residency MFA degree in Writing for Stage and Screen offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.                 

Our script writing residency about to begin...

Happy 2014 everyone!

My new year is off to a rousing start as the MFA program in Writing for Stage and Screen that I run launches into its ten-day winter residency this weekend in beautiful Peterborough, NH.  Student writers are traveling in from across the country and Canada in spite of a snow storm that has inconveniently decided to fly into New England at the same time.  We'll just have to adjust accordingly and use any "special" travel experiences as part of a writing exercise once we're all safely gathered around a roaring fire and sipping hot chocolate or perhaps some other beverage that warms the head and heart.  

This residency promises to be especially exciting for all of us for several reasons besides our scheduled afternoon sleigh ride mid-week.  First, we're welcoming new faculty member and Visiting Artist Clare Sera to our growing roster of established faculty writers:

Clare, who hails from Los Angeles, co-wrote (among many other projects) the screenplay for the upcoming Adam Sandler/ Drew Barrymore film Blended due out in May. She'll be teaching classes to both our continuing students and those just starting the program.

Also joining us for the first time will be NYC playwright and screenwriter Karen Sunde (see her bio and others on the program's website), who will also be working closely with students for several days.  Karen's track record and experience in the theatre is extensive and her classes no doubt will be very lively.  Rounding out our faculty for this residency are returning playwrights Russell Davis and Kathleen Clarke as well as yours truly.

We'll also be doing readings of several screenplays written by students during the past semester, bringing in professional actors to spark the new work to life and test its viability.  The readings will be followed by lengthy discussion and feedback sessions. I'm especially looking forward to this aspect of the residency because the true test of any MFA program like ours is the output and quality of scripts that students deliver during their time with us.  I'm happy to say that, judging from the work turned in so far, we're well on our way to achieving our goal of having each student graduate at the end of their two years with at least four potent full-length scripts (either plays or screenplays or both) ready to make the professional rounds and hit the marketplace.

So as you work away on your current project, you'll know what'll be transpiring in the winter wonderland and picture perfect village of Peterborough, NH for the next couple of weeks.  Maybe we'll even discover that our sleigh ride experience will turn out to be the germ of several new plays or screenplays.  You never know where and how new ideas materialize...

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art and we are currently accepting applications for entering the program at our June 2014 summer residency.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.