How to avoid getting lost in your first draft...

I'm so often struck by the number of playwrights and screenwriters who attempt to "discover" their stories by starting with page one and just forcing it out by trial and error--riding on a hunch and a prayer that somehow they will find their story in the writing of actual pages of script.  Usually lots and lots of pages, hundreds in fact.  They are often very good writers with loads of talent and believe this is the only way they can work.

Frankly, this never ceases to baffle me.

I once asked a famous and established playwright how many pages using this approach he actually writes on average and he held up the palm of his hand about six inches above the top of the table we were sitting at and said "about this many," meaning at least two reams of paper or around a thousand or more pages.

My apologies to all of you out there who work this way, but it seems to me it's the equivalent of consciously taking a hundred mile trip to ultimately arrive at a destination a block away from where you started.

Of course for some writers, this works fine.  I can't ignore that fact.  Great scripts eventually emerge from the mountain of pages produced.  However, to my mind there is a much more productive and faster way to create rich and successful scripts.  It starts with developing a process that includes extensive pre-draft exploratory work on your principle characters that then leads the way to inventing the basic building blocks of your story's dramatic structure--all before you attack page one.

In other words, a systematic writing process that views your story as an iceberg...

...and first takes a serious look at the nine-tenths of your emerging tale that will forever lie under the   surface and explores it thoroughly--putting under the microscope the milestone events that have shaped your characters lives and their attitude towards those past events, especially the personal episodes that relate in some way to the central dramatic dilemma you're dealing with.

This is what makes for rich and engaging storytelling.   And it can most successfully be achieved by exploring this subtext before plunging into actual draft.  Directly or indirectly, it's all part of your story and in working this way you are, in a very real sense, already in the process of writing your script.

As a result, when you've done this kind of pre-draft exploration, the actual writing of the script itself--the one-tenth of your tale that is above the surface--will be written with authority and sense of purpose.  And lo and behold, the characters that walk into your story will take over and on the best days start writing your script for you.  And the added bonus is that with a little luck and help from the muses, you'll soon have in your hands a viable and sturdy first draft of manageable length that's been written in a fraction of the time.

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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 last residency ran July 21-31, 2016 and we are now considering applications for starting the program with our January 2017 residency that runs January 6-15.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter) a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwright's Process.

Welcome to the script factory...

Last month in Peterborough, New Hampshire there was a ten-day explosion of creative storytelling as 13 full-length scripts--plays, screenplays,and tv pilots--were lifted off the page for the first time.

Writers from all over the US and Canada gathered in this culturally alive village in the heart of New England to celebrate their art with professional actors, directors, designers, producers, and public audiences--everyone involved and focused on the new work being presented.  It was a high energy and exhilarating time for all participants and everyone left the gathering recharged and recommitted to our shared collaborative art form and the scripts that ignite it all.

What I'm referring to, of course, is the latest residency experience of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen program run out of the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  The program boasts a faculty of established professional writers and other visiting theatre and film professionals who teach classes and workshops and who mentor our students throughout the two-year course of study.  And at the heart of the program are the new scripts being written by every student--at least four full-length works while in the program--all of which are read and critiqued at each of the five residencies the students participate in.

Our program is nationally unique in its commitment to having every student create a substantial beginning body of work that serves as a launching pad for his or her script writing career.  Every effort is made to refine the craft and skill of our student writers and to realistically prepare them for the rigors of entering the professional writer's arena in the various mediums.  This is our trademark and our promise to every student, and our growing list of alumni and their successes lends credence to that commitment.

If you're looking for a place to learn and grow as a script writer in a safe and supportive, yet challenging environment, I suggest you check out our program.  The added bonus is that when you complete the program, you not only are prepared to begin your professional writing career, but you also walk away with that terminal degree under your arm.

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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 last residency ran July 21-31, 2016 and we are now considering applications for starting the program with our January 2017 residency that runs January 6-15.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter) a professional script consultant, and the author of The Playwright's Process.