Script writer rejuvenation in ten days...

Late last month, I headed up our latest MFA program in Writing for Stage and Screen residency in Peterborough, New Hampshire.  It was an extraordinary ten day affair--a non-stop intensive in all aspects of script writing and then some.  We all left the residency exhausted, but stimulated and fully charged for the semester ahead.

This low-residency approach to earning the MFA degree in our field has proven to be highly successful for us.  Our students arrive from all over the country (plus Puerto Rico and Canada) for these intensives twice a year, in June and January.  Each ten-day gathering offers classes on various elements of the craft and the "biz" taught by our faculty of established professional writers as well as by special Visiting Artists who are invited to give talks and meet with students.  Students pitch their new ideas they're considering tackling for the upcoming semester and there's a tremendous amount of one-on-one give and take between students and faculty, who also serve as mentors during the semester.  All of our students leave each residency ready to launch into their next major script project.

At the heart of each of these ten-day gatherings, however, are the script readings with professional actors (SAG and AEA) of new student work written during the semester just ended--an indispensable and unique aspect our program.  Feedback from all the professionals involved is invaluable.

This residency was special for us in that we had our first three students graduating from our program (from left to right below: Steve Ashworth, Edmonton, Canada; Vicki Peterson, Los Angeles, California; and Jared Eberlein, Santa Barbara, California). And their final thesis projects were given several hours of rehearsal and their readings were staged for a public audience as opposed to the more in-house table readings given to the other student scripts.

 
It sounds like a lot to cram into ten days and it is.  But these intensives, among other things, remind us all--both students and faculty--as to why we are in this crazy business to begin with.  We are storytellers working in a highly collaborative art form.  And coming together to work, study, share ideas, and gain new insights about our work is what we all need and embrace throughout our careers.  

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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, 2016 and we are now considering applications for starting the program in January.  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. 

Flannery O'Connor on writer discipline

Recently a successful writer friend of mine sent me Flannery O'Connor's thoughts on discipline for the writer.  It was included in a letter O'Connor wrote to her friend Cecil Dawkins:

"I'm a full-time believer in writing habits, pedestrian as it all may sound.  You may be able to do without them if you have genius but most of us only have talent and this is simply something that has to be assisted all the time by physical and mental habits or it dries up and blows away.  I see it happen all the time.  Of course you have to make your habits in this conform to what you can do.  I write only about two hours every day because that's all the energy I have, but I don't let anything interfere with those two hours, at the same time and the same place.  This doesn't mean I produce much out of the two hours.  Sometimes I work for months and have to throw everything away, but I don't think any of that was time wasted.  Something goes on that makes it easier when it does come well.  And the fact is if you don't sit there every day, the day it would come well, you won't be sitting there."

That pretty much covers the topic.

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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 19-28 2015 and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program in June.   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 total immersion script writing experience...

Last month we held our semi-annual MFA residency for the program I run in Writing for Stage and Screen out of the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  It was jammed-packed with classes, one-on-one sessions with students and faculty and table readings of the eleven full-length plays and screenplays that students had written during the fall semester.

A large group of professional actors and other theatre and film professionals joined us for the readings and the lengthy feedback sessions that followed each of them.  

By all accounts, this was an extraordinary time for all involved.  We--students, faculty, and all the other artists who were a part of the residency--were given the special opportunity to live and breath our art, to celebrate what we do and to share new work in a total immersion experience.  All students in the program left the residency stimulated and charged to begin work on their new projects for the spring semester with their assigned mentors.  Our team of professionals who serve on our faculty and as guest artists were also recharged.  Everyone was energized and reminded of why we are in this business in the first place--to create good stories that have something meaningful to offer the world.    

The over-arching goal of our MFA program is for every student to explore and develop his or her own writing process--taking an initial idea and developing it through the many phases of creating a viable script, including finding the structural underpinnings, exploring characters and backstory, inventing a workable plot outline, and writing a working draft that is then given first voice by actors. And developing this process--a process that is continually refined over the creation of several scripts as each student develops a body of work--is the key to mastering the craft of writing for the stage and screen.

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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 19-28, 2015 and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program in June.   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.  

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. 

"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.

The successful script writer's secret weapon

So now it's the middle of November.  All last summer you mulled over this promising new idea for a play or screenplay and since the week after Labor Day you've been working on turning that idea into an actual draft.

How you doing?  Got that draft in hand?  Are you excited by the progress you've made?  As Woody Allen has been known to say, "the hardest thing about writing is getting from nothing to a first draft" and I can't think of a writer I know who would disagree with that statement.  But it's the getting there that often proves the killer.  After all the preliminary story structure and exploratory character work is done, it's the sitting down and actually writing the damn thing that so often remains elusive and can seem forever out of reach.

In the end, the secret to arriving at that completed draft is simple.  It's called discipline.

This sometimes scary concept comes naturally to some and is a constant struggle for others.  But it's worth stating the obvious:  one way or another all successful playwrights and screenwriters have found a way to sit themselves down on a regular basis and turn out pages day after day, week after week, and year after year.

It may be painful, even agonizing, to order your body into your writing room and force your mind and fingers to crank up yet again, but this is the only way scripts get written.  You've got to produce actual pages.  Lots of them.  One at a time.  Steadily.  Stubbornly.  With determination.  Sometimes with gritted teeth.  Sometimes with great pleasure.  Page after page after page...day after day after day....  There's no other way.

This takes a serious commitment to the task at hand--setting up a regular, consistent work schedule and sticking to it; writing every day of the work week if possible, even if you can only snatch an hour or two per session.  You already know what your limits are per day.  I can go about four hours tops.  Usually after three I start to fade.  Some writers I know can go for six or more.  Some even eight or ten.  I don't know how they do it, but more power to them.  So whatever works for you, fit it into your life and keep plugging away on a daily basis.

The late and very successful playwright Wendy Wasserstein, once admitted to me that she has a struggle with discipline.  She put it this way: "I think I'm innately a very undisciplined writer.  I'll be distracted by anything, basically.  I take phone calls, I speak too many places.  But finally when I think this is too much, I can't do this any more, I must write, I'll then set aside time and say, "Wendy, every day for X amount of hours you'll be in a room writing, no telephone, you must do this or otherwise you're going to go mad."  So that's what happens.... it really takes discipline."

               

And playwright Terrence McNally explained: "I have to sit at my desk to work.  I'd love to pretend that while I'm driving or while I'm shopping I'm working.  I'm not.  I'm shopping, I'm driving.  I have to sit there and look at that screen.  And not talk on the phone.  You have to be really grown up and put the answering machine on monitor and turn the volume down.  And when friends say 'I have tickets for...' say 'No.' ....Once you start a play it's an enormous emotional, physical, spiritual commitment.  It's a big thing to write a play."

And playwright and Academy Award-winning screenwriter John Patrick Shanley:  "At a certain point I had a job, so I had to get up at five o'clock every morning and write for three hours, and then I would go to work.  That went on for a year, and during that year I learned the discipline of being a writer.  Because there's nothing else going on at five o'clock in the morning...My only rule was that I had to be sitting at that typewriter.  I didn't care if I wrote anything or, if I did, what it was.  Just so long as I was sitting at the typewriter, then I was writing.  So I created a space and habit in my life with that."

One of my biggest ongoing disappointments as a teacher of playwriting and screenwriting is recognizing genuine talent in someone and then discovering that the commitment isn't there.  Without that writer discipline, even a towering gift lies dormant.

So soldier up and finish that draft.  

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In addition to being an independent film producer and script consultant, I'm the Program Director for a low-residency MFA degree in Writing for Stage and Screen offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art  (applications currently being accepted for our January 2014 residency).                   

Career sustainability for the script writer

Except for a handful of playwrights and screenwriters in this country, so-called "professional" script writers are faced with an ongoing sustainability issue in their careers.

At the top of the list of goals for any writer for the stage or screen is to get his or her work produced. This, without question, is (or should be) the prime motivator for tackling time and again the task of writing one viable and producible script after another.  Needless to say, this is an arduous and long term undertaking involving total commitment and a persistent never-say-die attitude as works are released into the world and forced to face the gauntlet of the gatekeepers.  And the most legitimate (albeit oftentimes resentful) measure of "success" in the script writing arena is having those works land well received professional productions on a consistent basis.

An MFA script writing program that works

As many of you know, I am (among other things) the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  The program was launched this past June with our first 10-day residency in Peterborough, NH with an entering class of exceptionally talented students from NYC, Los Angeles, and Canada.

What I find most gratifying about the program is the wonderful (and I might even say amazing) progress our student writers are making on their projects this semester.  At our June residency we discussed at length multiple story ideas for feature-length projects pitched by each student.  Much give-and-take and idea sharing ensued and determinations were made as to which project each student would concentrate on as his or her major writing focus for the semester.  The residency also included intensive course work, all of which in one way or another was geared to laying out the tools needed for strong story development. Then, at the end of the residency, each student was assigned a mentor for the semester--a faculty member who had been working closely with the student at the residency.

As the adviser for all the student writers, I've seen the exciting progress that's being made. It's clear at this point in the semester that all students will have a strong working draft of a feature-length screenplay completed by early December.  Then, at the next residency that runs January 3-12, the scripts will be tested and given voice with actors.  And another major project for the second semester will be analyzed and discussed with our faculty of established professional writers who will also be working with the students on expanded exercises and additional course work.

I'm delighted the way that the low-residency approach to the MFA works so well for writers--coming together with fellow scribes for intensive work for a short period and then going off into their own life to write with the guidance of a mentor.  And I urge anyone reading this post to take a look at our website, and if you've been thinking about getting an MFA in playwriting and /or screenwriting to consider joining us.  The application deadline for our January residency is November 28th.  I can guarantee you'll be embarking on an exciting journey.

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In addition to being an independent film producer and script consultant, I'm the Program Director for a low-residency MFA degree in Writing for Stage and Screen offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art (applications currently being accepted for our January 2014 residency).