At the first draft starting gate: the ripple effect

I've always appreciated the phrase "ripple effect" because it nicely describes what occurs when you plunge into the writing of your first draft.  It implies that discoveries continue to be made as the starting gate is finally lifted and you begin the actual writing regardless of how much pre-draft exploratory work you've done.  And this is as it should be.

Because of this, however, in almost all cases, it's wiser to write that first draft in order from beginning to end so that the new stuff you are sure to uncover--subtle quirks of character, a surprise aspect of a relationship between characters, a slightly different voice that emerges in those early pages than you expected--are incorporated in the ongoing narrative as it unfolds.  These discoveries cause ripples that extend outward and throughout the telling of your story, some large, some small, but all critical in terms of how your actual draft develops from start to finish.

I'm not saying that early exploratory writing--actual dialogue scenes with your characters--shouldn't be attempted and played with prior to starting your draft.  But the purpose they serve is to hear and capture the voices of your people and aspects of their personalities, attitudes, relationships, etc.  So my advice is to have these scenes be from episodes outside of the script itself--backstory events that will give your characters a chance to express themselves and reveal to you more about their quirks and special personality traits.

One of my favorite examples about the experience of writing a scene prematurely and out of order was offered by Edward Albee in my interview with him at the Dramatists Guild many years ago, as he explained what happened as he was writing Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?:

I was writing the first act...and got an idea for a scene for the third act...which I wrote down.  It was about seven pages, and I thought it was pretty good.  Then I went back and finished the first act, wrote the second act, and got into the third act and remembered I'd written these seven pages for the third act.  I found them and read them, and I still thought they were pretty good.  And I tried to put them in the play, but I discovered that the characters wouldn't say them.  They no longer fit into the play because I'd written them too soon... They were perfectly valid.  It was good dialogue... but I clearly didn't want the characters to say them anymore because I'd written them too damn soon.

Lucky for all of us, Albee had the discipline and instincts to reject these seven pages--something that's often not easy to do.  The point being that it's almost always safer and more productive to start your first draft at the beginning and push your way through in order, one scene at a time.  And let the ripples come as they may.

                                 *                    *                   *                   *

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 just ended, running from January 6-15, and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program with our June 2017 residency running from June 23-July 2.  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.

You can follow me on Twitter @eitherorfilms or @mfastagescreen.  I’m also on Facebook at buzzmclaughlinscriptconsulting. 

 

 

At the first draft starting gate: the spontaneity factor

If you've faithfully done your due diligence with your pre-draft exploratory work on character backstories, discovering their voices, and working out an initial plot outline for your whole story, there comes a point when you find yourself as prepared as you'll ever be to make the initial plunge into draft.

When that's where you find yourself in the process, there are a number of things to keep in mind as you face page one.  And one of the most important is what I call "the spontaneity factor."

The benefit of having done thorough pre-draft work, including a rather detailed plot outline or treatment of your story, is that you have gotten to know your traveling companions quite well and you'll be departing with them on your journey with a road map beside you that guarantees a route to the final destination.  And this gives you the freedom--the permission--to let your characters talk you into getting off the pre-planned route and explore any number of side roads that may materialize.

There's no law that says you have to adhere to the route you've charted out.  If and when your characters prompt a change in your course, let them have their way.  Welcome the unexpected and explore every impulse.  You want things to happen that are total surprises.  Your people may do things that will shock you.  And you should always be encouraged when they seemingly take over, leading the story in a new direction.  This shows that they have life and vitality in the world you've placed them in.

The beauty is that your road map is still there on the seat beside you when and if you do get lost.  It's   still available when your traveling companions agree with you that it's time to push on toward your final destination.  It'll help show you how to get your party back to the main road or figure out an alternate route that will still get the group where it eventually needs to go.  The point is that writing the first draft should be an adventure and spontaneity is a key factor in allowing it to come fully to life.

                                 *                    *                   *                   *

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 just ended, running from January 6-15, and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program with our June 2017 residency running from June 23-July 2.  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.

You can follow me on Twitter @eitherorfilms or @mfastagescreen.  I’m also on Facebook at buzzmclaughlinscriptconsulting. 

How to have fun writing your first draft...

I'm a big believer that the writing of your first draft can for the most part be an enjoyable adventure. I know I mention this quite often, but I'm convinced it all depends on what kind of planning and prep work you've done before leaving on the journey.  It's no different than any kind of extensive trip you intend to head out on.

Primary among the items you want to have with you before embarking are a detailed working knowledge of your characters' personal and shared backstories, an ear for their distinct voices, and, of course, a plot outline road map that takes you on one possible basic route through your tale from beginning to end.  Armed with these key elements, you should be able to take off on your first draft trip relatively confident that you'll somehow find your way through to your predetermined destination or some other landing place that the writing of the draft itself has led you to.  And having this pre-draft work in hand can in fact liberate you as the writer, freeing you to try things and explore those interesting side roads along the way.

So it ultimately comes down to preparation for the journey.  I constantly stress this with the writers I work with.  And if that preparation is done thoroughly and you believe you have everything you might need with you as you venture forth, then the chances are that the writing of your first draft can indeed be a fun and creative experience.

On the other hand, if you prematurely plunge into your draft expecting that most if not all the answers to the questions your story raises will somehow magically be handed to you in the actual writing of pages, you are most likely headed for frustration and will find yourself staring at a mountain of exploratory scenes that lead you nowhere.  It'd be like heading out on a trip through unknown and uncharted territory with no road map or guideposts on the seat next to you when you inevitably take that wrong turn and end up totally and hopelessly lost.

It's been proven to me countless times that making the effort to do the necessary pre-draft exploratory work, including working your way through at least one rather detailed version of your entire story in outline form, will actually greatly increase the chances of allowing the writing of your first draft to be a relatively frustration-free and even a liberating experience.  Writing a first draft is always a tremendous effort regardless, but with your prep work beside you, you can now take those interesting and unexpected side trips when they materialize without worry of losing your way.  And if those side roads and detours uncover entirely new ideas and possibilities, you're still in a vastly superior position to digest them intelligently and make the necessary adjustments to your story.  Or you'll be able to find a way to somehow hook these new discoveries back into your central character's arc, thereby enriching the overall journey.

                                  *                    *                   *                   *

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.

Trusting the writing process...

I'm continually struck by the degree to which I find myself telling writers to take their efforts with creating a new script one step at a time.  There are days we all have when everything seems totally out of reach and all you can hear is that nasty whispering voice saying "who are you trying to kid."  And it's on those days that you have to step back, take a deep breath, and realize that it's baby step after baby step that allows a script to come into being.  It's all a process, with one element building on the next.

As I've often said in this blog, writing a play or screenplay is a big undertaking, a complicated and intricate puzzle to solve.  And like puzzle pieces poured out of the box and onto a table, you start by finding a method, an approach to organizing that jumbled pile of tiny cut pieces into a plan of attack that will eventually produce a beautiful finished picture.

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.

                                   *                    *                   *                   *

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.

Stanislavski and scriptwriting...

I'm re-reading An Actor Prepares and I'm struck with the degree to which Stanislavski--the preeminent master teacher of the art of acting--is in many ways also speaking to writers at the same time.

In this classic text, he carefully illustrates how the actor, in preparing his/her work, must develop a process with an intentional progression, exploring "given circumstances" and playing with the "magic if" among other techniques in such a way as to open the doors of the imagination and tap into the treasure trove of creativity that lies hidden under the surface in the subconscious.

"...Our art teaches us first of all to create consciously and rightly because that will best prepare the way for the blossoming of the subconscious, which is inspiration."

And:

"Our subconscious power cannot function without its own engineer--our conscious technique."

And he keeps hammering home this truth as he progresses, all of his lessons famously being described in detail by his student Kostya Nazvanov.  Stanislavski, through the voice of the teacher Tortsov, also demands that the actor focus on the backstory of the character being portrayed and the necessity of bringing to life the subtext underlying the actual words, and on and on...

My point is that much of the book reads like a manual for writers as they dive into their pre-draft exploratory work on character and story, much like an actor must do in preparing for a role.

Well worth taking a look.

                                    *                    *                   *                   *

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 January 3-11, 2016 and we are now considering applications (deadline in June 1) for starting the program with our July 2016 residency that runs July 21-31.  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 Playwrights Process.

The keys to story development...

In prepping for my talk this Saturday, Feb. 20 at the Monadnock Writers' Group in Peterborough, NH (see my last post), I find myself focusing once again on the importance of pre-draft analysis and exploration.  To me, there is nothing more important than to do your due diligence while developing your story idea before you shift into draft mode.

There are several initial and progressive steps:

First, make a quick analysis of the idea to see if it has the potential to contain the four basic ingredients all good scripts possess:
     1.  One central pivotal character
     2. A strong, conscious, external want of this character and a compelling and subconscious inner need that has to be made evident as the story progresses
     3. Formidable obstacles represented by other characters and/or the central character him/herself that prevent the external want from being fulfilled and the inner need from being recognized--setting up conflict
     4.  A resolution to the story, leaving the central character a changed person

Second, think about what you're leaving with the audience by resolving the central characters main dilemma in a certain way.  And ask yourself if you believe that premise passionately.  If you don't, rework your resolution.

Third, invent possible other characters that enter the story and begin your character explorations on all of them in addition to your central character.  This should start with trying on for size such characteristics as aspects of physical appearance, their external world (family situation, place in their community, etc.) and their internal world (personality type, sexuality, spiritual life, sense of morality, etc.)  In other words, create an initial sketch for each of your major characters.

Fourth, dig deep into the backstory of your central character and the central dilemma your story hinges on.  Think about milestone events in the past that have shaped who the character is who first walks into your actual script.  And then have the character who enters your script monologue about the most significant of these events from the past and listen carefully to the voice that emerges.

Fifth, tackle your expanded and detailed plot outline using the discoveries made so far in your story development process.

Too many writers are in much too much of a hurry to start turning out pages before they're ready.  As a result they get lost in a sea of pages they've fallen in love with, while in reality those pages are just initial explorations.  By taking the time to do your pre-draft work first you're way ahead in the game.

                                    *                    *                   *                   *

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 January 3-11, 2016 and we are now considering applications for starting the program with our July 2016 residency that runs July 21-31.  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.

The script writing conundrum--when to plunge into draft?

There are many theories floating around out there about when it's optimal to plunge into writing your first draft.  How much prep work, backstory exploration, and other character work is really necessary? How detailed does one have to get regarding the story structure and coming up with an extensive plot outline, treatment, and/or beat sheet?  At what point do you stop all the prep work and let the actual journey begin?  When do you allow yourself to head off into the wilderness and see where it leads...?

Some writers let their scripts evolve almost entirely in the actual writing of a preliminary draft. They make their discoveries pretty much exclusively as they turn out pages--lots of pages.  My dear friend N. Richard Nash, author of The Rainmaker and many other plays, once told me that he often accumulated hundreds of pages in his first foray into draft in his search for the actual play he wanted to end up with.  Horton Foote worked in a somewhat similar way, discovering the inner workings of the story as he went along, whether it was a play or screenplay.

At the other end of the spectrum--the one I recommend, especially if you are early in your writing career--is the commitment to extensive pre-draft exploration of the characters' backstories which in turn triggers the invention of a workable story/plot structure of your script-in-the-making.  For most writers, young and old, this approach seems to be favored.  And for good reason.

As I've said before in this blog, writing a viable script is like building a solid house.  You start with the foundation and slowly build upon it.  What the buyer eventually sees on the outside is the finished edifice, with its siding and trim, its color and overall design.  Inside they experience the layout of the rooms and the interior "feel."  What they don't see is the infrastructure, the framing, the plumbing, the wiring, the foundation below the frost line, etc.  But there would be no house to live in if these hidden elements weren't securely in place.

An MFA student of mine recently put it nicely:  "It's always a good idea to go into the first draft with a strong sense of story structure rather than try and fix a mound of problems later."  I couldn't say it better.  You want to begin the journey into draft with a pretty detailed road map of your chosen route within reach. Of course, surprises will happen once you're on your way, but these should be welcomed and explored.  But you always have your map on the seat next to you when you get lost and need to find your way back to the main highway.

                                    *                    *                   *                   *

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.

Pre-draft exploratory work: a key to successful scriptwriting

I know I keep hammering on this, but taking the time and effort to do extensive backstory exploration on your characters, the milestone events in their lives, and their timelines pays huge dividends when you begin serious work on structuring your story.  This is the one area that the better books on screenwriting and playwriting tend to short change and sometimes ignore altogether, good as they are at dealing with story structure and how to construct a viable script.  And my strong belief--based on my own experience as a writer and the consistent positive results achieved by my many clients and MFA students--is that taking the time to thoroughly explore the backstories of your characters is an important key to successful script writing.

Granted, when you first come up with a new story idea it's important to pin down the basics of what might motor the script in terms of central character, his or her external want and internal need, the other potential major characters and how they might put up barriers and create the tension and conflict in your central figure's arc or journey, and finally, giving some thought as to where the story might land and what kind of statement that ending is leaving with your audience. This is the way you initially test a new idea to see if it might have the "stuff" needed for you to begin to dig deeper.

However, it's at this point that many writers make a mistake.  If they're still excited by the idea, they're eager to push ahead and immediately attempt to invent and develop their plot in some detail, following one or more of the many structural paradigms commonly used in our field.  The problem is that they're skipping a critical step in the process, namely stepping back at this point and taking the time to thoroughly explore the backstories of the characters, their voices, and the baggage they bring with them into the story that's going to be the script itself.  In other words, getting to know the major players as real people with real pasts who bring to the story unique personalities with powerful emotional memories.

Because it's doing this exploratory work that arms the writer with a rich understanding of that nine-tenths of their story that's going to always be hovering there under the surface.  And there's no better way to enter into the plot invention phase of the process than with this exploratory work at your disposal.

                                    *                    *                   *                   *

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.