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.

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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 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 importance of backstory in scriptwriting

I was sitting on our porch last night with my wife discussing a character that plays a prominent role in the novel she's preparing to write.  The character is the grandfather of the heroine and we were talking about the wisdom the man has gained in his long life and how he will impart aspects of this wisdom to his granddaughter as she faces major obstacles in the story.

But what was most interesting in our discussion was my wife's understanding of how critical it is to have fully explored the backstory of this grandfather so when she gets to writing the actual draft of her novel--with all it's twists and turns and surprises that suddenly pop to the surface--she is armed with this man's rich life's history and all the lessons learned along the way.

We both agreed that writing a piece a fiction, whether it be a short story, a novel, a screenplay, a stage play or anything in between, the writer needs to approach characters as if they were real people with real pasts that have shaped who they have become.  Then when they enter the story and engage with the circumstances that the plot throws at them, they draw on this accumulated experience and respond to the situations facing them in a way that rings true and consistent with who they are.  Just like in real life.

Pre-draft backstory work, in other words, is one of the keys to good writing.  A writer may have an abundance of talent--even be overflowing with it--but if he or she begins writing the actual pages of a story without thoroughly exploring the backstories of the characters who will populate the tale, chances are good that the effort will end up stillborn.  Because it's the people in the story who must ring true and the only way for that to happen is to know intimately who and what has shaped them and to have an exhaustive knowledge of the life they have led before first walking into the story.  Much of the details of this exploration might not ever be fully revealed in the actual pages of the finished work, but in a very real sense it will be there all the same.

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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.  We are now considering applications for starting the program in  January 2016.  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 story development work in script writing...

The biggest issue regarding the script writing process that keeps coming up with writers I work with is their lack of thorough and exhaustive pre-draft exploratory work.  So much so, in fact, that I'm writing a new book on the subject.

The book will dig into how to initially test and develop new story ideas from a structural standpoint and also lay out a process of inventing vibrant backstories that bring characters fully to life.   The overall goal will be to help writers discover, explore, and illuminate the nine-tenths of their stories that will lie submerged under the surface of the script itself.

I can't count the times that a play or screenplay is sent to me for analysis that clearly was written without this pre-draft work being done thoroughly.  The characters remain largely two-dimensional, there are few surprises that turn out to be organically central to the story, and the audience is not consistently invited to "lean into" the unfolding tale and be asked to connect the dots themselves.  In other words, the subtext of the script--the underpinnings of everything your story is attempting to accomplish--is not brought fully to life because it hasn't been adequately explored by the writer before getting into draft.  I would say that this is the biggest single mistake most script writers make.

My book The Playwright's Process begins to address this issue, but my hope is that the new book will lay out in detail how best to approach this critical phase of creating a successful script.  My approach is similar to a builder designing and constructing the plans for a new house, with a concentration on the hidden foundational elements that must be explored and in place before the actual house that's to be built on top of it can hope to stand and endure the load of the structure and the elements of time and weather.  And anyone who works successfully in our business knows full well that any script that stands half a chance of weathering the professional gauntlet it will face once released to the world will have to have its own sub-surface foundational elements solidly in place.

                                    *                    *                   *                   *

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 still considering applications for starting the program this June as well as for a January 2016 start.  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. 

Developing great characters, Part 7: Leisure time

     Ah yes… leisure time.  Or extra time.  Blogging time.  Something I haven’t been able to find for many weeks now.  Hence my absence from this blog as I’ve been working on getting my film company’s three active projects up and running.  Still at it, but I also want to keep this blog from going into a deep freeze.

 

So here’s my next musing on character development:

     Another important angle from which to view a character's relationship to his or her external world (see my previous posts in this series) is to look at how and with whom the character spends his or her leisure time.  Although occupation will often influence leisure time activity, this is the one area where a person, at least to some extent, has the freedom to choose what he or she wants to do.  As a result, you have the opportunity here to make choices that will truly individualize your characters.

Designing story: a script consulting experience, part II

    My last post introduced a day-long script consulting session I recently had with a client.  Here is how it unfolded:

    Basically what we spent the day doing was a very hands-on working through of the story scene by scene and crafting a structure that would fit into the basic three act framework.  I started by writing “Act I” on a card, then “Act II” on another, and “Act III” on a third and placing them on the table, a couple of feet apart.  This gave us from the start a simple structural design to build on—dividing the story into these three time-honored parts of setup, struggle, and solution.  (I’ve posted several blogs on these structural story components—see, for example this one from last month.)

Designing story: a script consulting experience, part I

    A couple of weeks ago I invited a script client of mine to my mountaintop home in New Hampshire to do some intensive work on a promising project he’d been developing. We’d been working on it over the phone and via email for some time and we both agreed that it would be optimal if the two of us could actually grapple with the script together in person and hopefully pin it to the mat once and for all.

Is 3-act story structure passe...?

     There’s been a lot written online lately about the 3-act story structure model for scripts and why it works or should be avoided.  See, for example, John Truby's article and comments on the UK's Raindance website.

     It seems to me, however, that the real issue here is simply a matter of semantics.

Dealing only with closed chapters

     My last post (“The risk of self exposure”) made the case for mining your own life experiences and inner emotional life when looking for potent story ideas. But I ended with stating there’s one cautionary note you should keep in mind.  Here it is:  As possible ideas start presenting themselves, be sure the specific experiences or episodes you're drawing on from your own life are truly in the past and not issues you're still right in the middle of emotionally.

 

     Several years ago I made this mistake.

The risk of self-exposure

     Here’s another basic principle of the craft that writers early in their careers often have trouble putting their arms around. Simply put, if you're going to write meaningful, gripping scripts, you have to make available your inner, private secrets and not be afraid to deal with them.

The myth of recognition

     One consistent issue beginning writers have with modeling characters on people close to them is their fear that their models will recognize themselves in the finished script and not be happy. Because of this fear, they often tend to stay clear of any idea drawn from their own lives which would automatically involve characters based on real people.  They don't want to offend or upset anyone.  They're unwilling to risk the possibility that a friend or family member might see an unflattering portrayal of a character obviously based on them.