A scriptwriting tool for plot invention

My last blog post centered on the process of plot invention and a practical approach to accomplishing that end--namely using index cards (or the equivalent) and building your story one heart beat at a time.

To add to this, I recommend you take a look at a very interesting and well-written book by Daniel J. Levitin called The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload.  Among many other things, Levitin breaks down the index card technique and advances the reasons that successful creative people use this method of organizing their lives or, for our purposes, how writers come up with their stories.  What he presents reads like a textbook for how to invent the plot for your story idea.

Plot outlining--a scriptwriting key

The other day I walked back into the modest guest wing of our home that serves double-duty as my wife Kris's writing office.  Kris was not there and a part of me felt like I was intruding on her private world.  But I couldn't help but notice that on the quilt covering one of the single beds was an impressive array of 3 x 5 index cards with hand written notes on them.  The cards were arranged in three columns, each of which was identified with its own card at the top that read Act 1, Act 2, and Act 3.  What I was looking at, of course, was the beginnings of the plot invention for the novel she's working on.

An insightful book on playwriting...

There's a wonderful and rather unique little book that's been floating around for a number of years now that every writer should take a look at.  It's called Playwrights Teach Playwriting, edited and compiled by Joan Harrington and Crystal Brian.  It includes insightful essays by ten contemporary American playwrights including Chris Durang, Maria Irene Fornes, Tina Howe, Mead Hunter, David Henry Hwang, Tony Kushner, Romulus Linney, Donald Margulies, Marsha Norman, Jose Rivera, and Mac Wellman.  Quite a line up.

And don't let the title fool you.  Certainly, each of these successful writers talks at length about how they teach the art and craft of playwriting.  But what is really special about the book is that in every case, as they explain how they approach teaching the subject, they at the same time are revealing a great deal about their own writing process and the spirit in which they approach their own work.

Well worth the read.

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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. 

My play SISTER CALLING MY NAME to open in Minneapolis...

Here's a little personal horn tooting...

My play Sister Calling My Name opens October 16th at the Open Window Theatre in Minneapolis.   I thought I'd announce the production in case there's some readers of this blog who are within striking distance and who might be interested in seeing it.

For a full description of the play and for reserving tickets go to the theatre's website.

The play won the National Play Award several years ago and has been produced all over the country and Canada in productions large and small.  What makes this staging special is that the play is set in Minnesota (my home state) and this will be the Minnesota premiere.

I also appreciate that the theatre has brought me in on early production meetings and are flying me out for rehearsals the week of the opening.  I'll be doing Q & A's with the audience opening weekend, October 16 and 17.  I would rate Open Window as definitely playwright friendly.  

If you manage to catch the production, I'd love to get your feedback.

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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.

Your private scriptwriting world...the first draft

So you're ready to plunge into your first draft.  You've done your research and extensive character and other backstory exploratory work and have come up with a plot outline that you think has real shape and punch--a structure that delivers.  All you're lacking is the script itself and you're eager to start turning out actual pages.

My one caution as you start into your first draft is to KEEP IT TO YOURSELF!  Every writer naturally feels the urge to share work as it's being written.  Or at least talk about the discoveries and progress being made as work proceeds on the draft.  We're in this business because we want to communicate ideas to others, right?  However, this is not the time for that.  In fact, it is one of the biggest mistakes you can make.  Resist the urge.  Do not, under any circumstances, show your work or talk about it to anyone while you're working on your first draft.  Keep it totally to yourself.  This is your private world, your virgin soil.  It should be written as a personal and solo experience.

As Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Marsha Norman once told me, "Plays are not written by committee.  They are written by single voices.  They are products of a single vision."

At this phase in the writing process your job is to protect this private world from all outside influence, whether it's a play, screenplay, or teleplay.  Think of it as contamination, even if it comes from a trusted friend.  Nothing can destroy a first draft faster than to show pages to well-meaning people in your life.  They'll want to help you, even feel obligated to give you feedback.  As Norman added, "People love to get in and tell you what to do.  Isn't that true in life and of writing?  Everybody knows what you ought to do." 

And, of course, the moment someone gives you input, you won't be able to get it out of your head, whether it's positive or negative.  It's contamination either way. 

Resisting this urge to share your first draft-in-the-making can pay huge dividends by building an increasingly stronger and more intimate connection between you and your material.  What's happening in the developing script becomes yours and your characters' own secret and your unique source of strength.  This, in turn, produces an energy which helps propel you through to the end. Even when you're stuck on something and go through a few days or even weeks of feeling lost, the experience remains a private one, shared only between you and the people inside the play.

The time will come soon enough when it's necessary and useful to share your script with others and hear what they have to say. Now, however, it's just as critical that you don't.

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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.

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.

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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.

The script writer's secret weapon...

I was talking to one of our advanced MFA students the other day, a writer who I'm mentoring this semester and who will graduate from our program this coming January.  We were discussing the story development of his latest project, a play with interesting and complicated character relationships.  He was frustrated by certain elements that weren't falling into place quite yet even though he was already deep into his pre-draft exploratory work.

I found myself telling him something that I tell fellow writers all the time.

What I shared was that often elements of a developing story simply need some time to emerge and fall into place.  And to help this along the writer often has to hand off the problem area (or areas) to his or her subconscious for a time and let that part of his or her brain sort things out. When ideas for a solution are formulated down there in that subterranean part of the mind, those ideas will be pushed up to the conscious mind and the writer can take it from there.

The key to having this work is to totally believe that this is exactly how script problems get solved. In other words, you have to literally talk to your subconscious as if it was a separate person running a powerful think tank installed deep down there in your skull.  Give this "person" your issue or problem areas to mull over and mediate on and request that when they have found possible solutions to send them back up to you.  And remember, this think tank is fully aware of all the work and thinking you've already done on the project--every shred of it.

Give a time limit--maybe a day or two, maybe when you are going to the shore or the mountains for a week with the family to relax and take a break from your writing.  And trust that this part of your brain has heard you and indeed is going to work hard while you float off thinking about anything but your script.

As I say, the key to success with this simple little game you play with yourself is trusting that it will work.  Any rolling of the eyes or skepticism that this is too easy or simplistic or only wishful thinking will short circuit the process.  Just believe that this is the way writers solve many of their most difficult story issues and it will work.  Promise.  Every successful writer I know uses this as a central part of their process to one degree of another.

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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.