#writerdiary

exercises:

freewriting around tooics like what makes us sad, mad, hopeful, happy, embarrassed. to find OUR voice.

character: someone you know

writing 5 big facts (nationality, gender, age etc) and 5 small facts (favorites, dislikes, quirks, behaviours) of someone you know really well. choose a place, a time, and if theyre alone. for 10 minutes, write in their voice, the way theywould exist in this place/with those people. to borrow someones voice in order to develop the skill of stepping into people's voices and speech patterns.

character: someone completely new

find one line from exercise 2 that reaonates with you. choose one of the emotions from excercise 1. choose 1 of the facts of your person. make up 3 more.

choose a place, time, and if they're alone.

write a little introduction to the scene, and see what you'd like to reveal.

start in the middle of the scene, and work towards a reveal, so that the reveal is included at the end of your text.

though, it is building up. where i previoysly would have walked away from a session after 30 min of warm-up freewriting, i can now continue for another hour. i am able to take a break and come back to my work rather than blowing it off for the day. i’m also developing a kind of whole relationship to the process: i know what my process is like creating as an actor/director, i am familiar with what happens when and what that space looks like. usually the process leading up to a set deadline (film release, opening night, audition) is decided for you, and it’s literally someone’s job to work out scheduling and timeframes and breaks and focus areas (aka the stage manager and director). writing doesn’t have the same type of timeline yet, and not the same set deadline either, mening i’m stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out what the process feels like. when do you know it’s time to start writing dialogue? when are my characters fleshed out enough? do i like editing as i go? do i go through several rounds of editing?

structure exist in every piece you write, regardless if you're aware of it or not. if you use it conciously as a tool rather than an afterthought it can not only help you plan and plot your piece but also add pace and texture.

i think i often get myself a bit stuck in the research phase of a project - i read and watch and listen to hours and hours of information, have lots of ideas of potential actions or happenings and what the reactions of the characters might be. but the actual work is in the writing of the thing, not in the research of the world around it. at some point i have to look up and out into the world and decide to DO something about what i’ve learnt.

i’m structuring this process much more firmly than i’ve done in the past. the cast is bigger, the plot is more complicated, the lore is extensive. i’m creating at least five full individuals and an entire fast food franchise! this initial stage is about mapping. mapping character histories, wants, quirks, voices, but also mapping the history of the world we’re in - this surreal almost middle reality, some if it resembling our own and some of it not. at least one character is based on a real person which requires lots of care and research. i am determined to make good choices, realistic choices, even if the world itself is full of absolutes and impossibilities. this is not a charicature, but it is not real life either.

i disregarded some of the information to be used during the last exercise, and it went over smoothly. i wrote a scene for an event in alice’ life, one that i knew happened but didn’t know how or with who. and it was so helpful! in drama school we would sometimes improvise scenes around important events of the character, and later when these events were brought up on stage or in thoughts, they were so easy to access because you had already lived them. the imagination needed a physical expression in order to develop into its full potential. i feel like i translated this experience into a writing experience yesterday.

i have also been working on this play as if it’s a two character play. true, only two people are ever seen on stage. but the third person needs to be just as fleshed out, just as real, just as human as the other two. especially with rosh hating anders so much, there needs to be other sides to him.