desperance (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
desperance) wrote2006-08-12 08:15 am
desperance) wrote2006-08-12 08:15 am
(no subject)
Note to self: shouldn't try to draw generalities from an isolated specific, as many Americans rise up to tell me, and quite right too. It was late, I was tired; we all have our lists. I may draw up one of my own, in penance.
Meanwhile, a reluctant observation: I was right to be wary of the smoked black halibut. It does retain the silky texture of that fish, but it was much more salted than smoked: almost too salty to eat, indeed, and very little smoky flavour at all. Or indeed anything else, coming through the salt.
Still, the fennel risotto was good, and so was the soup. More lemon than lamb, but that is perhaps how it should be, with the base stock just a bass note.
Today I shall do the washing-up and get back to the play. I did sneak a page yesterday in snatches, but mostly I did quite a lot of thinking, and I think I see my way clear through to the end now. A plot seems to have arisen, as plots do; that's reassuring, that it's not just a mood piece. I've written a lot about people with Aids and their carers, and a lot of the short stuff has just been tonal; it's why I haven't managed to write the novel yet, that I can't find a story that can overcome the setting. I can do it in genre - ghost stories, crime stories, done that - but it's not what I want for this book. No matter, it'll come. Meantime, the play is a halfway house: long enough to need a plot, a process, it can't just be a meditation, but short enough to keep it singular. And, I think, quite subtle. Perhaps 'internal' is the word: there's the bloke in the bed and half a dozen people round about, and the story is entirely their own, it doesn't look beyond that room. Which is what I want. One of the problems this throws up, necessarily, is that they then don't have to tell it; they know already. Finding ways to make things clear to an audience, when you've only got dialogue to play with and you don't want all that "as you know, Bob..." explication: ah, well, it enlivens my days. 'Specially when much of that explication would be unreliable anyway. The whole thing's turning into an exercise in misdirection, which is easy on the page and easy in movies, where you can direct the audience's attention against the flow of action, point out what his hands are up to while his eyes look elsewhere and his voice runs on; I'm not at all sure how to tag that on a stage, for an audience that can't get close-ups and has to keep up with the pace.
Meanwhile, a reluctant observation: I was right to be wary of the smoked black halibut. It does retain the silky texture of that fish, but it was much more salted than smoked: almost too salty to eat, indeed, and very little smoky flavour at all. Or indeed anything else, coming through the salt.
Still, the fennel risotto was good, and so was the soup. More lemon than lamb, but that is perhaps how it should be, with the base stock just a bass note.
Today I shall do the washing-up and get back to the play. I did sneak a page yesterday in snatches, but mostly I did quite a lot of thinking, and I think I see my way clear through to the end now. A plot seems to have arisen, as plots do; that's reassuring, that it's not just a mood piece. I've written a lot about people with Aids and their carers, and a lot of the short stuff has just been tonal; it's why I haven't managed to write the novel yet, that I can't find a story that can overcome the setting. I can do it in genre - ghost stories, crime stories, done that - but it's not what I want for this book. No matter, it'll come. Meantime, the play is a halfway house: long enough to need a plot, a process, it can't just be a meditation, but short enough to keep it singular. And, I think, quite subtle. Perhaps 'internal' is the word: there's the bloke in the bed and half a dozen people round about, and the story is entirely their own, it doesn't look beyond that room. Which is what I want. One of the problems this throws up, necessarily, is that they then don't have to tell it; they know already. Finding ways to make things clear to an audience, when you've only got dialogue to play with and you don't want all that "as you know, Bob..." explication: ah, well, it enlivens my days. 'Specially when much of that explication would be unreliable anyway. The whole thing's turning into an exercise in misdirection, which is easy on the page and easy in movies, where you can direct the audience's attention against the flow of action, point out what his hands are up to while his eyes look elsewhere and his voice runs on; I'm not at all sure how to tag that on a stage, for an audience that can't get close-ups and has to keep up with the pace.
no subject
What I tend to do is overwrite some of the stage direction in the early drafts and then, when we read through, tell the actors to cross it all out. It's so I remember what I meant when I wrote it.
Once you have a three dimensional human being in the role (if it's a good actor and you have a good director), I generally cut all stage directions and 30% of the words.
If you wind up with a bad director and not-so-great actors -- it's tougher.
no subject
If we go to rehearsal. If I don't cock the piece up entirely. Yesterday was a good day, I was confident, because I couldn't work on it except in my head, where it is a glowing masterpiece; today I look at it on screen and shrivel. Bleah.
no subject
Think of it as a piece of music -- there's a certain rhythm and cadence and ebb and flow that's more aural than visual, and then the visuals are layered over it during the rehearsal process.
It ALWAYS looks flat on the page because it's meant to be lived, not read.
no subject
The sound of the dialogue is probably more significant than the meaning of the words (heresy to most prose writers) and hearing others speak the words (or even just listening to a recording of yourself reading it) is very helpful in dislocating what you have written on the page from what you heard in your head.
As for tagging the changes, I guess you'll just have to trust your directors and actors. Was there ever a writer born who could do that? Let us know.
no subject
Weirdly, that actually does help; thank you.
Trust? Someone else? With my words, my precious story, all my pretty chickens? C'mon...
PS
Re: PS
I've tried acting and directing (for stage and film) and I know I wouldn't trust me. Mind you, the actors, directors and producers I've known were a lot better at it than me.
It has been said that all writers suffer from a god complex, but I don't think that quite catches it.
Morpeth waves back. Either that, or I've had too much to drink.
no subject
I got up at 5:30 AM and wrote the first scene of the first act (28 pages) before breakfast.
I hope that the second scene will germinate, taking enough time so that I can work on my deadlined articles, before it demands to be written.