5 things not to do when you are writing a play.
It was embarrassingly late in my career when I discovered why it is "playwright" with a GH and not "playwrite" as in the writer of plays. The word "wright" means a person who sculpts or shapes, normally out of something hard like wood or metal. They are the builder, sculptor or shaper of a play. This description feels so completely accurate for my process and particularly for the process I have just been through as I work with an intrepid team of young actors to develop my new play, "The Forest In Between," for Peer Productions which, with latest draft in hand, will begin rehearsals next week.
I am often asked how I write a new play. For a long time, I struggled to understand my own process, feeling like plays just suddenly appeared. Of course, while there are moments of magic, there is also discipline, confusion, wrong turns, frustrations and distractions - which is all very fitting when I am writing a play about four children who find themselves lost in a magical forest!
When I write as the Artistic Director of Peer Productions, I have the absolute privilege of being surrounded by like-minded creatives and young actors who are just as invested in the project as I am, so my work becomes all the more enriched for it. A big chunk of this process involved me bringing bits of scripts, ideas, and problems and asking the young cast and our director, Ruth, to stage them, re-stage them, improvise, and discuss them. I know not all writers have that privilege, so here are five tips of things not to do when you are writing a play, from one playwright to some others, which you might help you to find your way:
1. Don’t get bogged down by structure. John Burgess, whom I was lucky enough to work with as part of the Nuffield Theatre’s playwrights programme, would say, "Write one good line, then write another, then write another until you’ve got one good scene, then write another." Story, plot, arc and structure are all important, but it won’t work unless the words really sing off the page. Structure can come later. I now see playwriting as much more the art of a mosaic, so I write little fragments and then see how they fit together. Obviously, some of those fragments end up in the bin, but that doesn’t mean that writing them wasn’t an important part of the process. Destruction is as much part of the playwright’s process as creation is. In an earlier draft of "The Forest In Between," , for example, we had a delightful talking mouse called Brenda who everyone really enjoyed. Alas poor Brenda did not make the final draft but she may well appear in a different play in a different way. Either way she showed me the way to a ultimately better version of the play!
2. Don’t get stuck in one mode of writing, staring at a blank computer screen or a blank page. Change things up. Move between writing by hand, typing, and also try dictating into your phone or computer. I first started doing this when I injured my wrist, and it has now become an important part of my everyday writing practice. Move your body. Changing locations and physically moving gives you the opportunity to process. You can write and think anywhere: in the bath, on a train, in a busy coffee shop or on a walk through a forest.
3. Don’t get stuck in your own head. Read your play out loud and/or get others to read it aloud for you. Hearing your play will bring it to life in a different way, and you will be able to spot where there is language that needs to be tightened up. Hearing it also allows you to be acutely aware of tone. Do the words feel truthful? Does your world hold together. The death of Brenda the mouse happened in part because the universe of the play had changed and she now felt incongruous with the overall piece.
4. Don’t be a perfectionist. Writing is rewriting, and it is absolutely okay to have chunks that don’t make sense, feel clunky, or that write themselves into a corner. You can go back and fix that later. If you accept the messiness you can start to entertain more creative and complex ideas. This play, for example involves a mysterious invisible guide who is watching the group as they try to find their way out of the forest. During the process this guide was at times a missing child, a ghost from many years ago, a kid who felt he was always being ignored and even, quite briefly, Brenda the mouse! Although, in this case, I ultimately chose a different direction for the character, by being open and willing to consider all of these other options the play has become so much more nuanced. Also, in the draft stage, don’t worry too much about typos and spelling mistakes. Checking everything can slow you down. Get it out of your head first and tidy up later.
5. Don’t give up! As someone who started writing plays about 30 years ago, I still feel that I learn so much from each play. Staying focused, committed, and motivated can be really hard, though. I am rubbish at finishing plays for which I do not have a deadline. Give yourself a deadline. Maybe you’re going to get some friends together to read your first draft, or you’re going to submit the play to a competition for feedback. Whatever it is, try and find a way to motivate yourself to get to a point of completion. Of course, there are many different points of completion along the way. This particular draft of "The Forest In Between," is loosely draft three (with several micro drafts in between), but I fully expect there will be further tweaks during the rehearsal process and then possibly more after we have seen how a young audience reacts to the work. I find it hard to believe that plays are ever really finished.
Ultimately, if you want to write a play go for it! My roman empire is thinking about all those half finished manuscripts sat in drawers or on long forgotten hard drives. Just think about the talent that might be hiding in there.
