Latest / The Imperfect Impulse w/Bree O'Connor / S 3 Ep 10: Playful Substance’s Writers’ Group

Transcript

S 3 Ep 10: Playful Substance’s Writers’ Group · The Imperfect Impulse w/Bree O'Connor

0:03
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Imperfect Impulse with Bree O'Connor.
0:07
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm your host, Bree O'Connor.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: Today I want to talk a little bit about the method behind the madness.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: For those of you who have not sat in on our writers group,
0:24
SPEAKER_00: there's a finite number of people who've done that,
0:27
SPEAKER_00: so the odds that you have not sat in on writers group Pretty high.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: So let me give you a little bit of the lay of the land.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Writers groups are writers groups.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: They do the thing and they all have their own little particular rules.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: In Playful Substance's writers group,
0:48
SPEAKER_00: however, one of the rules that I have is that I make writers read their own work.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: That's enough to send some writers screaming for the hills.
1:05
SPEAKER_00: But there is a reason why I do it that way.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's actually a couple of reasons.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: First and foremost is that it makes organizing writers groups a lot easier
1:21
SPEAKER_00: because I'm not looking for actors.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Although it is fun to find them.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry, actors do come into the process later.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: But on our regular Tuesday night or monthly Saturday meetings,
1:39
SPEAKER_00: I have writers read their own work.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: That includes the stage directions,
1:45
SPEAKER_00: the character's name before all of the dialogue, all of the dialogue, everything.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: We read about roughly 10 pages per session.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Of course, that can shift depending upon the writer and the project.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: But the thing that I get out of listening to the writer read their own work
2:10
SPEAKER_00: that I can't get from listening to an actor read someone else's work is that in
2:17
SPEAKER_00: the early stages of writing, I'm not interested in imposing structure or imposing
2:28
SPEAKER_00: Any particular style or writing methodology, that's your business.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: However you get words on the page, that's up to you.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: I can give you some thoughts.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: All of our writers can give you some thoughts on how they do it.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's different.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: You gotta find what speaks to you.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: But when you read your own work, I get to hear So I can only tell you what's not working.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: I can only tell you where things are falling short or are a little
3:27
SPEAKER_00: Lackluster or perhaps the energy drops or this is in the wrong spot
3:32
SPEAKER_00: or I didn't understand that and that's all fine and good.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: Those are very useful bits of feedback
3:42
SPEAKER_00: but what they don't do is help you receive feedback that is specific
3:49
SPEAKER_00: to what you're trying to accomplish.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: In our writers group We're not here to teach each other how to write.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: We're here to help the writer get clarity on what they're trying to write.
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SPEAKER_00: To me, I have found that to be probably one of the gentlest ways
4:13
SPEAKER_00: that I can hear really harsh things.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: Because let's face it,
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SPEAKER_00: sometimes I walk into my writer's group and I have written An absolute bag
4:26
SPEAKER_00: of horseshit.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: It's terrible.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: But if I am really striving for something,
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SPEAKER_00: I know that the writers will be able to ask me enough questions
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SPEAKER_00: to help me clarify what I was going for,
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SPEAKER_00: why I was going for it, and where I kind of dropped the ball.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: It's more constructive automatically because They're really partners with me
4:55
SPEAKER_00: in getting the script up and running as opposed to being any kind of authority.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm the authority on my writing.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm the authority on what I'm trying to accomplish.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: I may not always see
5:12
SPEAKER_00: The work clearly yet because in early,
5:15
SPEAKER_00: early stages when I'm asking people to share pages, that can be a really heady time.
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SPEAKER_00: It's like standing in a tornado trying to grab plot points
5:28
SPEAKER_00: that are swirling around you at a mad pace and nothing is nailed down.
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SPEAKER_00: It can be a really confusing time, an exciting time.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: There's loads of adrenaline involved,
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SPEAKER_00: but it's not really the moment for someone to start designing your bedroom for you.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, grabbing a chair out of the sky and going, this goes here.
5:54
SPEAKER_00: No, no, that's really not for you to say right now,
5:59
SPEAKER_00: but If they can say, hey, is that a chair over there?
6:04
SPEAKER_00: Is that useful?
6:06
SPEAKER_00: I can say, oh yeah, I need a chair.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: Does this make any sense at all?
6:14
SPEAKER_00: One of the complaints that I get a lot is, I hate reading it out loud.
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SPEAKER_00: It feels awkward.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't like the sound of my own voice.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: And I'll hear the writer rush through the work.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: And this tells me something.
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SPEAKER_00: There's always a specific reason why someone is rushing through the work.
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SPEAKER_00: There's always a specific reason why they are skipping over moments for expediency
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SPEAKER_00: or why they are not liking what they're hearing.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And if you go ahead and interrogate that with the artist and help them come
6:58
SPEAKER_00: to some clarity for themselves,
7:02
SPEAKER_00: On how that read went, you'll find that there is some discovery available there.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: These are not lost moments.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And I find that if you can interrogate the things that stick out as odd, or that
7:26
SPEAKER_00: You didn't quite understand.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: You weren't able to bridge from thought A to action B.
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SPEAKER_00: You weren't able to follow the logic or they were talking so damn much
7:39
SPEAKER_00: that you just kind of tuned out or you weren't sure what was important to listen to.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: Now, if someone is trying to teach you how to write your script,
7:54
SPEAKER_00: They might just say,
7:55
SPEAKER_00: you know, something qualitative that was boring or it dragged on too much.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: And that's not something that is easily fixable.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: However,
8:07
SPEAKER_00: if you're hearing, yeah,
8:09
SPEAKER_00: right at that point where you started talking about the checkerboard lunchbox,
8:18
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know Why you were talking about that.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: So my attention drifted until you mentioned the goldfish or you know, whatever.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: That if you're able to mention that,
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SPEAKER_00: that narrows down for the writer, what are the trouble points?
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SPEAKER_00: What are the things that they should be looking at and trying
8:40
SPEAKER_00: to figure out why they didn't work?
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SPEAKER_00: Is the reason why that specific stretch had someone drift away were they drifting
8:52
SPEAKER_00: because they were like wait a second goldfish don't behave that way or
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SPEAKER_00: that they were questioning some truth that you put in the script and weren't sure
9:06
SPEAKER_00: if they're supposed to trust the narrator or not trust the narrator or Are you lying
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SPEAKER_00: to the character?
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SPEAKER_00: Is the character lying to the audience?
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Are they lying to themselves?
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SPEAKER_00: Is there a method of deception here?
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SPEAKER_00: Or is there simply a missed piece of information?
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SPEAKER_00: Is the revelation of information in the wrong order so your listener is hopelessly lost?
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SPEAKER_00: Is there a lack of specificity?
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SPEAKER_00: This happens so often That people are sort of writing monologues to write monologues
9:44
SPEAKER_00: to get through a big hunk of information and maybe try to discover some information.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: If someone's giving you that hunk and it's not grabbing the listener,
10:00
SPEAKER_00: chances are they're not sure what that hunk of information is,
10:05
SPEAKER_00: how it's relevant to the rest of the action.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: They're not, it's not specific enough to keep them engaged.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: So if you know that,
10:20
SPEAKER_00: if you're like, oh,
10:23
SPEAKER_00: that is the problem here,
10:25
SPEAKER_00: then you kind of know which nuts and bolts to tighten or loosen or do away with.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: It's much more specific, but it has nothing to do with shoulds.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: There's no judgments about, well,
10:42
SPEAKER_00: I think that you should follow this particular story structure and
10:45
SPEAKER_00: at this point you should save the cat and at this point you should do this.
10:52
SPEAKER_00: That nomenclature is up to you and how you talk to yourself about your work.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: But the way we talk to you is we are here with you to help you make discoveries
11:04
SPEAKER_00: about your script with you.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: That there's no qualitative judgment.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: We're just here to help you find clarity.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Now, once the scripts are kind of up and running and they're becoming clearer
11:22
SPEAKER_00: and clearer inside the writers group and they've reached a point of completion,
11:28
SPEAKER_00: then it is the point to bring in people who have never seen it before.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Have actors come in and make some choices.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And then see what is still a little questionable on the page.
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SPEAKER_00: What is not readily available to the actors as they're reading it
11:48
SPEAKER_00: because ultimately you are not going to be around to explain your script
11:53
SPEAKER_00: to absolutely everyone on the planet.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to be at every rehearsal because hopefully your play is Licensed
12:06
SPEAKER_00: and you're making money from it while other people are in far-flung places trying
12:13
SPEAKER_00: to figure out how to act this thing.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: It's got to be solid.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: It's got to give the actors enough information and enough handholds where they have
12:28
SPEAKER_00: to make decisions that are in keeping With the story you intend to tell.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: So that is where bringing in actors becomes extra useful.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: It's not great during the exploratory period.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: Not in my opinion.
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SPEAKER_00: There are certainly very raw works that I don't want an actor looking at yet.
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SPEAKER_00: Because I haven't even figured out for myself what is specific there.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: For the performers to grab onto.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: So that is why our writers group works the way that it does.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: This has been a bit of a shorty this week,
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SPEAKER_00: but I think it's really important to our development work functions.
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SPEAKER_00: I also have a handy dandy guide For feedback sessions,
13:32
SPEAKER_00: how to be good at giving feedback and also how to receive it.
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SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes you'll receive feedback that you need to run through
13:43
SPEAKER_00: a certain filter where you can strain out what is that person's particular bugaboo,
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SPEAKER_00: how much of it is their problem,
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SPEAKER_00: and how much of it is something that you can make useful for yourself.
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SPEAKER_00: Without taking on the things that are, well, let's face it, hurtful.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: If you are interested in getting our little feedback guide,
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SPEAKER_00: take a look at our show notes and there'll be some instructions for how to make
14:19
SPEAKER_00: that happen for yourself.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: Try it out.
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SPEAKER_00: See if our methodology works for you.
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SPEAKER_00: That's it for me this week on the Imperfect Impulse.
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SPEAKER_00: I hope this has been helpful and we will talk to you again next week.
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[music]