Seize the day: Things I wish I’d known when starting out (6)

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My formal education was not the best. I didn’t learn any classical languages, but in my informal education I swiftly learnt the translations of many maxims which still hold true to me, today.

Seize the day.

Fortune favours the brave.

My informal education was my true training, and one which I procured for myself. This involved reading anything I found which was in print, from takeaway menus and dodgy advertisements pushed through the door, to sneaking out Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum from the adult section of a Birmingham library, aged twelve.

This training in understanding how (in particular) plays work came with reading widely – and the same play often. This began in my teens, when I read and re-read Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear - the former a master class in structure and plot which I still use to teach classical Western dramaturgy to this day. Sean O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars and Juno and the Paycock gave me such a richness in characterisation, and made me conscious of the rhythm and texture of language. J M Synge’s Playboy of the Western World taught me that ‘In a good play, every speech should be as fully flavoured as a nut or apple’, and encouraged me to try and out-sing Synge.  Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?  is still one of my favourites. When I first stumbled upon this script, it was a major revelation; I saw the danger in word play and how ‘reality’ can be tenuously constructed through imagination and spite. It revealed the power in language to lacerate and  how far humans will go ostensibly to finish a warring relationship, but really to ensure its permanence and continuation.

Reading these works – and many more since – I’ve been struck by their urgency, immediacy, freshness – even after centuries. There was something in that urgency which encouraged me to pay attention in the moment and to the moment – to re-examine a passage which I felt worked and try to work out why it worked – and to do that then, in that moment, rather than putting off until ‘tomorrow’ or some other day.

I thought about the necessity to commit words to paper – how these texts are available to me now only because the writers found the time to write, to polish, complete, and not put it off.  They taught me an essential lesson which I am still keen on today:

Don’t prevaricate.

One hundred ‘rules’ for writing fiction: 77-81

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Even more from my collection of ‘how to’ and ‘how not’ quotations from established authors, gathered from interviews and festival appearances over the years….

77.  It is important when developing an atmosphere to be consistent with the character’s preoccupatons. In a lot of ways, atmosphere is simply an extension of the character’s mood – a party that’s full of coloured lights for one character can be as dark as a funeral if seen through the eyes of another. (Helen Oyeyemi).

78. Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance. (Ralph Waldo Emerson).

79. Plan. Always think ahead one book – or two – into the future. Don’t panic yourself with a complete blank, without knowing what you’re going to do next. (Sophie Kinsella).

80.  Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about. It is this genuine caring, not your games with language, which will be the most compelling and seductive element in your style. (Kurt Vonnegut).

81. For me, writing the first draft and all the trillions of subsequent drafts, it’s all about getting to know the characters so you can  work out how they’re going to behave. Writing is about staying true to the characters, working with that to drive the plot forward. The biggest compliment I ever get is, ‘I stayed up until three in the morning reading your book!’ I want people to think, ‘Oh my god! What’s going to happen?’ It’s a very effective way to keep people turning the pages. (Charlotte Mendelson).

LeanerFasterStronger: A week of Olympians and Paralympians

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Kaite O’Reilly with Paralympian hopefuls Steve Judge and  Suzannah Rockett-Coughlan at Sheffield Hallam University.

I started this blog last year as I wanted to write about the varied processes I might experience as a writer/dramaturg/co-creator working on three vastly differing productions over 2012. It was my plan to reflect on my experiences in ‘real time’ in research, rewrites, and in rehearsals, as the work grew and developed.

Part of this project was in response to the questions I’m often been asked by those I teach and mentor about the process of ‘being a playwright’.  My answer has always been ‘it depends’ – for I believe there is no one process, and my hope with writing the blog is to reveal some of the many processes writers and makers of live performance may encounter.

I’m currently at the end of the second week of rehearsals with Chol/Sheffield Theatres co-production of LeanerFasterStronger, a Cultural Olympiad project, reflecting on elite sport and the ethics and issues around human enhancement and sports science. It has been a research-heavy project, reading books and academic essays, being in residence at Sheffield Hallam University’s Centre for Sports Engineering Research, and interviewing former athletes who have competed at international level.

I’ve often wondered when the research will stop, for the issues are so current, especially with the Olympics and Paralympics fast approaching. Almost every day in rehearsals one of the company will pull out a story relevant to the play that was in that morning’s newspaper, or reported on television:  Themes of corruption, of sacrifice, of cheating or playing fair; advances in technology and bio-engineering; sportspeople breaking records, or collapsing and dying owing to the extreme rigour and demands of the sport.

Never before have I been involved in a project which is so current and ‘now’, which brings with it a responsibility. Although what we are embarking on is fictional and looking to the future, posing the central question of ‘How far would you go to be the best?’, the work needs to be credible, rooted in ‘truth’. Several events this past week have enabled me to check out my ideas with athletes competing at the highest level, and these conversations have impacted on the final revisions of the script. I feel astonishingly fortunate that these opportunities have come to me, and especially so mid-rehearsal. I never expected part of my job as a playwright would involve spending time with Paralympians and Olympians – nor that the final changes to a script would occur so close to production.

After a Paralympics panel event organised by Sheffield Hallam University and Radio Sheffield, I spoke at length with fencers Suzanna Rockett-Coughlan and Craig McCann, who were nervously waiting to discover whether they had been selected for 2012; and  2016  Paratriathlete hopeful Steve Judge. All talked about the necessity – and challenges – of keeping a good family/training balance, and the pleasures and trevails of competing at such a level.

Finding the human aspect, the emotional drama at the heart of sport has been central to my writing of the script. So much coverage of elite athletes focus on their super-ability and dedication; even the panel event that evening, introduced by the Chair of the British Paralympics Association, Tim Reddish, focused on the Paralympians as being inspirational, over-coming so many obstacles. That may be so and, sincerely, more power to them, but as a disabled woman I’m tired of the usual representations of people with impairments as either inspirational ‘heroes’, or the tragic but brave. To cut through this and connect, person to person, and share ideas and anecdotes, to talk about life and passion and winning or losing was phenomenal, and I am so grateful to the athletes for the insight they gave me into the beating human heart behind the high-pressured business of sport.

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Cutting Edge 2012: Behind Athletics, the English Institute of Sport.

Later that week, it was the turn of Olympian Roger Black, top sports scientist Professor Steve Haake,  Professor Chris Cooper, an expert in the physiology of top athletes, and Dr Rob Harle, a lead researcher in the development of innovative video and body sensor technologies to aid the training of both novice and elite athletes.

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Steve Haake, volunteer athlete, and Roger Black

Cutting Edge 2012, at the English Institute of Sport, featured live athletics demonstrations and my own advisor, Dr David James, leading an interactive  survey on how far research and new technologies should be used in the quest to win gold. Given the subject of my play – How far would you go to be the best? – it felt as though the event was especially organised for me and the whole LFS company who attended.

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Olympic Silver medalist Roger Black answering LFS actor Morven Macbeth’s research question. The English Institute of Sport.

One of the actors, Morven Macbeth, asked a question pertinent to our research and garnered a great response from Roger Black:

“Sport is definitely an industry, there’s no doubt about that, and the Olympics is a massive business, we know that, but for the athlete – you’re still the young kid who had the dream; you’re still one of the lucky ones who happened to have a gift for sport… I may be naive, but I still believe, when I watch the Olympics, the vast majority of the athletes we’re watching are clean, and are doing it for the right reasons, pushing themselves, having a dream, and trying to fill that potential. I can say that, because I did it….But there are many people who absolutely believe you can’t win a medal without taking drugs. And I know that’s not true.”

Further responses touched on the notion of ‘the spirit’ and ‘the virtue’ of sport – and how one of the ‘rules’ of sport is to ‘uphold the spirit of sport’ – a circular argument – and these rules or tasks we set ourselves are often arbitrary.

Given that one of the themes of the script has been ‘Sport tests the limits of what humans can do’, this comment, combined with the developments in bio and genetic engineering, gave me much food for thought. Fuelled by these interventions and provocations during the week, I locked myself into my hotel room over the weekend and finished the script.

 

One hundred ‘rules’ for writing fiction: 52-56

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Five further provocations from the published great and good on writing fiction, collated over the years from interviews and articles.

52. Who says you have to start writing first thing in the morning? People worry that you have to have a structure to the day; that you have to get a structure to the day; that you have to get a certain number of words written. Who makes these rules? This sort of thing makes people anxious about their writing before they’ve even started. (Susan Hill).

53.  Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action. (Kurt Vonnegut).

54. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.  Never use a long word where a short one will do.  If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.  Never use the passive where you can use the active. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous. (George Orwell).

55.  Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But “said” is far less intrusive than “grumbled”, “gasped”, “cautioned”, “lied”. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated” and had to stop reading and go to the dictionary. (Elmore Leonard).

56.  You don’t always have to go so far as to murder your darlings – those turns of phrase or images of which you felt extra proud when they appeared on the page – but go back and look at them with a very beady eye. Almost always it turns out that they’d be better dead. (Not every little twinge of satisfaction is suspect – it’s the ones which amount to a sort of smug glee you must watch out for.)  (Diana Athill).

LeanerFasterStronger: collaboration between science and the arts

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Dr Dave James welcoming the company to the Centre.

It’s the first week of rehearsals for LeanerFasterStronger at Sheffield Theatres, and director Andrew has organised a company outing to The Centre for Sports Engineering Research at Sheffield Hallam University.

The project is a fascinating collaboration between scientists and theatre practitioners, part of imove, the Cultural Olympiad for Yorkshire.

In posts last year I wrote about the research residency Chol and Sheffield theatres had at the Centre for Sports Engineering Research, getting access to the motion capture lab’ and other sports science technologies, exploring movement and our attitudes to our disabled and non-disabled bodies.  http://kaiteoreilly.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=1034&action=edit

Now, we’re back – the actors who will be portraying the characters I created informed by my research here and elsewhere, supported by the ever-enthusiastic Dr Dave James.

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Entering the lab’

The meeting is a crash course in Sports Science and human enhancement for the actors. It’s a context I’ve become familiar with over the past twelve months and Dr Dave James fields questions on blood doping, enhancement, and other issues the script touches on.

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Morven 

It’s fascinating seeing lines which I wrote informed by bioethics becoming dialogue between diverse but credible characters. When Chol first approached me with the commission, I never thought saying yes would lead me to a biomechanics and sport engineering laboratory.

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It has been a rich experience, collaborating with so many partners, and I’ve particularly enjoyed the challenge of taking academic material regarding human enhancement, placing it within a sports context, and endeavouring to make theatre from it.

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Kathryn in the gym

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One hundred ‘rules’ for writing fiction: 47-51

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Further words on ‘how to’ or ‘how not to’  or ‘how I do’ from interviews with fiction writers.

47, You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You’ve been backstage. You’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a ­romantic relationship, unless you want to break up. (Margaret Atwood).

48. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. (Kurt Vonnegut).

49. I’m trying to get better at the plotting, because I don’t think it’s my natural strength. I would say I have sort of a natural gift for character, and following one person’s point of view at a time, and dialogue, but I’m not naturally good at strong plot. So something like Room I’ve done a lot more planning on. And it’s not cold-blooded planning; it’s more like planning a military campaign or something. It’s quite exciting, because what you’re trying to do is to keep up the reader’s energy at every point. You’re looking for those spots where things would sag or get lost or come off the rails. You’re trying to keep up the momentum. Playwriting is very good training for that, because people are quite indulgent in a novel of any softening in your pace—they can just choose to read faster, or to take a break from it and come back. But in a theatre, your audience is trapped there. So if you’ve got any bits that feel dull, the audience will literally shift and cough. Even if they don’t walk out, you can tell that they’re restless, so you have to really shape your play well, or they’ll be shifting in their seats. (Emma Donahue).

50. Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all and, naturally, I don’t follow it. (Geoff Dyer).

51. Editing is as important as the writing. I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil. (Truman Capote).

Reflections on revising a theatre script (2): Give it space

Publicity photograph for LeanerFasterStronger, to be produced by Sheffield Theatres/Chol Theatre in May 2012.

It is so difficult to get perspective on a script when in the process of being revised.   Computers allow us to ‘futz’ with the work continually – deleting, copying and pasting, shifting order, reallocating speeches to different characters… It wasn’t so long ago when such editing processes were time-consuming and demanded commitment: we thought long and hard before taking the scissors to the page, actually cutting and pasting. Perhaps today making changes are too easy and so we try different versions within seconds – and then lose perspective on which of these various edits, which we can effortlessly make, is the best.

I’m not suggesting we return to those ‘analogue’ days (if I can creatively use the term so) – but I think a small shift in our consciousness may assist when rewriting.   Writers can become exasperated with all the editing possibilities open to them, they can get tied up, knotted in the throughlines. I’ve lost count of the times writers I’m mentoring have lost their way owing to a dizzying succession of edits on parts of their scripts. They try a section that doesn’t seem to be working one way, and then another, and another – and then lose sight of the original intention. They really can’t see the wood for the trees.

I’ve learnt to take my revisions at a slightly slower rate. When editing a scene, I’ll try one version and then walk away – go outside, look at the sky, have a wander around, change my mindset and the view – and after twenty or so minutes, I’ll return and be able to read the revised section with fresher eyes. It seems time consuming and a little tree-hugging, but it works and saves time in the long run. For larger edits, I sleep on it and can get perspective on the script the next morning. For serious manuscript-length edits, I put the script away for at least a week.

This process enables me to commit to each decision I make in the editing process; it makes me treat the actions I take seriously, knowing there will consequences – and yet I know the decisions are not necessarily final, I can still shift and change. I’m simply giving space around revisions, so the air can circulate and I can clearly see the changes I am making, and whether or not they are improvements. It is allowing work to evolve and settle at a slightly more organic, human rate.

copyright Kaite O’Reilly 28/3/12

LeanerFasterStronger: reflections on writing the rehearsal draft (1)

One of the frustrating aspects of revising a script is not knowing whether the changes will work until you’ve completed the whole draft and can see it in its entirety. You may have a fantastic first third, a taut middle, or a thundering ending, but I’ve found strengthening one part of the script can paradoxically weaken a section which was previously deemed ‘fine’ – or at least didn’t draw attention to itself.

The fact of the matter is, you can’t change one part of the draft without this having repercussions and reverberations across the rest, rather like the ripples from the apocryphal pebble thrown into the still pond. Although it may have many scenes, or structures, or sequences, or sections, a script is still one entity and so all parts combine to make that whole, and each is reliant on the other.

(A shorter blog than usual, but deadlines beckon. If I make further discoveries as I work towards ‘D’ day – delivery day – they will follow…)

(c) Kaite O’Reilly 24th February 2012.

LeanerFasterStronger: towards the rehearsal draft OR how to revise a script

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Andrew’s rough sketch of the proposed design for LeanerFasterStronger at Crucible Theatre, Sheffield, May 2012.

It is nine weeks before rehearsals begin for LeanerFasterStronger, my commission from Chol Theatre to be produced in Sheffield in the Spring. The feedback document I had squirrelled away until The Echo Chamber opened has now been scrutinised, digested, and discussed at length with Susan Burns of Chol and Andrew Loretto of Sheffield Theatres. Deadline firmly in mind, I’m now setting off to redraft the script.

I’m often asked how I rewrite a script. Strangely, this is something I have never come across in the public domain, nor heard discussed in detail at literary festivals and similar events. What follows is my own personal process. It may be useful for others to know, but it certainly isn’t prescriptive, nor can I assume something I have developed over the years might work for other writers. I think the trick is in finding what works for you. What follows is what works for me.

Few, I think, would believe my apparent aimless meandering and vacant staring into space in the days following feedback could be classified as work. But it isn’t all fun. I feel immensely fortunate to write full time, and this, combined with my hardcore work ethic (thank you, immigrant parents), makes the more reflective, apparently passive part of the process pretty challenging.

What I have learned over the years (but I keep forgetting, so have to keep reminding myself) is: it is important to give time to dream, to absorb, to be apparently passive and let the script and related ideas float comfortably somewhere in my un/subconscious. I find if I’m relaxed enough, I start dreaming the script, especially in that liminal place, when not fully asleep, but not yet awake. This dream state allows me to run the scenes on the movie screen of my mind, and I often wake and go straight to my desk without washing or dressing, knowing immediately what needs to be addressed.

Thinking about this, I assume it’s a form of lucid dreaming I have taught myself over the years. I find it works with short stories and plays, as I can hold these in their entirety in my mind and run through from beginning to end, moment by moment. Anything longer, like a novel, is too big to hold in my mind’s eye.

Before I start re-writing and whilst I’m in that mulling everything over phase, I read extensively. Once I’m actually writing, I read non-fiction or journals so that there isn’t an unintentional influence, but before I begin work I like to immerse myself in the medium and remind myself of the the possibilities of the form. This is also important as I work across several forms. Reading as much as I can for several days firmly roots me in the necessary medium and style, be that radio drama, fiction, academic writing, or live performance.

To that end, I have recently acquired a stable of plays, which I will devour over the weekend. The breadth is broad. The intention is not to read work close to my own subject matter and aesthetic, but to remind myself of a wide range of dramaturgies and theatre styles. Here is my weekend reading:

A Map of the World.          David Hare.

The Water Station.            Ota Shogo.

Butterfly Kiss.                      Phyllis Nagy.

13.                                              Mike Bartlett.

Far Away.                            Caryl Churchill.

Red Sky.                                  Bryony Lavery.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma.  David Edgar.

A Year and a Day.             Christina Reid.

Disco Pigs.                           Enda Walsh.

Burn and Rosalind.           Deborah Gearing.

Realism.                               Anthony Neilson.

More on this process follows after the weekend, when I will start identifying sections of the play requiring modification and strengthening – and deciding what actions will best get the required results.

(c) Kaite O’Reilly 17/2/12

Revision notes (6): As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out.

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It was Mark Twain who, in 1894 in Pudd’nhead Wilson, dealt so succinctly with the adjective: ‘When in doubt, strike it out.’ Even earlier, in Boswell’s 1791 Life of Samuel Johnson, a similar sentiment can be found: ‘Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.’

It took me several years to come to my current understanding of these aphorisms. As a student I was bewildered, thinking these writers were advising me to sabotage my work by slashing out what I deemed ‘the best bits’. Giddy on Joyce and the rich, pungent gush of Irish words, I wanted MORE in my writing, not less. To cut what I imagined was a fine passage felt like mutilation, a blood sacrifice to some demanding, ancient deity called Great Old Dead White Male Writers. Was it a rites of passage, some initiation I needed to go through before I truly understood what it was to write?

No. I was simply very young and very earnest and as green as the distant hills. Experience has shown me the clue is in: ‘a passage which you think is particularly fine…’  Johnson was quoting advice given to him by his college tutor when a young man, filled with his early fascination for language and intoxication with words.

Less is more and taste is all. Overwrought poetry and prose topples under the weight of its adornments. Like an over-dressed Christmas tree, you can’t see the pine for the baubles and it’s likely to keel over headfirst.

When revising work, we need discipline and distance so we don’t become self-indulgent. Nothing extraneous should be in our work. We can’t keep the beautifully put phrase that no longer fits the content, nor allow the favourite, fine piece of writing stay without fear of it upstaging the rest of the work. So many times when I’ve been reading work I’ve tripped on a well-turned phrase that somehow jars. When I point it out (which will invariably happen) the writer smiles ruefully, muttering ‘I know, I know… I should cut it, but I just love that line…’

Which brings me rather neatly to Mamet and his infamous ‘Kill all your darlings’. He is not, I believe, inviting us to get rid of all our brilliant ideas, or the plots, characters, and dialogue we are engaged with and incubating, bringing to completion. He is demanding we press delete on the parts that make us act indulgently, ignoring the faults of spoilt, precocious lines which disrupt the otherwise beautifully composed page with their noisy, attention-seeking LOOK AT ME! AREN’T I FINE! effect.

Alternatively, I interpret this as cutting the now defunct sections, perhaps the original seeds of the work, carried since the initiation of the script/book/story/poem, which we can’t, just can’t imagine NOT taking the rest of the journey…

We can and we should. Editing and revising work is not a process entirely free of pain.

Here’s some other quotations about editing which I’ve found to be sound advice and salve to that ache:

 Omit needless words…A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.

William Strunk  The Elements of Style (1918)  [I highly recommend this book]

If there is anything said in two sentences that could have been as clearly and as engagingly said in one, then it’s amateur work.

Robert Louis Stevenson, letter to William Archer, 1888

I often covered more than a hundred sheets of paper with drafts, revisions, rewritings, ravings, doodlings, and intensely concentrated work to produce a single verse.

Dylan Thomas  in a letter 1940′s

Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.

F Scott Fitzgerald.  1959

And finally:

You know you’re writing well when you’re throwing good stuff in the basket. 

 Ernest Hemingway

Good luck and enjoy.

© Kaite O’Reilly 26/11/11