What is your writing process?
Do you have a specific place that ignites your imagination? A time when your creative juices seem to flow freer than others? Are you so inspired after watching a play that you put pen to paper before you’re out of the theatre? Do you force your friends through half finished scripts or keep them locked away until they’re period perfect?
From research to writing to editing, all these considerations combine to form your writing process. There’s no scientific evidence yet to suggest that how you write affects the quality of your work. And yet, we’ve all found ways of writing that help us produce to the best of our ability…or at least to get the words down in something resembling the right order.
Every playwright has a writing process, and they’re as unique as our fingerprints. But, if you’re anything like us at Flesh & Blood Stories, you’re always looking for ways to improve your craft. Studying the writing processes of celebrated dramatists is a great way to gain a deeper understanding of their work. It also gives you some new techniques that might just become part of your regular writing routine.
So, in this article, we’re going to indulge the nosey parkers inside us all. Let’s take a look at some of the fundamentals of strong writing processes, and how renowned playwrights used these techniques.
1. Seek Out Feedback, But Trust in Yourself
Simultaneously nerve-wracking and exciting, requesting and receiving feedback from peers is a vital part of the script writing process. Nevertheless, though you may collect points for improvement from beta readers, the ones you act on are ultimately up to you.
Most writers will eventually learn to challenge or disregard feedback that dilutes our visions, one famous writer took it to another level.
How Agatha Christie Stuck by Her Guns
Many of us remember her as a crime writer to rival Conan-Doyle. But Agatha Christie’s plays have achieved just as much, if not more, than her novels. She’s the only woman playwright to have had three plays running simultaneously in the West-End. One of those, The Mousetrap, is the longest running play ever. It first appeared on stage in 1958, and still shows every Monday through Saturday at St. Martins Theatre.
In his book, Curtain Up: Agatha Christie A Life in Theatre, Julius Green explores the script writing process that led to Christie’s triumphs:
“One of the things that most attracted Christie to the stage was the collaborative nature of the process, enabling her as it did to exchange ideas with others in a way that her largely solitary work as a novelist did not…But she only ever incorporated the suggestions of others up to a point, and always remained in control of the script development process. And when she was convinced that she was in the right, she was legendarily immovable.”
If you really aren’t sure whether to take on a specific suggestion from your collaborators/beta-readers, why not write another version and see if you like it more than the original?
But, as Christie’s success proves, having confidence in your own instincts is just as important as being open to critique. The trick is learning to differentiate between constructive feedback that elevates your work and changes that compromise it.
2. Time is the Essence
Love it or hate it, the writing process usually involves working to deadlines. What’s more, even when we don’t have a strict date we need to complete a draft by, there are still deadlines that loom over us. For example, a romantic skit won’t have as much impact once Valentine’s Day has been and gone. More broadly, how long will it be before Smart Phones seem as vintage as rotary phones?
The present is always relevant, especially if you’re writing contemporary plays, but even if you’re writing historical stories. One playwright who incorporated this consideration into his writing routine was Anton Chekhov.
How Chekhov Stuck to Deadlines
In 1886, at the age of twenty-six, Anton Chekhov published 112 pieces of writing while working as a medical professional. Though he’s beloved by actors, writers, and directors the world over, our dear Russian doctor was something of an overachiever.
Still, who better to learn from than the writer of fourteen plays, innovator of modern realism, and pioneer of subtext? Fortunately for us, among all the other things Chekhov put to paper in 1886, he penned a letter to his brother, Aleksandr. In this text, he lays out the six principles by which he wrote. They are:
- Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature.
- Total objectivity.
- Truthful descriptions of persons and objects.
- Extreme brevity.
- Audacity and originality: flee the stereotype.
- Compassion.
Additionally, according to Bob Blaisdell, Professor of English at the City University of New York’s Kingsborough College, “The stories and humor pieces that he was producing on deadline for St. Petersburg newspapers and magazines required that he keep an eye on topicality (e.g., New Year’s, Lent, Easter, spring thaws, summer dachas, return to school, winter snows, Christmas).” Blaisdell also notes that:
“When [Chekhov] was in the midst of his frustrating and anxious engagement, young couples in his stories are continually making their rancorous way into or out of their relationships. When he was overtaxed by his medical duties, the doctor characters explode or implode…almost always Chekhov converted the circumstances of the people he knew into fictional ones at various removes: the opposite gender, a younger or older age, a different profession, a different place, a different family.”
Though Chekhov’s plays take place in 19th century Russia, majorly in provincial towns the non-fictional counterparts of which many of us will never visit, it is through his blend of objectivity, real-life inspirations and compassion that we can still relate to his characters and plots over a hundred years later. Finding the common themes between your life and the lives of those who came before you might just make your work timeless.
3. Remember Your Script’s Destiny
Though writing is often considered a lonely process, scriptwriting benefits from conversation with the professionals who’ll bring it to life. You’ll have a better idea of how to write a complex action scene if you discuss the idea with the technicians who’ll deal with the practical aspects. Similarly, the actor who will realise your main character may have insights you’ll overlook while dealing with secondary characters.
Our next playwright took collaboration to the next level by formulating everything from her initial idea right down to the costumes through group discussion.
How Caryl Churchill Collaborated
With over thirty plays written and performed throughout her sixty-year career, British writer Caryl Churchill strikes inspiration and envy into the hearts of many an aspiring-playwright. Among international success, she’s made her mark on the very form by inventing a notation for simultaneous speech in scripts; “A ‘/’ in the middle of a line of dialogue which indicates where the following line should begin, even though the previous character hasn’t finished speaking.”
In the 1970s, Churchill worked closely with the Joint Stock Theatre Company, renowned for their synonymous method of exploratory workshops. As laid out in The Joint Stock Book: Making of a Theatre Collective, by Rob Ritchie, this process involved actors, directors, writers, and other producers, often living together, researching a topic and improvising scenes with the end goal of “gathering knowledge”. Only then would the writer retreat into solidarity to pen a full script during what was known as a ‘writing gap’. Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, Fen, and A Mouthful of Birds were all borne from this method.
Joint Stock disbanded in 1989, and though she still works closely with those producing her plays, director James MacDonald told the New Yorker in 2015 that, “It’s incredibly rare these days that Caryl will give anyone a script until she’s quite sure it’s what she wants it to be.” Not only that, but during production for Love and Information at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theatre, the artistic team noted how few notes and stage directions Churchill includes in her work, leaving much of the production up to the experts.
When you’ve worked so hard to bring a play into existence, it can be tempting to exert influence on how it comes to stage. Of course, many production teams welcome input from playwrights when staging a show. But remember that your focus during the writing process should be on crafting strong narratives and dialogue. Once you’ve done that, you’ll have to send your baby into the arms of its caretakers, and trust them to do right by it. There’s a far greater chance the end product will match your initial vision if you bring collaborators in as early as possible.
4. It’s Not What You Do, It’s The Way That You Do It
Many of us shape our writing processes around the search for originality and authenticity. Though these are both vital aspects of ‘good’ plays, some of the most beloved playwrights have forgone them in favour of telling entertaining, well-rounded stories.
Playwrights considered to be giants of the form often take inspiration from and sometimes outright steal existing plots, characters, and settings. The main example, of course, is William Shakespeare.
How Shakespeare Did It
What list of playwrights is complete without Shakespeare? Despite the fact that he was born and died 450 years ago, dedicated historians have dug up a wealth of information not only about why Shakespeare wrote plays, at a rate of two a year no less, but the process he used to write them.
In the second of a series of lectures by Sir Stanley Wells, entitled ‘What Was Shakespeare Really Like’, he explains that during the playwright’s early days, Shakespeare probably co-authored much of his work, collaborating primarily with other writers, as well as colleagues from the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Wells also speculates on Shakespeare’s research method, stating:
“Almost all his plays are based to some degree or other on one or more pre-existing narratives, some historical in origin, others fictional, some already in dramatic form. And he consulted some of these stories, especially the historical ones, in multiple versions. Richard II, for instance, is indebted not only to Marlowe’s play Edward II, which he could have seen onstage, but also to printed books including Holinshed’s and Froissart’s Chronicles, Samuel Daniel’s epic poem on the Civil Wars, and The Mirror for Magistrates.”
True originality is rare, but may not be as precious or necessary as us writers believe. You’ll often find that, through basing your narrative on those that are already popular among audiences and adding your own flair, you achieve a different kind of originality.
In Conclusion…
As mentioned, a playwright’s script writing process can take years to perfect, and be as unique as the work they’re producing. However, by finding ideas in existing narratives, collaborating with your peers, working to deadlines both concrete and representative, and being selective in feedback you act on, you can strengthen your overall routine and final script. There’s no guarantee that you’ll achieve the success of the writers above, but you’ll certainly up your chances.
Image Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery. (Agatha Christie by Planet News, bromide press print March 9, 1946 © National Portrait Gallery, London)
