by Will Dunne
In an interior dramatization, a character's thought, dream, hallucination, memory of the past, or vision of the future is presented to us in some wayfor example, as an image, voice, sound effect, beat of dramatic action, or even a whole scene. This enables us to see and/or hear literally what's happening in the character's mind, as in Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, where we move in and out of Willy Loman's inner world to witness imaginary events and flashbacks of the past, or in the Roman Polanski film Repulsion, where we see the world of an apartment through the distorted vision of a woman who is going mad. The implied rule is that no other characters can see or hear these inner phenomena.
Will you let us literally enter the hearts and minds of your characters? If so, how?
i. Unlimited inner-life view. You can take us into the hearts and minds of any of your characters at any time so that we can discover what they are really feeling and thinking, as in Tony Kushner's Angels in America, where at one moment we may be in the inner world of a pill-popping housewife worried about the ozone layer, and in another moment we may be in the inner world of a young man facing death in the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
2. Limited inner-life view. You give us a transparent view of one character-typically the main character-but not others, as in the Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver written by Paul Schrader, where we hear the thoughts of the main character as he writes in his journal about the world he sees around him. In this type of approach, the implied rule is that only one character can do interior monologues or trigger interior dramatizations. As a result, we can enter this character's heart and mind, but must remain psychologically distant from the rest of the story's population. In other words, we must experience them as the main character does. We cannot read their minds, so we must interpret their words and actions.
3. No inner-life view. You may wish to keep your characters opaque and restrict us from entering any one's inner world, not even the main character's. The implied rule is that there will be no interior monologues, flashbacks, dream sequences, or other interior dramatizations in the story. We in the audience will have to discover the characters as if we were observing them in real life, just as we do in The Piano Lesson by August Wilson and Blackbird by David Harrower. We may be able to reach meaningful conclusions about what we see and hear, but-since characters may be misinformed, delusional, or deceitful-we have no way to know for sure how right or wrong we are: it's a matter of opinion and often a subject of debate.
DEVELOPING A POINT-OF-VIEW CONTRACT
You can develop your story from any dramatic point of view and set whatever rules you wish for employing it. As you define this point of view, you are establishing the rules of the game for your storytelling approach and implying a "contract" with the audience.
You can develop this contract either before you begin writing your script or after you have a developed a few scenes and have a working sense of how to approach this unique story. Following are a few summary questions to help you explore possibilities:
i. Will we view the external world from an unlimited or limited vantage point? If unlimited, skip ahead to question 3. If limited, go to question 2.
2. If our view of the external world will be limited, how will it be so? Remember that our knowledge may be limited by any combination or variation of these techniques (answer whichever questions apply).
• Character perspective. Whose perspective will determine what we see and what we don't see? If the perspective of more than one character will serve this function, which two or more characters will it be?
• Narrator perspective. Will the narrator be a main character or a minor character? To whom will the narrator speak-for example, to the self, us in the audience, someone specific from the story or outside it, or humanity in general? Why will the narrator tell this story? How reliable will the narrator be, and why?
• Special space or time limit. What will be the overriding space or time factor? Why will this limitation be important? How will it help tell the story?
• Other techniques. To make this unique story work, is it appropriate to adapt or combine any of the above techniques? If so, how?
3. Will we be able to enter the inner world of at least one of your characters, or will they all remain opaque? If all characters will be opaque, skip ahead to question 5. If at least one of them will be transparent, go to question 4.
4. If we will be able to view inner life, will our access be unlimited or limited? Whether access will be unlimited-any character can become transparent-or limited-only one character can become transparent-you need to address such questions as the following:
• Whose inner life will be accessed? Which characters will become transparent so that we can see and/or hear what's happening in their minds?
• How will this access occur? Will you use interior monologue, interior dramatization, or both? If you use interior monologue, to whom will the character(s) be speaking? If you use interior dramatization, what specific form(s) will they take-for example, visual images? Voiceovers? Sound effects? Beats or whole scenes of dramatic action?
5. Will you use any special storytelling techniques to control the dramatic point of view? If so, what? Take a creative leap and see if you can discover any other storytelling techniques that might be appropriate for the story you are developing now.
WRAP-UP
As a dramatic writer, you need to make certain basic storytelling decisions at two levels: the external world of observable events and the internal world of emotion and thought. Your point-of-view contract reflects the decisions you have made about how to limit-or not limit-our vantage point at each of these levels.
We in the audience will never see this contract or read its terms and conditions. However, we will sense and trust its presence in our experience of story events, and if the contract is broken, we may also senseperhaps without quite knowing why-that something has gone askew. For best results, set clear, simple rules for yourself, and once they have been established, honor them.
THE QUICK VERSION
Flesh out your character's world and how it operates
BEST TIME FOR THIS
During early story development
KNOWING THE WORLD OF YOUR STORY
A good story creates a world that we enter through the characters. We live in this world for a while and experience what it's like to be there. This realm may be naturalistic, as in A Streetcar Named Desire by Williams or Long Day's Journey into Night by O'Neill. Or it may surrealistic, as in Endgame or Waiting for Godot or almost anything else by Beckett.
The world of the story also may be a blend of the real and surreal to give us an environment that is primarily naturalistic but not quite. For example, it might have one or two non-naturalistic features, such as the worlds of Shakespeare's Hamlet or Noel Coward's Blythe Spirit, where ghosts return from the dead, or the world of Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros, where ordinary people turn into rhinos, or the world of Kushner's Angels in America, where angels descend from above and wrestle with mortals.
No matter what kind of world you create, it is important to know the rules of the game, that is, what the world is and how it operates. To some degree, every world has its own power structure, its own culture and language, it's own values and expectations, its own customs and logic. All of these elements affect how characters see things, behave, and express themselves.
In Glengarry Glen Ross, for example, Mamet takes us into the cutthroat world of real estate where client leads are gold, lying and cheating is utterly acceptable, and a man's worth is measured by how many sales he has posted on the board. In Road to Nirvana, Arthur Kopit takes us into another ruthless world: Hollywood. Loyalty here is more important than integrity, celebrity is golden, and anything can be justified by the size of the movie deal it will generate. In The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Martin McDonagh takes us into a very different world: that of a rural Irish family that is isolated in an oppressive countryside, has a matriarchal power structure, prizes family ties
, and reveres the serving of oatmeal which is not lumpy.
You can find the world of your story through your characters. As you flesh them out and make decisions about their home life, social life, and work life, you begin to define the context for story events.
ABOUT THE EXERCISE
Use this exercise to learn more about the world of your story: what it encompasses and how it operates. As you do this, keep building on what you already know and try to avoid repetition.
DEFINING THE WORLD OF YOUR STORY
Through the centuries, dramatic writers have invited us into many different types of worlds-for example, those of royal families (Lion in Winter), taxicab unions (Waiting for Lefty), college faculty (Oleanna), therapists (Beyond Therapy), three-card monte dealers (Topdog/Underdog), southern family life (Crimes of the Heart), concentration camps (Bent), psychopathic killers (Frozen), Catholic school (Doubt), international arms negotiations (A Walk in the Woods), boarding houses (Vieux Carre) and jazz clubs (Side Man). Think about the world of your story: the arena in which all or most of your characters operate.
i. Define the overall world of your story. There may be a number of ways to do this. Prioritize the options and decide what one world your story most encompasses. This is the primary context in which most-not just one-of your characters act, and it tends to affect them in certain ways.
2. Identify the general style of this world-for example, naturalistic, seminaturalistic, or surrealistic.
EXPLORING THE WORLD OF YOUR STORY
i. Setting and time. Where and when is the world of your story situated? Identify the general setting and time frame. Look for responses that can encompass all of the places and time shifts in your story.
2. Physical environment. What is the physical environment like and how does it affect character perceptions and behavior? The physical realm may be primarily interior or exterior. It might include weather, time of year, property conditions, proximity to natural resources, urban or rural surroundings, freedom of movement, barriers to movement, objects, interior decoratinganything physical. In a few sentences, describe what's most important and unique about this realm and its impact on most characters here.
3. Spiritual realm. The spiritual can encompass what lies beyond the physical: beliefs in God, higher powers, afterlife, religious systems, the occult, reincarnation, or extrasensory perception, or the utter lack of such beliefs and systems. Look not for what one character holds to be true, but rather what overriding spirituality, if any, affects most of the characters here directly or indirectly, whether they individually believe in that spirituality or not. In a few sentences, describe the spiritual realm and its impact on most characters here.
4. Rules of the game. Begin to think about the special facts of life or "rules of the game" that help define the world of your story and govern how it operates. These are the laws or principles that are always true in the story and cannot be otherwise because you, the creator of this world, say so. They are rules that no character can break and every character must live by. These rules of the game reflect important truths about the world of your story.
• If your world is naturalistic, focus on the truths or rules that most affect how characters behave during the story. In Glengarry Glen Ross, one rule of the game is a legality: a customer has forty-eight hours to renege on a sale. This leads to a scene in which a salesman tries to avoid a customer who has come to cancel a high-pressure land deal within that legal time frame.
• If your world is seminaturalistic or surrealistic, focus on the facts of life that are different from those of the naturalistic world. In Endgame, one rule of the game is that there is no life left outside. In Bedroom Farce by Alan Ayckbourn, two couples live in the same physical setting without seeing or hearing each other.
Be specific and identify any special facts of life, or rules of the game, for the unique world of your story.
5. Law and order. Think about the laws and principles that are supposed to be honored in the world of your story, but may be violated by those who are behaving badly. These are "should" or "should not" rules that are generally upheld as legal, moral, or right, and dictate what is expected of your characters.
In the servant world of Caroline or Change by Tony Kushner, family members should remember to remove all change from the pockets of their clothing before giving it to the maid for laundry. It's a governing principle enacted by the mother of the family, but often neglected by the son. Find three specific "should" or "should not" rules that all or most of your characters are expected to obey.
6. Power structure. Who controls the immediate world of your story? In Search and Destroy by Howard Korder, the driving power is the IRS, represented by an onstage tax auditor who threatens to send the main character to jail. In Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets, it's the offstage taxi company management. In Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill, it's the onstage father James Tyrone. Onstage or offstage, what person or group has the greatest direct power over all or most of your characters? This may be but is not necessarily your main character.
7. Power dynamics. How would you describe the person or group who most controls the world of your story? In Search and Destroy, the IRS is merciless. In Waiting for Lefty, the company is greedy and uncaring. In Long Day's Journey into Night, the father has a weakened but grasping hold over his family. In a word or phrase, describe the driving power you named.
8. Pecking order. In every power structure, there is a certain chain of command. Think about the hierarchy of power in the world of your story. List your onstage characters and then rank them from most to least powerful, with i being most powerful. If you have more than five characters, list and rank only the top five.
9. Economics. Think about the economics of your story's world for most of the characters. This may be a world where money is plentiful and used freely for pleasure, or a world where money is difficult to get and limits what characters can do and how they live. In a few sentences, describe the economics of this world and how it affects most characters.
ro. Sociology. How do most characters in the world of your story relate? Think about the general social dynamics of this world. It may be a world where most characters usually interact with warmth and intimacy or a world where most characters feel alienated and estranged from one another. These social dynamics may be planned and organized with clear rules, or they may be freewheeling, haphazard, or even chaotic in nature. In a few sentences, describe the social dynamics of this world and how they affect most characters.
ii. Communications. From cave drawings to smoke signals to office memos, from carrier pigeons to cell phones to secret notes, people have found many different ways to communicate when they can't or don't want to talk face to face. Think about life in the unique world of your story. Identify at least three ways that people communicate here other than by talking face to face.
12. Customs and rituals. Think about the unique culture of your story's world and the customs and rituals it fosters. Families, clubs, businesses, sports teams, communities, and other worlds have unique ways of doing things that reflect the needs and logic of the world and which become customary over time. These may be large rituals, such as burning everything you own every seven years, or small rituals, such as taking off your shoes before entering the room. They may be everyday customs, such as kneeling in a group as a family and saying the rosary aloud together, or customs for special occasions, such as meeting in a motel room on the same day every year for an extramarital affair.
In any case, these customs have become commonplace and seem logical and appropriate to the general world of the story. For most characters, these customs help ensure the smooth running of this world. Name three specific examples of customs that are common in, and unique to, the world of your story. These may be everyday customs or customs for special occasions.
13. Center. In the musical Cabaret, the emcee sings that "money makes the world go round." In Romeo and Juliet, it's love that makes the world go
round. In Lion in Winter, it's power. Think about what lies at the core of your world: the force around which the activities of most characters whirl. This is a key to what your story is about. It reflects what your most important characters most want to attain (if your world has a positive core) or most want to escape (if your world has a negative core.) In a word or phrase, what makes your world go round?
14. Highest values. Whether it's love or money or something else, what makes your world go round is either the thing it wants most or fears most. Without repeating your last answer, think about the values that most characters here would see as desirable and would want to attain and protect. Name three things that are most valued in the world of your story. You can interpret this any way you wish. List them and rank them, with i being most valued.
15. Lowest values. Name three things that are abhorrent and repellent in the world of your story. These might be the opposites of the values you just named or they might be other things. List them and rank them, with i being most abhorrent.
16. Lingo. Every world has, to some degree, its own language. Certain terms are used commonly and reflect the shared experiences of those who live or work here. These expressions may suggest personal terms of endearment or the jargon of professions or hobbies, or shared histories, or geographical or time period influences. Think about language unique to the world of your story. List at least three terms that are special to this world and define each one in a simple phrase.
IT Success. Think collectively about your characters and their relationships and histories. Give one specific example of something that most characters would agree is a success in the world of your story.
18. Failure. Give one example of something that most characters here would agree is a failure, sin, or crime in this world.
1g. Beauty. Different worlds have different standards of beauty. Give one example of something or someone that most characters here would agree is beautiful.