by Will Dunne
2. What was the cause of death, and when did this occur?
3. Imagine a eulogy that will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the deceased. Since this is a final statement that will never actually be read or heard by anyone else, it can dispense with all the things one is supposed to say at a memorial and get down to the nitty-gritty of uncensored memories and conclusions. Write the eulogy in your character’s voice.
■ KEY INSIGHTS
Use the following questions to sum up the key insights you gained from exploring your character’s private domain. Answer each question from your perspective as the writer.
1. Of the character relationships that surfaced during these personal writings, which one is most nurturing?
2. Which relationship is most damaging?
3. What strengths do these writings reveal in your character?
4. What weaknesses or flaws do they expose?
5. Whether positive or negative, what is the most defining character trait that emerged from these writings? The most unusual trait?
6. Think about the wants and needs that these writings uncovered. What was the strongest desire at work? The most surprising desire?
7. What is the biggest problem or challenge that emerged for your character?
8. What is your character’s biggest delusion?
9. Think about personal themes—positive and negative—that can run through one’s life, such as putting family first, trying to do the right thing, looking for the easy way out. What is the strongest recurring personal theme in your character’s life?
10. What is your character’s greatest secret?
WRAP-UP
Not all of your character’s innermost thoughts and feelings will be revealed to the audience during the story. Exploring this private realm is, nevertheless, an important part of script development that can help you flesh out character needs and motivations, understand the character in more profound ways, and make writing choices that feel truthful and logical for this character in this story.
Related tools in The Dramatic Writer’s Companion. To sum up your findings and identify what matters most, go to the “Developing Your Character” section and try “Defining Trait.” To learn more about what your characters are hiding, try “The Secret Lives of Characters” in the same section.
WHAT IS THE CHARACTER DOING NOW?
THE QUICK VERSION
Use action and image to explore revealing moments in a character’s life
BEST TIME FOR THIS
After you have a working sense of the character
ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS
While dialogue is an important part of a dramatic script, what matters most in the end is not what the characters say but what they do—in each scene, in each act, and in the story overall. This doing does not refer to arbitrary physical actions, such as “gazes out the window” or “rolls her eyes and takes another sip of her martini.” Rather, it is the essential behavior of the characters as they work strategically to overcome obstacles and achieve objectives. Such actions are greater and more important than dialogue: they fuel it, bring meaning to it, and sometimes even contradict it. He says that he wants to help her, for example, but he is really fishing for information to get her money.
Here are six warning signs that a dramatic writer may be paying too much attention to what the characters say and not enough to what they do:
• The character is talking too much. When writers focus on dialogue more than behavior, they have a tendency to exercise this love of words without restraint. As a result, the dramatic action slows to a snail’s pace. Or there is so much information that it’s hard to follow or know what matters most. Or we get what’s going on but don’t really care. Beware of characters who speak in paragraphs or sit around passively and allow others to do so.
• The character is talking too brilliantly. Some lines of dialogue exist in a script only because the writer adores them. These darlings are often masterful displays of language, psychological insight, or retrospective elucidation. The bad news is that they bring the story to a halt by spinning off tangents that lead nowhere. The good news is that you can kill darlings easily without changing the story.
• The character isn’t really doing anything. If words matter more than actions, a character may be nothing more than an information device to explain story developments or to preach the author’s message. In effect, the character becomes a living encyclopedia who does little except talk. The dramatic action has stopped because something important is missing, such as an objective or conflict.
• The character is doing something, but it’s the same thing over and over. In a one-beat scene the character uses one strategy to achieve one objective. That can work dramatically if it’s a short scene, such as the first witches scene in Macbeth, which is one beat driven by one objective and only ten lines long. However, if writers find themselves writing long scenes with few or no beat changes, it may be a sign that they have forgotten about behavior and are too preoccupied with words. It may also be a sign that the scene has become monotonous and predictable.
• The character feels remote or absent. We tend to learn the most about characters by watching how they act under stress. If they don’t do enough, we end up with insufficient information to make inferences about them and get more involved in their world. Even if they tell us their life stories, they feel like strangers who have failed to capture our interest because our knowledge of them is intellectual rather than emotional. We have “heard” them but not “lived” them.
• What’s happening is not interesting to watch. When heading to the theater, we say that we are going to “see” a show—not “hear” one. This reflects the fact that we get most of our information about the world though sight. Writers who are preoccupied with speeches tend to forget that we in the audience expect to see something interesting. When characters actively try to affect one another and use different strategies to do so, they most likely create a variety of images for us to watch. On the other hand, if the characters are speechifying and listening to each other passively, we may be stuck with nothing to watch but talking heads.
ABOUT THE EXERCISE
This exercise can help you use action and image to deepen your understanding of a principal character from your story. Each round focuses on a different time in the character’s life and includes three steps:
1. Describe an image that focuses on your character doing something significant at a given time. For example, Lewis is seven years old as he sits at his desk in the classroom of a rural schoolhouse with paper and pen in front of him. An arithmetic test is in progress. While the teacher at the front of the room reads her book, he secretly leans over to inspect the test paper of the girl beside him.
2. Find an interesting detail in the image that you didn’t notice at first. For example, the numbers on Lewis’s test paper are identical to those of the girl beside him even though many of her answers are wrong.
3. Write a caption for the image that adds meaning. For example, “Lewis discovers cheating.”
Some of your images may depict the character acting alone, but you will get the most from the exercise by finding examples of interactions with others. Look for images that reveal important character information. Whenever you are focused on the here and now of the story, try to find images that are not already in your script.
To begin, choose a character to explore.
■ CHILDHOOD
Think about your character’s childhood, and imagine him or her doing something that suggests what those early years were like. Complete steps 1 to 3.
■ TEENAGE YEARS
Think next about your character’s teenage years. As life has gone on, he or she has had an array of new relationships and experiences—some good, some bad. The character has changed in some ways and stayed the same in others. What is your character doing now? Complete steps 1 to 3.
■ A YEAR BEFORE THE STORY BEGINS
Time has continued to march on, and it is now about one year before the story begins. Certain things have happened and not happened in your character’s life. Certain things have changed and not changed. A stream of decisions, discoveries, experiences, and relationships have been shaping the character into whom we will meet when the story begins. What is your character doing now? Complete steps 1 to 3.
■ A FEW DAYS OR WEEKS BEFORE THE STORY BEGINS
The beginning of the story is now only a few days or weeks away. Your character is somewhere doing something. Whether routine or usual, it is an activity that reveals important information about the character at this particular time in his or her life. Complete steps 1 to 3.
■ A FEW MINUTES OR HOURS BEFORE THE STORY BEGINS
The character is now very close to embarking on a dramatic journey that will in some way be transformative. Think backwards from how this story begins. Imagine your character doing something only a few minutes or hours before. This doing may or may not relate to what will happen in scene 1. Either way, it’s an activity that provides an insight into the character whose world will soon be shaken up. Complete steps 1 to 3.
■ START OF THE JOURNEY
A dramatic journey is set into motion by an experience, positive or negative, that upsets the balance of the character’s life and arouses the need that will drive most of his or her behavior as the rest of the journey unfolds. This inciting event typically happens early on. It may take the form of a decision, discovery, or revelation. Or it may be an event caused by outside forces. Imagine your character either during or immediately after this life-changing experience. Complete steps 1 to 3. Remember to look for an image that is not already in your script now.
■ MAJOR TURNING POINT
Ideally, your character’s dramatic journey will unfold from beginning to end in a way that is not predictable. Its unexpected directions will be due to reversals—some good, some bad—that will keep taking the character into unexplored territory where new challenges must be faced. In a full-length script, each act typically ends with such an experience. Imagine your character either during or immediately after a major turning point in the dramatic journey—for example, at the end of the first act. Complete steps 1 to 3. Look for contrast between this image and the one you found for the start of the journey.
■ END OF THE JOURNEY
Move forward now to the final destination of the dramatic journey. For better or for worse, this is where the events of the story have led. Your character has succeeded or failed in fulfilling the need that was aroused by the inciting event. Either way, something fundamental about the character has changed. Imagine your character doing something now. Complete steps 1 to 3. Look for contrast between this image and the previous two that you described, especially the image for the start of the journey.
■ A FEW DAYS OR WEEKS AFTER THE STORY ENDS
From a creative perspective, the lives of most dramatic characters continue after their onstage or onscreen story comes to an end. Some live happily ever after. Others suffer the painful consequences of their wrongdoings. What happens to a character after the final scene is sometimes called the afterstory. Knowing this future can help you flesh out your character more fully and understand what needs to happen during the dramatic journey. Imagine your character doing something a few days or weeks after the story ends. Complete steps 1 to 3.
■ A FEW YEARS AFTER THE STORY ENDS
What are the long-term effects of the dramatic journey? Leap ahead into the afterstory to find a telling action from your character’s life a few years after the story ends. Complete steps 1 to 3. Look for an image that provides insight into whom your character will eventually become.
WRAP-UP
You’ve been exploring the doings of your character and what they reveal. The first five images suggest the roots of action for the dramatic journey. They help explain the character whom we meet as the story begins.
The next three images show how your character contributes to story events and suggest his or her overall arc of action. Knowing this arc can help you make better decisions at the scenic level.
The final two images show the ultimate consequences of all this. Your understanding of this future can help you see story events from a new perspective and uncover truths about the character that you might have otherwise overlooked.
Related tools in The Dramatic Writer’s Companion. You may better understand your character’s behavior by finding a root action from which all other actions flow. To learn more, go to the “Developing Your Character” section and try “Spinal Tap.”
Causing a Scene
Scenes are the steps of a dramatic journey. Ideally, each scene centers on one main event that reveals new information about the characters, changes the world of the story, and brings the dramatic journey closer to its destination. Use the following scene-development exercises during writing or revision to flesh out the elements of dramatic action, add power and depth to scenic events, and refine your dialogue.
While any number of characters may be present in a scene, each exercise focuses on the two most important ones to help you get started. Character 1 in any scene is the character who most actively makes it happen. This role is usually filled by the main character of the whole story, but others may serve as Character 1 in a scene if the main character is absent or not driving most of the scenic action. Character 2 is the second most important character in the scene.
THE REAL WORLD
THE QUICK VERSION
Explore the physical life of a scene and use it to find new story ideas
BEST TIME FOR THIS
During scene planning
PHYSICAL LIFE: THE LANDSCAPE OF TRUTH
The world of a story has a physical realm that grounds the characters in a certain reality, reveals important truths about them, and influences story events. This physical life includes the settings in which the action occurs, material elements that make up these settings, and objects that can be found here. It also includes the characters themselves: their health, their appearance, and other physical traits and conditions. Much can be learned from the physical realm of a story if you take the time to explore it.
ABOUT THE EXERCISE
This exercise can help you discover new ideas for a scene by fleshing out its physical life. Examples are from In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) by Sarah Ruhl. Nominated for a Tony Award for Best Play and selected as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010, the play shows what happens when a New York doctor in the 1880s begins to use a new invention—the vibrator—to treat “hysteria” in women and occasionally men. The story focuses on the doctor’s wife, the limited social status of women in the Victorian era, and the nature of marriage and love.
In an early scene in act 2, Character 1—who drives most of the action and makes the scene happen—is Catherine Givings, in her twenties, the lonely wife of a doctor and frustrated mother of a newborn infant whom she is unable to nurse. Character 2 is Leo Irving, in his twenties or thirties, an English painter who has been emotionally and artistically blocked since the failure of a romance nine months ago. Their relationship: Leo is a new patient of Catherine’s husband. She and Leo now meet by accident for the first time. The main event of the scene: she develops a secret crush on him.
To prepare for the exercise, choose a scene you wish to develop, identify the two most important characters—Characters 1 and 2—and define their relationship. Then sum up the main event of the scene as you see it now: what happens overall.
■ HERE AND NOW
A dramatic scene unfolds in a certain place at a certain time.
1. Setting. Ruhl’s scene takes place in the living room of the Givings house, located in “a prosperous spa town outside of New York City, perhaps Saratoga Springs.” The living room is adjacent to the doctor’s private room, also known as an “operating theater.” Identify the setting for your scene.
2. Time. Ruhl’s play takes place in the 1880s, which she des
cribes as “the dawn of the age of electricity and after the Civil War.” The exercise scene occurs on a late-winter afternoon during doctor visiting hours. Outside it has begun to grow dark. Define when your scene takes place.
3. Objects. In the front matter of her play, rather than provide a narrative description of the set, Ruhl offers a list of items that can be found here:
A piano.
Closed curtains.
Knick knacks.
One chaise.
A birdcage.
A pram/bassinette.
A rocking chair.
Sumptuous rugs, sumptuous wallpaper.
Many electrical lamps, and one particularly beautiful one, with green glass.
List at least nine objects or physical elements that can be found in your setting now.
4. Most interesting objects. Three of the most interesting items on Ruhl’s list are (a) the closed curtains, (b) the birdcage, and (c) the beautiful electrical lamp. Review your list of objects, and mark the three that you find most interesting for any reason.
5. Details. In Ruhl’s scene, (a) the closed curtains create a feeling of claustrophobia (the outside world is literally shut out); (b) the birdcage is a symbol of imprisonment, which adds to the enclosed feel of the room and of Catherine’s life; and (c) the beautiful electrical lamp is not only a sign of the opulence that the Givings enjoy but also a reminder of the new power—electricity—that has entered their lives. For each of your three most interesting objects, identify an unusual or telling detail.