A little traveling music*

The next step in the process:

The early part of my process for creating a play is intuitive.  An idea comes from... something; a news report, an article, someone else's creative work that sparks something.  Who knows.

From this original starting point, I begin to research.  I allow my mind to wander rather indiscriminately.  I go down rabbit holes, I chase my tail, I gaze at the stars.  Whatever.  I try not to censor myself, but if I find myself bored, I move on.

The research is often historical.  I love art movements; Strum und Drang, the Situationists, DaDa, and recently, if you've followed along, Riot Grrrls.

I read articles about them and I read original writing.  I make notes of quotes that strike me as interesting.  Pages and pages of notes; quotes, character notes, tidbits from hither, thither, and yon.

Then comes the analytical portion of our show.  The intuitive still plays a role and I am still researching, but I start to focus.

Plot becomes the important element.  Plot and character backstory.  I always start in the same place with plot; the Well-Made Play and Old Comedy.  Ibsen and Shaw and Aristophanes.

I don't want to write a Well-Made Play (I have written an Old Comedy,) but it is a starting point.  A Protagonist, an Antagonist, orchestrated minor characters, characters who want something bad enough to do whatever it takes to get it and who are opposed by equally strong characters who have their own goals and ambitions.

I start writing (and I mean writing) character studies.  Where did they grow up?  Did they have siblings?  Where did their parents grow up?  What were their parents jobs?  What kind of student were they?  Were they popular in high school?  What were the major traumas in their lives?  Why are they living where they are living now? On and on.  I often make a list of ten quirks of character.

I've written as many as eight or ten pages about the main characters.  Two or three about minor characters.

And I outline the plot, generally, three to five outlines.  I write a one or two line logline.  I write a one page outline.  I write a three to five pages outline.  And sometimes I write a long in depth outline with many, many details.  And there can be steps in between.

I regularly find another work, a play, a film, etc., and I emulate it in terms of plot.  Greek mythology is often a starting point.  In this particular case, Pygmalion and Pandora.  I read or watch what other's have created starting where I am thinking of starting.

This is where I am now, the analytical portion.

But please remember, none of this is hard and fast rules.  I break the "rules" all the time.  If I'm going to keep emotion in my work, I have to respond to my own emotions.

And I do.


*Jackie Gleason, The Jackie Gleason Show