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Playwriting

Yale University Press

Contents

Preface...................................................ixPART I THE PLAYWRIGHT'S SOLITARY WORK1 Vision.................................................32 Finding and Developing Ideas...........................203 Drafting and Revision..................................41PART II PRINCIPLES OF DRAMA4 Plot...................................................735 Story..................................................1016 Character..............................................1237 Thought................................................1518 Diction................................................1839 Melody.................................................22610 Spectacle..............................................25211 A Way of Life..........................................285Appendix 1 Manuscript Format..............................295Appendix 2 Copyright Protection...........................308Bibliography..............................................311Credits...................................................317Index.....................................................319

Chapter One

... each one, by inventing his own issue, invents himself. Man must be invented each day. Jean-Paul Sartre, What Is Literature?

A writer needs something to say, an attitude about life, a point of view about existence. A drama without ideas and attitudes is a work without substance. But with few exceptions, the best playwrights don't preach; they weave ideas into the fabric of their work. After careful research, Arthur Miller employed strong convictions about integrity and resolve to write The Crucible, and the play bristles with ideas about courage in the face of persecution. As writers select characters and build stories, they put ideas to work.

So before plunging into the process of creating a script, a dramatist must decide what to write about. What gives life order and meaning? How should a person behave in extreme circumstances? By contemplating both the trivial and the momentous problems of existence, a writer ponders significant questions and examines possible responses. Only by taking the time to consider what's important in life does a writer develop something worthwhile for other people to absorb. A dramatist needn't be a professional philosopher, just a perceptive thinker. From daily experience and ongoing education, a writer devises or adopts ideas that establish an intellectual framework for grappling with existence. Every thoughtful writer, like every thinking person, faces the challenges of developing a behavioral rationale and perfecting a code of ethics. Creative work begins with ideas about the nature of human existence, and the writer's store of ideas spurs the creative act.

Seeing into Life

Vision more than skill determines the quality of a writer's work. In this context, vision means using perception, intuition, and logic to develop a system of attitudes about the world. Life experience isn't enough. A writer needs the ability to discern the emotional characteristics of people in difficult situations and the sensitivity to empathize with them. The best writers also benefit from sagacity enough to penetrate the hidden nature of things, intelligence enough to recognize universal human morality, and wit enough not to take themselves or anyone else too seriously. Creative vision is the artistic gift of seeing into life and fortifying pieces of art with meaningful insights.

A writer's vision consists of a complex system of emotional and intellectual perceptions, sentiments, and beliefs. Playwrights tend to create form in the disorder of existence. In daily life focused unity is impossible, and so writers often reject what they see and reconstruct through their personal vision a substitute universe in their art. For that material, space, and time, they destroy some of the world's confusion. Artists don't want to end the world; they wish to create it.

Some possible components of an artist's vision are awareness, perspective, good and bad dreams, and intoxication with life. Also important are issues worth fighting about that lead to battles with self, society, and the powers of the universe.

Every writer needs to maintain an intense awareness of the world, especially of humanity's recurrent questions. Why do people suffer? What is the meaning of death? Where do human struggles lead? The best writers also react to the major issues of their time. How can nations resolve their conflicts and live in peace? How can various groups live harmoniously? How can civilization survive the rising human population? How can the people of the world learn to protect their environment? The issues of a writer's country, too, may be of concern. In the United States, for instance, writers may deal with the issues of exploitation, waste, materialism, and violence in their writing. As they wrestle creatively with such problems, they focus their vision.

Without perspective, an artist cannot help but produce art that is private and arbitrary. Every writer needs to establish a perspective, an awareness of his or her place in the world and a basic attitude toward existence. A writer's perspective develops in the interaction between that person's inner life and external events. For a playwright, perspective dictates the sorts of action most appropriate for that writer's plays.

Artists, especially writers, often project their good and bad dreams into their work. Everyone daydreams, and most people try to make their best dreams come true. Artists perfect a medium for the expression of their dreams. Works of fiction or drama, whatever their nature, reflect the dreams of their authors. So playwrights need to draw from their dreams and with imagination and intelligence shape them into works of art.

Intoxication with life also stimulates art. Despite an artist's social milieu, he or she remains an individual, a one among the many. Internally, each person experiences loneness, but for an artist, isolation often provides a heightened sense of life. Loneliness may make the artist sad, but loneness means inner freedom. When alone, a person can more directly face the terror of life and rejoice in its ecstasy. One driving force in any artist is intoxication with being, with living. Loneness and liveness furnish each individual the energy to create.

All dramatists eventually deal with conflict. They learn about conflict in life and employ it in their dramas. Like most artists, writers often experience battles with other people, with the collective forces of society, and with the natural fact of death. Genuine artists seldom allow others to dictate their feelings and beliefs; they insist on examining things for themselves and reaching their own conclusions. Engagement in social, personal, and political conflicts catapults people toward freedom of choice. From conflict, writers can perceive possible new patterns of behavior or reaffirm traditional values. The battles of life provide universal experience.

Ideas about Art

As a component of vision, every artist needs to discern the principles of his or her art through the study of aesthetics, the overall theory of art. In such a...