Methods

Since I'm back, I thought I would title my new blog entries with single words just like my favorite guilty pleasure, Smallville. We'll see just how long that lasts...

Since coming back to The Brothers Caramillo, I feel like I've tried everything to ignite things and get to the heart of the rewrite. As stated in my last post, I found a theme song; I've spent hours drawing diagrams on my dry erase board, using different colors for each of the three brothers; and I've written notes upon notes in my moleskine, trying to understand the characters and the plot and the philosophical and theological implications that come from each decision I make...

I figure there's no one technique, no one method. I'm trying a method casserole. Or a method Jell-O mold with fruit and pecans like my mom used to make... Point is, I'm trying everything.

Recently, I looked to a method that my friend and fellow playwright Anton Jones uses. He creates a separate document for each scene of his play and then combines them when he has a completed "draft." (Note: This was a method he used when we were at the University of Iowa, so I don't know if he still uses it to this day. Anton, do you still use this method?)

While I didn't create complete, separate documents for the play, I used Final Draft to chop up the play into easily digestible scenes. But, Chris, you may ask, how is this different from what Final Draft does anyway? Good question. What I did was combine Anton's scene separation with creating French Scenes from my process as a director. French Scenes are created when different characters enter or exit a scene. So, basically, I chopped up the play further than simply scenes, into entrances and exits. This created a large and very unwieldy document, however, when you're only concerned with rewriting a particular chunk or morsel of dramatic action, it's easy to give yourself a sense of accomplishment. Today, in fact, I collapsed four French Scenes into "Act 1, Scene 2," or as I label it in my scripts now: "1.2".

What other methods do you use to set up structure or make things more manageable? How do you troubleshoot? Am I going overboard here? Let me know!

Vexation

I spoke to my friend, Andy, last night and when asked what I was up to, I said, "Besides trying to finish my 'Brothers Karamazov' adaptation?" And he said, "Is that still vexing you?"

YES! I remain vexed by the project.

BUT! Yesterday, I was back at my coffeeshop of choice, Cup O Joe, not to be confused with one of my favorite websites, cupojo.net. Anyway, so I was there, armed with a printed copy of "The Brothers Caramillo," ready to get clicking away. I had my new "bullet space pen," and started actually reading the play that I had thought was finished several months ago. Ha, ha. No, silly boy. You've left out waaaaaaay too much of the story to call this a "finished play." As I read through the play for the first time in months, I realized that the scenes I've been adding to the play for the past few weeks don't really fit into the emotional and narrative scheme that I'd created. Simply reading the play allowed me to notice all the places the play needed to expand, where all the characters and moments just needed time to breathe. So, now, I have tiny segments floating around in my mind, like deleted scenes from a dvd or something, flipping through my mind. The play is ready to expand, like it wants to take a large breath. Suppose that's what a play is: a collective in-take of breath, and at the end, whoooooooooo. The breath escapes and what is left is an odd, uneasy, energized peacefulness.

So, I typed all the nips and tucks I made yesterday, and printed out a new copy, ready to add those moments of breathing.

Pumping

I'm working damn hard to finish "The Brothers Caramillo." I had a revelation yesterday while at work, which helped me to get the play moving from the very beginning and make things interesting. I worked on making those "small-large" changes to the play this morning and feel a driving force to get the rest of the play out. I need to reread what I've written to get back on track with the new momentum of the play and to see what may or may not be working.

I also have agreed to write a 10-15 minute play for Bison Theatre for some festival. It has to be about the effects of an asteroid crash in a small town. (Watching Smallville on DVD might prove useful) Part of me wants to set it in Cedar Falls, IA, and make it an homage to Laura Farmer's simple, mundane, poetic characters.

Speaking of Laura Farmer, I owe her a new play on May 15th... I'm starting to research it... But I really have to focus on finishing "Brothers Caramillo" before I set sail on a new play...

Back at the MoJoe Lounge

I'm here at the MoJoe Lounge, just below me is the box office to the 30 screen AMC theatre here at the Easton Town Center. The large open lobby to my left that I'm lording above is somewhat distracting. There are a lot of people here for a Friday morning. Guess people are starting spring break a little early or something. I don't know. It's about 11:30am and I still have about an hour and a half before heading over to work.

Open in another window is the file of "The Brothers Caramillo," complete with some changes from today. I'm battling with a case of writer's block that is different from the kind I usually experience. This time, I actually WANT to write, I desire getting into the world of the play, but I'm having trouble getting a handle on the story at the moment. I feel like I'm confusing characters and moments and the timeline of the action. I know at this point, I should just be writing and then "fix" any continuity errors when I start revising and really putting scenes in their correct order.

My mind has been trying to fix scenes, to give each character his or her due and purpose. This play has... Let me think... Alex, Dimas, Elian, Theo, Simon, Faith, Lise, Kate... 8 characters. Not too bad. But I need to make sure that each character allows an actor a good opportunity. Lise is a problem character right now... She's Alex's "girlfriend" and isn't serving much more of a purpose than putting Alex in a particular path. I'm considering cutting her, but she does add a nice layer to Alex's character. So far she's only in a single scene, so I'm trying to find a place for her in the second act, someplace...

Theo is also a problem character. He's in the first scene of the play (or what is the first scene of the play right now) and it's a really fun scene for an actor. He's also in another scene in act 1, at the very end of act 1. But I wonder if I need him in the second act... Somewhere... There's a bit of a problem with having him in the second act, which I don't really want to divulge right now since it's the hinge that the play operates on...

And I know, I KNOW, I shouldn't be worrying about any of this right now and should just be writing scenes, building on them and letting the energy of the scenes and the discovery of new character quirks be revealed (because every new scene presents something surprising about the characters). The characters will start rebelling against the pegs I've put them into and will start tweaking themselves into different shapes. I should just let them do the work for me, you know? I feel like part of being a playwright is becoming a stenographer for imaginary people. So, I guess I should just let them talk. Shut the computer and open the Moleskine and get gritty. Let's see what happens.

The Point

I'm at the point in my writing "The Brothers Caramillo" that I love to be at. I have about pages written and am moving towards the end. I have a "first act" that tops out at 52 pages and a "second act" that is filled up by scene titles that are acting as placeholders. These scene titles are mostly names of characters that will be in the scenes: "Elian and Alex," "Dimas and Kate." Some are more descriptive of action: "Dimas Breaks into Faith's Apartment." I always put scene titles as placeholders at this point in my writing, when I know what I'm driving towards and know, somewhat, what dramatic holes need to be filled with a scene. How many of the scenes will survive? How many more scenes will I need to write? I don't know. And I won't know until more and more of the scenes are written, and I can see how the play "plays." But I'm moving with great energy and anticipation and NEED. Since I started my new job at a bank call center in the afternoons/evenings, I've taken to hitting this coffeeshop (The Cup o Joe MoJoe Lounge) in the morning (around 10 or 11). I write for two hours or so and get my body moving. The coffee and the friction of typing on the keyboard of my laptop gives me the energy to get through 8 hours of training in the afternoon. I'm finally getting my life back into a semblance of order.

Soundtracks for Plays & Moments of Shifting

This morning on the drive to school (not my school, the wife's school... I've taken to going with her since my new job doesn't start until next week in an attempt to get work done away from the TV), anyway, my wife, Rachael, was driving and from the CD player, the Joseph Arthur song, "Let's Embrace" comes on. And everytime I hear this song, my play "Father Bob" bursts forth from the ether of the back of my mind and begins playing in sound and movement, dancing freely on the lit stage right behind my eyes. It's astounding to me that this song, which became the "Father Bob" "theme," could carry an entire play within it like a capsule, a pill, and once it gets into my system, it releases every bit throughout my body. I long to find songs that are capsules for all my plays. That way, I can just listen to the song and be immersed instantaneously in the world of that play...

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Yesterday, while lamenting the fact that my reporter Moleskine notebook was left in the trunk of the car my wife had taken to school, I decided that it was an appropriate time to start planning the timeline of my play "The Brother Caramillo" (formerly "Goody Goody"). I thought about the course of events, made a list of scenes that were missing, and sketched out blue notes on my dry erase board in the corner of my office. And in these moments of staring at the jumbled blue, erasable scrawl and the "notecard" setting of the script, my mind started placing scenes in order, one after the other, and I started to see transitions. Transitions are always difficult for me as each scene I write usually has a very distinct END OF SCENE feeling to it, very precise, exact. I don't usually write with scenes bleeding and shifting in and out to each other like mingling mists. My brain doesn't think that way... (That's perhaps why I had so much trouble with writing "All Grace")

But, here's the thing, as I was "writing" (not typing or documenting, but "writing" in my head, hence the quotation marks) a new scene, something odd happened. In the corner of the stage right behind my eyes, the scene that was to follow this new scene slowly emerged from the darkness and remained in shadow. So, two scenes were happening at once, only one of them wasn't completely lit. And the thing is, the shadowed scene was commenting on and cementing a concept in the scene playing to the audience. Then, the dominant scene crashed out and the shadowy, secondary scene burst forth--BAM. It was revelatory and beautiful. The stagecraft in my mind helped bring out underlying themes in the play AND served as a theatrical and beautiful transition. I was, and remain, surprised and giddy about this new moment. Yes, giddy...