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!