Eyes on the Road, Girlie is my latest offering. Just written a few days ago and now, of course, in rewrites.
Truth is funnier (and stranger) than fiction.
My housekeeper relayed this story in passing the other day. Her client is a 90-year-old woman who no longer drives but still loves her outings. So she has hired a caregiver, not to help with her meds, clean her house, help her shower, or fix her meals. No. She has hired Diana to drive her around three days a week. Sometimes they are random drives, sometimes to the nearby ocean beach, or a historic site, or to beautiful downtown Savannah with all of her charming squares. Her choices are never premeditated; always picked spontaneously on the morning of the outing. But! two things are absolute: Breakfast biscuits at McDonald’s and luncheon at Chik-Fil-A.
When I heard this story told in real time, my imagination sprung to life: this would make a charming, perhaps funny, (I never know when my writing will turn up funny) short play. And so, as often is the case, dialogue began running in my head until I was forced to write it down.
Fellow writers: Life and the people around you will supply you with all you need if you but look and listen.
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A good writer is always observing and watching other people and their interpersonal relationships with others. Relationships are complex and rarely resemble yours. And of course…listening. Everyone speaks differently, with a different word choice and a varied cadence to their speech. This can translate to your writing and add another layer of ‘flavor’ to your dialogue.
I also recommend watching movies or series to learn dialogue writing. But, not just the ‘bad’ movies, poorly written, poorly directed, and poorly acted. Watch the good ones too…ones you liked.
I recently was binge-watching an older series, “Six Feet Under“. One which I had loved when it was new and couldn’t wait for each episode to air. I began watching for the simple pleasure of re-watching it. But three or four episodes in, I began to critique it. Especially the character of Ruth; the mother of the Fisher family. She had a hot temper and I am certain that was ‘written’ in for the character. However, the actor, (Frances Conroy) went from 0 to 10 when the script called for temper. There was no layering. At first I blamed the writing…then the director. My final analysis was that the
writing (without seeing the script) was hardly at fault. Or maybe a little bit not having enough blocking written in. Don’t forget, emotion can be written as part of the blocking.
Then I laid some blame at the director’s feet for not noticing that his actor had only two levels; calm and yelling. And the yelling came out of the blue and was all the same. Why didn’t the director catch this? Well, he did have a huge cast to direct and watch over. So mostly the responsibility lay with the lazy actor. An actor who wants to get as much as possible out of a part would look for those layers, subtle though they may be. Ed O’Ross (Nikolai, the fiery Russian florist) was excellent at layering his character’s emotions.
No script or production is perfect. You can watch ANYTHING and learn from it. Same with reading. I’ll give you an example; when I noticed a couple of authors using the same word or phase over and over in their work of fiction, I realized I might suffer from the same curse. My nemeses is the word ‘just‘. My guard dog is the feature (in any word processing platform) ‘find’ or ‘replace’ and I use it to root out the 300 times I used ‘just’. (hahaha)
If you’re a screen writer, visuals are more important than diaglogue. Your blocking can include the silent dialogue. Write in the non-verbal speech of an actor. In ‘Six Feet Under‘, actor, Lauren Ambrose (Claire) and Jeremy Sisto (Billy) were superb with their non-verbal dialogue, using facial and eye expressions and body language. This credit I give to the director and the excellent actors.
When writing stage plays the playwright should keep ‘action’ simple. Write some emotional blocking in but always remember the director is going to have their own thoughts about how the scene should go. Be careful not to do the director’s job for them. It won’t be appreciated.
If you are a screenwriter or writing fiction you probably think you have no interest in theatre. One of your best sourses to learn about writing dialogue is the theatre. Live stage plays are the Mecca of good or bad dialogue. Go there, observe and learn!
This is my newest 10 minute play for teens and the classroom.
Synopsis: What does a girl do when her best friend’s boyfriend hits on her? Teen breakups are messy. Most teens haven’t done it very often and they consistently get it wrong. If Rob wants to be with Kelly, she has some rules about that happening. After all, Rob’s soon-to-be ex-girlfriend is Kelly’s best friend. 1 m. 3 f.
This new play is part of a series, ‘Short N’ Small’. Over 30 short plays, wonderful for the classroom. No sets, no costumes, no props.
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The Black Hills Community Theatre of Rapid City, South Dakota is opening performance dates for my play, The Guyer Girls, beginning March 31st.
Writing down my memories of my mother telling me these wild stories about herself and her four sisters when they were teenagers in the 1920s in a tiny town
Mama, Violet, Gladys, Ivah, Youngest sisters
in the Pacific Northwest was a joyful trip down memory lane and a perfect genre to preserve her stories. When I was a child, thankfully, I knew all of my aunties as older women. It’s a special event when I am notified by Samuel French, my publisher, that this particular play has been licensed to produce by a theatre group.
Synopsis:
Critics have described The Guyer Girls as a cross between Little Women and I Remember Mama. From the opening moments when Ivah cuts Violet’s eyebrows off, this story romps through the sibling antics and rivalry of a large family. The first act takes place as the young teenage girls are growing into lovely women.
The five sisters grown: (left>right) LaVerne, Violet, Gladys, Ivah and Lillias.
(left>right) Tish Evans as LaVerne, Carol Cameron as Violet, LaRee Mayes as Mama, Wendy Lowe as Lillas, and Marilyn Hovland as Ivah
In a series of family stories set in the 1920s, we enjoy the girls’ hilarious pranks, antics, joys and humiliations. There is laughter in abundance. Tears, love, and sibling rivalry as these four delightful sisters grow up under the guidance of their matriarch, ‘Mama’. A prestigious marriage, a female pro-basketball player, and a run away to Alaska, these young women couldn’t be more diverse. Fast forward to the 1940s. The sisters are adults, starting their own families and Pearl Harbor has just been attacked.
The Guyer Girls are the children of Sophia and Levi Guyer who migrated to America and then moved out west. The stage play is a rich tapestry of an American family spanning three decades and based upon the true story of the Guyer family. 4f.
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Watch for more interviews with authors. December: Marc Cameron, writing for TOM CLANCY
March-Apr: Joshua Hood, author of ROBERT LUDLUM’S THE TREADSTONE RENDITION April: Author, H.W. ‘Buzz’ Bernard
San Francisco Literary Speakeasy events at Martuni’s bar
Q. Are you working on something now or have a new release coming up? If so tell us about it.
JH. I am working on a couple of things. I collect ideas over time and fit them into projects as appropriate. I always have a couple of projects simmering on back burners. My big love right now is a High Fantasy called The Dove and the Crow. My first novel, the learning exercise that shall never see the light of day, was a High Fantasy. I love those when they are done right, with genuinely original world building and dramatic situations. I have been collecting bits for this one for a couple of years and I am now up to a 25 page outline. I am also breathing new life back into a musical show I wrote but then abandoned. The rewrite is going slow but I love the piece too much to let it die.
Q. When did you begin to write seriously?
JH. For years I wrote because I had ideas I wanted to explore and share. In my mid-thirties I realized that if I as going to spend years of my free time writing a book, then it really ought to be about something. Big themes became important to me. Goddess Chosen is about Revenge and Redemption. Goddess Daughter is about Loss and Forgiveness. Goddess Rising is about Justice. Mermaid Steel is about Cultural Erasure. The Insane God is about Accepting Change. I spent a while exploring the nature of evil. Lately I am exploring why people fall in love.
Q. Do you think we will see, in our lifetime, the total demise of paper books?
JH. No. Maybe down the road, when technology is wet-wired into us and we can experience books in a virtual space. But eReaders are not going to replace paper books. eReaders are really convenient, and can store many books at a time. But anyone who grew up holding a book in their hands will always get a more fulfilling experience with a paper volume. The cover holding the pages just makes such a satisfying package. At least that’s my admittedly old person view.
Q. What makes a writer great?
JH. You have to love writing to get good at it. You have to see tens of thousands of your own words before you can hear your voice on paper. You have to be willing to admit your mistakes and shortcomings and to go back and learn and try again. A great writer is like any great artist. If you can say what you wanted to say, and have no second thoughts, no regrets, no further edits, in other words, convey completely what you were trying to say, then you have created what you set out to create. If you have developed the skills to convey your message, then you are an artist. The audience may love it or hate it, but if you gave them what you meant to give them, then you have done your job.
Q. and the all-important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like for you?
Best in Show at the 1985 San Diego ComicCon
JH. I write in iterative drafts. I will get an idea and jot it down in a three-page synopsis. If it resonates with me, I will add to it and start to fill in details. This will grow to a ten-page synopsis. If that catches fire, I will structure it into a sequence of events and really start engineering my characters. By the time it is a 20-page outline, I am usually excited enough to start writing prose. That’s where I am now with The Dove and the Crow. It is also around this time I figure out what the book is really about and why I am excited to write it. This becomes the book blurb and the touchstone I will use to get through writer’s block and procrastination. Although I follow my outline so as to tell a cohesive story, I allow my characters to take me on alternate paths if that’s what’s right for them. So I am not a strict outliner and I am not a seat-of-the-pants writer, I am somewhere on a spectrum. I will often stop just before the final conflict
Jay as Dr. Anton Phibes from the “Abominable Dr. Phibes” winning Best Recreation at CostumeCon 8 in 1990
resolution and look back at what has transpired so far. I want to make sure I’ve wrapped up all my loose ends and that I am headed toward a resolution that will satisfy what the reader expects based on the trajectory of the story. Once I finish the draft, I will put it down for a week or more before tackling Round Two. Neil Gaiman put it brilliantly. “The second draft is where you make it look like you knew what you were trying to say all along.” Round Three is where I put in all the new details I’ve thought of since I started the project. At that point I ask myself if I have said everything I ever wanted to say in this story. If the answer is Yes, then I am done.
Did you miss Part 1 and 2 of this excellent interview? Click here
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As a playwright you better find some conflict in your story. Little Women had soft, cozy conflict but make no mistake there was conflict. Romeo and Juliet had glaring conflict represented by a family feud that wrought murder and mayhem. To be successful, you must have antagonists and protagonists in your plot.
CONFLICT: It is a challenge to write conflict with dialogue only. There is no description (like fiction) where you can tell the reader how angry and against something your antagonist is. Granted you have the characters right there in front of you, to tell the story with their body language but the dialogue carries the day and is the difference between weak writing and strong, successful writing.
Using examples from a recent play of mine, I will demonstrate conflict in simple, but successful (to the overall plot of the play) terms. A children’s play but the rules still apply and are no less challenging because it’s a kids’ play. Perhaps even more of a challenge.
Sub-PLOT: The sooner the plot is revealed the better. If you haven’t engaged the audience in the first three minutes, you don’t have a very good plot.
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Back in the day when there were truly ‘starving actors’ we started up theatre companies all the time with a couple of platforms and four ‘spots’ that one would use in a shop in the garage at home. This is a cheap ($12. a piece) adaptable, portable light. You can even attach a gel to the cone for a few pennies per gel. Use blues for night and warm colors (amber) for day. Each light has a wire running back to the control desk/booth and while you won’t have a dimmer option, you must be able to turn the light off and on.
When we started our own company, we had to be totally portable as our performance space could be an art gallery, a café, a gymnasium, or school auditorium. Anywhere they would allow us to use their space. All sites had to be vacated when the weekend was over and then loaded back in for the next performance date.
We could light just about any play with four of these clamp-on, shop lights. The purpose of any stage lighting is to light the actors and the set. If you don’t accomplish anything else, you need to make certain this happens. If your stage is in a very small space, it’s not super critical to light the actors brightly. Just be certain they stay in the light, which is where the director’s blocking comes in.
Even if you need to stick to the basics of simple illumination, lighting makes everything feel more professional and helps the audience to better focus on what is going on, on the stage. Theatrical lighting doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Lighting is about making certain that you can see the people on stage and that the moods of the play are represented and amplified.
Clamp lights aren’t the be all and end all. You’ll have to live with the shadows that they cast.
But remember, this is all you can afford now, and you’ll also need to be able to break it down and take the lighting with you.
I still remember the thrill when we could finally afford a couple of Klieg lights.
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Most theatres have a set designer who creates the set based on the director’s vision. But it is important that the playwright sees the set. Where your story takes place. If your set requires two different scenes/sets and you have structured the play around two sets you must think about time and money. Anticipate the cost because you want the director to choose your play to produce. But if the cost of more than one set is too much, your play might never be chosen.
An envelope design works nicely for the need of two locations/sets in one play. The first set in created on the outside fold of an envelope. When the scene changes the ‘flap’ is opened, like a tri-fold (by the stage crew) and a new set/location is used. Set pieces (Furnishings) have to be changed out and this calls for some cleverness on the director’s part.
One play comes to mind that I directed: The Cemetery Club. The main set was a living room of one of the female characters. But I also needed a Jewish cemetery. The four widows went there every month to visit their dead husbands and maintain the gravesite.
So what I designed was a single backdrop (scenery). What you might see out the living room window. Then I furnished the living room with set pieces. Sofa, chairs, coffee table, lamps, etc.
Upstage on a riser I created the cemetery with three graves. I designed starfoam monuments with the Star of David on the downstage side. The women would walk up on the risers and, while gazing at the graves, deliver their monologues. It worked because the actors believed it. Thus the audience believed it. The magic of theatre!
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Available NOW: How To Write a 10 Minute Play ~~ Journal and Handbook
Lots of great instruction about the art of writing a ten minute play. And over 250 blank, lined pages for your creative writing as you write your first or tenth 10 minute play.
Excerpt from back cover: ‘As you prepare to write your first 10-minute play, pretend that you have walked into a room and interrupted a conversation, mid-sentence. Or you have turned on the television and tuned into a sit-com, ten minutes into (late) a thirty-minute episode. That’s where your head space should be when you begin writing your play. Give yourself permission. Sit down and write.
This journal/workbook gives you not only the space to write down your ideas for a play but there are instructional sections to help you create your ten-minute play. Develop your story line. Create the characters. Try out different dialogue. 250+ blank, lined pages with famous quotes by actors, playwrights, and writers on each page to inspire the writer in you.’
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“Writing isn’t a calling; it’s a doing!” t. sugarek
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My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary, December: Mimi Mathews, February: Jennie Goutet, April: S. Brian Jones To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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This beautiful journal/handbook is now available in Hardcover. Here’s a little of what you can expect inside. Plus hundreds of blank pages for your own writings and plans for a stage play.
1. Format is very important. If you submit your new play to anyone they will not read it if it is not in the proper format. There is software out there that offer auto-format but I found them lacking. The character’s name is centered. Blocking (action) is indented and placed in parentheses. Setting (indent once), Rise (indent once) and Dialogue is far left. Double space between character’s name and first line of dialogue. Blocking (action): is placed below the character’s name in parentheses. (indent x 3). A ‘beat’ is a dramatic pause to enhance the pace of the speech and is placed in the dialogue where you wish the actor to pause for a beat or two.
2. Each page represents approximately one minute of time on stage. So if you have a play that is 200 pages long, that won’t work. Audiences aren’t going to sit for more than one and a half hours unless you are providing a circus, a fire drill, sex, and an earthquake. You should keep your full length script to about 100 pages which equals 1.6 hours of stage time. For a one act divide that by 2. For a ten minute play your script should be from 10-15 pages. These times and figures are debated by others but this has been my experience as an actor/director/writer.
3. Leave lots of white space on the page. One day when your play is being produced, actors will need a place to make notes in the script during rehearsal. This is a sample of an actor’s (mine) working script. The
actor usually ‘highlights’ their lines and writes the director’s blocking in the margins. (in pencil, as blocking frequently changes)
4. The blocking is indented, in parentheses, and directly below the character’s name. This is where the playwright gives the characters instructions on when and where to move. But, keep it short and sweet. Remember there will be a director who has their own ideas of where he/she wants their actors to be. Be aware of costume changes in your writing. An actor can’t exit stage left and enter stage right, seconds later, if you haven’t written in the time it will take for them to accomplish a costume change.
5. Your script has to work on a stage. If your story takes place in more than one locale, you have to be aware of the logistics of set changes. So keep it simple to start. If you are ambitious in your setting buy a book on set design to research if your set is feasible. There are some wonderful ‘envelope’ sets that unfold when you need to change the scene. But you have to consider the budget; would a theatre have the money to build it? Always a worry.
6. Dialogue: Now here’s the sometimes hard part: everything you want the audience to know about the story and the characters, is
conveyed in the dialogue. Unlike a short story or a novel, where you can write as much description as you’d like, a play script has none of that. NO description.
Here is a Sample of formatting your script correctly. (Click link for details.)
Journal includes instruction on:
How To Begin How to Write a Play
Formatting your Play on the Page
How to write Dialogue
How to Create Rich, Exciting Characters
Designing a Set
Stage Lighting Stage Terminology
and more….. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary, December: Mimi Mathews To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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In remembrance of the innocent victims killed in a senseless shooting. Inspired by that horrible day, I wrote a ten minute play for the classroom in the hopes that teens would learn more about the circumstances that led up to that day. Perhaps more teens would open up about their thoughts and fears through performance of this play. The child (and yes he is a child regardless of his heinous actions) was in court yesterday pleading guilty to 17 murders of students, coaches and teachers.
Synopsis:
Mass shootings are a part of our current culture. Not until now did I have something to say (write) about so many mass murders.
This ten minute play for teens in the classroom is to honor and memorialize the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. It focuses on a small class of students hidden away in safety by their English teacher and what happens while they wait for the shooting to stop. But the question begs will they ever be safe again?
The victims:
My Mr. Hale (play) is fashioned after Scott Beigel, 35, a geography teacher and the school’s cross-country coach. He was killed after he unlocked a door to allow students in to hide from the shooter.
Alyssa Alhadeff
Aaron Feis
Martin Duque Anguiano
Nicholas Dworet
Jamie Guttenberg
Chris Hixon
Luke Hoyer
Cara Loughran
Gina Montalto
Joaquin Oliver
Alaina Petty
Meadow Pollack
Helena Ramsay
Carmen Schentrup
Peter Wang
My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry, October: Life Coach, shaman, author, Jennifer Monahan, November: Susanne O’Leary. To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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Don’t Be shy about about editing some of your older work. For example, Next! A Hollywood tale. This stage play is from 2009. Full length drama, for adults. What inspired me to look at it again was a little flurry of book sales for this play.
So I pulled it out, dusted it off and read it again. And found some interesting spots to make it better. In this latest revision I added a whole new scene, which was overlooked the first go around. I couldn’t believe that I had neglected to tie up a loose thread, which the new scene did nicely.
I have a philosophy; That is that no story is ever finished and I’ve never been shy about looking back and seeing if something needs a good polish or a rewrite.
This story is about ‘cattle calls’. Auditions that are open to the public; to anyone with a resume and a headshot. Grueling, harsh, and often cruel, the casting directors are ruthless and go through starving actors like a threshing machine.
Synopsis: Four young, brash actors come to Hollywood to live out their dreams of making it big in tinsel town. They are convinced that hard work and honed skills will bring them everything that they ever dreamed of. They discover that hard work and talent have very little to do with success.
This full length play tells the story of the unflagging optimism of these four actors. They never give up in spite of the daily exploitation and frustration. This comedic drama portrays the real story behind the auditions, the type casting, the ruthlessness and hidden agendas of the movie industry. How the beautiful people, with virtually no acting talent, become stars overnight while trained, talented actors work for years in menial jobs while pursuing a career in film and theatre. The four characters are representational of all the fine, new actors that Hollywood lures into its machination of heartbreak. The author purposely uses only first names as a symbol of how dispensable these young people are.
A surprising and shocking ending will keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
My weekly BLOG features INTERVIEWS with best-selling AUTHORS! January: Madeline Hunter, February: Mike Lupica, March: Lee Matthew Goldberg, May: Jenny Colgan, June: Don Bentley writing for Tom Clancy, August: Veronica Henry. October: Susanne O’Neal To receive my weekly posts sign up for my
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Eyes on the Road, Girlie is my latest offering. Just written a few days ago and now, of course, in rewrites. 
On the home page. Enter your email address. Watch for more interviews with authors. 
A good writer is always observing and watching other people and their interpersonal relationships with others. Relationships are complex and rarely resemble yours. And of course…listening. Everyone speaks differently, with a different word choice and a varied cadence to their speech. This can translate to your writing and add another layer of ‘flavor’ to your dialogue. 
If you are a screenwriter or writing fiction you probably think you have no interest in theatre. One of your best sourses to learn about writing dialogue is the theatre. Live stage plays are the Mecca of good or bad dialogue. Go there, observe and learn! 
A few BOOKS
The Black Hills Community Theatre of Rapid City, South Dakota is opening performance dates for my play, The Guyer Girls, beginning March 31st. 
Q. What makes a writer great?
Available NOW
