WRITING FOR RADIO

You should consider radio writing for these reasons:

• It is a rich and imaginative medium, but one surprisingly easy to master (compared to the behemoth of stage).
• It’s much easier to get a radio play produced than a theatre piece.
• Publically-owned radio stations in the U.S.A., Britain, Australia, France and Germany still produce many hours of radio work in each. Dozens of new writers get their first professional credit from radio play.
• There’s a surprising amount of artistic and professional recognition (not to mention satisfaction) from writing a radio play.
•  Radio writing allows for a much wider range of writing styles than our current theatre scene does.
•  Radio writing is, on one level, much closer to film writing than to play writing, so two things will occur: a) your writing will broaden; and b) you will learn how to write for film by starting out in radio.
• The most common form for radio (currently) is the thirty-minute radio play. It’s a very achievable creative ambition for new and developing writers. A 30-minute radio play can be written in weeks, or less.
• The money’s okay: about what most first-time novelists earn for their first novel (which took them three years).

Writers need creative refreshment and variety, so short of lying on the beach, writing for a different medium might be a road to consider.

IS IT RADIO OR THEATRE?

The first step in writing for radio is having an idea, a story, an image, a ‘moment’ that you think will resonate in radio space. (Correction: the first step in writing for radio is to listen to it. Listen to radio plays on your local public radio network, for that’s where your work will most likely be done).

Until you develop the ‘radio instinct’ (that comes form listening to upwards of thirty hours of radio plays), here are some rules-of-thumb to assist you in answering one crucial question: Is my story/idea right for theatre or radio?

Some criteria to help you decide:

• Does the idea have sound built into it, or implied? Radio should be described more as a ‘theatre of sound’ rather than a ‘theatre of words’. Sound images, music, the non-verbal utterances of the human body, the acoustic landscape (or an imposed one) are all possible in imaginative radio writing.
• Is the idea set outdoors? Radio loves the outdoors (much more than rooms; in fact, radio is at its weakest when depicting ‘scenes set in a room’.
• Is the idea/story an intensely interior one? (For example, I once heard a radio play made up almost entirely of the interior thoughts of a hospital patient in a coma. The outside world couldn’t hear a thing, but the radio audience could hear everything; the convention of radio allows for inner voices (more easily than theatre or film does).
• Is fear built into the idea/story? Radio does fear very well. Think of the original radio “Mystery Half Hour” types of programmes.
• Is intimacy and closeness part of the world of your story? Again, radio does that well.
• Is it funny? To put it mildly, radio does humour well. The range of comedy styles that radio can accommodate is amazingly wide: from the subtle, near-interior intimacy of ‘smiling comedies’, to the histrionic, mad-manic performances of the Goons (whom you can still hear, fresh as ever, on Sunday afternoons and Friday mornings).
• Is coldness or austerity a part of the story or its world? Again, radio does sparseness and ‘cold’ very well, especially if the narrative idea is strong.
• Is fantasy built into the idea? Radio does most of the F’s superbly: fear, frigidity, fun, fantasy– and sex.
• Does it have a central character or central relationship? Radio thrives on cast sizes with up to four or so main characters. Of course you can have more, but a concentrated cast size (especially in a 30-minute piece) allows for great intensity and focus.
• Does the story have numerous locations? Like film, the rhythms of radio’s story-telling thrives on changes of place. In fact, it’s not going too far to say that unlike theatre’s medium (time/space) radio’s basic parameters are time and place. And ‘place’ in radio is a lot less expensive than film. “Scene 2: the Sahara” is a radio sound-effect; in film, it’s the beginning of an ambitious French/Algerian co-production.
• Does the idea have a central narrator? The use of narrators is a vexed question (both for radio and stage; and a lot of film-makers suffer greatly over the use of the filmic equivalent: voice-over). But there’s no doubt that radio has used central (and focussing) narrators very effectively (The Goons, The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and lots of one-off radio plays)
• Is there a metaphysical level to the idea? For example, I have heard stories where characters talk to their dead fathers or lovers; where foxes have voices, where stones weep, where a woman talks to the young girl she once was. Radio does this so easily.
• Is the plot basically a one-action story? A thirty-minute radio play is (more or less) the equivalent of a one-act theatre piece. If the idea has a natural ‘second part’, then it’s possibly too long for the current format. Alternately, it may be possible to write a play in two parts of thirty minutes each. Be sure, however, that the idea/story justifies such extension.

As a writer, I believe strongly in the notion of ‘creative refreshment’ where one’s powers of invention are restored and strengthened through trying new media, reading in new areas, developing new skills, analysing other forms, or simply, taking the chance to ‘sit back and think’.

For more on the techniques of radio writing, see my book The Techniques of Radio Writing.

It’s easy to lampoon his approach. On the above basis, Jeffrey Archer is one of the world’s greatest authors. McDonald’s has developed the best cuisine. Club Med is the finest travel experience known to mankind. All are very popular. All enjoy wonderful success in their fields. So what’s the problem?

The problem for playwrights who have yet to be produced is that many of the works that fill our stages are successful (in box office terms), but are not always good. To put the reverse question, is it possible for a theatrical work to be ‘good’ and yet not be successful, in fact not even be produced? I would argue that our current theatre is one of cautious middle-level achievement, for several reasons: first, theatre is hard at the best of times. Plays will always be hard to write. Second, our audience is not an especially knowledgeable or experienced one; they are just older (and getting more so). Third, the demands of box office are often antithetical to the demands of the art itself. In many theatres, a small-cast play that doesn’t “frighten the horses” (as an artistic director once put it to me) has more than a fair chance of not sending the theatre broke.

Thus, if it’s almost as important for a work to be successful as for it to be ‘good’ (read: artistically ambitious, excellent in craft, using the resources of the theatre to the full etc etc), then what are the legions of unproduced writers to do? How are they to write?

Very early in my writing development I remember going to lots of theatre, seeing lots of plays, and walking out after each one with the thought: “That is how I should write.” Having, at that stage, no idea of what my true theatrical voice was, I latched on to the last good show I’d seen. In retrospect, it wasn’t too bad a policy to adopt, for reasons I’ll go into below.

I deal with many writers. At least half of them are unproduced,or have only received one or two productions of their work. In their darker moods, many would sometimes see themselves as failures, or at least in the ‘yet to succeed’ category. In their 4 a.m. moments, they probably wonder if there’s any point to their continuing to write plays.

Personally, I am against people “continuing to write plays”, unless that is part of a wider artistic development. Before we can become playwrights we need to become artists. An artist is someone who simultaneously develops a world view while equipping him/herself with the means of expressing that view. (By ‘world view’ I don’t mean having a political opinion for every occasion; politics is simply one aspect. By world view, I mean an aesthetic which combines the truths of the human inner life with the realities of our outer life, after which it’s simply a search for the stories/ songs/ images that express the developed aesthetic).

What I am suggesting is that our search for ‘theatrical success’ is fruitless unless we ally it to a passionate commitment to artistic development. Is this too idealistic? I don’t know. All I know is that ‘artistic development’ is the most wonderful fun. It’s no more a duty than eating chocolate. Let me list the ways that will both develop you as an artist and help your plays to get better:

1. Read a lot. Marsha Norman believes writers should read for four hours a day. No exceptions. My own suggestion is this: read twice as much as you write. Be constantly ‘in-filling’ rather than constantly churning out. The best writing is a distilled process; the result of thought, reading and intuition. Reading is also the best stylistic education you’ll get.
2. See everything: films, plays, puppet shows, children’s theatre, opera, ballet, workers’ theatre, installations, pub theatre, exhibitions, poetry competitions, performance art, demonstrations, moratoriums, S-11 strategy meetings and other circuses. For that’s what life is: a chaotic, free-wheeling circus. Without a broad experience of performance, you’re liable to create something that’s either unoriginal, been done before, or has never been done before (for a very good reason.)
3. Aim to become experts in your most favourite genres (in any medium). Occasionally I meet a writer who is so determined to write in an ‘original voice’ that s/he avoids all other works, writers and genres. This innocent attitude ignores the fact that the great playwrights were deeply enculturated artists who understood every literary and artistic form of their age (and wrote in most of them, or like Shakespeare, wrote in all of them!) If you like spy thrillers, then read or see lots of them. There’s a good chance that there’s an important (artistic) reason why you’re drawn to them.
4. Study the genres/writers/ plays that you love. An original ‘voice’ is actually the product of many voices and many influences. Pinter once said, “I’m influenced by everything I see and read.” No one has accused Harold of being an unoriginal plagiarist. Give yourself permission to imitate/ learn from/ steal from every work and writer whom you admire. The fact that it will be strained through the sieve of your own consciousness (and be expressed via your own original story) will be enough to guarantee that it’s yours.
5. Realise that a central part of our modern aesthetic is its fragmentation, which involves a constant need to synthesize. Synthesis is that process of bringing together disparate elements: eg, ragtime meets western; plays-within-plays; the disruption of linear form in favour of a recurring argument (or scene). Styles, genres, linguistic modes are all ‘clashed together’ to see what (if anything) emerges. It’s a sign of either our search for a new path, or a sign of our artistic degeneracy. Leaving that question for future resolution, our (highly enjoyable) task is to respond to whatever fragments (of form, language etc) that we discover, and use them wherever the creative urge demands.
6. See your period of being unproduced as being that special time when you were allowed to get better. Imagine if your first work really was produced! Would you ever live it down? My first play was so bad, I would have made an instant laughing stock of anyone silly enough to be involved in it. Sometimes, rejection is a big favour (even when it’s disguised as a kick in the guts.)
7. Fall in love with your ideas, and the stories that express them. They may well be the only signpost available to lead you toward your future voice as a mature creative artist. I am constantly astounded by how many wonderful ideas (often the central narrative or theatrical premise) that lie dormant in the works of writers whose work I read. I try and make them see how exciting a play or story the finished play would be if it actually realised the power of its own central idea. I then meet the writer a few months later… and s/he has lost heart. In other words, these writers have lost their faith in the power and imaginative potential of their own ideas. With ruthless efficiency, they then extend that doubt to all areas of their art, and in no time at all, they’ve given up playwriting or taken up story editing for TV. If you have a very unique idea that you are convinced will make a wonderful play/film/novel, you should keep it alive by constantly doing a little bit of work on it, a bit more research, a further exploration and reading. Whatever keeps the fire burning. I write because it excites me, but excitement needs the sustenance which comes from the pleasurable and secret knowledge that “this work is getting richer and more wonderful.” Until the phone call comes from the State Theatre Company, keep being excited by your own work. Sooner or later, that excitement has to show up in the work itself.
8. Plan a very modest series of steps that will ensure that not only is the work realistic (and not over-demanding of your time) but is hugely enjoyable.(Only about half of the writers I meet give me the impression that the act of writing is an exciting, pleasurable thing.) Enjoyment comes when you’re doing something small but significant toward the completion of something you love. Anything else is hard work and ultimately deadening. Planning an enjoyable and very achievable series of small steps, (“This weekend, I write Scene Two”) avoids one of the biggest traps of the unproduced writer: the longing for “a big space of time when all I’ll have to do is think about my writing.” Such an unfulfillable yearning for spaces of time that usually don’t exist is almost guaranteed to stop you completing your play.
9. Finally, in these thoughts for those temporary dwellers in the Land of the Unproduced, I have a simple suggestion: Take the very first offer you get. Don’t hang out for that call from Covent Garden, Playbox, Sydney Theatre Company or the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. If a passionate, young and half-mad director adores your work and wants to put it on in a small shed with six chairs, take the offer! Plays (and playwrights) get better by being produced, at which point, you’ll have no more need for an article like this…

The fact is, that even if you, as writer, get the ‘structure’ right, and have a believable/likeable, “interesting” character, that won’t guarantee anything. Many American plays, in particular, are full of very tight plots, and a Jonsonian spectrum of characters from the mean, hard-assed to the girl you’d take home to meet Mom… but mostly, these plays are dead. They are dead, not because they have plot problems, or character problems, but because their language is dead. In fact, there is no theatrical language– there is only dialogue.

I personally prefer to avoid the word ‘dialogue’. It suggests one purpose above others– to be functional. You hear it a lot in films (which are the true inheritors of the 19th century ‘well-made-play’). In films, the dialogue,(ie, what characters say) is used primarily to advance the action. And that action is mostly outer action.

If you accept the view I’ve put in previous articles– that the job of a play is to dramatise the inner life, but in a social context– then the role of language is to symbolically represent that inner life and its struggles.

How is this done? I’ll list, in no particular order, some thoughts and ideas on how to create a truly symbolic and complex theatrical language.

1. TELEVISION. Avoid watching television unless you’re there to laugh at it. Its banalities, literalness and, ironically, mundane pretentiousness would be laughable in a more sophisticated climate of thought and imagination. This is not just mud-throwing or elitism. One of the greatest threats to vital dramatic language is the banality, the obviousness and the so-called social realism of what passes for dialogue on Australian television. Far too many theatre scripts, produced and unproduced, replicate these crudities, with disastrous artistic effects. A number of the ideas below are specifically designed to counter the shallow realism that dominates TV and seeps over into playscripts.
2. LITERATURE. Avoid duplicating the distanced, contemplative feel of literature. Theatre is not literature– or rather, as Dorothy Hewitt said, it is not JUST literature. It is also visceral, emotionally-driven, imaginatively anarchic, mystical, untameable, and mysterious. The most common symptom of this particular ‘dialogue disease’ is the script full of ‘beautiful writing’, lots of images, which reads wonderfully, but is lifeless when physicalised and moved by actors in time and space. There is no fire in the words, no emotional focus, only the distanced abstraction of the experience of literature, that ‘recollection in tranquility’ that produces a lifeless theatrical experience. Again, a number of the suggestions below are about rekindling the fire that should be blazing under the words you write.
3. Drastically under-write, which makes an actor put great feeling into the highly-compressed phrases, motifs and words you write; and most importantly, it makes an audience work to imagine and experience the ‘gap’ between the words.
4. Have key motifs that are obsessing the characters, which they may repeat at various points in the text. These ultimately build up the rich thematic network of ideas, themes, references and multiple meanings that make a play so memorable. Think of the relentless effect that Big Daddy achieves with his “Mendacity” motif, in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF.
5. Avoid cliches, and other predictable “what she’d say in this situation” type of language. Pummelling an audience with ordinary and expected language is a sure way to train them not to listen hard in your plays.
6. Avoid directness (or rather obviousness) of meaning, unless it’s at near-white heat. In one sense, theatrical language is always at white heat. The only question is in what direction the heat is aimed– at other characters, or towards the character him/herself.
7. Create a different syntax, linguistic rhythm and vocabulary for each of the characters in your play. The principle is this: A character with a specific emotional and inner life should talk differently from another character with a different set of emotions and outlooks. Shyness has its own syntax and vocabulary; so does anger, envy, lust, ambition and apathy.
8. Try to create definite rhythms in your language, with emphasis, flow, rhythmic modulation and variation. Until you are used to this notion, you should aim to be over-emphatic. Treat each of your lines as a piece of verbal music. Study the principles of phrasing, treated briefly in the next point.
9. Analyse what makes an ‘actable line’. I would define it by saying that an actable line has focussed movement toward a clear rhythmic point of emphasis. That is, the line has a clear payoff, a strong emphatic climax toward which the whole line was moving. Personally I find that if the line can’t be gestured to (with arms), ie if you can say the line and it has no momentum to it, and your hands stay firmly in your lap as you speak the line out loud, then it is very likely not an actable line. As strange as this sounds, you should try it before laughing. It also probably explains why a typical theatre foyer is such a dangerous place, and your drink is in constant fear of being sent flying by a gesticulating arm.
10. Use the ‘musical notation’ that dashes, dots, exclamation marks, and brackets to create a page that is alive with performance indications. Here is some of your notational repertoire– ( ) — … !!!! ?!?!?!, not to mention the occasional CAPITAL LETTERS!!!! In other words, Make the text look alive on the page. It also indicates that you’ve devoted time to making the text actable, a volatile linguistic ‘music’ with all the appropriate ‘phrase marks’. But don’t go overboard like some U.S. scripts which have banal language followed by FIFTEEN EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
11. Practise multi-directionality. By this I mean, create language textures where (for eg) character A is firing words at B, while also addressing C who is offstage, while also talking to D on the telephone. This helps to create the theatrical space, where energy is fired in several directions at once.
12. Ask a question rather than make a firm statement. This creates the impression of a questing, striving character who is not just dealing with the surface requirements of the plot but is also dealing with something mysterious and deep within him/herself.
13. Rarely answer a question directly. There are several good reasons for this. First, to most questions asked, there is an obvious answer, and it is not your job but the AUDIENCE’S to imagine that answer. Alternatively, if the answer to a question is obvious, then it shouldn’t be spoken.
14. Miss steps in the rational flow of dialogue. By this I mean that if there are four steps in the question-answer sequence between two characters, it’s to divide up that thought-flow into what can be spoken, what should simply be implied and not spoken, what can be physically acted, and what can be felt or experienced by the actor/character.

    A good example of this is from Stephen Sewell’s early play, THE BLIND GIANT IS DANCING, where one woman says, “I’m looking for the woman that’s sleeping with my husband”, and the other woman (the guilty party) says, “What do you see?” Note how many steps in the chain of logic are missing. It’s precisely what’s missing that supplies the imaginative magic for an audience. They act out the obvious responses in their minds, leaving the actors free to come up with a better, more subtle one.

15. Practise (but not over-use) the art of the ‘pick-up’, which is where the last line of character A’s text is picked up and spoken as the first word of character B’s.
16. Avoid literalness, and aim for lateral language, which answers the issue from another angle.
17. Write imagistically (a whole area of investigation in itself) but do so in a highly-textured speech (full of clausal intercutting) where pace, rhthym and emotional intensity stop it turning into ‘literature to be read’. ((My up-coming book The Techniques of Contemporary Theatre Writing has a whole chapter on writing imagistically.)
18. Finally, remember a principle that David Mamet espoused: “No character should say what s/he wants unless that is the best way to get it.” The creation of a secret inner life that is driven by desires that cannot be stated is the foundation of much of the ideas I’ve raised in this article. The end result for an audience makes it well worth the extra work.

Getting lost mid-piece, as I often did, I used to believe that writing problems were a result of my writing inexperience. I now believe, however, that this fragmented and difficult process (sketches, drafts, false starts, speculative endings) is crucial and is itself the actual process that others eventually call good writing.

The fragmented process is most necessary with regard to character, which to me is the soul of theatre. Theatre, more than film, is an exploration of character. Or, to put it better, theatre is about revealing, not the richness of character, but its essential MYSTERY. Human beings are mysteries. Theatre characters should be doubly so. Who really knows the great theatre characters? Hamlet, Iago, Blanche, Willy Loman; these are not rounded, explicable characters, far less “people I’ve met”. Essentially, a stage character is a symbol. A symbol of not just the play itself, but of us, or rather, our inner life.

A play exists in order to allow us to dream. A play itself is a dream, a fantasy, a rumination, a brooding, whether malignant or benign.

Stage characters are incomplete symbols of a more-or-less complete picture; the complete picture being the writer’s vision of his/her world. The function of character is to provide a rich but INCOMPLETE portion of the whole.

This is not to say that characters should be thin or two-dimensional. What I am suggesting here is that at the heart of the great characters is an insoluble mystery. A puzzle. “Why is Hamlet like that?” “What makes Iago tick?”

I don’t believe it’s our job as writers to explain characters to our audience– the pschological strip-tease that Brecht derided. Our fundamental job is to create characters so strange, mis-shapen and incomplete that they will not leave the audience’s imagination alone, and it finds it has taken them home, and even disturbed their sleep.

How is this done? For such a seemingly esoteric conception of character, the steps are surpringly clear and practical. I’ll list here eighteen ways:

1. Give characters an inner life that is powerful, chaotic, at odds with their outer life, and most importantly, an inner life they do not understand.
2. Give this inner life a power over them they cannot control.
3. Make their language the means whereby they wrestle with their inner lives.
4. At the very core of them, have them galvanised by the contradictions of their own nature. Why not? Real people are.
5. Give them a limited understand of themselves, and– fatally– others.
6. Give them a dramatic goal that is at odds with their fragmented nature, or accords with only one aspect of it.
7. When creating them, think of the human personality as a kaleidoscope. There is not one personality, not even two or three sub-groups (a la Freud), there is not just a Jungian shadow. If you think in terms of the kaleidoscope, then a particular interaction with one character will bring out certain colours of the personality; an interaction with another will bring out other colours.
8. To express these many selves without confusion to the audience, or diffusion of the dramatic drive, establish a hierarchy or “which self dominates”. That said, however, give each other the ‘lesser selves’ a voice, a beat, a moment in the play, however partial and temporary. It may be an insight, a thought, an action considered and then withdrawn. Anything that will indicate to an audience that here is a powerful, driven self in perpetual reflection on its own nature.
9. To this end, study how Shakespeare writes “parenthetically”. That is, a single observation, a clear line of action, is intercut with others but without derailing the main thrust of the speech. Mamet literally writes parenthetically, thus indicating to the audience that this character is aware of his/her own complexities.
10. Create a story that, the longer it proceeds, the more contradictions it exposes– in the world of the play, and the characters themselves.
11. Create a “character dilemma” that gives two options to a major character, both fine and both terrible… and yet only one can be chosen.
12. Think of your plot as being the set of contradictions that put great pressure on one or more of the fragments of the characters’ personality or nature.
13. Widen the character’s “existential spectrum”– that is, what he or she most conceives to be a personal hell and heaven; and then let the character experience both during the course of the play (whether through action, imagination, dream, foreboding, yearning or desire.)
14. Give them a thought-life, and this thought-life is taken very seriously by them, even if it is expressed lightly.
15. Give them a feeling-life, where the range, intensity and history of their emotions is as wide and deep as most people (often wrongly) believe theirs to be.
16. Think of a plot that draws on the character’s experience in any or all of the following thirteen levels of experience– physical, biological, social, professional, emotional, sensual, sexual, intellectual, aesthetic, ethical, moral, philosophical and spiritual.
17. Make them fail to live up to their own ideas.
18. Make them momentarily successful in living up to their own ideals.

And finally, create a Rosebud for your major character(s)… and then abandon it. Rosebud, as we know, eschatology aside, was Citizen Kane’s lost sled, the symbol of the only existence Kane ever had in which he experienced love. Personally, I suspect that while Rosebud was a good narrative “puzzle-solving” device to get them out of the movie house with a sense of completeness and satisfaction, its writers themselves may have blushed at its very neatness (not to mention its inherent sentimentality). A symbol exists because it means one and many things. A symbol that neatly explains everything is no symbol– it’s just a plot device. The strength of symbol is how much we are fascinated by what we know of these characters, and yet, days, even weeks after the performance, are still puzzling over their fragmented, contradictory, volatile and unstable natures.

But so is a ‘relationship journey’, and for some strange reason it’s much less talked and analysed about, even though a relationship journey in plays is as common and necessary as a character journey. Hence this article. I apologise if the following is too obvious to be discussed. We clearly haven’t met, and I haven’t read your work, for in the majority of my fellow writers’ work I find there are big problems in the characters that can be traced to a failure to understand the notion of the ‘relationship journey’. Thus, if this is too obvious for you, please accept my apologies, and I’ll buy you a drink at your next opening night.

Like most journeys, the relationship journey is marked by phases, which I identify below. I’ll also indicate what I think are the basic ‘technical’ aspects involved in the writing of these phases. There are, however, exceptions and qualifications to these phases, which I’ll also address.

1. The Collision of Strangers

In many stories and plays, characters do not set out to meet each other. They encounter each other accidentally, and do not welcome the encounter when it comes. Thus, this first meeting is often accompanied by a surprising degree of conflict. But there are also other things: fate, coincidence, danger and threat. One way to see dramatic characters and their effect on each other is to think like this: “The person that character A meets will be the one person s/he most dreads, but for whom, in retrospect, is most necessary to his/her spiritual survival.” (Notice that I write ‘spiritual survival’ rather than ‘physical survival’; while plays can deal with matters physical, its supreme achievement is putting onstage characters whose soul, mind or psyche is at risk.)

Some technical aspects of this phase: high conflict leading to some turning point moment, where you give the characters (and the audience) a reason for this relationship to continue. (I’ve seen/read so many plays where I know the audience would ask “Why would s/he ever see this other person again?”) It’s also in this initial phase that the social reality of the characters (and the play) is sketched in: where they come from, what sort of town it is etc. You don’t go overboard, but explain enough to give the opening encounter some reality and bite.

2. From Strangers to Friends

As I said, characters often need a reason to return or come back into contact with each other. They usually need a reason to be still trying to deal with each other. (Its one reason why the over-worked ‘family play’ is trotted out; families don’t need a reason to re-encounter each other.) But strangers do. There’s another benefit to bringing a stranger into the world of a play. Put simply, they bring the audience in with them. The audience follows the stranger in. The audience thinks, “I’m a stranger (to this world/story) too. I’ll follow her and see what she learns.” The word ‘learns’ is crucial here. You’d tell a stranger things that an insider would already know. But the most important thing about this phase is that friendship or closeness should not be won easily. When a character starts off his journey in a play, he is usually wedded to the psychological state he has been living in. Just because a stranger arrives is no reason for him to think, “Oh, I’ll change my life, because she (the stranger) has challenged me to.” In other words, the stranger is still being resisted, even at this 2nd encounter.

Technical aspects of this phase: as indicated, a great resistance to change one the part of at least one character; a diminishing of the social function (that is, the reason for the return visit/encounter) in favour of an emphasis on the personal/psychological encounter. In other words, they get personal. Thus, more (and deeper) character information comes out. The conflict is heightened; a sense of one of the character’s personal dilemmas is hinted at and starts to have a life of its own. (See it like this: the arrival of character B presses buttons in A that s/he didn’t even know still existed; chaos is starting to foment inside A, and the foment is highly unwelcome.) The turning point of this phase is more permanent than the turning point of the previous phase. In fact, it’s probably closer to a ‘breakthrough’ than a turning point, as the conflict has probably made something huge and important start to happen inside the soul of the character who resists.

3. From Friends to… (Lovers/Soul Mates/Second Self.)

I use the word ‘friend’ very advisedly. It’s often the wrong term for the types of dramatic relationships that are possible in plays. In real life, do friends fight as much as the average dramatic relationship? Probably not, and that’s because in real life, friends exists on the social surface. But in plays, a ‘friend’ is closer to ‘enemy’ because they are fighting over possession of your soul, and dealing with deep, nasty, hidden, private, volatile and painful things that the dramatic character would rather remain hidden. Hence there’s usually more conflict in plays than real life. But for all the resistance to character change, it still occurs, and eventually the relationship of A and B has become important to each other. In this vital phase, lots of things start to happen: the characters may start to enjoy each other’s company (instead of just pretending to, as before). They may start to need each other (for business, personal, sexual or psychological reasons). The relationship may become co-dependent and even addictive. It’s at this point that a character finally ‘confesses’ things: about the true state of her soul, about what she really wants from life and the other character; and at this phase a glimpse of the character’s personal Heaven and Hell is first seen (and certainly first explained.)

Technical aspects of this phase: this phase, being so big and important for the characters (and the play) usually takes more than a single scene (unlike the previous two phases); risk should be involved for one or both of the characters; (that is, “If I do this, I will lose x, y and z.”) Crucially, whatever has attracted each to the other should appear (for the first time?) as holding out the possibility of salvation on a much wider level for one or both of the characters. And what marks the climax of this phase is not turning point (though there may be one in the scene), and not breakthrough (as with the previous phase) but culmination. In other words, for at least one of the characters, this journey into further closeness is a solution and end-point for him/her. It seems like all his/her troubles are over. (That’s why this phase often marks the end of the first part—sometimes even the first act—of a full-length play.)

4. The False Honeymoon

This phase is often marked by delirium, or at the very least, an excitement, an enthusiasm. For in this phase, one or both characters in the relationship think that their problems have been solved. Thus, they apply new energy to resurrected old plans, or think up entirely new plans. Humour, sexiness (whether the relationship is sexual or not) and bursts of energy mark this phase.

Technical aspects of this phase: Brevity also marks this phase, for delirium can’t last forever, in life or drama. It’s also here where your language is most expansive, visionary, utopian, excitable etc. Don’t work too hard on giving the audience lots of reasons to doubt the future viability of the relationship: the audience’s own intelligence will know this. Let them enjoy this ‘honeymoon’ phase while it lasts, for we all know how long that usually is.

5. Problems (Re-)Develop

This phase is (sadly) where life meets art. What seems such a great idea (that is, the previous phase) starts to be questioned (and this time, it’s by both characters and audience). Weaknesses in the relationship become obvious. The strategy of one or both is starting to fail. Some of the pressure that marked earlier phases is starting to return.

Technical aspects of this phase: Try and have at least one of the characters hang on to the utopian dream which made them enter this relationship. (In a sense, all dramatic relationships are utopian dreams, founded on beliefs/attitudes that the story will put such pressures on as to render them unworkable.) Related to this, keep them pushing for what they want, even in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary.

6. The Crisis Grows

And the evidence should be mounting. Let crises grow at an exponential rate (that is, where the rate of increase keeps increasing). Let conflict resurface. Let a sense of desperation appear, and wild strategies be thought of in response to the Hellish visions and horrible events that are looming. Let the Old (the person s/he was) reappear along with the New (the person s/he was trying to be.)

Technical aspects of this phase: rapid escalation of plot and the problems that plot brings; nasty surprises; a rapidity of events the characters can’t keep up with; a wild sense of conflict between characters as they turn on each other; generally, this phase should not be too long and drawn out. It should feel like a fast climb up a very steep hill called the Hill of Tension.

7. Showdown/Decision Time

And at the top of this hill lies…a narrow plateau called Suspense. What will happen to the characters? What will happen to the relationship? At this phase, the central interest is who will win/lose and what this will do to the relationship.

Technical aspects of this phase: the scene(s) where this phase occurs can be a mixture of quiet (suspense) and loud (tension, fear, hysteria, violence). The scene often involves a decision. And the decision appears to be final, spelling the end of the relationship or its release into a ‘liveable health’ and future viability.

8. Ending/Beginning

The fascinating thing about this phase is that it often reverses the effect of the previous phase. Just when you thought things were over (or that they were perfect), something happens to qualify or reverse it all. The relationship may have ended formally (or emotionally, sexually, professionally, psychologically etc), but there’s often one final meeting, and at this last meeting, something new happens: it might be a breakthrough into understanding on the part of a character; it might be the release of forgiveness; it might be the hope of resurrection (for a character or the relationship itself.)

Technical aspects of this phase: it tends to reverse the previous phase, or at the very least, to qualify it or render it meaningless. The phase is one of the shortest of all the phases; probably even shorter than the honeymoon phase. There is either a twist or there is a reversal involved. There’s the Chinese Curse Twist: “May you get what you want” (and it proves to be, not heaven, but hell itself.) There’s the ‘Wants Vs Needs’ Twist, that is, where a character who got want she wanted in the previous phase now gives it up because she goes for what she actually needs.

I’ve been necessarily general, because there are so many things you can do with this general pattern of ‘relationship journey’. For example, you can miss out a phase. You can alter the order, or revisit a phase (making the journey as unpredictable as life itself). If it’s a short play, you can situate the entire play within one or two phases. At the very least, you can go fast with this pattern. (I’ve sat in plays where the audience knows the relationship journey from the second scene onward.) The point of this pattern is not to impose it upon your play, but to know it exists, so you can transform it into something volatile, unpredictable and strange—which is how we often see love and life itself.

Let me outline a generic story shape.

1. THE BEGINNING
2. DISTURBANCE
3. 1ST MAJOR ACTION/PROBLEM/DILEMMA BEGUN.
4. COMPLICATIONS OCCUR; involving SURPRISES and TWISTS.
5. REVERSAL
6. NEW ACTION/NEW DECISIONS/NEW REACTIONS (Change of direction)
7. TURNING POINT (for good or ill)
8. NARRATIVE CLIMAX
9. EMOTIONAL CLIMAX, CLIMAX OF MEANING.
10. ENDING.

I repeat: The above is NOT a strict order. In fact, it’s amazing how fluid each element is. Let’s examine some of these.

1.  BEGINNING

The beginning of a story. Not as clear-cut as it sounds. The job here is not necessarily to ‘start a story’. First, we usually have to introduce a world—and the humans who populate it. The world that we bring into being might be a very ordinary one– a backyard in suburbia, a city, a family grouping for some social ritual such as Christmas. That is, it might be something we know. It might be telling an audience, “This world is quite familiar to you. It is really your world.” (In fact, it is not, because the very act of placing it in a theatre space makes it more unreal, more concentrated and allegorical.)

On the other hand, it might be something we’ve never seen before: a place that’s clearly exotic, a man who clearly is not “one of us”. It may be a country that never existed. The past is a bit like that. So is the future.

Try not to be too ordinary, both in the establishing of your world and its social or geographic location. While it’s true that audiences often like seeing their familiar world on stage, given a choice between the suburban living room they just left and Shangri-La, they usually choose the latter.

More important, however, than the social place in which the story will take place is the set of relationship, power systems (who’s in charge), what the atmosphere, emotions, tensions, beliefs and values of the characters who inhabit this world.

Thus, having established the world, what you need to do, as quickly as possible, is to disturb it.

2. DISTURBANCE

There should probably be an inherent instability in almost any play opening. When you turn to the chapter on “How To Start Your Play”, you’ll notice how many of the suggested options are volatile, unstable things. Stability is hoped for, or assumed by the characters, but the audience assumes and hopes for ‘something to happen’—that is, imminent change.

Another word for change is disturbance. This is often the first moment of excitement and interest for an audience. It’s certainly the first moment of real dramatic interest. The point of a disturbance is that it forces change upon the old world of the play. By ‘old world’, I mean the world you spent a few pages setting up at the start of the play.

Here is a quick list of disturbances that are useful–

• A new world is visited, often unwillingly (eg The Tempest)
• A relationship that seemed reasonably ordinary turns out to be odd, even dangerous. (Ionesco’s The Lesson)
• A visitor from the past returns. (A big favourite of Ibsen: Hedda Gabler, Pillars of Society, The Master Builder)
• A newcomer arrives in town, in the appartment block.
• A relationship is in trouble, or simply appears so unstable that explosion is imminent. (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)
• A political threat must be dealt with. (Julies Caesar)
• A king misunderstands affection between his wife and his best friend, and wrongly concludes that the two are having an affair. (The Winter’s Tale)
• A ghost has been seen– and worse, has instructions for the man who sees it. (Hamlet)
• A slightly dotty king comes up with a bizarre plan. (King Lear)
• A romantic young man falls in love at first sight. (Romeo & Juliet)
• A real estate office is about to broken into. (Glengarry Glen Ross)

The latter example shows that exactly when a disturbance occurs can vary. Sometimes a disturbance can be delayed. But beware! The longer you delay this first major dramatic event, the more pressure you put on yourself. Action is much easier to write than ‘glorious inaction’, a la Beckett. (Even with Beckett, there is lots of sub-surface action despite an apparently static surface, quite apart from the fact that it’s held together by mesmeric, musical language.) Alternately, you may have to come up with what are essentially magnificent character sketches as David Mamet did in the first act of Glengarry Glen Ross. Act II of that play opens with a burglary having been committed. It’s almost a one-act play in itself. So try and disturb the setting as soon as possible. But there are other possibilities: You can disturb the action–

• Just before the play starts. The best writers (eg the writer of Hamlet) often begin the play with a disturbance that has happened before the events that are recounted in the play.
• Years before the play starts. This is the great Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen’s method, and useful for all societies and cultures that enjoy guilt as part of their evening’s entertainment. A ‘dark secret’ may haunt the characters. You can often sense this in an Ibsen play. The setting and character relationships look normal, even domestic… but something isn’t quite right. (See Chapter 21, for more on the concept of ‘the guilty secret’)
•  Through a series of graded disturbances. The pastor in Rosmerholm always avoids going round by the bridge.(“Why? the audience asks.) But today, to the maid’s astonishment, he’s taken that path! Two shocks, and all within a few pages of the play’s starting. Shakespeare does this, also. There are several disturbances in Hamlet: the murder of the king, weeks before the play opens; the appearance of the Ghost; the immense shock (to Hamlet) that not only is this ghost that of his father, but this ghost has a special job which only Hamlet can do. And then there’s the matter of Claudius marrying his mother ‘before the funeral baked meats were cold’ (FIX THIS QUOTE!!!!)
• Within a few pages of the start of the play. Either the disturbance should happen then, or there should be a sense that “something is going to happen.” Give the audience a reason to keep watching by planting clues and hints that all is not well.

3. THE FIRST MAJOR ACTION/PROBLEM/DILEMMA BEGUN.

I’m a fan of causality, as long as it’s rich and powerful. ‘Causality’ is the idea that if something happens to disturb the peace in a story, then an action should take placed based upon that disturbance.

Having decided that his wife is unfaithful, Leontes banishes her and sets out to have his treacherous friend killed.

Having fallen in love with Juliet, Romeo will take steps to meet her.

Having let a stranger into his past, the Master Builder will now reap the consequences and the change in all his relationships– troubled wife, ardent disciple, ambitious employee etc.

Early on in your writing you need to practise the narrative logic of
causality. “Because A happened, then so will B, and C.”

There are problems with causality, however. They include–

• The reaction being too simple and obvious.
• It happening way too slowly. (I’ve read writers’ work where the logical ‘next step’ to a disturbance doesn’t start until after interval– assuming the audience will hang around that long.)
• Not enough story strands being woven. Occasionally, you hear criticisms of “linearity” in writing. Without entering the complex argument at this point of the book, I will say that all play writing and performance is linear, because the moments of a play are experienced by the audience over time. Time is a sequential, linear phenomenon. This is not to say that the play’s meanings are received in this manner. Personally, I don’t much use the word ‘linear’. I prefer the even uglier word, “multilinear”, because it’s a truer indication of how many strands a rich play sets loose. A hundred strands or threads can be operating in any half-decent play. Chapter 20 will go into more detail on this.

So, what is a major action? Put simply, it is the action which dominates a play. But there are many types of actions. To understand this, you need to understand what ‘plot’ is. In its most basic meaning, ‘plot’ is that exact sequence and order of events that drive a story to its rightful and necessary conclusion. After the event, it all seems clear. But for writers involved in plot-making, the creation of a rich plot involves widening the conception of plot as much as possible. Thus–

PLOT IS–

• What a character does.
• What a character wants to do.
• What a character wants to happen.
• What a character wants not to happen.
• What a character fears will happen.
• What a character is working to make happen.
• What a character is working to avoid happening.
• What a character chooses to do.
• What a character chooses not to do.
• What a character spends time planning.

All these may constitute the first major action of your story. You will notice one thing about the above list, however. They are all quite active traits. Usually a central agent (hero, protagonist, central character) gets out of his chair, uses effort and makes things happen. That is why I call these type of actions ‘active’ traits. A character is making doing things, driving events, or trying to.

But this is not all. Plot is also–

• What happens to a character.
• What almost happens to a character.
• What is about to happen to a character.
• What should have happened to a character.
• What a character wants to happen to him or her.

But there is a third area of plot which may constitute the first major action. Plot can also be–

• What happens to a relationship
• What happens within a relationship.
• What effect the relationship has on others.

Thus, when a character falls in love with another, that is plot (or a part of it). A couple falling in love may be the first major action of the play. When a character falls out of love with another, that is plot. When characters are growing closer to each other, or growing apart, that too is plot. Remember, however, that it’s usually not enough for two characters to say “I love you”, or look lovingly into each other’s eyes. They need a joint action. For example, they may be practising their dancing—but the true dance is that of courtship and love. There is an inner action (‘getting to that place of deep connection called love’) to match the outer action (that is, ‘practising for the dance contest’) The intertwining and tension between these two actions creates what we call ‘plot.’

You can often find what your major action is by completing a sentence that begins with “To”. Thus, major action might be any of the following–

• Single-mindedly pursuing an objective, whether good or bad. (Richard III) (“To win the crown”.)
• The drive to find out the truth as to what happened. (Oedipus Rex) (“To search out the truth.”)
• The need to destroy a person. (Othello) (“To physically or spiritually destroy Othello.”)
• Preparing for an action, such as a robbery. (American Buffalo) (“To carry the robbery out successfully.”)
• Waiting fruitlessly for someone who never appears. (Waiting For Godot) (“To wait for a man called Godot.”) In this play, the marvellous non-actions and ‘things to do while we wait’ are a triumph of dramatic and linguistic invention.

When a group is involved, then the major action is more diffused.

• Friends/family get together after a period of separation. Various agendas, private grudges may be pursued. (Hotel Sorrento, Absent Friends) (“To carry out the reunion successfully, against all the odds.”)

It’s worth mentioning at this point that a great play is usually the result of a wonderful and almost unbearable tension between the literal, forward-moving drive of the main action (To kill the king, wait for Godot etc) and the ‘sideways pull’ of such things as sub-plot, comic relief, character insights, asides, lazzi and other comic by-play etc.) To put it another way, the true movement of a play occurs when overwhelming forward momentum meets irresistible lateral (sideways) diversion.

While I’m on the subject of plot and action, let me continue to digress for a moment, and explain how easy a major action is to think up. It’s all a question of the “W”‘s.

WHERE, WHY, WHEN, WHO…. THE “W” WORDS

It’s curious how so many major actions in both plays and films are based on words starting with W. Even in smaller structural units like the play scene or the movie sequence, the “W” words are often useful.

Here are some examples, with the movie or play that illustrates this.

WHEN

• When will the bomb go off? (The movie Speed)
• When will the blackmailing letter arrive? (Ibsen’s A Doll’s House)
• When will it happen? (The assassination scene in Julius Caesar.)
• When will Joseph be found out for the rogue that he is? (School for Scandal)

WHY

• Why did that boy blind six horses? (Equus)
• Why did she come back? (Pillars of Society, The Master Builder)

WHERE

• Where is the hidden secret/treasure? (More useful for films than plays, as “the search for the material object” is more central to what, in my view, are the crucial paradigms of film. That is, if theatre uses ‘time’ and ‘space’ as its main media for story-telling, the equivalent co-ordinates for film are ‘time’ and ‘space’. It’s why the idea of ‘locations’ are so crucial for film writing.)

WHO

• Who murdered the dead man/woman in the library/vicarage/conversation pit? (Nearly every whodunnit ever written)

WHAT

• What will happen? (Will Salieri really succeed in killing Mozart? The scoundrel!)

Knowing that stories often work on a ‘W-principle’ will get you into a way of thinking whereby you conjure up stories that are imbued with an urgent central narrative question. In one sense, a story can be reduced to a single question (“Will Hamlet succeed in solving the mystery of his father’s death?) But one question leads to many others? What will Hamlet do, now that he’s been given his assignment by the ghost? What will his strategy be? What dangers does he face? In fact, it’s not going too far to say that every scene of your play will be driven by a question central to that scene. (For example, your character wants X in this scene.) When the question has been ‘answered’ (“Bad luck, he doesn’t get it.”) then the scene is over.

4. COMPLICATIONS OCCUR.

Life, love and stories rarely run smoothly. No sooner is a decision made, than a complication occurs. A few examples from Hamlet and Macbeth will show you how many complications you can build into an action.

• An action may prove to be wrong in timing. Hamlet cannot kill the king at prayer, as the rat will go straight to heaven.
• An action may prove to be wrong in morality, causing the character to question it, as Hamlet does for much of the first half of the play.
• An action may be ill-prepared for. Hamlet certainly wasn’t ready for the mission his ghost-father gave him.
• Even if a character has no doubts as to the morality of it all, an action may require many steps in order to be successfully accomplished. Hamlet must train the Players so that his testing of the king will be effective.
• An action may have to be tested, checked. Hamlet must establish the truth behind the ghost’s claims.
• An action may need a plan to carry it out, as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth realise.
• An action may be difficult to carry out, even when the plan is agreed on. Look at the shocking farce that is the murder of Duncan.
• An action may simply have to be delayed while other matters are attended to. This is useful, as it allows other plot threads to be woven in, and keeps the audience in a pleasant state of impatience.

5. NEW ACTION/NEW DECISIONS/NEW REACTIONS (Change of direction)

Once an action is carried out, for example, the murder of Duncan in Macbeth, then it’s a whole new ball game. It’s now a question of consequences, of covering up, or changing from an offensive strategy to one of defence.

I can’t emphasise strongly enough the importance of the notion of CHANGE OF DIRECTION. A change of direction can occur in a host of ways, large and small.

• A character can change his/her mind, and thus choose a different goal to achieve. Colin in Emerald City decides he’s sick of art, and in a mood of bitter determination decides to become a populist writer and earn lots of money.
• Events can turn against a character. Shakespeare uses this repeatedly. Those on the ascendant in the first half, are usually running for their lives in the second.
• Fortunes can change. A character may be rich and powerful at the start of the story, but by halfway, she’s lost everything.
• Morality may change. A good man may decide that it’s not worth it, and simply move in another moral and wickedly delicious direction.
• As I’ve already indicated, relationships can definitely change. In fact, I have a personal rule that in every scene that a couple or partnership is in: “One scene per relationship stage’. This means that if character A and B are getting one famously, you have only one scene to show that at work. By the time of the next scene, it’s changed (however slightly) to a new position (for example, suspicion is start to affect their relationship). This rule-of-thumb works far more often than not. In this way, no scene is ever a simple repeat of their previous scene. Something is always going on. Change is always happening.

It’s important to realise this: that a change of direction means that the plot has developed. If you’re ever stuck, and are asking yourself, “How can I develop my plot?”, simply consider making the various actions, fortunes and fates go in an opposite direction. In the first half, Fred is on top of the world. In the second, it’s his partner. I’d even go so far as to say that if you’re writing a two-act play, and there’s no significant change of direction in several ways, then you probably don’t have a second act at all. Your second act is simply more of the same, an extension of what you were trying to do in your first act.

SURPRISES & TWISTS

A good story has both surprises and twists built into it. A ‘surprise’ is, not surprisingly, that which comes out of nowhere. A few thoughts on this, based on what I’ve noticed in work

• The disturbance is usually a surprise– eg surprise visitors, surprise news, (“Guess what? I’m giving away my kingdom to my daughters!”
• The disturbance-as-surprise usually takes the play to a new level of tension and danger.
• Every major character needs to have a surprise built into his/her particular journey. The more important character, the more surprises that the character must experience. Look at how many surprises Hamlet experiences.
• A surprise may be one of information. It can be in something a character discovers about him/herself. It may be something s/he learns about others. It may be something s/he has never been told, even by a long-time lover.
• The surprise may be one of deduction. The detective, by analysis, establishes that the killer is none other than (his best friend/former partner etc).
• A surprise happens to a character. It is controlled by others, by events, by things outside the character’s control. It is a very useful structuring device for destabilising the character.

A twist is somewhat different. A twist is “much more or much less than what was expected.” If nothing is expected, then it is a surprise. If a killer walks in your door, then it’s a surprise. But if you already know there’s a killer on the loose, and your mother enters, and it turns out that she’s the killer, that is technically known as a “twist” (quite apart from it being a personal disappointment to you.) It’s not a surprise. After all, you knew there was a killer, but you weren’t expecting it to be your own mother. That’s the rub.

6. TURNING POINT, REVERSAL and the EMOTIONAL CLIMAX

There are usually several major turning points, and lots of minor ones in a play. One of the two theories of scene form, which I’ll be discussing later, states that “the climax of every scene is a turning-point, so that the climax of a scene always results in the reversal of whatever was being striven for or fought over during that scene.” This might mean that if two characters, A and B, are fighting over something, and A is quite dominant, then the climax is that moment where B wins.

The turning point is usually a moment of great pleasure for the audience, after which events start moving toward or away from a character. One of the best turning points in modern theatre is in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. In that story, John Proctor, has been accused of consorting with witchcraft and other heinous things, but after a bit of 17th century plea bargaining, it looks like he’ll get off (as the audience wants him to.) For the first time in the play, the audience can breathe freely. The mood among characters and audience is one of relief. The hard work has been done, compromise has been made on all sides. John Proctor will publicly admit that he was involved in witchcraft, and is therefore spared from public hanging. There just remains one small detail. A small matter of paperwork.

DANFORTH:Mr.Proctor, I must have good and legal proof that you—

PROCTOR:You are the high court, you word is good enough! Tell them I confessed myself: say Proctor broke his knees and wept like a woman; say what you will, but my name cannot—

DANFORTH:(With suspicion) It is the same, is it not? If I report it or you sign to it?

PROCTOR:(He knows it is insane) No, it is not the same! What others say and what I sign to is not the same!

DANFORTH:Why? Do you mean to deny this confession when you are free?

PROCTOR:I mean to deny nothing!

DANFORTH:Then explain to me, Mr.Proctor, why you will not let—

PROCTOR:(With a cry of his whole soul) Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!

The emotional climax has ‘turning’ built into, and often belongs to the same scene as the type of turning point just described. The emotional climax is that vital, fateful moment when a central character realises the definitive truth about the most important thing in his/her life. A few examples: Macbeth has clung on to his belief in his right to power because the witches told him that no one born of woman will overthrow him. But the emotional climax comes for Macbeth when he learns that Macduff was ‘untimely ripped’ from his mother’s womb. From this moment on, the fight goes out of Macbeth. Equally, Romeo’s emotional climax occurs when he thinks (mistakenly) that Juliet is dead, and his struggle to be with her is lost. The emotional resolution—his death—soon follows. The emotional climax is a thrilling moment for an audience when they feel deeply for the character (when he sees that all is lost) or cheer loudly (when victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat.)

Reversal is not simply ‘not getting what you want’. It may also be the temporary frustration of that want; or, worst of all, you get the exact opposite. Characters and relationships can suffer reversals in several key areas: fortune (that is, wealth, material prosperity etc); morals (from ‘good guy’ to black-hat-wearing ‘bad guy’); values and beliefs etc.

As I indicate below, reversal is built into both scene structure and play structure. A good scene climax often reverses the whole momentum of a scene. (For example, she enters the room planning to sack him; but by scene’s end, she is the one who has lost her job.) And as the section on climax and resolution indicate, there is often a balancing tension between these two, frequently involving reversal.

7. NARRATIVE CLIMAX & CATASTROPHE

The narrative climax is simply that scene or moment in the play when the forces which have been in conflict for most of the play (eg armies, relationships, business partners, lovers, warring Veronese clans) have their decisive moment. After this moment, one of them has lost, and that’s the end of the story. Antony loses, and suicides. Hedda Gabler can’t have what she want, and makes sure that the man who wants to enslave her won’t either. She picks up a gun. In Glengarry Glen Ross, the truth comes out as to who burgled the real estate office.

The important point to make about the idea of climax is that it usually also involves its equally important partner, catastrophe. Catastrophe is that moment where the worst consequences, whether for the central character or his/her antagonist. What’s often overlooked is that catastrophe almost always involves destruction. The destruction might be the physical elimination of the hero or the villain, whereby by death, sacrifice, execution, duel in Dodge City or accident. It may mean the removal of someone, even by the more genteel method of arrest, firing someone from a position, or their forced resignation. Whatever happens, it involves the death of something or someone. I don’t mean that someone must always die; it may be their hopes, their illusions, their self-delusions (especially when the full truth comes out).

Needless to say that destruction can also involve relationships. When the truth comes out, Nora (of A Doll’s House) walks out. When the final showdown occurs, what’s really killed is the brothers’ relationship. (eg True West) What’s also interesting about the climax and catastrophe of a play is often how noisy it is. The climax is usually the loudest, most violent (physically and emotionally) part of the play. Things get ruined, plates are broken, lives are shattered.

This is one of the most disappointing aspects of Australian theatre. Our theatre is often so well-mannered that even our climaxes are soft, low moments. Everyone just looks a bit more depressed than before. Nothing breaks, nothing hits the fan, the roof is intact, and they’ll probably be back again tomorrow, albeit a little sadder. A glorious exception to this is the work of Steven Sewell. His climaxes– even scene climaxes– often send every sense shuddering. He’s also not afraid to send an axe or two (literally) swinging in our direction. This reminds us that the effect of a catastrophe should be awe-inspiring, reminding us of our littleness in the face of bigger realities. In other words, a climax and its accompanying catastrophe should be scary. Both characters and audience should feel fear, amid a range of emotions. And the worst part of a climax should be uncertainty. We simply don’t know which way it will go. Will these people survive this showdown? Will that relationship hold, or will one of them go mad under the strain?

Don’t misunderstand this point as being a ‘plea for more noise in our theatre climaxes’. A great climax can also be chillingly quiet. I’ve seen productions of The Crucible where John Proctor’s decision is made in an atmosphere of unbearable quiet. Perhaps that’s the real point—either your climax should be brutally and acoustically violent, or the dramatic stakes so unbearable that the characters are rendered speechless in their horrified knowledge of the consequences. Maybe it can be both.

The descriptions of these components of story might appear rather simple, even obvious, but it only looks simple and obvious to those who don’t have to create it. I remember, many years ago, not being sure what a ‘climax’ really was, let alone how it applied to the play I was trying to write. I then came across a very useful statement from Marsha Norman (who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘night Mother). What she said, in essence, was– A play is about one major character who wants something, and at the end of the play, he or she either gets it, or doesn’t.

Putting aside the “one major character” idea, which certainly is too simple, the useful aspect is that last part: the climax is when he or she gets it or doesn’t. Iago gets what he has spent the whole play working for, and he pays the price in a triple catastrophe: the death of Desdemona, Othello and Emilia, his own wife. Romeo and Juliet don’t get what they want, and their only compensation is to die together. John Proctor doesn’t quite get what he wants, which is to live in harmony and peace in the community. But he gets something else instead, which is not just his integrity, but the return to love and feeling between him and his wife.

This brings us to the next type of climaxes. The emotional climax, and the climax of meaning.

8. EMOTIONAL RESOLUTION, AND THE ‘CLIMAX OF MEANING.’

It’s not enough for lovers to die, for armies to be routed, for a person’s goals to be achieved or end in failure. Those things may have driven the play to its tension-filled climax, but those action-filled climaxes are often followed by two other climaxes, which I call the emotional resolution, and the ‘climax of meaning.’

In The Crucible, once it is inevitable that Proctor will die, then there is a crucial scene where Proctor and his wife, Elizabeth, resolve the things that blocked their own love. This is done, and Proctor goes to his death. In the final moments, when she is being begged to get her husband to reconsider, she refuses, saying, “He has his honour.” That is what the play was ultimately dealing with; not witchcraft or the evil that good Christian men do. Just honour. Having or finding integrity despite the machines of the witch scare (main plot) or your own human frailties (emotional plot).

Incidentally, television series usually work this way. First, the main plot (which generated most of the outer, social and surface action) is resolved, then the emotional (usually by resolving where the major relationships of the story are), and finally the climax of meaning (Has all this effort served any purpose?) In TV however, the climax of meaning is often a light ‘pay-off’ to a running gag or a minor third plot thread.

9. ENDING.

The ending is usually a confirmation of the three climaxes I’ve just discussed. Occasionally, however, there is a moment which actually reverses the whole thrust of the play and even the story’s climax. Something may happen in the closing moments (or seconds) which threaten to undo the good or bad work that constituted the climax. Paranoid thrillers, vampire movies, and some operas work like this. In the movie, Three Days of the Condor, Robert Redford’s character has spent most of the movie fighting the CIA, his former employers. He defeats them at the end, and not only gets out of it alive, but is about to take his story to the New York Times, so the whole world can learn about this villainy at the heart of U.S. government. But the last words of the nasty CIA boss are, “How do you know they’ll print it?” Redford freezes. The fear in his face tell us they probably won’t. “They’ll always get you in the end” is the real climax of meaning here.

Similarly, when all is lost, and Lohengrin (in Wagner’s opera of the same name) has to take the next swan back to the land of the Holy Grail, he leaves. But then something unusual (even for a Wagnerian opera) happens: when the swan has delivered Lohengrin to a waiting boat, it then returns… and turns into a young boy with a big sword, whom we suspect will turn into a great hero even mightier than the one who just left. In a moment, the tragic fatalism has turned into symbolic redemption. The story has been turned on its head. That is what a ‘climax of meaning’ usually does.

To help you see the richness that a story can offer, I summarise below an analysis by J.L.Styan, from his book, “The Dramatic Experience”. Styan lists six levels to narrative, and uses the example of King Lear, to illustrate.

The level of plot and narrative. At its “simplest”, King Lear is a story of a domestic quarrel which has implications for the family and state. The interest for the audience is, “What will happen?”

The level of the pschyological. The interest here is our speculation as to basic personality, motive (“Why did s/he behave like that”). We watch as several characters, not least Lear, grow in their understanding of themselves through the course of the play.

The level of morality. This level recognises that good and bad exist as realities, even though the sophistication of the play doesn’t reduce characters to simple ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’. For the audience, the play becomes an allegory about confronting such realities.

The level of the philosophical. For Styan, this level of the play is a debate on God and the problem of suffering. Watching the play, we are constantly being stimulated by Shakespeare as he studs each incident with meanings much bigger than could be contained by mere plot.

The level of the poetic. Styan considers this level to be a dirge or lament on humankind’s ambiguous position, somewhere between angel and animal, which is communicated by the play’s powerful images, linguistic rhythms and musicality.

The level of the ‘dramatic pattern’, where the audience responds on the aesthetic level to the play’s coherent tying of meaning to a tight dramatic structure.

To Styan’s list, I would add the following:

The level of the sensual. Humans live as sensual beings, however dulled they may sometimes be. In Lear, the role of the senses is strong. There is much for the ear, the eye and every other sense to relish, not to mention the visceral revulsion in Gloucester’s eyes being gouged out.

The level of the social and political. A play is often a statement about the intentioned organisation of society, whether political or not. In KingLear, the role and power of politics and the dominant group is obvious.

The level of the physical. A play will often deal with the impact of living on our physical selves. Comedy is frequently a celebration of the collision of bodies and matter. People fall over, don’t fit into doors. Their lives, energies and imaginations are constantly at war with the material world, and it shows on their damaged bodies.

The level of the metaphysical. A play is ultimately about “what implications this story has for our own inner lives.” Styan partly deals with this in his poetic and philosophical levels, but there is a point at which a description of this function as “philosophy” is not adequate. This is the level at which a play becomes a mandala, some indefineable thing beyond words, but which allows us to brood on multiple meanings and implications for us, as human beings. The chief beneficiary of this level is not our consciousness but our other “selves”– our intuition, our instinct, our dreaming self.

Having discussed these various levels of a rich play, how do we go about ensuring that our own plays have these levels? The first step is to know that the levels exist. The second is for us as writers to apply these levels to each major character (and each major relationship), asking very specific questions of that character. The effect of these questions is to ‘mesh’ levels together (as indicated in the following brackets). Here are several questions you could apply to almost any major character:

– What physical live does he lead? (This question explores the relation between the social and the physical)
– What is the effect on his body of the life he leads? (The relation between the moral and the physical selves of a character.)
– What does he dream of at nights? (The social/conscious meeting the intuitive/unconscious.)
– What does he do for a living—and to what extent is this a sign of his success/failure in the economic and social world? (This question explores the idea of ‘the job as symbol of the character’s social position’, involving consideration of a range of levels—economic, monetary/financial, social etc.)
– What is his Achilles heel? (Is he, emotionally-speaking, a child? Does he lack compassion? (This weakness or ‘lack’ would have clear consequences in the character’s public or private life.)
– How does he see human life? As a game? A mad farce? A pointless routine? A joyful romp without consequences? (Whatever way that this character sees life would have clear implications for how he treats himself and all those around him.)

Many more questions could be asked of the major characters in your play. Chapter 16 provides you with the opportunity to ask, literally, hundreds of such questions.

The word ‘story’ cannot be defined, at least not simply, for no one definition can encompass the dozens of functions that human society keeps asking its stories to fulfil. It’s what makes the idea of ‘story’ impossible to define precisely. Take the following dictionary definitions of a story “ A narrative, either true or fictitious, in prose or verse, designed to interest or amuse the hearer or reader’, and ‘A narration of events in the live of a person or the existence of a thing, or such events as a subject for narration.”

As a writer and creator of dramatic fictions, I believe that the only value of dramatic theory—even the theory contained in this book– is to help us write better. The above dictionary’s definition is of little use to a writer seeking to learn the craft of how stories are made. Why? Because a story is a complex historical and cultural construction, and is the sum of many things– an entertainment, a meditation on some deep truth, a game, a flexing of the imagination, an excuse to laugh. We could list dozens of functions that human society keeps asking stories to fulfil. It’s what makes the idea of “story” impossible to precisely define. I’ve tried, and so have others. All I can do is offer a set of descriptions, which are reflections of their functions. Here’s a quick list:

• A story is a game, which use the inner muscle of the imagination.
• A story is about the audience that watches and listens, even as it pretends to be about the characters in the story.
• A story is a set of encoded meanings with relatively clear implications about ‘how to live’– or how not to live, how you might live and how others live.
• A story is a cosmic statement of humanity’s place in the universe.
• A story is a narrative pattern, using recognised mile-posts (eg beginning, ending, climax.)
• A story is an agreement between teller and audience to abide by certain rules and conventions, depending on the story form, style or genre.
• A story is a meditation on things almost too deep, or high, for words. (If you doubt this, see King Lear and its unbearable ending.)
• A story is a chance for an audience to dream about something (love, lost opportunities, sex, or their dull childhood.)
• A story is a deliberate agreement to fantasise about something (“What if…?”)
• A story is a deliberate attempt to stir up the audience’s fears about something it is already deeply anxious about (whether it knows it or not.) — A story is a chance to air and debate social, political, moral and ethical issues.
• A story is a reminder to its audience that we are social beings who live in a society.
• A story is an invisible arrangement of incidents in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

The last definition, though as spontaneously invented as the others, has just enough of a ring of classical authority to allow me to throw a final one on the fire:

• A story is a structured unleashing of the imagination, using symbolic, real and fictional elements so as to make this unleashing richer and more powerful than other ‘structured unleashings’ (eg teaching, therapy, game playing, sermon, speech or dreaming.)

All the above raise big issues that a humble, practical “dramatist’s workbook” cannot hope to answer, so I’ll simply suggest that you must decide for yourself what a story is, because the only thing that really matter is that you make a working definition for yourself, and then get writing, as soon as possible.

A chance remark overheard some years ago in a theatre foyer (that haven of generous opinions and sympathetic gossip) got me thinking. “She’s got no voice” said a man to his drinking partner. Listening in as discreetly as possible, I soon realised that this was not a medical condition he was describing, but a dramatic one.

What does it mean to ‘have no voice’? Thinking about it over the years, I’ve come to the view that a dramatic voice is the result of FOUR things: an outlook, an aesthetic, a linguistic technique and a personal response to form.

1. An outlook on the world. It is impossible to express a voice if, first, you have no outlook on the world, its ways, its mores, vices, mindsets and behaviour. To have an outlook requires a thinking and feeling response to life and the world. It requires you to develop a view, a personal response to what you see, hear and feel around you. It may be highly personal. (In distinction to some forms, eg novels, I’m amazed at the lack of highly personal material that playwrights seem to take on, as so many works are lacking fire and individuality.) It may also be passionate, filled with rage, vehemence and anger. It may be comic, grotesque, provocative. No matter how you see the world, it has to be yours, and only yours. By this, I don’t mean that the way you see things must be so eccentrically individual that it ends up having no relationship to reality. Rather, your view of things has to be something that you feel deep down in your guts. Your view doesn’t have to be ‘right’. It has to be passionately felt and experienced.
2. An aesthetic. Sometimes a writer has no idea how s/he sees the world, but keeps finding him/herself drawn to particular themes, stories and concepts. For example, a writer might be fascinated by the concept of ‘revenge’, its psychology, its emotional mechanisms etc. A writer like this would essentially be searching for a dramatic aesthetic which encompassed revenge as one of its key components. Stories which deal with revenge would be found. Plot twists would probably involve such related things like betrayal etc. I hope the general progression is clear: from personal psychology to dramatic aesthetic which expresses that psychology/outlook (and keeps you sane in the process.)
3. Incidentally, there are two basic approaches to ‘creating a world’, which I will call the exotic, and the familiar. The latter is where you create a world that is very similar to that of your audience. It’s the Jerry Seinfeld school of dramatic composition: “Have you ever been in a supermarket and seen all those rows of beans…?” It’s a way of saying to the audience, “The world I am creating on stage is just like yours.” The exotic approach says the reverse: “The world I am creating is almost nothing like yours.” The great plays, the most mysterious and magical are often in the exotic class, but ultimately then creative task is to find what is strange in the familiar, and find the human, universal familiar in what seems to be exotic and strange.

   Linguistic technique. Only two things really create the dramatic space– language and action. The strength of an intention that is planned and carried out makes for dramatic action, while the dramatic world that the author creates is expressed in the behavioural natures of the characters. These characters are symbolic of the world. For example, in a poisoned world, full of hatred, the characters are all poisoned by hatred (or variously positioned along that spectrum). The task facing the playwright is not just to find a language ‘right’ (sociologically, emotionally etc) for an individual character, but even more importantly, to find a language for each that actually represents the sum total of ‘qualities’ that make up the dramatic world the author has created. In the case of the ‘poisoned world’ I mentioned, a type of double meaning, hollowness, sham sincerity and outright vituperativeness might drench all of the characters’ language to some degree. The progression then becomes– from personal psychology to dramatic aesthetic to linguistic outpouring reflective of the world you have created.

4. A personal response to form. Not enough playwrights, in my experience, engage with form and genre. There is too much labouring over ‘getting the story right’ to spend time on the more important areas– creating palpable worlds via the use and subversion of known forms. The key, I think, is the approach to genre. Genre, that over-used term so beloved of film writers and critics, is essentially the reduction of uncertainty into known forms, e.g. thriller. The job of a dramatist is to engage with genre in order to subvert it and thereby restore the uncertainty to narrative and dramatic art. Before anything can be subverted, however, it must be known. Familiarity with the stylistic, textural, formal and linguistic patterns usually associated with all the genres available to both film and theatre would probably help writers seeking to enrich their dramatic worlds.

In which case, you may need an ‘imagination prodder’ such as the ideas below to allow this character to express a richer view of the past than s/he felt at the time of the events in question.

Thus, some questions that the character may ask him/herself may be…

1. What was I wanting?
2. Why do I want this?
3. What am I doing here?
4. Why was I so attracted to it (or him, or her)?
5. When did I know something was going on?
6. What did I do about it?
7. What did I think at the time?
8. Something extraordinary happened in my life. Did I want it to happen?
9. Something extraordinary happened in my life. Did I have any warning? Was I expecting it?
10. Did I know what to make of it?
11. What did I keep saying I wanted?
12. When did I realise I wanted something else?
13. What did I do when I realised I wanted it?
14. What was I risking?
15. What could I gain if I won this prize?
16. What could I lose even if I DID gain this prize?
17. When did I realise I never really wanted this goal?
18. What obstacles did I overcome to win the prize?
19. Did I fear I’d lose it at any point?
20. What emotions did I experience when chasing this goal?
21. What moral pressure did I feel? Guilt?
22. What emotional manipulation, blackmail did I use? What other inner strategies did I use?
23. What external strategies did I use, to get from the people what I wanted?
24. What lies did I tell to others?
25. What lies did I tell myself?
26. What lies might I still be telling myself?
27. What have I learned at the end of this journey?
28. What did I learn during the journey, conflict etc?
29. What do I still have to learn?
30. What will I never learn?
31. Why am I saying this now? (or thinking this now?)
32. Have I given up hope?
33. Have I found new hope?
34. What was the thing that most shocked me? What stunned me? What surprised me?
35. What disgusted me, nauseated me?
36. What exhilirated me, and still might?
37. What is my idea of happiness? Of heaven, of perfection?
38. What is my idea of hell, of the worst-that-could-possibly happen? What is my recurring nightmare?
39. Why did I do it this way? Was there a better way? Or was I stupid? Or stubborn?
40. What do I believe deep-down about myself?
41. Why did these things happen to me?
42. Why do they still keep happening to me? What is it about me that makes them happen? Is it me, or something (someone) else? Do I actually somehow attract this stuff?
43. What emotions was I living through?
44. Were there stages to this emotional roller-coaster ride?
45. What do I feel now?
46. What do I hope for? What do I expect? What do I have a right to hope for or expect?
47. What flaws do I have now, as a result of all that’s happened?
48. What flaws did I start out with, that have been burned or shaken out of me?
49. What trap did I find myself in? (ie, “On the one hand, trapped by… And on the other… “)
50. How well do I fit that classic paradox? (ie, I set out to do/find X, only to find that Z occurreds. As a result of that, what did I do?)
51. What ideals did I have then?
52. What ideals have I been left with?
53. What was the worst error of judgement, the worst tactical mistake I made in the whole journey?
54. What is my worst flaw, my Achilles heel?
55. Do I still have this flaw?

A character who asks him/herself even some of these questions will create a mind, a heart and a soul that the audience can identify strongly with.