Acting and writing...books

The first book I published, Grimhilda!, was based on a stage play. This turned out to have both advantages and disadvantages. 

One disadvantage for the book version was that I had a script that worked on stage, and lines that dovetailed into each other. But a book doesn't need page after page of dialogue: there has to be action, and we have to be able to 'see' the characters. You need to free yourself from the limitations of the stage, and have your characters move through their 'scenery' in ways that aren't possible in front of audience. It took quite a bit of rewriting to bring the book to this point. 

On the advantage side, I already had dialogue that had proved itself on stage. When it came to writing the book, the best moments in the story had quality dialogue ready to go. (Though it was a task to ditch great bits of dialogue that worked on stage but weren't needed in the book! It's not easy to ditch lines you're fond of.) 

One other thing helped with the writing of the book. In the first decade of this century I had the chance to appear in several plays. There's nothing like having to learn dialogue, and then perform it as though it's coming straight from your own brain, to make you very aware of what works on stage. 

The plays had been written over the last hundred years, so there was a variety in style. It depends on how old a play is as to how the dialogue is written. Early 20th century plays are dialogue-heavy, and require actors to speak longer phrases and sentences, an art in itself. This doesn't mean that they necessarily sound old-fashioned. The playwrights of the early 20th century were masters of subtlety and give their actors wonderful opportunities to develop characters. 

Later plays can still have longer speeches, but they tend more towards shorter dialogue, and bursts of words tossed back and forth between two or more actors. This is a different skill for the actor and a different approach for the playwright. 

So how does this relate to writing dialogue in books? There's a tendency in fiction, now, for speeches to be shorter and snappier, and apparently (though not necessarily) more realistic. Furthermore, the author can insert information about how a speech is delivered, how a character is feeling, what action takes place at the same time, and much more. I've been re-reading some of the best P G Wodehouse; it's interesting to see how long a gap there sometimes is between what one character says and another answers, because Wodehouse often writes hilarious material about the characters between their lines of dialogue. These insights into things beyond the dialogue are of course only possible in books. 

Anyway, this post came about because I read a piece by Jennifer Zang, in which she recommends that writers (especially screenwriters) should take some acting classes in order to give them a better sense of how dialogue works - especially in films. But her comments apply to books as well. 

Acting requires you to think about why the character is speaking, it enables you to understand economy of words (I've been in plays where the director has cut swathes of dialogue in order to move the play along) and it assists you to understand the emotions behind the words. 

All things of great value to authors. 

Jennifer Zang's article is entitled: Five Reasons a writer should take an acting class, and appears on the Save the Cat website. 

Michael Caine on learning lines

I read a small book by Michael Caine called Acting in Film over the holidays. It was timely, as I'm due to start rehearsals in another play in a couple of weeks. What's that got to do with acting in a film, you might ask. Quite a lot, as it happens. Certainly there are differences, but in one respect in particular Mr Caine offers some excellent advice, and that's about learning lines. What he has to say may not be everyone's view, but I found it helpful.

The first thing of note is this: The first step in preparation is to learn your lines until saying them becomes a predictable reflex. And don’t mouth them silently; say them aloud until they become totally your property. Hear yourself say them, because the last thing you want is the sound of your own voice taking you by surprise or not striking you as completely convincing. If you can’t convince yourself, the chances are that you won’t convince the character opposite you, or the director. You’re your first best audience long before anybody else hears you. So don’t be an easy audience. Keep asking for more. I learn lines on my own; I never have anyone read. Nevertheless, I try to learn lines as dialogue, as logical replies to what someone else has said or as a logical response to a situation. You’ll never find me going down the page with an envelope, blocking out my own speech and revealing the one before because it then becomes nothing more than “cues” and “speeches.” If you haven’t grasped the logic of why you say a particular thing, you won’t say it properly or convincingly. And if your thoughts aren’t linked to what you’re saying, then you won’t be able to say a line as if you invented it on the spot. So you must be familiar with the whole conversation, not just your own bits. One of the most crucial jobs you’ll have as an actor will be to know what you’re thinking when you’re not talking.

I've found as I've got older that fluency is something I struggle with, that sense of being able to say the line without stumbling over a particular word. Caine writes here that the lines need to become a predictable reflex, your 'property.' He notes elsewhere in the book that the difference between working on stage and working in movies is that the stage actor learns more about his part as he goes through rehearsals, but a movie actor is expected to turn up on the first day of the shoot and get on with the job as though he'd been rehearsing for months. But I've found more and more that if I know my lines in advance, before I start rehearsal, I feel much more confident. Of course, if it's a big part and you've only been informed that you've got the part a little while before rehearsals start, then you may still be getting the lines under your belt once you start rehearsing. However, with this current part (which is a small one) I'm going to aim to have my lines learnt before we start rehearsing. It boosts the confidence enormously, and that's something Caine is all for doing.

He adds: Say your lines aloud while you’re learning them until you find what strikes you as the best possible expression of that particular thought. If there are plausible variations, develop them, practice them, too; but keep them up your sleeve. If the director rejects your brilliant interpretation, you’re not left in a blank state of horror. You've already imagined and prepared other reactions to demonstrate. And most important, you’ve allowed for some element of malleability in your performance. Give your best reading as if it were the only one possible; but your mind should be hanging loose enough to take a leap, if necessary. For the moment, go with the line readings that seem to you the most valid. It may take some doing, but once the thought process is right, the words will follow. So much of it really is a matter of repetition, of saying the lines over and over again until you’re sick of them; until someone can give you a cue, and you can say, feel, and react to the whole cycle of events, including those related to everyone else’s parts. That confidence is your safeguard against terror. Otherwise, in the tension of the close-up, when you’re standing there and someone is saying, “Quiet! Turn over! Speed! Action!” you may well go, “To bum or not to bim, that is the question!”

Of course the stage actor doesn't have anyone insisting you say the thing correctly from the word go, but some directors do make you tense, and if your preparation of the lines is sound, then at least you won't be forgetting the lines because some other aspect of the rehearsal has upset your equilibrium. Anyway, even as an amateur, it's good to have a professional attitude. 

He also writes: It may sound like a contradiction, but you achieve spontaneity on the set through preparation of the dialogue at home. As you prepare, find ways of making your responses appear newly minted, not preprogrammed. In life, we often pick up the thought that provokes our next remark halfway through someone else’s speech. Thoughts don’t leap to the mouth automatically. We don’t interrupt at every occasion when a thought formulates itself; or, if we do, we don’t have many friends. Similarly, in a film script, your internal thought processes might well start articulating themselves long before you get the chance to speak. The script sometimes directs you to interrupt, but if it doesn’t, your thought may start well before you get a chance to respond. There may be a key word that triggers you during the sentence the other actor is saying. So pick up on that; form your thought and be ready to speak. For example: Other Actor: I’ve got to get a bus to Clapham—I’m already late for my date. You: You won’t get far. There’s a bus strike. The other actor doesn’t stop talking after he says “bus,” so you can’t get in and say your line at the actual moment of thought recognition. But when you hear the key word “bus,” from that point on you know what you’re going to say directly after he stops. You can show this by your reaction. And that bit of acting can only come from serious listening.

This is good advice altogether, but again the important thing for me is that achieving of spontaneity by being thoroughly prepared. And part of preparation is trying out all sorts of ways of saying the line, so that it doesn't sound stale. 

There are a host of other things in the book that apply not just to film acting but to acting in general, and I think any actor could benefit from it.  

130 pages into The Luminaries, and...

I'm a 130 pages into The Luminaries and am tossing up whether I want to spend another longish patch of my (reading) life on the rest of it. The character who opened the book has made no further appearance for getting on for a 100 pages, or so, and the character who took over from him, (Balfour) ostensibly telling his story with interruptions, somehow managed to tell a story long enough to last the entire night, and yet little real time passed.

At present two more characters have appeared, and are discussing yet another facet of the mystery that pervades the book, but I'm a bit lost as to what the mystery is actually all about because each new character adds another mystery to the original one, and I'm losing track of what belongs where. This would be okay, perhaps, if there was only another 100 pages to go, but at this rate I'll sink deep in the mire of mysteries without being able to make sense of a thing. Perseverance may help, I guess. I'm a bit concerned to read in one of the reviews that some of the mystery elements are left hanging loose by the end. That doesn't grab me, if I've waded through 800 pages, and find not enough explanation. Perhaps Catton is hoping I'll have forgotten about these loose ends by the end. I remember in the first of Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland St series that there was a very odd little patch where he seemed to be interested in a man walking around on the outside of a building (the details have grown a big vague), and the action seemed to be connected to one of the main characters. But then this aspect of the story was dropped completely, and never heard about again. No one mentioned it in passing even.

Then there's the astrological stuff, which apparently gives considerable structure to The Luminaries, and has been commended by some reviewers (I've been reading more reviews of the book today than the book itself, trying to see if it's worth continuing on). So far I haven't figured out how the astrological stuff makes any difference to the story as a whole, though one particular reviewer seemed to have it all worked out. (Don't ask me who...I'd have to go back and find it again.) The same reviewer lauded the idea that each successive section of the book should be half the size of the previous one, and while this may have something to say about the book as a whole I can't quite see that it adds anything to the story. When I was first trying to write novels I used to think it was great to have some such structure behind everything, either because someone else had done it, or because it proved my literary worth and would no doubt impress publishers. In fact these things usually got in the way of actually writing the book. Now Eleanor Catton may have much better motives for what she's done - being a much more intelligent writer than I am (she has to be: she's written a complex 830 page book for starters, something I couldn't conceive of attempting, and has invented epigrammatic sayings which give the appearance of deep thought about the human condition) - but I'm struggling a little to see the point. Maybe, again, if I persevere, I will.

Then there's the way in which she describes people's personalities, sometimes at length. (She describes a lot of things - clothes, rooms, the state of Hokitika - and describes them well.)  This works up to a point, but as many contemporary writers have found, characters tell us far more about themselves when they speak, and when they react to other characters, than when they're described. As soon as you start describing a character, not just their clothing and build, but their state of mind, I find I switch off - I want to discover the character for myself, and you have to have a very good reason to tell me lots of stuff about a character. If it's not immediately relative to the scene he or she is in, then I'll forget it before I've turned the page. This doesn't just apply to Catton's writing - it applies to any novelist who wants to give me a page of descriptive stuff before letting the character open their mouth. One of the reviewers says that as the book goes on, Catton describes less and less and gives us fewer and fewer of her epigrammatic statements about life. So perhaps I need to get through the first 360 pages before I'll discover a change of pace.

Some of the best writing in the book so far has been between Balfour and his politician friend, and then between Balfour and the clergyman. There's some cut and thrust at this point (still some epigrams and some descriptive interior stuff, but not quite so much), and at this stage it felt as though the book was moving forward. But other dialogues seem to falter, because we can't quite see the relevance. The dialogue between Balfour and the Maori, Tauwhare, seems included mainly to make a point about race relations, and however fascinating it may be, would Balfour really stand out in the pouring rain in order to have the conversation? Yes, it does add a bit of knowledge about the deceased person, Crosbie Wells, so maybe there's some point to it. I'm sure there's some point...

Well, I've kind of convinced myself to continue, and since somehow I managed to get a copy from the Library not that long after the book was published, perhaps I should make the effort.....

Update: I never finished this book. In fact I don't think I went back to it again, having better things to do with my life. The Book Editor of the Otago Daily Times, on the other hand, read the thing twice!

Script to book

I haven't written a post for just over a week; not sure why that should be, but c'est la vie.  Equally I'm not sure if I've mentioned it on here, but since the musical was performed I've been working on turning the script into an e-book.  Why an e-book as opposed to an ordinary book?  I was about to start the next sentence off with 'well' which is a word I often use in this blog at the beginning of things, but I was warned off it by this paragraph in Jamie Chavez's blog the other day: "Watch for repeated use of sentences beginning with “well” or “so.” It may happen a lot in real life but it’s just plain annoying in a book. If you feel you must, limit the use of this gimmick to one character. In moderation."  Chavez is talking about the use of 'well' in dialogue particularly, but it applies more generally.  I guess I use it to indicate a kind of informal tone, but I don't actually need to.  Jamie's warning will no doubt spring to mind every time I try to from now on.  (She's got plenty to say on a good number of other writing issues, too.)

As I was going to say, why an e-book?  Because it's difficult to get books published in paper at the best of times, and it's easy to publish them yourself these days.  It costs a good deal less, and your royalties are considerably more.  Of course not everyone in your prospective readership has an e-reader, but e-books can be read on computers and smart phones and iPads and so forth, so it's not as limited as it might appear.   Anyway, it's been interesting turning a script into a novel: at first you feel constrained by the original, to make sure all the dialogue stays intact, and the stage directions (and even the things from the show that got included), but then you begin to loosen up, and the book becomes less dialogue-driven, and starts to include more back story and more material that makes it more interesting.  My first draft was very dialogue-ridden.  Then I began in the next draft to turn the dialogue into indirect speech, and then as I progressed I turned it back into dialogue again, though it was now a lot less in your face. 

Good learning experience!

Learning lines

I've been thinking again about the process of learning lines over the last few days.   A few months ago I bought a little digital dictaphone, and have been using that to assist in learning lines for the play, The Mousetrap (as I also did for the previous play I was in, Shadowlands).
 
I find that while I have a certain ability to listen and learn, I'm much better if I've seen where on the page the lines lie, and remember that as well.  Having that visual focus seems to make all the difference, especially when it comes to odd lines that are disconnected from any other dialogue I have.   It's the single lines that pop up without reference to anything else I've said that I find hardest to place, and often they're the last ones to be learnt.

When there's a chunk of dialogue with just one (or maybe two) other cast members, it's much easier to get a handle on the lines, because in a sense, I just reel them off down the 'page' in my head.   I get to a point where, with a sequence of lines, I can remember them almost as a single 'speech' - this helps, especially if the cues aren't quite right from the other person, or if they miss something out entirely.

The problem is, I think, that I don't tend to learn the cues for the odds lines well, because I don't particularly need to for the sequences of lines.   Plainly I need to do some work on this aspect of line-learning for future productions - if I do any more!

My mother said my father (whom I don't remember at all) had a photographic memory.  He was a top-class chess player in his day.   I don't think I have a photographic memory particularly, but I do have a 'picture' of where lines are on a page - this applies whether I'm learning a poem, or a piece of scripture, or lines for a play.   If I see the formation of them on the page my brain recalls them much better.  That picture seems to be part of the learned process, in fact.   So, while the dictaphone is very helpful, on its own it isn't enough.  Lines learnt in isolation, as it were, don't seem to stick nearly as well as lines learned with a visual clue attached. 

The photo is from the scene where my character, Paravicini, arrives and, in a somewhat theatrical fashion, informs the young couple running the guest house, that he is the 'man of mystery'.   Photo from the Cortland Repertory Theatre, Ithaca.

The play ends...

The play is over. I'm sorry, and I'm glad. It's always sad to see the end of such an enterprise: the friends you make, the entity that's a combination of the script and the actors and all the other facets, and the enjoyment of performing (when you burn fat more than you realise!). But it's also a relief to have some space again. (And the last essay for the Varsity course is now done and sent off as well.)

When We Are Married is an interesting play. It's not as famous as some of Priestly's other works, such as An Inspector Calls (at least as far as I'm aware), but it's obviously a popular choice for amateur and professional groups alike. (The St Peter's Church Players' amateur version on You Tube [see below], which shows the last ten minutes or so of the play, seems however rather turgidly done for a comedy.)



The characters in the play are superbly drawn, with lots of detail - especially the three husbands. There's plenty of room for them to swing from total self-importance to virtual defeat and back again. The wives are different again; Clara's sudden descent from aggressive bossiness may be a bit sudden, but it gives the audience huge satisfaction: every single night they clapped with delight at her downfall. Annie is the quiet one, but her long conversation with her husband Albert in the third act is a supreme example of how to undermine pomposity. And there's a wonderful buildup to her response after he asks, How long has been feeling like this, and she says, Twenty-five years, (which just happens to be how long they've been married).

Maria is different again: in this production she was played with considerable authority and warmth. I think you could also play the part differently, as someone who is less confident and finally realises she's going to have to fight for her man. And that's another great facet of the script: each part can be interpreted differently to the way we played the parts (as the St Peter's Players testify!)

Hail the Conquering Hero

I remember reading one of Preston Sturges’ scripts when I was in my teens. Even though in those days films were much more talky than they are now, I was struck by the long dialogue scenes that pervaded the script.
This was just one of the features of Sturges’ movies. There was never anything much in the way of camera trickery – the camera caught what it needed to and that was that. There was little innovation in cinematic terms. There was often little ‘action’, by which I mean people driving around in cars or on riding horses.
But there was always plenty of dialogue, witty, smart dialogue that was often an inch or two ahead of your ear, and that you only caught up on as the next witticism was arriving. It was always played in an off-hand manner, as though to be witty and articulate was the norm for everyone. And then there were the characters: Sturges never provided a basic few characters. He wrote his screenplays for dozens of sharply edged individuals, from the leads to the tiniest bit-players. No one in his films can be said to be uninteresting; there are so many interesting people that you have a job keeping up with them all, and you almost wonder why some of them are made interesting!
Take the homecoming scene in Hail the Conquering Hero, a film I’ve just caught up with some sixty years after it was made. We have a ‘hero’ who’s far less handsome than his rival; a self-centred mayor whose wife isn’t in the least put down by his rudeness, and his laconic campaign manager; we have someone who’s only role seems to be to organise things – and they invariably get way beyond his capabilities; we have an opera singer wanting to sing in seven flats, a key the band can’t play in; we have at least three adult bandleaders and a confident youthful one (and four bands); we have a little girl who presents the flowers; we have the mayors’ rivals, each one an individual; we have six Marines, from the bombastic sergeant to the mother-loving Bugsy, and the four between. Each person is drawn full of life, even though some only appear in a single scene.
In the opening sequence, four waiters sing behind a woman in a bar; each one of them is a person, one of them forever being just a bit hidden, and another, the smallest one, having to catch up with the others every time they move. And then there’s the maitre d’, who has a short sequence of lines with the sergeant. He’s as funny as anything in the movie, but this is the only time he appears. Three characters who appear in the last part of the movie – the ticket lady, the train conductor and the telegraph man – maybe have a minute of screen time between them, yet they’re just as memorable as the rest of the cast.
It’s partly to do with the actors Sturges cast in his movies, and with his ability to rouse them to life in a fraction of screen time. The actors plainly enjoy their roles and their dialogue; it’s the sort of dialogue most actors would die for these days.
As for the film itself, well, it’s apparently not top of the list in terms of Sturges’ small output (he only directed twelve movies), but there’s plenty to enjoy about the script and story. Yes, it has two or three patriotic moments, but it was made during the war, and real people were out there dying. I don’t think the patriotic moments are badly handled anyway, and Eddie Bracken’s (he of the mishapen face) final speech is both dramatic and patriotic at the same time – and moving.
Perhaps the weakest link – if there is one – is Ella Raines. She acts in the style of the heroine of that time, and that’s okay. But I don’t think she has much more than surface to give anyway. And she doesn’t exactly light up the screen.
Dear Miss Raines apart, this is a great movie, a wonderful palliative to the often vapid movies made these days.