A Scene that Refused to Behave
Getting over writers block with We Are Gathered Here Today In Loving Memory of John Paul Parker Smith
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Hello! Welcome to my weekly newsletter!
Enjoy a dose of my playwriting process,
writing confessions, and all the mess in between.
Keep this to yourself. This is an unpublished, not-yet-stagged play.
But I would like to tell you about a simple solution added depth to the play, not just in character emotions, but in the set, in the intention, in the blocking, in everything.
What People Said
After a feedback session with some friends, I went back to edit this play. The key feedback that was brought up — we need to see Katherine’s depth as a person. Context: Katherine is the therapist that’s helping Christopher get over the death of his mother.
In this particular scene, in the initial draft, Christopher was about the confess to Katherine that he’d been hearing voices but instead changed his mind and invites her for his birthday party. After which, Katherine leaves and Christopher plans the party with the ultimate goal — to kill her.
(gasp)
But that didn’t quite sit right with everyone, even me. So I decided to change the ending. So I needed to give Katherine more “bullets” into Christopher’s mental psyche.
The new scene reads:
And because I’m stubborn and decided to not take the easy way out, instead of Katherine going full “therapist-mode” on Christopher, I had Christopher interrupt her with:
Boom!
Introduce a New Stimulus
They then discuss the painting which seems like the origin story of Christopher’s downfall at the same time giving depth to Katherine’s “diagnosis”, while giving a backstory about Christopher mother, plus adding a set piece that was packed with subtext in Act 1 and becomes pivotal in Act 2.
The introduction of the painting set off a whole complete different direction to the initial draft and added more layers into the storytelling.
And introducing new things in Act 2 keeps your play from just in resolving-mode but also gives the audience a new stimulus to keep their attention because now, they have more questions and with more questions, they have more material to predict the ending — keeping them on the edge of their seat all through the play.
So, don’t shy away from introducing new stimulus. It doesn’t always have to be in the form of words. You have the power to build the world. Build it. And build in fun!