You will get criticism whether you want it or not. As a writer, or any creative, it will be a central part of your existence. A central and very painful part of your existence. So how to you deal with it? How do you use it?
As I write this, I am in the morning before the Sunday night reading of my new play. It will be followed by an audience Q&A. That’s right, the audience will give me feedback right when I most want to slit my fucking wrists. So this essay isn’t a mere academic exploration. It’s a survivors guide. How do you take criticism, and make use of it, without killing yourself and/or burning your work?
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On Sunday October 22nd Moving Parts Theatre Company will perform a reading of my new radio play, “Space Station Zeta,” at City 27. The address is 27 cité industrielle, Paris 11eme. Doors are open from 1900-1930, entrance is free, and the play lasts around an hour and a half.
Space Station Zeta is a science-fiction comedy. Boyle is a consultant engineer on a derelict space station orbiting the sun. His boss is also his ex-girlfriend, his assistant is in love with the station computer, and the station computer is trying to kill him. But his troubles are only just beginning. Newly-elected Chairman of the Federation Ronald Dump is on his way with a plan to make Space Station Zeta great again.: he wants to mine the sun, and he won’t let words like “absurd,” “impossible” or “massive explosion” get in his way. Even Boyle’s razor-sharp sarcasm may not be enough to keep them all alive.
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Here’s a quote from a book I very much enjoyed:
“My bow is a rarity, crafted by my father along with a few others that I keep well hidden in the woods.” (The Hunger Games, Chapter 1)
How many bowyers is Katniss hiding in the woods?[i] Did she free them before the bad guys destroyed District 12 or are the poor buggers still there, stuck under a tree, waiting for rescue? And how many readers care that bad grammar riddles the book?
If Suzanne Collins can sell 17.5 million copies of The Hunger Games, do we need to study grammar at all?
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It’s been a challenging year.[i] As a consequence, I missed last month’s blog post deadline and am perilously close to missing this month’s. The primary purpose of this article is to get something, anything up on the site. I am also going to explore some of the reasons why keeping the blog going is difficult, and what I can do to make things easier. You may find this post helpful if you also have trouble achieving apparently simple objectives.
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I am writing a one-hour script to be broadcast as 5 mini-episodes. For my first draft I wrote the whole play as one story. But the structure requires more discipline: each segment must tell its own little story, seamlessly advance the main story, and end on a cliffhanger. How do I keep the action moving to make my mini-episodes compelling stories in their own right?
To help me I have used with three classic screenwriting tools: rising action, escalation and switches. In this article I will talk about what I understand these things to be, how to implement them, and how to avoid some easy mistakes. How do you make the parts of your story as exciting as the whole? (more…)
