October Review Challenge, #16 - Preferred genre

Oct. 16th, 2020 07:53 pm
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October Review Challenge, #16 - "What genre do you prefer to write in?"

For me, this is definitely historical adventure. I really, really enjoy period pieces, particularly if there’s some sort of action, mystery, or caper involved for there to add intrigue and excitement. In episode 2 of Dream Machine, Requiem for a Dreamer, Ryan asks Leah why she likes writing historical fiction so much, and she gives a stripped down version of my reasoning:

“Everything’s just more interesting, okay? They way people talk, dress, live. Imagining what it would be like to live through important moments in history, but better. No, like, rationing food or fending off the plague. And when things get tough, it feels like an adventure, not... boring regular real life.”

That’s the rough gist of it. I love the trappings, like the dialect and the details of every day life. But I also love the sense of living through history, albeit from (at least in some ways) a more comfortable vantage point in the present. I’ll take my indoor plumbing and effective vaccines, thank you very much.

Adonis is set in an alternate-history Ancient Rome, which I also love, though this is my one project from then. I also like WWI, which my early play Mrs. Loring and parts of the related Tailor at Loring’s End involve. The various Jeeves and Wooster thoughts I’ve had have been just after, and I personally like to insert more references to it than the originals tend to. Brockhurst, my Downton Abbey-inspired larp, is smack dab during the war itself, and a small-group tabletop The Bloom of May references things that happened during it.

But the Victorian age, basically the long 19th Century, is my most frequent setting. The 1880s are the time of the Mrs. Hawking plays and all related pieces, like my roleplaying game Silver Lines. Mrs. Hudson Investigates, my Holmes-related radio play done for PMRP, is around the same time. Another radio play, an adaptation of Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue done with Jeremy Holstein, is in the 1840’s, still technically within Queen Victoria’s reign. I love it aesthetically, I love the manners and the language, and I’m just a bit of an Anglophile in general. But even more than that, the imperial British way of life is rife with drama and makes for strong conflicts to critique and make points about. I am fascinated by the time, but in order to stay honest, I try to incorporate and acknowledge and even deconstruct the evils of it.

I need to write more modern day things, for the sake of producibility concerns. Period pieces are unfortunately expensive. But this is what I'd do all the time if left to my own devices.


Photo by John Benfield
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October Review Challenge, #12 - Most sympathetic villainy

Oct. 12th, 2020 02:37 pm
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October Review Challenge, #12 - "What is the most sympathetic villain you've ever written?"

This one I struggled with a bit. This was the second one suggested by my friend Jonathan, and I probably would not have considered adding it on my own.

Being the English teacher I am, I like to establish a definition for a concept before I use it. Antagonists are the figures in the story trying to prevent the protagonist from reaching their goals, but villainy I would characterize as when an antagonist has malicious intentions or is specifically supposed to be in the wrong. I frequently use non-villainous antagonists for the purpose of having conflict that’s not so cut and dried as somebody doing a good thing versus doing somebody a bad thing. It’s a great way to introduce shades of gray and complication.

However, I do love a good villain. Particularly when they’re genuinely wicked. To the point where if I want them sympathetic, I tend to keep them more toward the mere antagonist side, and if I let me them a real villain, they tend to be pretty nasty. So this makes it a little tricky to pick one who I genuinely want you to feel for.

There’s barely a villain to be had, with the exception of the intentionally broad General Hacksaw from part three, in any of the first four episodes of Dream Machine. Instead, most of the conflict there is interpersonal, between characters who are varying degrees of wrong but ultimately trying their best. Mrs. Hawking has a new villain almost every show, but most of them are supposed to be embodiments of various Victorian social ills— misogyny, class predation, systemic abuse or neglect —and so are rarely meant to be sympathized with. In Adonis, the majority of the characters are AWFUL, some to the point of being gross, to create a sense of the brutal world.

What I do frequently have is people who are responsible for some horrible act that was in some part driven by their circumstances. I frequently write about social ills, particularly ones that create negative environments that force people into terrible positions. So I do often make use of villains whose actions are not defensible, but who likely would not be forced into such desperate conditions if not for the unfairness around them. Without spoiling them, the solutions to at least two of my mysteries— Hawking IV: Base Instruments and The Tailor at Loring’s End —factors this in heavily. Even a character like Elizabeth Frost in the second Hawking trilogy, easily one of my wickedest, has to fight through the impossible position her class crushed her into, and the hugely unfair expectations placed on her as a too-young governess to a girl only five years her junior.



So of course I like making the conflict one that has more dimensions than just good-guy-versus-bad-guy. But no-villainy is a path I more often take than sympathetic-villainy.
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Tropes in my writing: Soft Masc characters, part 3

May. 24th, 2017 03:57 pm
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Here continues my musing on some tropes that frequently recur in my writing! Specifically, analyzing my tendency to use what I refer to as "Soft Masc" protagonists-- "a male character with a presentation that is fairly normatively masculine, but with a preponderance of personal qualities that were traditionally coded as feminine" --and how that manifests.

Continues from part 1 and part 2.

Romantic relationships:

Nathaniel is married to Clara, to whom he is utterly devoted. They are functional friends, lovers, and partners, with perhaps a more equitable relationship than other couples of his time. He actually is inclined to let her run the show, as the more strident personality, though her power is unofficial and based off of his feelings for her. Notably, she is three years older than him.

Aidan loves Diana, despite their meeting under the problematic mistress-slave dynamic. She is very much the dominant partner with all the power in the relationship, an issue they have to navigate. In fact, their relationship is specifically a flipping of the expected gender roles of the hetero dynamic, where he takes on the traditionally feminine role and she the masculine one. She is ten years older than him.

Tom falls for Alice, a girl he meets in the course of unraveling a mystery they’re both connected to. He is off a lower social class than she is, which makes forming a relationship difficult, and he feels he has no right to presume to her affections. He is a few years older than her.

Robin I plan to eventually get together with Marian, the canonical love interest for the legendary character. In his past, he dates and sleeps around a great deal, often choosing so-called “high value” partners such as models and famous people, as an outward symbol of status. He’s hooked up with other men, though probably never dated one more than extremely casually. Before finally connecting him with Marian, I would have him get together with other characters in his typical way before settling the two of them together. The idea of him committing to, and growing in order to deserve, a serious romantic relationship would be part of his character journey.

Justin is a ladies’ man in a similar vein to Robin. A confirmed bachelor, he is committed to having fun above all else and will likely never settle down. He presents himself honestly and is happy to make casual connections but is not out to deceive, hurt, or use anyone. He also has a handful of experiences with men in his past, mostly from his days at Harrow and a few after.

Nathaniel is the most normatively masculine, followed by Tom. Aidan is certainly the least.

Relationship with female superiors:

Being able to defer to women is a major feature I include in portrayals of this kind of man.

Both Tom and Nathaniel have female mentor figures. Tom learned his craft from his mother, and her part in the mystery he stumbles upon drives him to investigate it. Nathaniel started out modeling himself on the Colonel, a very traditionally masculine man, but as the Hawking stories go on, he comes to focus more on learning from, and winning the approval of, his aunt instead. He listens to her expertise, follows her orders, and respects her authority.

Though not a mentor per se, Aidan follows and defers on most matters to his sister Morna. He acknowledges she is the superior intellect and is inclined to trust her judgment above his own. He treats her as if she had some sort of seniority, even though he is in fact four years older than her. Also in living as a slave in a matriarchy, he is accustomed to most women having some real power over him.

Robin has no “senior” woman in his life whom he is emulating or deferring to. He is again the most normatively masculine of my male protagonists.

The only way this is relevant for Justin is that he will confess to being intimidated by Mrs. Hawking. If nothing else, he respects her enough to fear her.

Relationships with female peers:

Strongly valuing female friendship and connection and respecting the strength and expertise of women is another intrinsic quality of this kind of male character.

Nathaniel’s friendship with Mary is one of the most important connections of his life. He does due to socialization sometimes slip back into patriarchal assumptions, but he is working to unlearn this. He does seriously respect her abilities and is interested in her as a person.

Similarly, Aidan’s closest relationship, perhaps even more so than the one with Diana, is with his sister Morna. Their shared experience of conquest and slavery has unbreakably bonded them, and he believes in her brilliance and capability above all else.

Tom has spent his life working in a female-dominated industry and it taught him enormous respect for women. One of his special skills is his ability to listen to and understand the world of women in a way other men of his time and place do not, making him trustworthy to them.

Robin, for all the effort he puts into chasing them down as sexual partners, also has real female friendships. His best friend is Scarlet, whom he respects enormously as an intellect, enough that he has given her enormous professional opportunities. He does, however, impose on her to keep his grandiose promises and get him out of trouble, but I tend to this is more about his own self-centeredness than because she is a woman.
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Tropes in my writing: Soft Masc characters, part 2

May. 22nd, 2017 11:45 am
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Here continues my musing on some tropes that frequently recur in my writing! Specifically, analyzing my tendency to use what I refer to as "Soft Masc" protagonists-- "a male character with a presentation that is fairly normatively masculine, but with a preponderance of personal qualities that were traditionally coded as feminine" --and how that manifests.

Continues from part 1.

Skills and Abilities:

The key factor of how I couch the skills of these characters is that they possess a certain charisma— the ability to make people like, respond to, and sympathize with them is extremely important to how they pursue their goals. Of course this is not necessarily a gendered thing, but because it lends them to having the managing of relationships at their forefront, they often take the feminine caretaker, peacemaker, or emotional support roles.

Nathaniel’s skills are primarily interpersonal— talking, convincing, wheedling, distracting, ingratiating, lying, peacemaking. He serves as both the face and the glue of his superhero team, a role which is usually filled by a female character. He is specifically not very good at martial stuff, in defiance of masculine expectation. His charisma is from sparkling wit, friendly bearing, and a puppy-like effort to please.

Aidan’s skills are presented dichotomously. On one hand, he is honed into a seriously dangerous warrior and becomes quite good at it, which is very masculine coded. On the other hand, he serves as the inspirational figurehead of the rebellion due to his ability to court people projecting their dreams onto him, which is more feminine. His charisma lies in his unique dichotomies of strength and fragileness, power and softness, that make people fall in love with him.

Tom Barrows is also a strongly interpersonal operator, using his ability to read others and connect with them in order to make his way. Again there is some personal charisma at play, but it is lower key than Nathaniel’s Life of the Party type or Aidan’s Wounded Beauty. Not to mention the fact that he is an extremely skilled dressmaker.

Robin somewhat relies on interpersonal skills to maneuver, but more because HE IS A CHARISMA MACHINE LIKE A ROCK STAR. He is presented as fit and dexterous, with martial hobbies, and an aptitude for physicality. He is almost as physical a character as Aidan is, though not as great a warrior. Simultaneously, his privilege has insulated him from having to learn many hard skills, and attention is drawn to just how useless he is in many ways.

Justin is somewhere between Nathaniel and Robin. He has his brother’s Life of the Party presence with Robin’s showier, more arrogant edge. His skill set is similar to Nathaniel’s—and though he is not quite as empathetic, he still has something of his brother’s ability to pick up on the state of those around him.

Values:

Nathaniel’s value shift is a major part of his journey as a character. He begins with very expected masculine values for a Victorian man— being the head of a family, martial strength, responsibility for the lives of others, admiring soldiers and the empire, the established social order. But while he maintains some of those, much of his story is about coming to deconstruct the problems of patriarchy and shift his values so that he stops being complicit.

Aidan is quiet and wounded, with a longing for a peace he’s never known. He is in something of a Maslow’s crisis for most of the story, where the needs to survive, heal, and protect others consume him to the point where there is no time for him to really discover who he is in the absence of struggle and trauma. He dislikes the attention and spotlight his position as figurehead of a rebellion has brought him, not to mention the necessity to make himself into a warrior and inflict violence. But likely he would prefer some quiet, creative pursuit, like baking or poetry, far out of the public eye, had the circumstances of his life been kinder.

The chief fascination and calling of Tom’s life is the making of beautiful clothes, dresses in particular. His experience with and connection to feminine circles where there are not often a lot of other men have given him a particular appreciation for the wisdom of women. Otherwise his values are fairly normatively masculine, particularly courage, hard work, and cleverness.

Robin is afflicted with some level of toxic masculinity. He cares about showing off, asserting his dominance and superiority over other guys, getting laid, and indulging in his entitlements. Getting over it is his major character journey.

Justin’s a bit of a wildcard. I actually conceive of him as having a slightly more enlightened attitude toward Victorian social mores than some men of his time. For all that he’s a ladies’ man, he never deceives, manipulates, coerces, or uses, nor does he really look down on any women who are interested in a fling. But he does have a pretty hefty dose of Victorian patriarchy, and assumes he knows better than most other people, partially because of his status in the world.

Sexuality:

Nathaniel, Aidan, and Tom are all straight. Robin and Justin aren’t quite.

Aidan’s sexuality is complicated by years of rape and abuse by women. He experiences the trepidation around sex and intimacy which we most often see in women who are survivors. He is sexually drawn to women, but has to first disentangle the trauma from his sense of his own sexuality. Because of the matriarchal culture of his world, his socially expected role is that of the receptive rather than the aggressive partner, which in the real world is often assigned to women.

Nathaniel’s romantic and sexual history is fairly standard for a man of his time, place, and station. He is straight, fell in love with a woman he was attracted to, has been happily married to her for several years, and has two children with her. He might very well have been a virgin when he got married due to his particular value set, and he is to this day a little bit of a prude for similar reasons. Other than having perhaps an unusually equal partnership for their setting, his romantic life and history are totally normal and socially sanctioned for a man like him.

Tom Barrows is also pretty standard and straightforward. He is not terribly romantically experienced but it is attributed to his workaholic tendencies leaving no time for relationships. The way he falls for Alice is a bit naïve and boyish due to this inexperience.

Robin I picture as a Kinsey 1 or 2— mostly attracted to women, but drawn to the occasional man as well, with sexual experience of both in his background. Again this is something he shares with my conception of Justin Hawking. These are the two of my characters for whom “playboy” is the most intrinsic part of their identities, so I find it interesting that I found myself disinclined to make either of them as straight as might be expected. I think of hypersexuality as a highly masculine-coded trait, so this mitigates it a bit. And I think it adds an unexpected kind of sexiness on top of the other qualities that make them attractive. This may simply be my own taste.

For once, Robin is the least normatively masculine. I would say Nathaniel here is probably the most.

I notice that I tend to use sexuality as almost a “balancing” factor. If my hero has many non-traditionally masculine qualities, I use straightness as a way to bring some presence of traditional masculinity in the character. If the character is more normatively masculine overall, I often push them towards the other end of the Kinsey scale in order to keep them from being too traditional.

Also, if I’m honest, “hot butch guy who’s like 85% straight” is a type of mine.

To be concluded in part 3!
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Tropes in my writing: Soft Masc characters, part 1

May. 20th, 2017 09:00 am
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Here begins my musing on some tropes that frequently recur in my writing!

The trope that has become increasingly important to my work in recent times is what I’ll call the Soft Masc— a male character with a presentation that is fairly normatively masculine, but with a preponderance of personal qualities that were traditionally coded as feminine. Most of the important men I write these days are some variation on this, as I find myself particularly interested in that particular personality type.

The two foremost examples I’ve got are my two most prominent male leads, Nathaniel from Mrs. Hawking and Aidan from Adonis. Nathaniel is from a Victorian superhero story, while Aidan is from an alternate history matriarchal Ancient Roman epic. Tom, the lead of my 1930s mystery The Tailor at Loring’s End, also fits that to some extent. In contrast, another prominent male character I’ve made recently is Robin from my modern-day techno-thriller interpretation of Robin Hood. I’ve also written Justin Hawking recently, Nathaniel’s brother, though he’s not a protagonist.

Here is an analysis of how these characters either fit or subvert this model of Soft Masc character.

Personality:

A key component of when I write this sort of character is that they are almost always sensitive and in touch with their feelings.

Nathaniel is considered to be highly emotional for a man of his time and place. Though not free of socialization to stay controlled and to not discuss uncomfortable things, he has strong feelings that he talks about more often than is typical. He is deeply sensitive to the moods of the people around him, even if he can’t fathom the cause. He suffers greatly when the people he cares about are in conflict, particularly when they’re angry at him, and feels strong compulsion to manage their feelings. Above all else, he seeks approval, particularly from those he worries he hasn’t gotten it from. He is known to cry under great emotional duress. His interpersonal abilities are paramount, and he places a lot of stock in his relationships.

One of Aidan’s key traits is his emotional vulnerability. He is in a great deal of emotional pain due to years of assault, and is written to be cast not just in the manner of a traditionally feminine emotional landscape, but as a long term sexual assault survivor who is trying to work through his trauma. He also is full of feelings and sensitive, but often lacks the language, or opportunity, to talk about what he’s going through. He is used to repressing reactions of out necessity for safety and coping, but has no personal reservations about showing his vulnerability.

Tom’s sensitivity is treated as his superpower. His ability to read people and detect what is going on with them below the surface is his chief skill in navigating interpersonal relationships, making friendships, allies, and trust bonds, and in gathering the information he needs to solve the mystery in front of him. Like Nathaniel, he has strong interpersonal skills.

By contrast, Robin is Tony Stark, basically. Talented, exceptional, self-absorbed, arrogant, provocative, attention-seeking, addiction-prone. Only difference is he lacked any of Tony’s inner self-loathing until life gave him a good smack down. He is not good at noticing or paying attention to the feelings of others and has to challenge himself to develop in that way.

Justin is along a similar vein to Robin, except lower key and less toxic about it, without the addictive personality.

Appearance:

Nathaniel is considered attractive and good-looking, in a normatively masculine way. He is somewhat personally vain and has a strong interest in fashion, a feminine-coded quality, but to the effect of a very attractive and normatively masculine presentation.

Aidan is in fact a PARAGON of masculine beauty. (I like my pretty boys, and that’s the kind of pretty I like.) He is treated as an object of value in the manner exceptionally beautiful women are in the real world. But for all that Aidan’s beauty is extreme and in high focus, as is more typical of feminine beauty, it is not something that’s important to him personally, and he does nothing to cause or maintain it, as is often typical of men.

Tom Barrows from The Tailor at Loring’s End is nice-looking if nothing particularly out of the ordinary, but knows how to dress to absolute best advantage— indeed, his profession and the great interest of his life is the making of beautiful clothes, for men and for women.

Robin Locksley from Hood is hot, fashionable, and extremely vain— but again, his appearance is fairly normatively masculine. Justin Hawking is the same.

They all have traditionally masculine gender presentations, as that is my personal aesthetic preference, though body types vary. In my imagination, Nathaniel is tall and lean. Aidan looks just like Captain America. Tom is fit and cute but unimposing. Robin is a hot douchebag who works on his body. Justin is a stockier version of Nathaniel.

To be continued!
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The varying utility of feedback

Jul. 2nd, 2015 03:55 pm
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When you make art, you have to be constantly aware of the fact that people's reactions to your work are always going to be all over the place, no matter how good, or even how bad, it is. It can make it tough sometimes to realize what's legitimate feedback and what's not, but it's necessary for believing in your piece enough to keep pushing through the long, rejection-filled process that is getting it out to the world.

I got several pieces of feedback on my film scripts this week, the 2016 Bluecat Screenwriting Contest round one for both Adonis and Tailor, and feedback on the first pitch I ever made for Tailor. None of them were that great, and don't seem particularly useful.

As for Bluecat, the Adonis one had positives but nothing that particularly demonstrated a strong understanding of what we were trying to do, and negatives that I'd never heard before and didn't really think were that on-point. The Tailor one didn't seem to like anything about it particularly, and had a critique based on a misunderstanding of what happened in the script. Also, they had very little in common with other criticisms I'd heard-- which tend to suggest to me that they fall under "everybody's going to find something to dislike." Particularly in forms like this, where they've got to say something's off. I am not bothering with posting them here.

The feedback on the Tailor pitch made me laugh. "The author should put the blurb about herself at the bottom, not in the middle of the pitch as it disrupts the story information." I put it where the program SUGGESTS you put it, so whatever, personal taste. "The story itself feels somewhat familiar to other similar concepts, which makes me think it could be a tough sell, especially as a period piece." Okay-- what are these similar ones? I know there have been period mysteries before, but I struggled with thinking of other films that were like it, and the two I settled on, Atonement and Gosford Park, aren't really that close.

So, a pass. With a response like that, can you guess what my scores were?

Delivery - 4
Clarity - 4
Protagonists - 5

Heh. So, on a 1 to 5 scale, a good, a good, and a great. What does that mean? I gave a hell of a pitch for a shitty story? That 5 on the protagonists especially amuses me, since the last Bluecat reader to see the script thought they were "ill-defined."

So, this seems to me a good time to remind myself that you're never going to please everybody. Everybody's going to have their own problem with your piece. And if my pitch is actually good, chances are I just need to luck into the person who's going to feel the story, and then I'll be in. Which is where the persistence comes in. That sucks, but that's the nature of the game I've decided to play. And I want this badly enough to push through.
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Pushing on with projects

Oct. 20th, 2014 12:08 pm
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Overwhelmed and not doing so well. Negative, pessimistic thoughts have been pretty intrusive lately. I'm trying to keep working on the projects that are important to me, as productivity usually helps me feel better and the only way to ever get through is to persevere, but I'm feeling a bit discouraged and directionless. Maybe laying them out to make a plan will help focus me.

I have to finish my edits for resubmission to the BlueCat screenwriting contest. I think Adonis is finished, but I'm still working on The Tailor at Loring's End. At least I feel like I have a direction to go in on it, so I should be able to execute something. I just hope I've grasped what the contest feedback is asking for, and can make edits that sufficiently address it.

I have got to work on Puzzle House Blues, but I feel so paralyzed about it. My collaborator has not liked the direction I'd taken it in, and I really don't know how to give him what he wants. I feel like anything I try, either I'll hate it or he will, so what's the point? It's left me feeling very avoidant. But my struggling has kept him waiting for weeks now, so I need to get on it.

I've been noodling a bit on that Cabin Pressure fan fiction I started during 31 Plays in 31 Days. I want to finish it before the last episode of the show is released, though it's certainly not something that should be a high priority. It's hard to write because I want to it be funny and feel like a real episode. But it's just a stupid fan fiction, so I feel like I can't justify the effort when I have more important things to write. It'd be nice to just bang something out and not subject it to a big stressful editing process, though I know it won't be as good that way. It'd just be nice to have something to shoot out to a pre-existing fan community and maybe get positive feedback on.

I'd been hoping to at least start working on Base Instruments before the end of 2014. It would be good to keep up the one-Hawking-story a year thing. I don't know if I will have the time to get to it, though. I suppose pushing it off by a few months isn't too bad, but I do want to keep them up. Also it's becoming clearer and clearer that I may have to address the form in which these stories are told-- they may need to not be theater pieces in order to really progress in the world --and I may want to decide on that before I start writing anymore.
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BlueCat feedback on Tailor at Loring's End screenplay!

Sep. 25th, 2014 12:15 pm
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As with the Adonis script, I submitted my Tailor at Loring's End screenplay to the BlueCat Screenwriting Contest at well. I was nervous at first that the feedback on this one was taking so much longer to arrive, but I finally got it the other day. I am pleased to say that it was quite positive as well! Though this is the first screenplay I ever wrote, the story idea was a solid one, and I have revised it many times. It made it to the Quarter Finals of the Big Break contest last year, so I had some confidence in it.

( Read more... )

The core of the story, the themes, and the supporting cast are what this reader responded to most strongly, which I'm very happy to hear. They picked up on the purpose of the team drawing together to fix things in the end, as well as how the flashbacks were designed to parallel and compare with the modern-day story. I knew all that, the plot, themes, and setting were the parts I was most confident in, but it pleases me to hear that a reader responded to them.

The negatives were not extremely negative, but they were a bit perplexing to me.

( Read more... )

I'm of several minds about this. On one hand, I'm a bit skeptical of the criticism that Tom and Alice are not strongly defined enough, as three of my professors saw this script and none of them found the leads to be too thin. In fact, rather hilariously, Barry Brodsky, the teacher I wrote it with initially, gave me the exact opposite feedback-- he found Tom and Alice compelling, but thought my supporting cast like Della and Crier to be lacking in dimension. An unfortunate feature of making art is that there is no uniform standard by which to grade it, so it's common to get educated opinions formed from two entirely different impressions. On the other hand, defining characters for people who are not in my head has been a problem in another thing I've been working on recently, enough that I'm inclined to worry it's actually a problem.

Because I want to progress in the contest, it probably doesn't make sense not to make the attempt to edit and resubmit to improve my standing, even though I'm not entirely sure I agree with the critique. And I'm not sure how to go about making it clearer. I don't think just sticking in answers to a lot of those questions is the way. "Where's Tom's father?" He's dead, he's not important to this story. (Also I notice you don't mind that Alice's mother's not dealt with, probably because I dealt with her father to your satisfaction. Moms being important is weird, dads being important is normal, amirite? :-P) "Does Alice go to school?" She just got out of school, I'm pretty sure that's mentioned in a line and not that important anymore.

Bleh. I'm probably just being defensive. I am prone to that. I just wish I could more clearly envision way to fix that problem (if it really exists). I find "define this character more" to be particularly hard note to address, for whatever reason. Maybe it's because they seem plenty clear to me, and I don't know why others can't see it. But it's worth making the attempt. The other note, about Kenneth's motivations/knowledge being made a little clear, is a fine one; concrete and easy to take, so no problem addressing that there.

As I said, I'm mostly happy with this feedback, and if it's this positive it's probably got as a good a shot as any in the contest.

God willing, Tom, Diana, Alice, and Aidan will take this contest by storm! ;-)
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One whole day off from writing tomorrow!

Jul. 30th, 2014 10:43 pm
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After several solid weeks of basically continuous writing work, I have submitted mine and Bernie's new screenplay Adonis to the contest it was written for. I had planned on spending today as well as tomorrow chilling on any kind of productive writing work, but as it turns out, you can re-edit entries from previous years and submit them again too. So I decided on a whim to go over The Tailor at Loring's End and put it in the fray a second time. It did well last time, and hopefully I've improved it-- I punched up the ending to make Alice more active, and hopefully ratchet up the tension. Having two pretty strong (in my opinion) horses in the race can't be a bad thing, right? :-)

That means I have one day basically, tomorrow, to rest before I have to dive back into writing work. I promised Troy I would get back to Puzzle House Blues in August, and I definitely want to do 31 Plays in 31 Days again. Not much of a rest for me, unfortunately, even though after all that work I feel pretty burnt out. Ah, well. I'm proud of what I've accomplished, and I don't want to stop there. So I guess I'll jut have to keep plugging.
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Redesigning the Bethany Loring dress in The Tailor at Loring's End

Jun. 5th, 2014 12:03 pm
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I’ve been resisting it for some time, but I think I really do need to redesign the dress in The Tailor at Loring’s End.

As I’ve mentioned, my big inspiration for the look of it was the green dress Keira Knightley wore in Atonement, specifically the long, straight silhouette and the hip swag. They don’t often these days design really iconic dresses for movies anymore—not like they did for the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly —and I thought that was the only such example to come out of the movies in years. If this movie got made, I would want this dress to be iconic in that way, so that people remembered it and saw it as a tribute to that classic sort of costume design tradition. “The Bethany Loring dress, in cornflower blue, with lily shapes beaded on the bodice.” I was even pleased when I realized that what I was imagining was roughly appropriate for the 1930s, given that most of Tailor takes place in 1934.

image

What I hadn’t taken into account, however, was the fact that the other part of Tailor takes place back in 1917— and the dress was actually designed back then. Which made my mental image of it totally wrong for the era in which it was made. This frustrated me, as I was actually pretty attached to my mental image, but it was just too far off even for artistic license. I ignored it for a long time, as I didn’t want to deal. But now that I’m writing a treatment for Tailor, the problem jumps out at me again.

Fortunately, since writing it I’ve become a fan of things like Downton Abbey, which as given me more of an eye for the look and design style of 1910s gowns. I think I can reasonably translate my vision of the dress into something that wouldn’t look totally, utterly inconceivable for the time. Especially since the major design elements I’m imagining— a cowled overlay on the neckline, a beaded bodice, and the Atonement-inspired hip swag —all could be reasonably included on a 1910s evening dress.

Of course this is all a pretty minor thing. If the movie ever got made, even in my wildest dreams, an actual costume designer would be making those decisions instead of me. Still, the design elements are referenced in the script, and some of them are even plot-relevant. To a certain extent, there would be a need to interpret my vision. So I’m glad I’ve finally come around to the changes it would be necessary to make.
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No commitments but writing for a while

May. 3rd, 2014 07:57 pm
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Now that Festival is over, I find myself with minimal outside commitments that have deadlines and places I have to be. I think this is a good state for me for the time being. I've been feeling overwhelmed and pressed so much, and I want to turn my attention to writing projects primarily. So, for the time being, I will join no projects, make no outside commitments, and give myself no deadlines that aren't related to the pieces I want to be writing.

I need to write the next draft of my new musical, Puzzle House Blues. I got a lot of good feedback from friends at a reading dinner as well as from my collaborator Troy, and I need to implement it. It needs some restructuring, so I think I'm going to write a new outline and then rearrange and reshape the scenes based on that.

You may remember that last year I entered my screenplay, The Tailor at Loring's End, in the Final Draft Big Break Screenwriting Contest. I actually did really well, making it to the Quarter Finals. I want to have something new to enter in that competition this year. I won't have feedback from my professional teachers on this one, but I have a new idea that's worth a shot, so I'm going to give it a try.

My new idea is pretty weird. It's dark and a little kinky; I want to make a feminist point in a way that may be really off-putting to mainstream audiences, which could reduce my chances of having it go far in the contest. But I really like this idea and think it would make an amazing movie, so I'm going to make the attempt.

I might write about the story here, get a little feedback. The particular weirdness of it makes me slightly embarrassed to talk about it, but I do think it's an interesting idea. We'll see how I feel as I develop it a little more.

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Some up, some down

Oct. 20th, 2013 02:49 pm
breakinglight11: (CT photoshoot 1)

They released the list of semifinalists in the Final Draft Big Break screenwriting contest, and I am sad to say my Tailor script did not end up on the list. I am much more bummed about this fact than I expected to be. I mean, it had so many entrants that I figured my chances of making any progress at all weren't good, so I tried not to get my hopes up. But I was pretty happy with the edit I submitted, and when I made it to the Quarter Finals, I was really pleased and proud, so I guess I got my hopes up anyway. Pretty disappointed, I have to say, even though I know I was being silly to expect too much. But my teachers and classmates kindly pointed out that it being a Quarter Finalist is an achievement in itself, enough that I can add it as a credential on my writing resume and include it with the script if I submit anyplace else. Which had not really occurred to me. That's definitely a nice thing, and something to be proud of. I'm still disappointed, but I'm trying to look at that upside of things.

Boeing-Boeing closes today. We have our last "matinee" (in quotes because it's so late) at 4 and then we tear down the set. I'm really happy to have been part of it and that it went so well-- it's been a fun show to do with a fun role for me, plus it's had good-sized audiences every night. It's really good to have had to have had this and Tom Sawyer: The Musical, the immediately previous show, go so well. That makes me feel good. I'm also glad that it's winding down now, as it's been a pretty exhausting week. I'll be happy to have more time again, if only to be able to get back to regular writing on this blog!

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Made the quarter finals of the Final Draft contest!

Sep. 20th, 2013 05:47 pm
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Today, on my way back to Boston after visiting my parents at home, I got an e-mail from the people at Final Draft. As you may remember, early this summer I set aside a few weeks early in July to edit my screenplay The Tailor of Riddling Way to submit it to a contest that Final Draft is holding with a really fabulous prize-- cash, a consultation with experts, a trailer shot for your script, and tuition to a screenwriting intensive at UCLA. My teacher Barry Brodsky said it was worth entering, so I did, figuring it would be beneficial even if it only got my to fix up my script. As I said, I got good responses to the story of it, but in screenwriting no scene should be longer than about four minutes, so my piece needed a lot of restructuring. I was fairly happy with the result, I think it ended up a lot tighter, so when the due date rolled around, I sent it off and tried too put it out of my mind.

Well, today we got our first response on it. They announced that out of almost 6,700 screenplays submitted, they narrowed them down to the top twelve percent into the quarter finals. And on that sorter but still dismayingly long list, my piece was there among them!


(You see in this screenshot off my phone the title's different. Barry said to me when I first wrote it that the original title was a bit off point, so right before I submitted it I changed it a little to try and make sure it didn't strike a reader as irrelevant. I may consider that to be the canon title from here on.)

We'll see if I manage to make it any farther. There are still so many other people to compete against that winning is pretty unlikely. But who knows, I may actually stand a decent shot at coming out the best in my genre, which you can see is Period/Historical/War, currently my favorite to write things in. I don't think there were too, too many submitted there. But I am very proud of myself to have made it into that top twelve percent. At the very least, I think it means I improved my script in the most recent edit into something respectable. :-)

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31 Plays in 31 Days: #8 "Rich Men's Sins"

Aug. 8th, 2013 03:40 pm
breakinglight11: (CT photoshoot 1)
WW2-GI

As you may remember from The Tailor of Riddling Way, the golden boy of the Loring family Rowan Loring enlisted in World War I despite all expectations. I have been wondering if maybe there is a play in the story of what happened to him there. I haven't given much thought before to the details, although it is well known that he died a hero. This is a little piece of what it might have been like when he was serving. I'm not sure what the larger arc would be-- it may be that he would have to be a supporting character in someone else's story --but here's a little musing.

( Day #8 - "Rich Men's Sins" )
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Finished this round of Tailor screenplay edits

Jul. 15th, 2013 06:00 pm
breakinglight11: (Bowing Fool)

Submitted my Tailor screenplay to the contest today. Fairly sure that there will be so many other entries I don't have much of a chance, but what the hell. It forced me to revise, to turn my few, very long scenes into many, significantly shorter scenes, which is necessary for modern screenwriting. I think the script is much, much improved now, tighter and snappier, though probably still not perfect. It's probably still too talky, though it is definitely more visual than before. It's also quite a few pages shorter, going from one seventeen down to one oh nine. Whatever, it is submitted now, and I am proud of myself for making it better.

Most scenes are just edited, but one scene I completely redid. I was never quite happy with how I did the scene of Alice and Tom having their first real conversation together, the one where the connection between them was supposed to spark. It was incredibly difficult for me to re-envision it, and it was actually the last thing remaining to accomplish.

I ended up going to the gender well, in a way I had kind of resolved not to before. I didn't want to make an issue of a male dressmaker like Tom, as I didn't want the reader/viewer thinking too much of it. And as you may know, I have a liking for traditionally masculine men doing traditionally feminine things. But throwing it in there worked, gave opportunity to bring a few things up about Tom's passion for the craft-- which was really the element that hadn't been fully explored yet, and really did belong in that conversation. And I don't think it messes up my schema too much.

Read the scene for yourself and see how it came out:

( "Tailoring suits is like architecture, and dressmaking feels like art." )
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Shaping up the Tailor screenplay

Jul. 8th, 2013 07:21 pm
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At Caucasian Chalk Circle in Chelsea, waiting for the run to start, and taking a minute to think about what I need to do this week. My teacher recommended a screenplay contest that is worth entering that has a submission due date of the 15th. I'd like to enter the Tailor screenplay, but it's not ready in its current state. According to the last feedback I got, the story is fairly solid but it needs some restructuring. My reader said my scenes need to be shorter but that there should be more of them; in screenwriting a two-hour script needs about one hundred and fifty and should be mostly no longer than four pages each. I'm not sure how to do this, though. I'm currently looking for a resource to help me edit things down, but haven't found one yet. If you know of any that specifically address this, feel free to send it my way. I need to get moving on this soon since the due date is so close. I'm sure my chances of winning this contest are slim, but it's worth a try, and at least it will motivate me to get my script in the best possible shape.

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First draft of my thesis play complete

May. 6th, 2013 08:58 am
breakinglight11: (CT photoshoot 1)
You may remember my decision to scrap my original plan for my thesis play halfway through and start an entirely new on instead. When I decided that, I wrote the first scene for my teacher to see if she thought it was a good idea. I only wrote the one scene in case she didn't like it, I didn't want to go too far with an idea I couldn't make work. But once I got the go ahead, that meant I had to write most of a complete draft in the time I was originally supposed to writing the final quarter of one. I have been feverishly working the last couple of weeks to make up for that last time, and I am relieved to say I finished the draft last night in time for when I was supposed to submit.

You know, I will never worry about whether writing game material is a waste of time. Because my games have informed my playwriting to such a huge extent. When my first thesis play idea wasn't working, the only idea I could come up with was... wait for it... a plot for a game I'd just written. A story in the backstory of that game became the basis for my piece. I am SO GLAD I wrote it, because it saved me from crashing and burning. And what do you know, I kind of like the story.

Funnily enough, this makes a good point about you never know what you can do with an idea. The protagonist of my play is Mrs. Elizabeth Loring, the wife of society gentleman and WWI hero Rowan Loring, and the mother of Alice, one of the two protagonists in Tailor of Riddling Way. Elizabeth only exists because to have a child you have to have a mother, so I slapped a name on Rowan's wife. The character had like one line, and then I said she died young because there was no room for her to factor into the story.

Then I needed to write a one-shot tabletop game. I wanted to set it in the same timeline as The Tailor of Riddling Way. And what jumped out at me was a possible story for Elizabeth, for what happened to her when she stepped out of the trajectory of the story featured in Tailor. For the game, this was backstory, the mysterious events of the past that needed to be discovered in order to understand what was going on in the present. But it turned out to be suited to being depicted dramatically. It's also not an unmanageable cast, full of women, and has a pretty produceable set of properties. Not a bad addition to my repertoire!

It doesn't have a last scene, technically. I wasn't sure how to close it. But hopefully my teacher will have a suggestion. And I don't know what to call it. I suck at titles. I've tentatively reused "The Bloom of May," but that's not totally accurate for just this part of the story. I also thought about "Mrs. Loring," as that is a very significant concept, but do I really want my two first full length pieces to have titles as similar as "Mrs. Hawking" and "Mrs. Loring"? 
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Fairfield tabletop a success

Mar. 18th, 2013 10:22 pm
breakinglight11: (Mad Fool)
So last night's run of the Fairfield tabletop game for the kiddies was a success. They all played very well, they seemed to get into their characters and came up with lots of interesting stuff to do to tell the story. I was proud of them and enjoyed running for them. I was also pretty happy with the story I came up with. It seemed sufficiently rich and complex, with a mystery that was neither too hard to too easy to solve. I am so happy with it, in fact, I'd like to schedule another run for anyone who would like to play.

In case you're interested, I need five people willing to play two women and two men plus one neutral character for a roleplay-heavy five-hour tabletop game with no system and no rules, just collaborative storytelling and GM fiat. It's set in the completely realistic setting of a small town in Connecticut in the 1930s, and it has ties to the story of The Tailor of Riddling Way. I think I will call the module "The Bloom of May." I will try to organize a run shortly!
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Tabletop game in the "Tailor of Riddling Way" universe

Mar. 14th, 2013 05:17 pm
breakinglight11: (Bowing Fool)
This morning I cleaned the house from top to bottom, flitting between the work and scribbling thoughts in my notebook for the one-shot tabletop game I'm running this weekend. I'm always surprised at how much this sort of life suits me. If only I didn't have to worry about that whole distasteful money issue. Anyone in the market for a housewife? I'm very on top of the chores, I'm an excellent cook, I can keep to a budget, and I won't let my figure go. Just keep me in ballet classes and larp costuming and you'll never go off to work without a thoughtfully packed lunch ever again.

The game I'm running is for Carolyn, Ryan, Sam, Aaron, and Gigi, most of whom are new to gaming and would like to get a taste of what theatrical roleplaying is like before they play in a real larp. The game is set in Fairfield, in the universe of the Tailor of Riddling Way, and explore many of the same important themes-- family history, class differences, terrible secrets. I'm writing pregen characters and setting it right after the conclusion of the Tailor story. I am evening including some of the original characters. So far I'm feeling pretty good about what I have, and I think it's going to turn out to be a good game. It's meant to be roleplay-heavy and completely mechanics free as an exercise in acting and storytelling. If it goes well, I'd be happy to run it again for anyone who cares to play.
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Possibilities of "The Tailor of Riddling Way" universe...

Feb. 10th, 2013 03:41 pm
breakinglight11: (Ponderous Fool)
smallredbricktown

The Tailor of Riddling Way takes place in Fairfield, Connecticut in the year 1934. It's a real town, but I'm mostly making it up from my imagination for that story. I see it as an old, small, pretty New England town with lots of red brick buildings and trees that take on vibrant fall colors. The town has two sides to it, the working-class people, decent solid tradesmen, who live and work in town, and a small group of wealthy upper-class elite made of old money and industry barons who live in fancy manors. It is very white, most people there have never seen a person of color. In that year, when the nation was just coming out of the Depression, the upper class has eroded slightly, the hits to their businesses shaking their formerly untouchable status and power. The regular people are struggling to keep going in the wake of the crashed economy, many of them making their livings working for the downsizing rich families.

I like the idea of this town, a place where a comfortable order of things was shaken by the changes brought on by the Depression. I wonder if there could possibly be more stories told about it. It might just be a town full of family secrets and placid facades that conceal mysteries to be unraveled. I do so love mysteries. This might be worth exploring, to develop further figures in this town, to interweave the threads and make them richer.
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