When Writing Meets Directing; How Listening to Your Characters Can Bring Your Scene Alive

A few weeks ago, I had my scene performed in front of an audience, which was an absolute blast, but the real joy came from seeing a director at work. She understood my characters better than me, and saw under the surface of every line, emphasizing juicy subtext to create a bouncy, witty opening. In this post I hope to give some thoughts on how writers can develop their characters to create more dramatic scenes.

We'd each been asked to write a new scene of a play as part of the Out of Joint Writer's Academy at Salisbury Playhouse. I normally spend months writing treatments and was totally unprepared to be writing scenes, but the deadline was fast approaching.

I was a little nervous when two weeks later I entered a room of actors and a director working on a fellows piece. I'd never worked with a  director before. I wasn't really sure what they did beside organising the actors and perhaps telling them how to say their lines. I dreaded it. My work was unready, but thankfully, the director could see its potential, and did so much more than I thought.

She summed up her thoughts and started to go through line by line with the actors, refering to me when a question came up. What was interesting to see, was the level of detail with which she worked. With every line, she asked, why are they saying that? What does that mean? What are the relationships to the other characters? Do they like each other, and how much? An interesting thing Max Stafford-Clark likes to do is show a card with a number, and that number is how much a character likes another character. It's not just like or dislike, there are levels.

With this in mind, a few interesting discoveries were made in my scene.

Firstly, I had a group of pals role-playing, two boys, Danny and Robb, and a tom-boy called Fran. The joke of the scene is that Fran wants to be the knight so forces Robb to wear the dress, and Robb, hiding in a make-believe tower, moans as he itches and scratches at the uncomfortable dress.

At which point, the director asked about a particular line, where one of the boys asks the other, "You all right mate?" In my mind, this was a genuine, are you okay? They're friends, of course they care about each other. The director looked past that. She looked deeper. These 'friends' are forcing this guy into a dress and have a go at him when he doesn't want to. Would Danny be concerned about Robb? Really? We changed a few actions, and had Danny pull Robb out the bush when his moaning puts them off their game, and say the line. Now it had subtext. It was the Beta animal telling the Omega, don't you mess up our game. You'll wear that dress and like it.

Now I hadn't picked up on that, so a lesson there. Ask yourself why is my character saying that line? Ask deeper. Why are my characters doing the things they are doing, and what does that say about them, and how can I use that  to show how they interact with others? Consider unseen hierarchies within groups of people, even friends. How can we play on those to make a scene more dramatic?

Second, when the group need money to buy a costume to enter a role-play event and discuss how they will afford them, Robb tells the group when asked, "I'll probably buy one." Again, the line I delivered was matter of fact. He told us what he was going to do. The director asked why he said the line, and we looked. Robb finally had a one up on Fran, the top dog. He was sticking it to her in a play for more power. Knowing this, Frans later snap comment to Robb was her putting Robb back in his place.

I was amazed at how much I'd missed, and it made me see every single line of dialogue should have a deeper function. How can we make this? How is this possible? I'm still not one hundred percent sure, but seeing as hierarchies helped this scene, I'm willing to say they could help most other scenes too.

The top-dog has power and wants to keep it. The runt has no power and wants to get some. With this running in the background of your scene (as long as it's relevant), you can create more conflict than previously possible, for now when characters debate how to fix a problem or how to overcome whatever conflict you invent, they can do so with an air of subtext. They can battle out for power.

Of course, you could create a number of things running in the background, it doesn't just have to be a power play. You could have scene where some characters know more than others, playing up to their friends lack of knowledge. A scene where one dislikes the other yet the other is far nicer, and play up a series of fake pleasantries. That's why I think it only works if it's relevant. I think Fran has a lesson to learn about being bossy, and needs to understand she can be an imaginative girl and have a job at the same time, and I think the power-play hierarchy will help show her character growth at the end.

That's about all I have to say how you can write a more dramatic scene. I will add that it was a lovely experience to have my scene performed. I was able to see which lines didn't work, and was able to see which scene directions got in the way of both director and actor, and thought about cutting some back. Even if you can't find a workshop like this, a group of friends around a table can help bring your scene alive too.