- my friend, David (I'm paraphrasing)
When working on a play, I don't always know what the play is about until I've written it. And even after several drafts, sometimes. Years ago, I wrote a play about two couples in open relationships. I was trying to figure out my own open relationship and I didn't know if that was what I wanted. I wrote 55 pages of something that were read for my playwrights group. When we discussed the play, someone said "this play is about being honest." That was true, but I hadn't been able to distill it down like that. Once that clear thought got in my head, I wrote the play in four days.
That's the power of clarity.
When working in TV or Film, you're asked to know what you're writing before you write it. I don't know if you can know what a piece of art is until you've created it. That's why I have a theory that writing for an assignment - which is what TV or film often is - isn't writing. It's a kind of technical writing, but it's not creative writing. Of course, there are auteurs who are making television and films that aren't as resolved or as simply defined. And that is art. But the writing that goes into writing a sample to get a job, or the writing that usually happens on staff - that's not the same thing. But in the same token, film and TV writing has to be clear from the jump.
I do believe that all writing must be clear in stating what it is. But the process of how you get there is what makes the difference. David and I were talking last night about pitching new ideas. When you're working on a pitch, that idea has to come through so strongly. When you're in the business of having to share something with an executive or an agent or manager before you pitch it, you've got to have that clarity. And none of those people want to wait until after you've explained the idea to know what it's about.
So what if your process is that you have to find it to know what it is? You have to find it first before you share it. Then you put it up front and state what it is right away and then you go into all of the wonderful things you've discovered that support the spine of your idea. It's reversing the order. Your process as a writer might involve having to create and think and read and do all of that stuff to distill the idea. That doesn't mean that everyone has to be privy to all of that. Keep that private. All they want to know is that you have a clear idea of what you're doing.
Let them enter at the point of clarity. Then share all of the great complex flavors of what you're doing. Change the context. That means that you get to have your process unspoiled and they get to have the satisfaction of knowing what they're being given. They don't have to search for it or question it.
Working in television has taught me a lot about clarity. After my play reading last Saturday, I had to come back and get to work on the rewrite of my pilot. I knew I had to get this pilot in to my manager before the beginning of September - that was a personal goal and a bit of a mercury retrograde goal as well. So I finished a draft of the pilot on Wednesday. I set it aside while we rehearsed on Thursday and Friday. I picked it up again on Sunday. I wrote a lot of notes on Sunday, but still had a lot of questions. I felt like what I had was a mess. Then I put it down and on Monday I set aside the whole day to work on it. I tried not to put a lot of pressure on myself, even though that's completely what I was doing. As I was working on trying to figure out how to get the script down from 58 pages to around 52-54 pages, I was thinking about how to make the relationships clear. I realized that the parents in the script had motives that weren't totally clear. If I clarified their motives - particularly in a stretch of the script in the middle of the story - then I might have something. Once I landed on what those motives were, the rest of the script fell in to place. And I turned in the script on time.
Trying to find the characters is necessary. But having someone read a draft where that's what I'm doing is not. Yes, I have close friends who will read something early on to help me figure it out. But if I'm subjecting someone to my process, then I'm giving them the ability to judge what I've done in a very early stage where I should be more protective. I'm exposing more of myself. I don't have to trust everybody with every delicate aspect of myself. That's clarity.
But there's also the question: Does everything need to be clear? I don't know. Maybe not. But that's for another time.
My intention is to work and to learn.
My intention is to break wide open.
My intention is to finish the next pilot.
I am grateful for two and a half hour conversations with good friends.
I am grateful for rest.
I am grateful for recovery.
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