My introduction, and a question for possible discussion

[capri0mni]

Name/pseud: Ann / CapriUni

Location: Physically? Hampton Roads, Virginia. Emotionally? Right here in Cyberspace.

I write: Mostly poetry, essays, and prose fiction. And it's only recently (as in the last few years) that I've gotten intrigued by the process of script writing.

Genres: Mostly, the fiction I write is based on the fairytale (aka folk tale, aka "Wonder tale") genre; essays and poems stray a bit further from that point of origin, but not entirely out of that country.

Inspirations: Grimms' Tales, Greek Myths, Norse Myths, Celtic Myths, etc., Shakespeare, the Y/A novels of Patricia McKillip, Sister Water by Nancy Willard (novel), Spell of the Senuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World by David Abrams (non-fiction) and Wisdom of the Mythtellers by Sean Kane (non-fiction).

Other interests: Many. Foremost in my consciousness right now is Disability Rights, and how that intersects with other aspects of human rights, (such as -- but not limited to -- feminism, anti-racism, GBLT rights).

Currently working on: An allegorical quasi-dystopian* graphic novel (my first) set about 150-70 years hence that will (I hope) morph into a superhero story somewhere in the final third of the story. My protagonist was genetically modified in utero in an attempt to cure his disability before birth; instead, his disability was only slightly lessened, but he has dinosaur's clawed, feathered, wings that are not strong enough to give him the power of flight on their own, and his story is one of how to find his own way of moving through the world.

*where the people in power are (mostly) kind-hearted, and ethically motivated (and their kindness is felt, and responded to with real affection), but the consequences of their actions are, nonetheless, painful to those they're acting on.

Anything else? As an English Major in college and grad school, I read a lot of scripts as part of my literature survey courses. But -- that's the key thing: we studied and discussed them as finished, polished, works of literature on their own, and not as blue-prints for a finished product in a completely different medium. And now, I'm confronting the switch in consciousness needed in order to write one as a blue print.

Any thoughts?

Also: this is a Yayful Day -- commonly recognized as William Shakespeare's Birthday!

If W.S. were a zombie, he'd be 446 years old, today.

And here's a bit of Elizabethan Script writing trivia: back then, before copyright was even conceived, and making copies was expensive and time-consuming, each actor was only given a portion of the entire play: only one line for their cues, the lines he, himself, had to learn, and one line after -- the cue for the next actor on stage. Only the playwright kept a copy of the entire play.

Thus, when you ask a fellow actor: "What part did you get?" once upon a time, that was meant literally.

Comments

[jeeps]

hey, ann! welcome to the comm. i really like the concept for your graphic novel.

what kind of scripts did you read in your lit class?

[capri0mni]

Actually, that should be plural: classes (College and grad school, all together was about seven years, spread out over sixteen)

Well, As an English Major, I read a lot of Shakespeare, with the plays reproduced as textbooks, for classroom study. Also, depending on what the survey course was {Romanticism, modern lit, World Lit, etc.} I've read Ibsen, Chekov (The Cherry Orchid), Oscar Wilde, and others.

But the thing was (is?) the way we dissected them in class was exactly the way we'd dissect a novel or a poem, so they didn't trigger the recognition that these were originally scripts (only intermediary pieces, and not finished works whole and complete unto themselves). And even if you buy published versions of scripts, they come in very different formats if you want to use them in the classroom, or for a stage production (AIUI).

And it's odd, perhaps, that, in academia, Theater Majors and Literature Majors rarely even cross paths, and I get the feeling they don't quite trust each other's intellectual approaches.

[jeeps]

i'm not sure i have any deep thoughts to offer on the topic, but it is an interesting question. just personally, i would probably try to think about the fact that even though i studied them in a certain way, that's not necessarily the way they were meant to be read (they weren't meant to be read at all, really) and try and find an "in" that way. i'd maybe consider how people always say that, for example, shakespeare isn't meant to be read, but to be seen on the stage. which is, really, oversimplistic, considering that the distance we have from it does require some study of the text if we want to understand what we're even looking at. but then once you do you can see how watching it kind of adds to the experience. but i also think it's not divorced from the study of it either. everyone who's studied shakespeare has been told to think about how the puns play out to an audience -- to the reader there's the one meaning, in the way it's spelled, but to the viewer who doesn't see the spelling it has a double meaning, and adds a lot more depth to the work.

i think actually writing the blueprint means leaving room for interpretation. i have a good picture in my mind of what is happening -- even when i write prose people have remarked that they feel they're looking at a scene through a camera angle, so i think that's just how i view stories. in prose i like finding the very specific way in which a character speaks a line. none of that changes when i write a script, but i do try to leave a lot of what i'm seeing out of it. i mean, obviously that is kind of expected in the business, but i do genuinely find it interesting to think of scriptwriting as a collaborative experience.

i don't know if any of that is what you're looking for, but it's what came to my mind!