Countdown to 10 years of HTWF: After 10 years and over 100 entries, this is the second to last post (other than a coming Index Series).
There's nothing like hearing actors, especially talented actors, read your words. Though my favorite part of writing is creating a first draft, a close second is having I read-through of the script by actors . Besides the obvious fun of being part of a team, it's an amazing learning experience.
Though read throughs don't include the action, they do include gestures, expressions, and, most of all, character interpretation. Often, I come to see my characters in a new way based on how an actor speaks the lines. How the ideas run together and show emotion and evoke empathy. So much comes through I just pacing the words in a way I hadn't imagined. Someone once described theater as poetry standing up, and the qualities of the words – a collaboration with language – is only evident when their herd rather than read.
Of course, actors stumble. Most often, that's because there's a better way to phrase the thought, and I've missed it. By the time a read-through is done, I've extensively marked up the script. Changes will be made, but not all them. This is a collaboration, after all. The director may ask for a different "take" on the line. An actor may, having experienced discomfort, ask questions that reveal the purpose of the line and make it easier to deliver. Sometimes, it's not a failure in writing, it has to do with a quality that the actor brings to the role that demands reshaping the words.
Something else happens when the work gets on its feet. Once the director has worked with the actors on their roles, blocked the scenes, and choreographed the actions, there is more for me to learn. The primary thing I'm looking for is the reactions of the actors when they are not speaking. This gives me a good sense of what's happening between the characters, and it gives me a good indication of what's happening internally — which provides much of the real value of the story. I get a sense for the power shifts and what's at stake in a way that's not made possible by simply reading the script.
Finally, there’s much to be learned from an audience. I always imagine specific people experiencing the story as I write, but real people can be different. This is especially true when it comes to humor. Some jokes that seem just right and are delivered well by actors still fail in front of audiences. The same can be true with emotional moments, which tend to be delicate. Sometimes they just don't work and need to be rethought. Most often the problem is earlier in the script, and it can take a real effort to find what needs to be fixed.
One thing that shows up all along the way is any inconsistencies in characters. There's something about having real humans speak the lines that makes any unconscious accommodations for offer intrusions or sloppiness melt away. Turning a character into a vehicle for a good line or bending their actions to fit the plot will stand out and be undeniable.
Now, not everyone who writes gets to hear actors read their words. The best solution is to trade off with other writers and read your works to each other. For novels and short stories, the main concern is avoiding the temptation to blame the reader or to be inflexible about how it should sound. For scripts with different characters, casting friends and having them read, even though they may have no training in acting, can be valuable if your expectations aren’t too high.
You can always just read it all yourself, of course. Reading aloud will reveal a lot more than silent reading. If you can get into role, even better. A lot of the insights into character will become available to you. I've found that, if there are multiple characters, I need to record my readings because I become too absorbed in the presentation, and I miss too much of what the reading offers.
One more option is using text-to-speech. This is available on all personal computers. Minimally, it reduces the number of typos and grammatical errors in your writing. They tend to stand out when you're listening to another voice. Though it can also reveal some awkward phrasing, it's no substitute for reading the work out loud yourself.
I'll add one more thing, though I'm still experimenting with this. I've long been able to get the voices of people for whom I write speeches into my head so that their word choice, cadences, and rhythms are reflected in my work. More recently, I found that I can do this for different characters if, in my head, I cast actors for whom I've written in the past. Lately, I've been extending this.
YouTube is an amazing resource for hearing different voices. By repeatedly listening to real people who are interesting and essentially casting them in my stories, I get a new way of experiencing the dialogue I'm writing. I'm not sure this is really working and making my stories better because I don't have enough experience with this approach yet. Still, it might be something worth considering for your own work.
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