My Assembly Line Process

How many plays do I write at once?

I struggled for many years with finishing plays I was writing. The work would get hard, a new idea would come along, and I would invariably say, "That old idea wasn't so great after all, but this new idea will be amazing!" And I'd abandon the half-finished script and start a new one. My hard drive is littered with a score or more of this false starts. In recent years, though, I've reliably finished the plays I work on--and not because the ideas have started coming or that I've developed some amazing distraction abnegation technique. It's because I now write on an assembly line.

People sometimes wonder where a playwright or author comes up with their idea for a work. Writers usually respond: "Idea? Singular? That's not how it works!" At least, I know that's not how my brain works. Ideas for plays show up all the time, usually unbidden, often even unwanted when focus on the current project is needed. There are two big problems with writing ideas. The first problem is that ideas themselves are worth nothing; execution is everything. The best idea can flop on stage or on the page if it is handled badly. Conversely, a playwright can take a simple or even boring idea (a middle-aged man looks back on his life and realizes that he's only ever been mediocre) and turn it into an enduring masterpiece through brilliant execution (Miller's Death of a Salesman). The second problem with ideas is that newer, nebulous ideas are more attractive than the ones we are beating into a story with actual words. As we roll around a new idea in our brains, all the parts that are missing or clash with each over are softened and the concept seems perfect, tempting us to abandon our current struggle and take up with this new siren. So how do I combat this temptation? 

I simply work on three plays at once.  

I use an assembly line metaphor because the three plays I allow myself are in different stages of completion, like widgets moving along an assembly line in a factory. At any given time, one of my plays is at the Polishing stage. This is the stage that ranges from a readable draft that I can show a few people to a version where I invite actors to read aloud to a production script either in rehearsal or has finished its first performance run. This is the collaboration where input from others (including an audience!) is needed to bring the piece to its final stage. Plays being polished are touched in scheduled moments separated by time in between, such as the initial feedback, 1st table read, 2nd table read, rehearsal changes, performance notes, etc.

I will always have a second play in the Drafting stage. Here is the time of the dreaded flashing cursor, blinking on the empty page. This is the play I tell people I am working on, since this is where the bulk of my creativity is devoted. The drafting stage requires the most focus and the one that can suck up entire days at my keyboard if that luxury provides itself. Yet because this stage requires the most brainpower, I also need breaks from it to allow the well of creativity to refill. Thus the third stage.

The Brainstorming stage is perhaps the most fun of the three (well, polishing a play by performing it for an audience is pretty fun, too!). This is when I get to take that new idea, roll it around, look at it from all angles, and think "what if...?" The nice thing about this stage is that it requires much less extended focus than the Drafting stage. Got a half-hour waiting for that next appointment? Time to brainstorm. Driving back home after work? Brainstorm. Working with people around who will be talking to you every ten or fifteen minutes? Less frustrating to brainstorm then try to stay in the Drafting headspace. 

So there it is: there's my solution to my personal writing ADD. And a bonus for those who are still reading: here is the current assembly line in progress:

• Polishing: There's Still Snow on Silver Star. A story centering around the Yacolt Burn of 1902, about hope versus loss and the decision to love again. Currently in table reads.

• Drafting: Live in 3, 2, 1... A crazy complicated farce featuring the very first American television studio as it tries to produce the first-ever broadcast of a dramatic episode. Appearing on Love Street Playhouse's stage in November, 2024.

• Brainstorming: Point Resilience (working title). Seeking solace in a secluded lighthouse retreat, a bereaved author uncovers a spectral link with the 19th-century lightkeeper's wife, believed mad and driven to suicide. His need for closure intertwines with hers as they communicate across the centuries to unveil a chilling secret: her supposed suicide was a sinister murder, binding their fates across time.