Writing: A Great Way Of Finding Other Things To Do

I met up with David Miller yesterday in the swelter of the city to discuss our colabo. What began as a screenplay has become a stage play, which has actually led to massive leaps in our telling the story. I still, mercenery that I am, want to develop it as a screenplay too, but so much has come out of having to get the story out of three actors that we're well on our way to drafting a first script. Constraints free us.

What is more, I'm beginning to feel comfortable with writing the story. The play is historical, but the documentary evidence on which it sits is scant. This, too, should free us, but instead it stops the ink in the pen. Everything I dared write could easily turn out to be embarrassingly wrong, so I try in vain to come up with more information, and the project's fruition disappears over the horizon. Somehow, though, the stage production has made it easier to get across the notion that this is just a version of history, that it might not be accurate.

The real joy came, though, in writing out a dialogue that is supposed to be the centrepoint of the play, an uneasy agreement between the two lead characters. This bit had always remained a little baffling to me. But somehow in actually writing out a conversation between them, a solution has presented itself.

I also managed to get the ending I wanted sorted out. It will doubtless be revised a hundred times but what I wanted said is sayable, and I'm always much happier once an ending is in place.

We've drawn up a series of scenes that we want to include, so we shall start scripting those in turn, and see what bridging is needed, and how much of what we think we need we really do need. I really feel we've made a breakthrough, which is hugely encouraging!