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I’m not sure how to describe this next thing… but here’s a shot: You, as the writer, must be interested in the EFFECT of your work on the audience (keeping in mind that any single thing will have different effects across individuals, because they’re experiencing the play through their own, unique filters). So you should go into the post-reading discussion knowing what effects you hoped to have on the majority of the audience, and be prepared to find ways of discovering whether or not those effects were achieved in the majority of the audience, when you wanted them to happen.

I emailed David Moore who had a blog (he moved it) named DAM* Writer prior to my staged reading and he was kind enough to answer (even though I was oblivious enough to miss the email he sent–only having discovered it in the new year). The quote above is from him, and to me it was very illuminating. For some reason I just plowed through my play-creation process, knowing the story I wanted to tell (in some cases) and just writing (in others). I was aware that the Aristotelean approach to playwriting existed–but naively, the point of it never hit me until I read David’s thoughts.

I emphasize the “effect” thing because there’s no right or wrong to writing. There’s only what you wanted to achieve, and whether or not you achieved it.

He’s right. Your write to achieve an effect, and you either do or you don’t. This certainly neutralizes a lot of the crap that tended to build-up along the side of my playwriting process. That is, it tells me what to focus on (at least, primarily) and what to ignore. I’ll leave you with a bit more of what he said and posit it, here, as a final thought:

Sure, those who want formulaic plays will demand resolution, clarification, too much information, etc. And if that’s the play you want to write, that’s perfectly valid. But no matter what kind of play you want to write, no matter what the intended audience (artsy-fartsy or Middle America), it all comes down to this: What do you, the writer, want? You’re the artist — how do you want the audience to experience the play, or specific scenes/moments in the play? What do you want them talking about when they go home? How did you want them to feel throughout the play, or at specific points in the play? What rhythms were you hoping to achieve? What themes or ideas did you hope to put under the microscope?

I’ve cycled back a bit and am looking at Michael Wright’s book Playwriting in Process: specifically, Chapter 3, where he introduces the idea of the etude.

The etude, for Wright, is what he was referring to in earlier sections when he discussed theatre games, and referred to the six line. But here, he expands the definition to include the refinements that attend the notion of an etude in other art forms: music, painting, and acting. Wright also uses the notion of etude in these other arts to highlight the different focus that is possible in using etudes. Specifically, the etude types break down thusly:

Wright then lays out the scenario of a character delivering a monologue on why he is voting: and all the choices available: you could deliver the monologue yourself and record it for use later; you could have to people argue about who each is voting for; you could present a person who lives in a repressive country and is voting for the first time ever; etc. The point being that “Each [etude] asks you to find the truth of a character’s experiences by getting into his mind and feelings, and each asks you to place your character in a real dramatic world in which he has a stake or a problem to solve.” 23

The most important points, though are:

Wright’s book then goes on to dedicate itself to specific etudes which he writes “you could continue doing…for the sheer fun of it or begin to use them in a more dedicated and systematic way by looking for etudes to help you explore a problem in a play you’re working on or planning to work on.” 25

Wright concludes that “each play I’ve written has been a combination of old ground and new turf. The etudes can help with the new turf because their nature is exploratory, but I believe the etudes can be solid foundations for the old ground as well.”

I personally am looking forward to digging in–to assessing what it is I’m already good at, what I could use some help with, and to just plain generating new material in a variety of different ways, which is always the most fertile source for new play content. I am much in need of an impetus to write to get access to my subconscious, otherwise I write plot-loaded, usually political pieces–mostly predictable, loaded, biased, etc. Anything that can help me gain entry to my sub/unconscious and till up new material is a bonus for me.