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how to get NO feedback from Elise

...by NMI Artistic Director ELISE DEWSBERRY

notes from Elise

In this monthly video blog, I am going to be addressing a lot of topics that come up over and over again when I am giving feedback on drafts of new musicals. I’d like to think that if you keep these basics in mind while you are writing, you might be able to write a musical that would result in NO critical feedback from me! Let’s see if I can put myself out of a job…

Want to get involved, as a writer or producer?  See our page about developing musicals.

If you’re looking for classes, visit our sister organization, The Academy for New Musical Theatre.

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avoiding feedback: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT – FIFTH BUSINESS

by | Jan 1, 2020 | 0 Comments

This is post #28. Part 3 in a short series on Character Development - this one cautioning against creating a character who is only there to serve a plot purpose - also known as “FIFTH BUSINESS”.

Enjoy!

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TRANSCRIPTION:

This is another in my little mini-series on character. I want to talk today about something called Fifth Business. I first came across this term— it’s the title of a novel by the Canadian novelist, Robertson Davies, and I know how he defines it.

I have in the years since tried to find other places where it is defined in the same way, and I have not necessarily been able to find anything to back this up, but it’s still a term that I use because I think it’s very useful.

In Robertson Davies book, which was about a theatrical troupe, Fifth Business refers to a character whose sole function in a play is to deliver some kind of information that is necessary, but they have no other plot function, and therefore no character development.

This is the person who shows up in the penultimate scene to deliver the letter that brings the news of the inheritance that saves the day for your lead character. That character has no reason to exist in your play except to deliver that letter.

Now that’s a very overt example of Fifth Business, which I still would strongly encourage you NOT to put in your play. But there are less overt examples of Fifth Business where if you take a look at the job that a particular character has in the piece, you might realize that you only need them in the story so that they can help this other thing be accomplished, or another character.

There’s nothing wrong with the fact that you need them for that, but I would encourage you to challenge yourself to figure out: “Now that I know I need them to do that, how can I make them integral to the story in such a way that that’s not the ONLY reason they’re there?”

I would encourage you to look to see if you have characters who are operating as Fifth Business, and see if you can find a reason for them to exist in your world. Or, in a more crass sense, a reason for your producer to hire them and pay them a salary when your show is being produced. Other than just to facilitate the plot

So keep an eye out for Fifth Business and try to make sure that your characters are more than that.

 

avoiding feedback: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT – EXPOSITION

by | Dec 1, 2019 | 0 Comments

This is post #27. Part 2 in a short series on Character Development - this time covering using characters for the delivery of expositon.

Enjoy!

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TRANSCRIPTION:

This is part of my little mini series looking at character. Last time I talked about character diction sort of generically - about how your characters speak. Now I want to talk a little bit more specifically about how your character deliver expositions.

This basically is a conversation about the difference between what I would call “Neighbor Exposition” and “Stranger Exposition”. There’s one way that you would talk to someone you know: a neighbor (and that doesn’t necessarily mean a ‘neighbor’: it could be a husband, a wife, a child, a friend, a colleague, a co-worker, someone that you know), versus a stranger - someone that you don’t know. There’s a very different way to deliver exposition.

Clearly it’s easier when it’s a stranger, because a stranger is going to need more explanation, and therefore you, as a playwright, get the opportunity to give a lot more information to your audience because you have a stranger. This is why sometimes it can be incredibly useful— just as a side note - to make sure that you have a stranger in your show that needs things explained to them. It can be incredibly useful to have that stranger, that first-timer, the person who’s new on the block, the person who just started work today, the new boyfriend or girlfriend who needs things explained to them, because that gives you an excuse to explain those things to the audience.

But when you have characters who know each other, you don’t have that excuse and that’s where your job as a book writer gets more difficult, more challenging, and hopefully - more fun! Because you have to figure out the kind of shorthand that characters use when the people are they’re speaking to someone they know. How can you get the information across that you want?

Now one of the keys to this is to remember that you don’t always have to get all of your information across at once, or as much detail as you think you need. So, you can allow your audience to play detective. Usually we like that, we like to be detectives. We like to take little nuggets of information and add them up and figure things out on our own. So, your job as a bookwriter then is to figure out, “okay in this scene, because these two people know each other, they wouldn’t have a natural reason to discuss how long they’ve been married, or how long it’s been since the neighbor next door moved in.”

Let’s just say, for instance, they’re talking about their dog. But they’re just going to say “Fluffy this” or “Fluffy that”. They’re not going to say “dog”, so how are we going to know they are talking about a dog? These are the things you need to think about.

How can you make sure that these characters aren’t saying things to each other that neighbors wouldn’t say to each other, and yet your audience is getting enough information to keep them picking up the breadcrumbs and putting together the bits and pieces of information that they need. It can take a whole scene, it can take longer than that for them to put together all the information that they need. So, you need to be planting those breadcrumbs along the way, so that you don’t wind up with awkward sounding dialogue where people are having conversations with each other that they simply wouldn’t have in that way, because of the fact that they have shared information.

One other quick aside in that arena is: sometimes people are more likely to get specific about things in a neighbor relationship, that they wouldn’t otherwise, if they’re angry. Exposition through anger is an incredibly useful thing. Something like “In the six years I’ve known you, you never once took out the trash without being told!” - is a fabulous way to let us know they’ve been together for six years, which is something that normally would not come up in conversation.

Stranger exposition is going to be easier for you. So put a stranger in there if you can, but again be really ruthless with yourself about the neighbor exposition, and make sure that the information you need to get across to me is getting across to me as an audience member in a way that that still seems natural to the way that people would speak to each other when they already know each other. Another tip towards character.

avoiding feedback: THINK LIKE A DIRECTOR

by | Oct 6, 2019 | 0 Comments

This is post #25. A reminder to think LIKE a director, but not FOR your director.

Enjoy!

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