Thespian Musings: On Playwrights and Our Attachment Issues

I guess you can already tell by my umpteen posts including this one,

I am a romantic, so I fall for the Dark Horses.

I twitch whenever I write villains doing diabolical things and sometimes see if I can top what I did last time.

And I hate killing the heroes off.

Even if it benefits the story.

When I first wrote Wolves, I came to the conclusion that in order for the plot to move forward, I had to kill off a Specific Character (no spoilers)

And

I

Didn't

Want

To

The first time I finally bit the bullet and wrote the scene I cried.

And then I tried to revise it and cried again.

And one of my friends came home and found me bawling over the scene, she took my laptop away and sat me down in front of--a movie(I think it was Princess Mononoke, but don't quote me on that) until I calmed down.

And I didn't go near that scene for months after that.

Sure, I re-wrote the rest of the script

but I kept skipping over that scene because if I didn't see it, or read it, then it didn't exist

(because, as you also know, I have this tendency to act like a two-year-old on several occasions both good and bad).

Until the day of my Grandpa's funeral.

For obvious reasons, I was already an emotional mess, and by the time I got back to my apartment I guess I was still emotionally processing or something,

because I opened up that scene and made myself re-write it for the first time in...almost a year.

And it was beautiful.

I also have conversations with my characters in my head.

Like, full on, deep, meaningful, two way communication conversations.

Or arguments, if they're feeling annoyed with me.

Which they do, because sometimes I try to write their story and I get it wrong

and not only do they tell me I got something wrong,

but they tell me the whys and wherefores thereof

and I'd better fix it ASAP

or they'll fix it for me.

I'm dead serious.

This is why it's called Writer's Block, or Writer's Slough, or Writer's Whatever--it's when your characters are pissed off at you for some reason and you have to figure out how to placate them into talking to you again.

That's scenario one.

Scenario two is that there are only certain parts of their story that they don't want to talk about.

Not without a great deal of persuasion, that is.

And a lot of picking and poking and prodding and chipping away with an ice-pick until they finally open up.

Or give one or two tidbits to keep me satisfied until I hit another brick wall and have to resort to bribery.

I am currently dealing with two characters like that.

In the same script.

Want to guess who they are?😜