Writing Exercises

I really like the writing exercises we've done so far. At first it seemed hard to have to include all these images, ideas, settings, etc., in a play and make it make sense, but as we kept doing the writing exercises, it became easier. The hardest part of writing a play for me is coming up with the story. With these exercises, this was a lot more doable. Many times the directions for the writing exercises would be to include certain things in a scene, and I found this helpful because it gave me some direction on how to form my story. For instance, it would be a lot harder to write a scene that could be about anything and had no rules attached than to write a scene that had to follow a few guidelines.

I also think these exercises helped me think a little more creatively. The plays I wrote before the writing exercises were mostly set in a similar setting to where we live, and weren't that different from what a BC student might observe in his or her every day life. When we did one exercise, one of the images I came up with was a raccoon with a finger in its mouth. I definitely don't think I ever would have included anything like this in a play if I hadn't done the writing exercises.

The writing exercises also challenged me greatly as a writer. I'm not used to writing things with such limitations. The exercises really made me think hard about how to not only make a good and interesting play, but to do it with certain elements added or taken away. I think my playwriting ability greatly improved just from these exercises.

Writing Exercises

I felt that most parts of the writing exercises we did in class last week were helpful because they enabled me to relate to my plays much more. However, sometimes when I was required to use objects or people in my plays they felt like obstacles rather than pieces of guidance. I guess that was one of the objectives of the assignment though, to push us to write something with specific elements. I really enjoyed the first in-class exercise because it helped me the most with character development. The guidance in the exercise enabled me to go into small details of the characters without me even noticing. I also loved combining the two characters' monologues; it was much more seamless than I imagined.

I think that the first day's exercise was most helpful for me. I had less success in the second exercise. My mind works the quickest it can when I get to say what I'm thinking out loud; I'm much slower with writing things down, so it was hard for me to keep up with the pace of the exercise. I also find that often, I am too embarrassed by what I have written down, to the point where it's hard for me to implement. Perhaps I was not fully letting go in the exercise. When we were asked to describe a place, I was so overwhelmed with ideas that my actual description became a little too general. I also found the fairy-tale aspect of the exercise difficult with both thinking of one in class and writing about the imagery in it later. Writing three entire scenes was a challenge for me. They felt a little redundant.

The dream exercise was odd, but very thought-provoking. I felt the most out of control during that exercise more than any other exercise; however, I soon realized that the people and things I thought of on the journey Ms. Connell took us on were very much a part of me, subconsciously so.

Overall I think the exercises from last week directed me towards better ideas than I had had previously. They were also extremely relaxing (most of the time, looking at the snow and everything) and enjoyable.

Writing Exercises

Like Sophie, I think the main thing these writing exercises have gotten me to do is think outside the box. I had never really thought about writing plays that included otherworldly aspects, but I started to really appreciate doing those types of things after the play with no words, and the following assignment which forced us to turn someone else's play into something fantastical and unreal. I also think these exercises have been beneficial because it's been forcing me to find material in my subconscious...when I read back to the "once upon a time" story that I wrote for myself, I thought, "huh, this is definitely not what I would have said had I had more time to think about it." 

I especially liked the exercise we did on the day it was snowing, where you led us on an interesting journey. And we were clearly all writing plays in our heads, but the most interesting part is that each person was left with a list of objects that they thought up and had to incorporate into a play. So, we were all told the exact same thing, but we'll all have extremely different plays. 

I thought it was interesting when Vicky said in class that her play would have to consist of her mother and Fellini in a sex scene, because as she mentioned so strongly, she would never choose to write such a thing. Except, I can see it coming out very interesting...in a good way. 

I did think that the exercise that including archetypes for people we know was extremely hard, but also interesting in the same way that my "once upon a time" story was. Clearly we all have a lot to say about these people, since they are who we think about most, but to sum their entire personality up in one sentence in a few seconds was extremely difficult but eye-opening because I was surprised at what I ended up with on my paper.

In-class exercises

I started out the course writing contemporary plays with boring teenagers as the main characters, so what I've found most beneficial about these exercises were that they made me think outside the box. That sounds cliché but it's true: I started out writing about a boy having a stupid conversation with his parents to writing about a woman transported to the center of the earth by a bolt of lightning, who knew? The exercises that gave me the best results were the ones where I got the most specific direction: for example, the prompt about a character seeing the last person they would ever want to see, and having the two talking about a common event, which started out with me ranting about a prom dress to talking about a rape. Another example was the play incorporating something our classmates wanted to see on stage, in which I showed live drug use. I felt like exercises that pushed me into the realm of fantasy, or silliness, or ridiculousness, definitely forced me to be more creative, which yielded much more interesting plays. I also got really good results from the assignments that required me to write the least while saying the most (the $100/word play, the play without words), because it made me value each word and stage direction, and also because I am generally a concise writer anyway (as shown by this post, haha). I found that the prompts where we got the least direction (the earlier ones, like the slideshow and the language plays) made me take the most from my life because I didn't really know what direction to go in.

Writing Exercises

I thought the exercises were really interesting and also challenging. Like Montana said, I think it started out confusing because we didn't really know what to do or what we should be thinking about, even though there was no real "right" way to do it. I didn't really know what to expect in the beginning and I really liked how my play on the first day evolved. Even though we just started writing it in class and continued a little more for homework, I realized there were so many different directions I could go in and I loved thinking about which story I wanted to tell. I don't know if I should continue developing it or not, but it was interesting to see how the nouns I used to describe myself led to what the set of the play consisted of, and how the two people who entered the stage ended up relating to each other. What starting out to be a broken up boyfriend and girlfriend ended up being a man and his therapist with a twist about where he is and why he's there. It was really weird how that was what my play turned into but I really liked how it came to that.

For two of the three days we had to write about what we were thinking or feeling at that moment. Even though this might seem simple, it was actually interesting to discover how I actually had to think about what I was thinking and think about what I was feeling at that moment. On the third day when we were watching the snow outside and we had to describe what we saw, heard, felt, and noticed, I realized I never really think about the sounds that I hear or the things that I see, I usually just hear and see them. With this exercise I actually took note of what was going on and how I was feeling and I found that really interesting.

I also loved the imaginative journey Ms. Connell took us on. I could only imagine how different each person's story became and I never did anything like it before. I found it hard to think of each object on the spot - what we were going back home to get, what the animal had in its teeth, what we had to take out of our backpack - even though maybe it should have come naturally.

Each exercise made me think of things I don't normally think about, for example naming nouns to describe ourselves, or even listing different kinds of trees (even though I think the point was to get our brains working and our pencils moving). These exercises made me look at different things about myself that I never really noticed before. One of the most challenging parts of the exercises was when we had to match the fairytale with the story we told. For some reason I found this to be so difficult, and I don't know if it was because I couldn't think of any fairytales to begin with, or if it was just difficult to find the similarities between my story and the fairytale. I was also not used to writing plays about witches and Thai iced tea and creating scenes from these random combinations was definitely an interesting challenge and something I'm not used to. The scene that we developed on the first day was more of what I'm used to, whereas it was hard for me to connect to these three scenes that were so different from what I usually write. I don't really know why that is, but I didn't feel as attached to the work as I did other times.

I thought it was really interesting how different stories, images, moments, feelings, and nouns that we listed all came together to make really interesting plays we would never think of otherwise. Writing down everything in silence and thinking of everything on the spot was both challenging and inspiring and really enabled me to discover unique stories.

Critique on View from the Bridge

Today I saw now one of my new favorite plays, View from the Bridge, which I would easily give a 9/10. The play is set in early 20th century Brooklyn where immigrants are really beginning to move into the US. The play centers around the beautiful Scarlett Johansson and the fantastic Liev Schreiber. The play is about how Liev, the uncle, is unable to let go of his niece, Scarlett, into the world because he has raised her as his own daughter. The actors throughout were amazing and player their roles expertly. The most intriguing part of the though play though was the actual set. The play involves several different setting so, the producers, in order to tackle this challenge without much problems made a spinning set that contained 4 different backs that would be used accordingly. The play focuses on the challenege Liev's character has with accepting a new world full of illegal immigrants from Europe etc. He represents the old fashinoned father is given absolute rule over his family and has decision over everything. Overall, this play was superb and I would recommend it to everyone.

Exercises in Class

The exercises in class have been confusing. The first class was weird because no one really knew what we were "supposed to be doing". What we really didn't know was that there isn't anything that is "supposed" to happen. The second time we did the exercise was the most interesting for me. The work that I got out of it was really inspirational for me and I really want to continue developing what I wrote that night. Having to put in the person who has inspired me the most in the life into my play sprouted all these other scenes that I really want to add in. The first day we did the exercise, I had this picture in my head about what I wanted the scene to revolve around and what I wanted the characters in each monologue to be talking about. The scene is between a mother and a son and I wanted them to discuss the father's abandonment of the son, completely. The scene ended up being about their struggle to be more "Jewish" in their neighborhood. I thought that was really cool. By simply writing for 5 minutes at a time without really thinking about it, I got something really interesting out of my work that I never would have though would have happened. I don't know if I want to develop that story anymore, but it is certainly an option. The last exercise day was the most interesting for me because I always love those exercises where someone just describes where you are going and your own imagination makes everything up. The items that I ended up picking actually had a theme between them, which I thought would never ever happen. I have gotten my most substantial and fascinating work from these exercises and I really want to continue doing them.