drowners - even more thoughts on the script

To my own surprise I have a few more thoughts on my script, Drowners.

At the time of writing I have two scenes to complete and progressing fast. So fast I’ll be into edits and rewrites by the end of Saturday. Anyway, since the few thoughts I have are so disconnected I’ll only attempt to string them together where there’s an obvious link.

More films

Jean Luc Godard’s films and dialogue are an influence I neither considered nor mentioned last time. Especially his use of disruptive editing and other elements; throwing in great chunks of undigested Marxist and other revolutionary ideology for instance. But also the abstractness, meaninglessness, and apparent disconnection from anything of some of the dialogue (or monologues) of some characters in given films.

Disruption

Before I even twigged the Godard connection I was enjoying tripping myself up. Leaving a scene for a time, or writing while in a variety of different situations and locations at different times of day. Adding phrases that mean nothing. Contradicting earlier statements. Forcibly redirecting a scene. Deliberately using incorrect words, garbling the expected order. Slipping between direct and figurative language without indicating which is which. And other strategies I don’t remember right now.

Writing

Another constant influence here: Oscar Wilde, especially for his essays. His use of inversions and unexpected perspectives.

Order of scenes

This is separate from chronology. I realise that doesn’t make much sense, but bear with me. I’m talking specifically about the final three scenes.

Through most of the script the chronology isn’t that important, but I’m pretty clear about the order of the scenes. For the final three scenes both the chronology and the order in which they happen is unclear. The first consideration is wholly irrelevant. But the order of the scenes is more complex.

One of them was intended to be the conclusion from early on. But that changed when I started to structure the piece about halfway through. And as I’ve got nearer the end it’s become clearer that any one of the three scenes could end the play, to slightly different effect.

I’d like a kind of diminuendo, which may rule out one of the scenes. Although doing so has the knock-on effect of making that scene harder to place.

Putting it second of the three makes it seem awkward, as if it belonged earlier in the script.

Placing it first gives a better progression from the scenes preceding but risks the remaining scenes either falling flat, or having more weight and meaning loaded onto them than they actually carry.

Placing it last gets rid of my diminuendo but makes a little more sense. The risk here is that the other scenes of the final three look superfluous. And while structurally they might well be, they do contain elements which are important to my overall scheme.

Currently I have the problematic scene second of the three final scenes, but I’m considering moving it first. The potential problems with this seem as if they can be more easily overcome by careful writing. This is something to look at in editing once the scenes are written, rather than trying a preemptive fix.

More writing

Having completed my thoughts another influence made itself known. This one so obvious I should have known it straight away. Virginia Woolf and in particular Orlando.

In many ways these are two separate influences:

Virginia Woolf for the quality of her writing; her representations of thought, memory, identity, the way we grow and change - the way we actually grow and change as opposed to the schematic drivel peddled by conventional character arcs. Woolf's characters feel more like actual people than characters.

Orlando for many broad particulars; while Cal doesn't change sex he was conceived as having a fluid gender identity and sexuality; like Orlando he lives centuries; his sleep on the bottom of the lake which is interrupted at the start of the play in some ways echoes the long sleep Orlando enters halfway through the novel; and our simultaneous proximity to and distance from the character.

Final

Let me emphasise I'm not trying to draw parallels between any of this art and my still unfinished script. These are influences, and things I'd wholeheartedly recommend.

Anyway, yeah, I've got writing to do. See you soon.