Dec 31 2023 48 mins
Sometimes in order to make a piece of writing stronger you have to remove something. Whether that's a conversation between two characters, a whole scene, a whole narrative thread or maybe even a whole character. In today’s episode I unpack the common piece of writing advice to ‘kill your darlings’ and share some of the provocations and writing tasks that have helped me cut material from my latest draft.
I speak about:
- Stepping back and looking at your play as a whole rather than its individual parts.
- We often default to adding something to our draft to improve it, but subtraction is just as important.
- How to know when to add something and when to take something away.
- When not to kill your darlings.
- Why going for clarity in each moment of the script isn’t the same as being vanilla.
- Some prompts for cutting dialogue, cutting drama beats, cutting key events, cutting scenes, cutting narrative threads, cutting whole characters and cutting stage time.
I reference:
- Episode 28 ‘Character Development’
- Episode 38 ‘Stay With the Story’
- Mark Ravenhill’s series of tweets ‘101 Notes on Playwriting’
See Monument at Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre!
By Emily Sheehan and directed by Ella Caldwell
February 20 - March 10, 2024
Book now: https://www.redstitch.net/monument-2024
See Frame Narrative at The Old Fitz Theatre!
By Emily Sheehan and directed by Lucy Clements
March 8 - 30, 2024
Book now: https://www.oldfitztheatre.com.au/frame-narrative
Get one-on-one support for your writing by visiting www.emilysheehan.info/dramaturgy and say hi, ask a writing question or request a podcast topic on instagram @emilysheehan__.