A Quote by Terry Pratchett
Plot exposition that can be gently wound out by the authorial voice and internal monologue of a character in the length of a page has to be delivered in a matter of seconds on the stage.
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Be it TV, films, or stage, I love substantial roles. The length of the character doesn't matter, but if the character is well thought, then I have to grab it.
I try not to divide plot and character. I get to know a character by what they want and fear and how those internal forces play out in their lives.
American writers reduce the length of time devoted to exposition and character development.
The person you are (in total, at that moment in time) is what creates the story you're writing. It's infused in every piece of punctuation, in the plot, in the most minor character who crosses the page. It's all your voice.
An excess of development can undermine the most ephemeral but distinctive tool a writer possesses: authorial voice. A writer's voice is as individual and marked as a thumbprint, and is a playwright's truest imprimatur. It is as innate as breathing, and can be as unique as any genetic code. By its very singular nature, it is seldom born in the act of collaboration. True authorial voice always pre-dates the first rehearsal of a text. And it is - and will always be - an author's most distinguishing and valuable feature.
I was applying to the art school, but there was a checklist that said I had to do either production design or stage management or acting. I thought, "I don't want to be an actor, but I know production and stage management take acting classes" - this is literally my internal monologue. I was like, "Designers don't have to take acting classes. Cool. I'll check that box".
In a 22-page comic, figuring an average of four to five panels a page and a couple of full-page shots, a writer has maybe a hundred panels at most to tell a story, so every panel he wastes conveying a.) something I already know, b.) something that's a cute gag but does nothing to reveal plot or character, or c.) something I don't need to know is a demonstration of lousy craft.
I hope that 'Gambit' doesn't take ten years, but it takes a little honing to get that tone and that voice exactly right. The character has such a specific voice in the comic, in the same way that Deadpool has a specific voice in the comic, that we want to make sure that we capture that voice on the page.
If there's a character type I despise, it's the all-capable, all-knowing, physically perfect protagonist. My idea of hell would be to be trapped in a four-hundred page, first-person, first-tense, running monologue with a character like that. I think writers who produce characters along those lines should graduate from high school and move on.
My outlines can be 10-20 pages in length and focus primarily on the physical active plot over the emotional plot.
Bad news has never been broken gently in my family. Because, breaking it gently takes a few extra seconds. And who's got that kinda time? Hey, we maybe failures, but we are very busy.
One of the strangest experiences one can have is to sleep on stage, as I once did in Sydney when I'd lost the key to my flat. I had to stay at night in a bed, which conveniently was on stage because my character Sandy Stone did his monologue from a bed. To wake up looking at a shadowy auditorium is a very peculiar feeling.
The characters are the plot. What they do and say and the things that happen to them are, in a sense, what the plot is. You can't take character and plot apart from each other, really.
The biographical novel sets out to document this truth, for character is plot, character development is action, and character fulfillment is resolution.
Always observe your opponent carefully. You need to use the
first seconds of every encounter to evaluate the length of their
blade, the length of their arms, etc.
I was Paul Schrader's assistant for six months before I went to film school, and he's very much about knowing what's going to happen on every page before you even start writing dialogue - the entire plot and character arcs are mapped out.
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