Telling the Tale—Novel or Play?
At the heart of every
worthwhile piece of fiction is a compelling story that, once started, keeps an
audience engaged, riveted, and/or enthralled until its end. This captivating
quality is generally realized through an artful blend of clarity, conflict, and
intensity.
What are the different
advantages and challenges of telling the tale by means of a book or a play?
Between 1990 and the end of
the century, I wrote eight full-length stage plays, all of which were
professionally produced with varying degrees of success. Last year, I wrote my
one and only novel, Slipping on Stardust, which was released by Secret Cravings
Publishing early this year.
One might conclude from these
statistics that I have a decided preference for playwriting. One would be
wrong.
There are two strong pleasure
points in the playwriting process—writing the beast and observing an audience
respond to it. In between these two happenings, however, some fairly nasty
things go on, such as casting, rehearsals, and director and designer
conferences.
I’m aware of several great dramatic
actors (Geraldine Page and Ingrid Bergman come to mind) who said in print that
the proper function of actors, directors, and designers is to serve the theme
of the play, as conceived by the playwright. With very few treasured
exceptions, the actors and directors with whom I’ve worked labored under no
such encumbrance. Rather their rather fragile egos required them to impress
upon the work their own, self-centered vision of their particular role, much as
animals mark territory.
Novelists have infinitely
more control since they not only write the dialogue as playwrights do, but they
also dictate/describe the setting, how the characters move around in it, and
how and with what motivation and emotion characters speak their lines, thus
preempting the interference of theatre colleagues. Playwrights who attempt to exercise
control over these matters by peppering their scripts with plentiful unspoken
stage directions and parenthetical line indications are often faced with actors
and directors who regard as their first job crossing them all out, sometimes
supplementing their deletions with accusations of territorial invasion by the
playwright. It’s all quite tiresome.
For me, the greatest challenge
and pleasure of writing my first novel was to attempt to achieve an effective
balance between character-distinctive dialogue (which was familiar territory)
and descriptive passages dealing with not only physical surroundings but also
the psychic landscape of the characters.
The heady independence of the
novelist can, however, sometimes be threatened by the intervention of an
ignorant, frustrated, or prejudiced editor. Early on, I experienced the torture
of working with a person who was bountifully endowed with all three qualities.
Finally, I was faced with the choice of producing a child that I would hate
forever or cancelling a publishing contract—a rather cheeky move for a
first-time novelist. My courage was rewarded by subsequently signing with
Secret Cravings Publishing, where I’ve worked with a team of talented
professionals, including an extraordinarily gifted editor.
In sum, my experience has
been that writing a novel is generally a more varied, more autonomous exercise
than writing a play. And as for the thrill of observing the reaction of a live
audience, there’s always the film version of the novel to look forward to.
About the Author:
A graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School , Gordon Osmond is a retired Wall Street lawyer, a produced playwright, a published author, an online play and book critic, and a lecturer.
Osmond's plays have been professionally produced throughout the United States , where they have received rave reviews and many awards including First Prize in the John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Competition sponsored by the New England Theatre Conference.
Osmond’s published non-fiction works include So You Think You Know English—A Guide to English for Those Who Think They Don’t Need One and his “unauthorized autobiography," Wet Firecrackers.
Slipping on Stardust is Osmond's debut novel. He is currently loving life and language in Brazil .
Author and Book website: http://i-m.co/GordonOsmond/SlippingonStardust
2 comments:
Hi Gordon!
Thanks you an interesting post. You've had quite an interesting career. The film version of a book with be a fantastic thing to look forward to.
All the best:)
Thanks so much, dear Kathleen. It's people like you and Dawn that give your fellow authors the spirit to go on.
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