Un-well-made.
Posted: July 4, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 5 CommentsLast night I worked on my play from this balcony in Miami Beach. It was lovely. After awhile I was distracted by the moon rising over the ocean and put down my pen.
I’m piling up a good word count with my rewrite, but still, THE PENTAEON is proving difficult. I’ve become really good at the “well-made play,” meaning one that has a nice narrative arc, rising tension, a denouement, and all that. But like always, I don’t trust what’s easy for me. (See: forsaking writing for science for ten years.) I want to make an un-well-made play. After all, the entire point of THE PENTAEON is that the universe is a-narrative. I want to manifest that alien aesthetic. I at least want to be brave enough to try.
But I’m afraid it’ll just come out looking like sloppy writing.
There’s nothing to do but keep going, and hope that I write my way into the answer. The universe usually rewards such acts of faith.
…but wouldn’t a universe rewarding an act of faith be narratival?
Oh, Byron, you DO go for the jugular, don´t you.
It was either here, or in the review. If not both, he added happily.
There was a good op ed piece in the NYT a couple of days ago about the use of the semi-colon…. which somehow seems relevant to your musings.
ftw
I am a repeat offender in overuse of the semicolon.