If this isn’t how they teach it in MFA programs, they should! This isn’t just an entertaining list, it demonstrates how calculating writers are. We’re engineers, and our beautiful facades are supported by hours and hours worth of carefully poured foundation and strategically placed beams. If it was “easy writing” all the time, a lot more people would do it.
One time in a rehearsal, I said, well the scene needs more torque, and the director asked, "What was that word you just used?" I sometimes forget these are terms/definitions I just made up so I can talk about my chores with other people and so I have a single word or short phrase to put in the margin of my script for rewrites at 2am. To your point, it is very intricate, all the little ways we engineer and fine-tune our plays for various purposes. And that's not even counting how much work goes into pre-publication, making sure all the notes and stage directions make sense to the uninitiated.
Utterly profound. (If I may add one I used to do: “Petting” is when you like what you have so far, but you’re afraid to move forward, so you make meaningless adjustments to what you already have.)
Audrey, I have loved these for years, but didn't you use to have a vocabulary word like "meshing" where you take chunks of dialogue and break them up? Didn't that use to be one of your words? I'm asking because I teach a class that is sort of like that in that it helps people get away from the talking heads blocks of one character speaking and then another character speaking as if they wouldn't just hop all over the first character with their own needs... as if everyone has so much patience... I address this in my Magical Dialogue class which I'm about to post about, and I've been teaching it since the 90s but when I first saw your list I thought there was something like that on there. And I came back here to look for it, cause I wanted to shout about it, but it's not here, so maybe I'm wrong.
You could try:
2A (any)
If this isn’t how they teach it in MFA programs, they should! This isn’t just an entertaining list, it demonstrates how calculating writers are. We’re engineers, and our beautiful facades are supported by hours and hours worth of carefully poured foundation and strategically placed beams. If it was “easy writing” all the time, a lot more people would do it.
One time in a rehearsal, I said, well the scene needs more torque, and the director asked, "What was that word you just used?" I sometimes forget these are terms/definitions I just made up so I can talk about my chores with other people and so I have a single word or short phrase to put in the margin of my script for rewrites at 2am. To your point, it is very intricate, all the little ways we engineer and fine-tune our plays for various purposes. And that's not even counting how much work goes into pre-publication, making sure all the notes and stage directions make sense to the uninitiated.
If I was breaking up dialogue I’d use both “tensioning” and “tennis.” Both fall under the umbrella term, “distillation.”
TENNIS
that thing where you turn a monologue into a back-and-forth with another character
TENSIONING
that thing where you prune and remove all the noise and fluffery so the scene gains electricity
Utterly profound. (If I may add one I used to do: “Petting” is when you like what you have so far, but you’re afraid to move forward, so you make meaningless adjustments to what you already have.)
Audrey, I have loved these for years, but didn't you use to have a vocabulary word like "meshing" where you take chunks of dialogue and break them up? Didn't that use to be one of your words? I'm asking because I teach a class that is sort of like that in that it helps people get away from the talking heads blocks of one character speaking and then another character speaking as if they wouldn't just hop all over the first character with their own needs... as if everyone has so much patience... I address this in my Magical Dialogue class which I'm about to post about, and I've been teaching it since the 90s but when I first saw your list I thought there was something like that on there. And I came back here to look for it, cause I wanted to shout about it, but it's not here, so maybe I'm wrong.
I love "lava lamping"!
Plays are often listed as TITLE (1M1F). This indicates it has two characters, one male and one female, but how do you indicate no gender?
I want to say it could be 2M, 2F or 1M1F because their gender isn't relevant to the drama.
SHADOW BOXING!