Perspectives Begin with Destinations
In my new one-act play, Self Storage, I dug up a deep, painful experience from over 30 years ago and put it in a self-storage unit with a youth pastor, his elderly mother and the man whom they believe raped her when she was 52-years-old. The play is very personal and I struggled to write it with an honesty that wouldn't be steeped in emotionalism. To do that, I had to address the issue of my perspectives of the real event. And I had to decide on a potential destination. Where did I want to take the story? Or would the story take me somewhere I didn't want to go?
As a writer, my perspectives begin with the blip of the idea. The moment my artistic mind recognizes something as potential material. In this case, I was driving along Highway 33 and I saw a sign that read: SELF STORAGE. And I thought, "Human beings store things in their minds and only bring them out when the notion arises or their brain becomes packed with too many things." That was it. From that moment, my perspective of this idea went like this:
1. Self Storage as allegory for pain.
2. Pain and trauma.
3. Characters in a small, self-storage unit.
4. Trapped.
5. No, imprisoned.
6. Who are they?
7. Victims and evil.
8. Who are the victims?
9. Ah, that's the question!
10. Who we believe is the victim is victimizing the innocent.
11. What do the the victims think he did?
12. What in my own life has happened for which I want revenge?
And then it hit me. The horrible attack on my mother by a man in a parking lot when she was 47 years old.
Perspectives are those things that I select as important. It's about my judgment. And to make it work, the process is one of loose association, emotion, facts, and, in this case, what is thematically acceptable to my destination.
Perspectives are not just a string of free-associations that end with something acceptable, though. For it to work, there is a detailed process of first taking out what doesn't fit into the perceived end result. Having an end result is one of my most important elements for writing a story or a play. That's not to say that I won't change it or that I won't begin writing without a clear idea of where I'm going, but a destination will nearly always keep me from over-writing or wasting a lot of time in the "discovery" process.
I have often written something with no idea where I'm going with it and it's turned out great. It's writing as exploration. But generally I don't write as well or concisely or as thematically when I go exploring. So writing out my perspectives of the story, theme, characters and other elements will put me on the right track because I have a destination.
Like any journey, though, it's exciting to take side trips and explore when unexpected signs appear on the side of the road. But ultimately I want to reach my destination. In the case of Self Storage, I decided early that I wanted to expose the danger in allowing revenge to drive one's being. In the play, justice is only served when the painful act of revenge is poured back as shame. So number 13 on my list would be: Revenge leads to shame.
I didn't know I was going to write about shame. But my destination doesn't always look the same in my mind as it does in reality. The journey was difficult but the destination did something for me. I realized that I had to do what my mother had done already. Forgive.
As a writer, my perspectives begin with the blip of the idea. The moment my artistic mind recognizes something as potential material. In this case, I was driving along Highway 33 and I saw a sign that read: SELF STORAGE. And I thought, "Human beings store things in their minds and only bring them out when the notion arises or their brain becomes packed with too many things." That was it. From that moment, my perspective of this idea went like this:
1. Self Storage as allegory for pain.
2. Pain and trauma.
3. Characters in a small, self-storage unit.
4. Trapped.
5. No, imprisoned.
6. Who are they?
7. Victims and evil.
8. Who are the victims?
9. Ah, that's the question!
10. Who we believe is the victim is victimizing the innocent.
11. What do the the victims think he did?
12. What in my own life has happened for which I want revenge?
And then it hit me. The horrible attack on my mother by a man in a parking lot when she was 47 years old.
Perspectives are those things that I select as important. It's about my judgment. And to make it work, the process is one of loose association, emotion, facts, and, in this case, what is thematically acceptable to my destination.
Perspectives are not just a string of free-associations that end with something acceptable, though. For it to work, there is a detailed process of first taking out what doesn't fit into the perceived end result. Having an end result is one of my most important elements for writing a story or a play. That's not to say that I won't change it or that I won't begin writing without a clear idea of where I'm going, but a destination will nearly always keep me from over-writing or wasting a lot of time in the "discovery" process.
I have often written something with no idea where I'm going with it and it's turned out great. It's writing as exploration. But generally I don't write as well or concisely or as thematically when I go exploring. So writing out my perspectives of the story, theme, characters and other elements will put me on the right track because I have a destination.
Like any journey, though, it's exciting to take side trips and explore when unexpected signs appear on the side of the road. But ultimately I want to reach my destination. In the case of Self Storage, I decided early that I wanted to expose the danger in allowing revenge to drive one's being. In the play, justice is only served when the painful act of revenge is poured back as shame. So number 13 on my list would be: Revenge leads to shame.
I didn't know I was going to write about shame. But my destination doesn't always look the same in my mind as it does in reality. The journey was difficult but the destination did something for me. I realized that I had to do what my mother had done already. Forgive.
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