There was an article in this month’s Romance Writer’s Report
about using acting techniques to help your writing, particularly the Method.
In the Method, you draw on your own emotions and experiences
in order to recreate them on stage or on set.
The idea is to create a genuine experience of artificial
circumstances. Most actors have never
been face to face with an alien race bent on destroying the Earth, but we’ve
all been in situations where we felt overwhelmed and were determined to
continue. Most of the top actors in the
world have trained in the Method and most of them say they use it.
I can see how it can be useful to writers. To recreate experiences allows you to
remember vividly. Then you can describe
how you felt: how your eyes stung from tears or how you couldn’t stop laughing
at an inappropriate time or how your ribs suddenly loosened in fear. It keeps you from being repetitive and makes
it feel real.
Of course, sometimes making it feel real can be a
problem. There are actors who have
plunged into severe depression because of the memories they were
accessing. The founder of the Method
recommended not using any memory from nearer than seven years to avoid trauma
but time isn’t always a guarantee of healing.
We all have painful things in our past and no matter how removed we are,
it doesn’t take much to bring that pain back.
And, of course, you’re always looking for the most impactful memories to
use.
It can also turn into an on-set problem. This isn’t something writers need to worry
about but actors should. In one episode
of Battlestar Galactica, Edward James
Olmos is reacting to the death of another character. He’s looking at this incredibly elaborate
model of a sailing ship that we’ve seen in his quarters many times and you can
see the pain building up in him and you can see that he’s trying to hide it and
suddenly he just explodes into action, smashing the model off the table and
bursting into tears. It’s a wonderful
scene, very emotionally moving.
The problem? It wasn’t in the script.
If I remember correctly, that model was a thirteen thousand
dollar model they’d rented from a prop shop.
And then it was smashed on the floor, requiring some quick and hefty
budget readjustments.
But it was still a very moving scene. It was one of the few times we ever saw
Olmos’ character lose control which made it even more emotionally intense.
I have my problems (and they are big problems) with the
writing on Battlestar. But before we knew how messed up it was going
to get, there were some incredible moments and some amazing stories. Even pure crap can sometimes spawn a
beautiful flower.
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