Storytelling

No excuses for not updating sooner.

I've been doing a lot of repetitive kinds of tasks at work over the past few weeks. No complaints. It's good to be busy at work. But not a lot of brain-power has been required. I found a radio station on i-Tunes that plays old radio shows. Amazing how many of the comedy shows aren't funny anymore and how many comedies and dramas both are incredibly racist--don't get me started on The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke and Have Gun, Will Travel. But the storytelling aspect is interesting.

There are three shows that I particularly like. One is Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar about a freelance insurance investigator. It's a fifteen minute show. Each story takes a week to tell. Johnny is reporting on his expense account and why he's incurring the expenses. Of course, he tells about how he figures out what actually happened, too.

Another is Suspense. It's an anthology style show. Some of the biggest names of the time are involved. I've heard James Stewart, William Powell, Cary Grant, Agnes Moorehead, Joan Fontaine, etc. The stories range from mysteries, horror and straight drama. But all are supposed to be suspenseful. Some work better than others.

One thing that is common to both of these shows is the combination of narration and dialogue. And the stories are told not shown. There is very little description of setting. You might get an occasional "It was a muggy night" or "The ramshackle house" but not much else. Still I have a very specific idea of what Johnny Dollar looks like. And, of course, I'm familiar with most of the actors on Suspense so I can picture them. But I see the settings in both shows too. Even though they aren't described in any detail. But if it takes place in a rural setting then I have a catalogue in my head I can access for rural settings. English manor house? Same thing. California ranch? You get the idea.

The third show I like is Lux Radio Theater. Another anthology program. But this one takes stage plays and movies and distills them into an hour-long radio play. I've heard a couple from movies that I'm familiar with. Suspicion and Sorry, Wrong Number. It's interesting to see how they took a two-hour movie and boiled it down to under an hour (commericals, you know) without losing anything. Again, setting suffers. But they still work.

I'm a writer who loves setting the stage. I think it can help set the mood. Not just spooky old houses, but details like faded floral wallpaper can tell you a lot about the person who owns the house in three little words. Mary and Moe really set scenes. And I love their work. I'm there. Everyone else uses varying amounts of stage dressing. And it seems to work well, too. So why is that? Is it genre? Style? Don't know.

My other question is, if these radio plays work so well with telling rather than showing, why don't books?

Discuss.

I'm out of town next week and may or may not check in.

Just Thinking

I haven't really been racking up the word count over the past month and a half. But does that mean I haven't been writing? I don't think it does.

Had a lovely lunch with Fleur and Moe yesterday. We talked about lots of stuff but mostly about writing. That's just what Pirates seem to do when they get together. Moe said something about how non-writers don't get that writing isn't just the physical act--that there's a lot of writing that goes on when we're nowhere near a notebook or computer. I saw an interview with Tim Robbins once, and he talked about how his kids would tease him when they'd go into his office and see him staring out the window. "You said you were working." "I am."

That's the kind of writing I've been doing. Making notes, both mental and actual, about characters and situations and plots and settings. I've been doing this for Vesta and for MMG. Things are falling into place. You can almost hear the clicking some days. And it feels like playing in this mode. Anything can happen. It's not written down yet, you see, so it's still maleable. The clay hasn't been fired. I even had a flash for TNN yesterday morning: Southern Gothic, but with humor. Groovy.

The hard part is to realize that we are still being creative. That we are "writing." Because we don't have something to show to others. I've been beating myself up over being blocked. But I'm not. All kinds of good things are happening. Can't wait to see where all this leads when I do start committing it to "paper."

Themes

My friend, Morgen, and I had lunch Sunday with a third friend, Geoff. We talked about blogging. Morgen said something about not knowing what she would blog about. That she felt she'd have to come up with a theme before she'd even think about it. Then this morning Pat wrote in The Writing Nag about themes for blogs. She had a blog before and didn't enjoy it until she came up with the idea for the Nag.

The idea I had for this blog was very much like D.B.'s. I'd talk about the joys and trials of writing a first novel. But I think it's grown into much more than that in the few weeks of its existence. It's become about community and friendship. It's about the fact that although we each do the physical writing on our own and we spend many hours inside our own heads, we also help and encourage and torment and cajole each other. It's about how there is a subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, collaboration between writers. That we pick up on things the other has written and expand it or take it in a whole different direction.

I guess that's why I always feel a moment of confusion when I hear people talk about how lonely being a writer is. Really? Because even when I'm alone in my office, I can send out an email with a question (or a whine) and have a couple responses within the hour and even more by the next day. The same thing with the blog.

The theme for today is feeling very lucky.