Dispatch From The Quest: Sandy Leviton
Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.
Today: Sandy touches on the unique challenges of working with a writing partner:
Heart pumping, brain churning, hands twitching. Our hero perched at her computer, she prepares for task ahead — to discover her voice. Typing begins. Then –
Silence.
A lone cricket chirps as she searches for the right words for the journal post that will sing on the page. With a shriek, she’s got the word she’s been hunting for. RELATIONSHIPS.
Our quest took us on a journey of discovery as we explored our story’s narrative voices; what style best suits the tone, the action, the characters. It got me thinking about not just our story voices, but our own individual writing, and our voices as a group. Outside of prose, this is the first time, we are writing actual pages for this script. We finally get to sample who we each are as writers. It’s been illuminating to see the first light of what is going to be at the end of a long tunnel.
It was a intense week for Miranda and I. We had to spend time figuring out our own individual voices within our story AND jointly as a team. We wrote two different scenes, each taking one, but coordinating them so there could be a continuous flow to it. Seeing how our approach was different and yet the same has been reassuring and getting us excited for when it’s time to buckle down and really churn out pages.
Diving into our core characters’ relationships for these scenes, we spent a lot of time as armchair psychologists. Why does one react this way? How does this other one become the yin to the other’s yang? What does this character mean to that one? The timing couldn’t come any better as it also made us, along with some external factors, explore our relationship as writing and producing partners more deeply. How do we handle conflicts and disagreements within our own pages? How does our writing relationship work when we are in the same room? What about when the inevitable time comes when there will be a distance between us? Where do our priorities within our story and our other projects lie? The good news is, we are totally on the same page and where at the beginning of the week might have had some anxiety has dissipated.
Discovering our voices forced me to examine all of my relationships relative to this story. A month in now, I’m learning why Scott decided to call this “The Quest.” It’s not just about learning how to be better writers but taking that journey to find out WHO we are as writers; relationships playing a major role in that, especially when you’re a writing team.
Having worked with two writing partners, I know some of what Sandy is talking about here. And not that it influenced me in any way in terms of selection, I’m thinking the presence of Sandy and Miranda as part of The Quest experience this year is going to provide an added value for us. Obviously for those who write with a partner, but also because the issues Miranda and Sandy are forced to confront give voice to many of the same concerns we face as solo writers. Often we keep silent about them. With a writing duo compelled to work through each issue, hopefully this will provide an occasional opportunity to discuss them in a public forum.
Take the ones Sandy introduces in this post, many of which are tied to the idea of voice. There is Narrative Voice, the voice of each character, and the voice of the writer(s). Each of those is connected, yet distinct. Or at least should be lest we end up with an amorphous blob of voices that all sound the same… or have no coherence… or nothing distinctive or memorable about them.
So a special nod to those of you who work with writing partners. It may very well behoove you to pay special attention to Sandy and Miranda’s dispatches as they go through The Quest together. Writing with a partner is a unique experience, great benefits, but also potential pitfalls along the way.
If any of you have experience with a writing partner, please feel free to share some of your observations about how you have managed to make those relationships work.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch From The Quest.
About Sandy: Bostonian that learned how to pronounce “R’s” upon moving to LA. A lefty that loves the unusual. Dreams of owning a taxidermy dodo bird. @scriptchix & @lil_sjl.
Comment Archive