beta play blog 2: extra textual sleuthing!

I’d like to talk about extra textual sleuthing, hitherto known as ETS.

Let’s face it, unless you have a couple of hefty writing commissions that cover your rent/mortgage and bi-weekly raid of Boots, you’re not going to have your foot on the writing accelerator on an hourly basis, and this is normal. But sometimes, something is needed for the in-between time, more so than just seeding thoughts that turn into microstructures, personality threads and finally, concrete work.

Recently, I’ve put my faith in reading extra texts around the subject matter of my new play, trusting that facts, details, recollections and other people’s tone-of-voice will offer juicy new material to question and flip over like a pancake.

This has been particularly useful when approaching a sequence of events that, if adapted at face-value, would stick out like a sore thumb, both tonally and in terms of rhythm. The reason why I perceive this ricochet of events as a potential eyesore is because of how they’ve already been represented…in books. When reverting back to these go-to books, the narratives make me itch to scratch beneath the surface. In this instance the most effective scratching tactic has been to put myself in the interiors of the people described on surface level, considering what their emotional experience might be through a more psychological lens.

Although I’ve not yet tackled a keyboard with this sequence, I know – from this extra textual walk in the park – that viewing these events through the interior lens of my protagonist will provide the cohesion/glue I’m keenly looking for. Aside from this, there’s a lot to be said for grazing eyes on the pages of books instead of the blue light of screens. Reading from paper is less of a fight with stimuli; a book is more of a natural collaborator.

This process has really put me back in a plastic chair, in a classroom porter-cabin in Lincolnshire, plugging away at GCSE History. All that fun stuff you learn (when listening) about reliable sources, bias and detail is so applicable to drama writing and this simple connection satisfies me as both a history buff and journalist/PR with forensic tendencies.

Everyone loves a bit of sleuthing, if only while watching a Harlan Coben adaptation on the Beeb. This past week has reminded me of how creative ETS (for the purpose of playwriting) can be.

TF