Dial It Down: A Ramble on Writing

I’ve been working on a play for a number of years now. I’ve always struggled along with it. It’s about big ideas and feels like a big play. Almost something smarter and more equipped writers should tackle.

Anyway, I keep coming back to it. I love the characters. I love the dialogue. I love the energy of it. The pace. The idealism behind it too. I often describe it as my attempt to write an episode of a Sorkin-created TV show.

I finished Act One about a year and a half ago and left it. Mainly because I like writing one act only plays and it annoyed me that I’d decided to attempt a two act play and it’s pretty hard to write at the best of times, writing two acts is even harder.

The first act ramps up and gets bigger and bigger and ends in this kind of blistering big cliffhanger. It really dials everything up. Turns everything up to 11.

Then I was stuck. My sticking point being - how do I dial up Act Two even more? How? How do you top the crescendo?

I’ve never had the slightest clue. So I’ve abandoned it.

But then today I got the idea that feels right. And the simplicity of it is crazy. And this is a thread on writing and I know not everyone is interested in this kind of thing but it might help other writers who are stuck.

The big idea?

Dial. It. Down.

There’s no need to dial it up. Go quieter. More intimate. More human. If they’ve returned after the interval for the second act, you’ve most likely got em, so give them something new.

Anyway, it was just a thought, fellow writers. It helped me.

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