Could you give me directions to…?

There is a lot of debate about the inclusion of stage directions in a manuscript. And I’m the first to admit that I have had a fair amount of criticism about them in my manuscripts – but I hasten to point out that I’ve had comments about inserting too many and comments about not inserting enough!

So what’s the problem?

A hard lesson to learn once you’ve started on the playwrights path, is that you are only the playwright. Now that might sound obvious, but it has significant impact on your work.

You are not the actor. As such, you may well have envisaged how a line should be delivered – but it doesn’t mean that an actor is going to interpret it that way. Indeed, a lot of the time, that’s a good thing! Their interpretation could well be an improvement on yours… But that will flash a lot of playwrights up!

So many playwrights will endeavour to ensure that the line is delivered in the manner they envisaged. All too often you will find lines by new playwrights like:

JAMES: (Angrily) I told you to leave.

HELEN: (Wryly) Why didn’t you tell me earlier?

JEMMA: (Sarcastically) Oh, I really like that.

The second example is why in the world of screenplays they are referred to as ‘wrylies’. And in essence, there is no excuse for any of these examples.

If you want an actor to deliver an angry line… Write – An – Angry – Line! “I told you to leave.” Can be read so many different ways! But what about:

JAMES: I’ve warned you! Now get out of here before I do something you’ll regret!

Agreed, there’s more than one way to deliver this line – but each of them ‘should’ carry an angry tone.

Now, many playwrights will hate that (the fact that the actor can interpret a line). But the job of a playwright is to tell a story. You’ve got to let the actor do the acting.

The same is generally true for Directors. You got to let them do the directing… So you have to be carefull about what stage directions to include.

When I started out, I did have passages that read like:

JAMES: Hang on. I need to make a note of that.

JAMES PRODUCES A NOTEPAD AND PEN
AND WRITES DOWN THE DETAILS.

In reflection, that is verging on the tautological. If a character says that they are going to do something, isn’t it fairly obvious what action they are going to carry out on the stage.

But I have gained criticism for the number of blocking (where the actors move) directions I have inserted in some of my manuscripts. And I know that a lot of directors don’t like them. But, when I reviewed my scripts, I could see that I had put them there for a reason. And that reason, I described in my previous Ramble… Focus.

In one play, I had the cast and director come up to me and tell me that they didn’t have anywhere near as many stage directions in the script as they wanted! So you can’t win…

But I guess I ramble about it today, so that when you write your next scene, you end up asking yourself “Do I really need to tell the actor/director to do that?”.

Me? Well, it’s very rarely that I need directions to my front door – but that all depends on where I start off from and what state I’m in… I guess you have to work out the same for your plays…

(I’ve decided to put a brief note about this in my Author’s Note that precede each manuscript!)