VIEWPOINT

A dramatic change of direction

Michele Cashmore

Michele Cashmore explores why stepping out of one’s comfort zone can be a highlight in your career.

Whether you write novels, short stories, poetry, plays, scripts or songs, do you ever step out of your comfort zone? I don’t mean in the usual way of playing with conflict and throwing your characters into a dilemma that you’ve never used before, or POV shifts or style or even genre. You might be a novelist who has never written a short story or vice versa, and think the idea of writing something you’ve never tackled before is assigned to the ‘too hard basket’. It can be daunting challenging yourself in any form of art. And daunted is exactly how I felt when I signed up for an intensive playwrighting weekend workshop with world renowned playwright, Alex Broun.

I signed up terribly excited about the forthcoming weekend as I’ve always wanted to write a screenplay but never found the time to explore what courses might be available, whether online or in person at a college or TAFE. But here was this course being advertised by QWC – my opportunity to explore and step out, take a chance on something I’ve always been curious about. Playwrighting didn’t sound too dissimilar to me and it was only a weekend of my time. But as the weekend approached, a steady, creeping fear made me almost cancel. It was the ‘too hard basket’; I was tired from work and definitely would be, come Monday – it was just way too intensive!

I’ve been writing a long time and have explored poetry, short stories (with some publishing success) and novels that are still works in progress. I’ve been at this game long enough to know that all the rubbish my head was spinning me, were excuses … and a quick chat with my bestie sorted me out and off I went.

Broun’s workshop was the most beneficial and one of the most exciting experiences I’d had since attending Clarion South (a ‘boot camp’ for speculative fiction writers held in Brisbane) in 2007. The workshop was one of those experiences that really helped define me as a writer. It showed me what I love about writing and confirmed my path and subsequent steps in the world of storytelling. Because the focus was on writing the 10-minute play, a lot of ground was covered over the 2 1/2 day weekend. And because I love the short story format, the challenge of writing s short play was equally as appealing – although there are definite differences.

A short play can be defined as emotional – something you feel. It is a shared act of imagination for the audience to engage in and respond to the ‘suspension of disbelief. We are talking ‘live theatre’: a play is a visual medium, so the audience must be shown and not told – a good rule of thumb for any storytelling.

And as in all good fiction, every scene should be pushing the story forward. The play must have a beginning, a middle and an end.  A good story doesn’t necessarily have to follow convention, but in the ten minute format, it is ideal that something happens within the first four to six minutes that will raise the stakes and hurtle the play to its conclusion.

In fiction, you can explore the geographical location and use internal dialogue, but in a play, the only thing you have to rely on is dialogue. Dialogue that tells the story. As a fiction writer, I find this a challenge, not only because dialogue has to work twice as hard, but because I love descriptive prose of location and setting, sound, smell – everything that explores the senses. When writing a play, you state where it’s set, for example, Mary’s kitchen at 2pm, and that is it.

With theatre, a play becomes a production. The writer must relinquish control, just as a writer does in effect when the book is published. The writer has no control over how the reader may perceive the story.

As in getting your novel published or your short story in an anthology, the reward for a playwright is seeing your words performed to an audience. A play doesn’t get published, it gets performed, and without that performance a play is simply a story along with all the other unpublished stories hiding in that bottom drawer. Getting your words performed is equally as competitive and equally as rewarding once your words see the light of day.

Playwrighting is an exciting visual medium and one I was very proud to be a part of when my 10-minute play, The Corpse Cannot Play, was selected to be performed in the final gala of the top ten plays for the Short + Sweet Theatre Festival held at the Judith Wright Centre, Brisbane. Giving my play over to the director and actors and trusting that they would ‘get’ my vision was challenging to say the least, but rewarding, as the whole process taught me how to let go and trust the creative process.

I’m currently working on a feature-length play and already ideas and characters are filling my head for my next 10-minute play, which I intend to submit to Short+Sweet Theatre Festival in the coming round. •

Further information: Short+Sweet www.shortandsweet.org

Alex Broun www.alexbroun.com

Clarion South www.clarionsouth.org

QWC has workshops on writing short stories, in April, and dialogue, in September, www.qwc.asn.au

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Michele Cashmore is a Brisbane-based writer and a graduate of the 2007 Clarion South Writers Workshop. She writes travel articles for Suite 101 and the occasional music review for Triple J. Her recent publications include The Corpse Cannot Play (performed by Short + Sweet Theatre) and The Wind Cries Mary in Fantastical Journeys to Brisbane (Izvori).  www.michelecashmore.com

Published WQ magazine March 11 206

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