Here are the guidelines:
- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 200 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
- From the "Comment As" drop-down menu, choose Anonymous, then click "Publish."
- Reading responses are due by midnight on the night PRIOR to our discussion of the required reading.
The activity for writing a monologue with our character actually helped a lot to understand my character and to discover her voice. Spencer writes a section about “dialogue”, but actually refers to it as “Language”. It tells us to start writing to find our own style, and our character’s voice. I am excited to start writing the dialogue for my play because as I keep writing more, I learn more things about the character. The Other thing that Spencer talks about is subtext, and he gives a set of levels that we can use to accommodate the different motivations for our characters. In brief, action is what a character wants, but motivation is why this character wants it. More importantly, the subtext is what lays deep into the character’s desires. Hatcher contributes to the subtext by adding a lot of examples in which we appreciate the dialogue from different plays. We learn one thing as we are watching the play, but we learn more when we listen carefully to the dialogue. I read “Anything for you” before reading Hatcher’s chapter on subtext. I had to read the ten-minute play again, and I had a different understanding. I don’t know if it was obvious, or some people may have understood other things, but I think that Lynette was talking about the idea of having an affair to see how Gail would react because she already knew that Gail had feelings toward her.
ReplyDeletePaulina Longoria
I like how Hatcher goes in depth with stylization. He says “The danger comes when a playwright imitates another writer’s language. A writer can borrow a plotline or a story” (Hatcher, 138) I like this because I’m sure most of us have seen a movie or even a play, or a book, where we can take ideas from and use it to stylize our own play. What I got from reading how to create or “set up” dialogue between characters was the importance of linguistics, how the character talks, the region they are from, and keeping it original that way it doesn’t go over the top. Spencer doesn’t really go into much about dialogue but he does talk about language and how it’s important in the essence of writing a play. Spencer says “In the end, remember that a play is all dialogue, so thinking about dialogue as this separate entity won’t do you a lot of good.” (Spencer, 198) which is true because I often think more about the dialogue as a separate thing when reading a play or even writing a play but both reading helped me realize that dialogue is important to keep close knit as well as the other elements of a play.
ReplyDeleteIlene Guevara
Spencer discusses subtext in a play, and that subtext is needed to create “surprise, suspense, or delight” (Spencer 51). He says that subtext in a play is showing how characters’ actions arise from their deepest desire, which is slowly revealed throughout the play. We can see this in “Anything for You” as the desires of Gail and Lynette become clearer. At first Lynette wants an affair, then we discover she actually wants an affair with Gail. At first Gail says Lynette should not have an affair because it will hurt Richard, then she says it’s because she is straight, and finally it is revealed that Gail is in love with Lynette which is why she doesn’t want Lynette to have an affair, but neither does she want to have a fling with Lynette. These reveals keep the play engaging, and demonstrate the surprise and suspense Spencer discusses.
ReplyDeleteSpencer and Hatcher both discuss how dialogue has to come naturally, not forced. Spencer says that “you don’t create a voice, you discover it” (Spencer 195) by writing as honestly as you can. Hatcher discusses style, saying “you can’t choose dialogue style...that comes with you or it doesn’t come at all” (Hatcher 138). Both of these authors agree that how each playwright writes must be their own unique style, you can not force your voice or try to be someone else, you simply have to keep writing and figure out what your voice is.
Lacey Naumann
I really enjoyed “Anything For You”, both twists I honestly didn’t see coming. Reading it a second time this was a great example of subtext. The second time around, I took Gail’s shock, as a bit of excitement. Knowing that she was in love with Lynette her mind was probably racing a million miles a minute with possibilities. This all given with subtext. I also enjoyed Hatcher’s example of subtext from “Come Back, Little Sheba”, before he told us what the context of the scene was it was very easy to see. I think Hatcher’s chapters would help those that over explain things, I believe that’s what went wrong with my monologue. I didn’t leave room for subtext, I wanted the audience to know every single detail they needed to know. And in case they didn’t pick up on it, i wanted to be sure they weren’t left with questions.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the beginning of Hatcher’s bit on dialogue. He talks about diction, and I think that’s the best part of writing. Writing for a specific character isn’t just saying their from this place or the other, it’s about making the audience believe that this character is from that place, or decade using diction. Like Hatcher said a “seventy-year-old, Boston-born attorney” wouldn’t say “pants” but “trousers”. Diction is what pulls the audience (or reader) into this made up world even further. It could also break a character, like Hatcher’s example in Oleanna. Characters must state consistent. Even if they’re an unpredictable character, they should be consistently unpredictable.
Aisha Teegarden
Hatcher goes a lot into depth about character dialogue and how the playwright should use it to establish his/her voice. The exercise we did about writing our own monologue was very rewarding but difficult nonetheless. I wanted to point out how hard it is for me to establish character development without stating things explicitly. In my opinion, I always want the audience to find things out for themselves. I think it’s ten times for fascinating to develop a character through her emotions or dialogue rather than saying it directly in the script.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, say you’re creating a character that has anger issues. Instead of saying so, you’d write about his/her outrages or emotions that simulate his/her character, leaving the audience to wonder.
I like how Spencer establishes a play as “language.” For me, it means to find the right set of words and dialogue that fit with the overall theme of the play you might write. As I’ve stated in previous discussions, dialogue isn’t a mere conversation between two people. It must hold a significance behind it to make the audience entertain themselves. Everything you write must be compelling both to you, the characters, and the audience.
Ivanna Zamudio Trevino
Writing dialogue is something I’m not used to, having to create my character and find their voice was daunting. While going through and reading Hatcher and Spencer something stumped me, subtext. What did they say without actually saying it. When seen in movies and TV shows it looks so easy, the double meaning behind their words reading between the lines, but when I started to think about it subtext is hard. While reading Hatcher and going through the Nixson Watergate scandal I wouldn’t have understood if it wasn’t explained. Due to not understanding it increases my fear of not being able to write subtext well. When reading “Anything for you” I didn’t understand the subtext. It wasn’t until I read some of the other discussions that I realized what it was. I had to go back and reread the text because it all made sense. Lynnette knew about the crush that’s why she said something so outrageous. Gail said that she feels jealous whenever Lynette and Richard “reach for each other like any other happily married couple” if Lynnette had really needed to have sex with another person then in my mind she wouldn’t be as happy as she is with Richard she would be frustrated. Hopefully I’ll be able to read other texts with subtitles and practice to be able to understand right away.
ReplyDeleteKendra Lara
Cathy Celesia’s Anything for You demands the attention of the audience with quick, short lines between the 2 characters, building up the suspense of whether the characters are really going through with the affair, leaving the ending ambiguous. Spencer’s piece gives us an insight on how language can really improve the dialogue between two characters. We’re supposed to give the dialogue a sense of rhythm and this is very highlighted in Anything for You as the back and forth of the 2 characters give the play an easier flow to understand, it’s pleasant to hear the conversation and observe on stage. Hatcher’s take on dialogue is that we should pay attention to real life, observe diction between real people. He gives us a break down each section of the dialogue: the immediate action, exposition, peculiar and authentic-sounding code words, interruptions, and a sense of rushed, real-life fractured grammer and styax. He also encourages us to give our work its own style, giving the language spoken some life. We can either write dialogue as text, having the characters say what they think or as a subtext, which has the characters act in dramatic scenes to allow the audience to interpret what the characters want.
ReplyDelete-Luis Alonzo
With this week's readings, we got to explore how dialogue fits into the playwriting process. On Hatcher's end, it definitely helped a lot more than his section on Monologues, since he breaks down examples of subtext, diction, humor, etc, and how all of these can be fitted to create meaningful, appropriate dialogue. I really liked his advice on how to emulate the feel of realistic dialogue by recording real conversations and learning to cut from them, as he writes "Good dialogue is talk with the dull bits cut out" (pg 134). With Spencer, I found his schematic thinking of understanding subtext to be very beneficial, as it illustrates how actions depend on each other's precedent and antecedent lines in order to create a subtext for the audience to put together. The trouble I'm sure I'll run into is resisting the urge to explain everything to the audience and instead work within the allotted time in order to deliver enough material for them to want to think about after, which is probably the ultimate goal for me for my play as a writer. "Anything for You" by Cathy Celesia illustrates this construction of subtext in a short amount of dialogue, since it gives no clear indication of what Lynette's goal was from confessing to Gail of her need for an affair. Yet, from the fairly vague explanation she gives and the conversation that follows between her and Gail once she admits of her infatuation, we can see that it clearly wasn't Lynette's real motivation to get Gail to sleep with her and have the affair, since Lynette appears to be dumbfounded as a result of Gail's confession. - Jesse Rocha
ReplyDeleteInteresting dialogue is always full of subtext. But subtext is difficult to figure out, especially in a 10 minute play. Characters bring in a lot of baggage that can’t be fully explicated – yet, this baggage is the background of the play where the subtext comes out. Subtext is psychological, it is the deep, sometimes unconscious desires that cannot be spoken. And like our own psychology, there are layers upon layers of subtext, like Spencer says of Death of a Salesman. To understand the subtext is to know the extent of your character’s desires. What do they REALLY want? And, on the reverse side, what are the forces that prevent someone from really expressing what they want? You can’t ask someone directly if they want to have sex, you have to invite them to your apartment for coffee. Hatcher says that subtext can be expressed to the audience through the “arrangement of actions.” This is critical, as the arrangement creates the context in which the subtext can be understood. Your subtext needs to use the brains of the audience to connect the dots, something that can be dangerous, and you can lose the thread if you’re not careful. You have to trust your audience but you also have to trust your dialogue.
ReplyDelete-Rodin Grajo
This week I felt that Hatcher and Spencer could both agree on the dialogue and language of a play. Spencer tackles motivation, subtext, and language as a whole. This provides insight past what the character is directly saying and into what they mean. This has everything to do not necessarily with reading between the lines, but having a deeper meaning and creating a stronger play for the audience. Hatcher goes about this by talking about dialogue as a whole. He doesn’t go into subtext as strongly as Spencer did, but something I did appreciate was how he make a point about diction. I’ve seen writers struggle with maintaining consistent diction with their characters, and it leaves the audience in confusion because they need to pause to remember who is speaking and wonder why they suddenly changed their approach. We see the subjects that Spencer and Hatcher talked about come together and tie neatly into “Anything for You”. My favorite was how Lynnette kept slowly breaking down Gail to admit that she did kiss her that one New Year’s Eve. The way they talk to each other feels so natural and the secret being revealed is built up properly as it should be.
ReplyDelete-Gabriela Urbano
Language is one of the most central parts of any story, and in a play, is our primary method by which we inform the audience of character mood, personality, motivation, and characteristics. Hatcher illustrates and mentions that, just like how authors steal from everything to create their work, playwrights should borrow from real life to create characters and situations that sound and feel authentic. A character's voice must be found in order for them to properly connect with the audience, and word choice and even manner of speaking play into this. In order for the audience to properly connect with a character, the writer must first do so. Everything Hatchet and Spencer discuss is very well illustrated in 'Anything For You', and how the character's words are natural and feel realistic while being layered with subtext and double meaning. Just like real people, characters in a play will not always say what they mean. They may beat around the bush, lie to themselves and others, or dance around topics they do not want to confront or admit outright. It is up to the playwright to convey this in a natural and realistic way, but if done right, it draws in and engages the audience far more than a simple outright statement of their beliefs and feelings.
ReplyDelete-Nathan Phillip