Honest criticism is an honour to receive

I wrote the other day about some of the possibilities that have arisen with regard to one of my ongoing writing projects: the Abigail Massey at McAdam Station series of short stories for kids.

At least I think I wrote about them.... oh well, if not, bear with me. Or should that be "bare with me"? No, that sounds a bit rude.

One such possibility is the opportunity to adapt my Christmas novella, A McAdam Station Christmas, into a stage play. Now, I'm not a playwright by any means. I wrote a couple of one-act plays way back in my youth but writing for the stage is not something I consider to be among my talents.

When a screen-writing colleague at work suggested, however, that I consider such a project, I jumped at the chance. I thought, "Why not?" and "It would be great if it worked out!" and "Holy crap, did I really just agree to this?"

But how does one go about converting a novella into a play?

With no clue how to proceed, I did what I always do in such situations: I took the process step by step.

First, since plays are all about dialogue, I stripped most of the exposition from the story, leaving only the dialogue itself and just enough "stage direction" to make it make sense.

Second, I re-reviewed the resulting draft script with the strengths and limitations of live stage in mind. I reduced the number of characters, for example, by eliminating unnecessary scenes and, in at least one case, having a major character take on the functions and dialogue of a minor character. I also reduced the number of sets required, by identifying three or four major locations and then relocating all scenes that had been set elsewhere in the novel into one of these locations.

The result was fine, I guess, but I strongly suspected that, well, although it looked like a play on paper, it didn't really have the shape and structure of a play. At that point, I was stumped as to what to do next.

My colleague came to the rescue. She investigated local theatre groups, identified one to which she felt the play was best suited in theme and audience, and approached its artistic director to discuss my play.

To my amazement, the director not only agreed to read the play, he also agreed to meet with us to give us feedback!

So tomorrow morning I sit down with my colleague and a real live theatre man to talk about the Abigail play.

He warned us that he intends to be blunt and honest in his "notes" on the play draft -- I guess he's had too many bad experiences with egotistical writers who don't like to hear criticism -- and I find myself actually quite delighted to hear that.

I have no fear of criticism. In fact, sometimes I think struggling writers get much too little criticism of their work. Strike that -- I strongly believe that very few struggling writers get enough honest criticism of their work.

And, as someone who knows that play writing is NOT my strength, I am really interested to hear what he has to say about how I can improve the Abigail play.

To be honest, I'm quite honoured simply by the fact that he read the thing in the first place, not to mention that he's willing to take the time to comment on it in person. I am trying not to get my hopes up that this means he found enough worthwhile in the play that he might consider mounting it on stage -- I am focusing on this amazing opportunity to get honest, if blunt, criticism and to improve my written work!

Pondering the next set of writing projects

As the end of November starts to slide into view and the sales process for the new Christmas novella swings into the automatic phase of appearance after appearance after appearance, I start to turn my mind to the next writing project.

As anyone who has read my earlier posts on this blog will know, I have been considering a number of different possibilities for 2015: a comic novel, a more serious novel that seems to be developing to of the comic novel, another collection of Abigail Massey historical stories for children, perhaps another Abigail Massey novel, and even a play project that would be developed out of A McAdam Station Christmas.

That's a long list, I know. And it may just end up that I actually pursue two, three, even four of them in the new year.

I have written about 15 pretty good pages of the comic/serious novel and I find myself continuously developing it as I wonder through my life.

I had a nice coffee with a friend the other day, a friend who has been strongly involved in the Abigail project over the past two years, and she has expressed an interest in creating a writers' group specifically to work on new Abigail children's stories. The idea would be that we find two more strong writers, toss around stories ideas together, then each of us go away and write a story for the others to review.

There are a lot of real advantages to this kind of approach, including the fact that it would become less a work project and more a social project and the fact that having four writers involved in the project would mean that we had four people helping to promote the new book once it is published.

The possibility of a new Abigail novel, meanwhile, got a jump start when, in response to a very simple story suggestion sent to me by a friend, I pumped out a fully developed plot proposal of more than 500 words for a possible novel. It surprised me that it came so easily: clearly I have been considering the possibility, at least in my subconscious, for some time.

And the play idea... well, that one might actually be the first on the list. A friend at work has earned a degree in screen-writing and is very interested in working with me on a play. And I think that, if we can write a decent stage play out of the Christmas novella, we could have it performed next Christmas at the McAdam Station or perhaps at a local theatre. That would provide a boost not just to the Station but to the sale of the Abigail books themselves.

These are interesting times... with lots of decisions to be made and lots of writing work to be done.