From the Stage to the Page

Stories

Stories have been part of our lives for as long as language. Longer, perhaps. Accompanied by bedtime stories, we grew unafraid of the dark, the sound of our mother’s voice sending us peacefully into the night. As children we read storybooks and acted out the favored scenes from behind the bedcover curtain stretched from sofa to chair. Then on to chapter books, movies, and music that told us stories of love.

Stories, by nature, are meant to be heard. Stories on the stage and stories on the page have their roots in a gathering of people around a fire—in ancient tales that celebrated the lives and deaths and sacred passages of the community. Storytelling is an oral tradition. If we think of theater in terms of telling stories out loud, we can transfer a good deal from the practice of the theater to the practice of literature.

Before I started writing fiction, I spent 25 years as an actress, director and playwright, and I still look to the traditions of the theater for guidance on how to practice the art of storytelling. With that in mind, what elements of performance can we apply to the written word?

First, the Audience

Although your “audience” may come to you one at a time, instead of in theaters of hundreds, you still have an audience. When I used to train actors, they had to endure my passionate explosions about how they were nothing without their audience. I didn’t say this to be unkind, or disrespectful, or dishonoring of the importance of their craft, but to remind them that storytelling is always a communal act. Writing your stories without considering the audience is self-indulgent. Know this: they will get up and leave your theater.

Like a great actor, you must have a reason, other than the sound of your own voice, to open your mouth. You must care deeply about your audience and the gift you wish to give them. This relationship is sacred. The power of your story does not rest in your amazing talent with words—it rests in your capacity to engage your audience.

Second, the Characters

If you think of the opening scene of a play or movie, it begins with someone doing something. In traditional theater, actors are trained in the Stanislavski Method of Acting—or at least they used to be. In method acting, you must find a way to reveal the interior motives of a character through physical action.

When I am sitting in my brown chair by the window at home, writing on my latest novella, I act it out. No kidding. I close my eyes and play the scene on stage. Sometimes it is a literal acting out and sometimes the scene occurs only in my imagination. But always, I think of myself as the character in question: What is my set? Is there a chair on my stage, a tree? What do I touch? Am I sitting down? What do I smell? What is my mouth doing while I try not to cry? Then I write it down for my audience—and hope no one has seen me through the window.

Third, the Dialogue

As an actor in the theater, you have only action and dialogue to reveal your character—everything must come through those two tools. If we apply that principle to writing, we realize that dialogue is a tool used by the character to reveal his or her nature to the audience. Dialogue is not for imparting information. If you use dialogue to explain plot or give backstory you will lose your audience’s trust. Why? Because your characters will not be believable. Who talks like that? An audience will forgive your story many things, but only if your characters remain true to themselves.

How do people talk? How do you make them sound like themselves? Well, you damn well better be reading your dialogue out loud—with the accent, attitude, pace and personality of the character. Otherwise, it won’t ring true and your characters won’t come to life. Your audience needs to recognize—in the pattern of your characters’ speech, in the words they choose—someone they know, someone they’ve heard or seen at the grocery store. This need for recognition is even true with Silence of the Lambs horror or C.S. Lewis fantasy. Consider the White Witch in Narnia: now it is true that I’ve never met an evil queen in white fur robes at Wal-Mart, but I recognize the pride in her speech and her hungry desire for power. I’ve heard people talk like that and so I believe.

Again, as I write, I perform my dialogue out loud in that same brown chair, by that same window. The one I am sitting in now. If you are not used to this method, try reading a children’s book out loud every day until you are comfortable. Read aloud the narrative and dialogue as though you are performing it for an audience. This practice will help you with the sound and rhythm of language. Dialogue was meant to be heard.

To the Page

Written stories can capture the power of oral tradition and you can harness the traditions of the theater in the language of your stories . . . if you write them to be read aloud. So read them aloud—first to yourself, and then to an audience. Then have the stories read aloud to you. Close your eyes and be the audience for your story. Let your story tell you where she stumbles, where you have left her without support. Listen for where you have given the characters wrong words, or tied their hands with lack of action. Then, like a playwright, return to the page and refine your show.

Stacy Barton is a 25-year veteran of the theater. She is a scriptwriter for the Disney Company and the author of short stories, children’s picture books, plays and poetry. Please visit her blog, the art of story. Look for her debut short story collection, Surviving Nashville, coming out with WordFarm in Fall 2006.