I love to perform in local community theatre productions. It can be a lot of work -- one director referred to community theatre as "a part-time job that costs you money," and that sums it up rather well -- but I find it to be energizing as well as an outlet. Theatre is good for giving my brain something fun and non-scholarly to do, a nice break from school and work.
But recently, of course, I managed to make a connection between acting and interdisciplinary writing. Isn't the interdisciplinary mind a wondrous thing? It so often finds the overlap, the interplay, the synchronicity between seemingly disparate fields -- whether you want it to or not.
Don't flub your lines!
The striking commonality between acting and writing lies in the importance of getting your lines right -- that is, of saying exactly what you mean, at exactly the right time. The tricky part is noticing when you have failed to do this and taking steps to correct the error. Your job, and mine, is to say exactly what we mean to say, clearly and unambiguously, so that everyone in the audience can understand it.
If I skip lines in performance, I may be leaving out information critical to understanding the play. This is a Very Bad Thing to do, since I cannot assume that everyone (or even anyone) in my audience is already familiar with the story. The same applies to academic writing: you cannot assume that all of your readers will be familiar with the background information that feeds into your paper.
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| via the wonderful Wondermark |
This holds true even for disciplinary writing, although to a lesser extent. The strongest academic writing in all fields is that which can stand alone, and remains comprehensible to readers from outside the discipline.
Words, words, words
In a similar vein, use of the wrong word may change the entire meaning of a sentence, a scene, the whole play. This past October, during a performance of an Agatha Christie murder mystery, I asked another character, "Is it so wrong to kill the person who has taken everything you had in the world from you?" The other character, a canon (or English clergyman), is meant to reply "Yes!" In one particular performance, he instead bellowed "NO!" In other words, with one tiny slip of the tongue, a priest gave me permission to commit murder. While that defense may not hold up in court, it put an interesting spin on the story. He didn't even realize he had gotten it backward until I teased him about it later. After all, he knew what he intended to say.
This is a common problem for writers in the age of spellcheckers and autocorrection. If you make a typo, your computer's autocorrect function may correct it for you -- but it may not "correct" it to the word you intended to use. If you make a typo that is still a word, but not the word you intended, or if you make an incorrect word choice, your computer will not catch it for you. In all likelihood, when you read back over what you've written, you will read not what is actually on the page, but what you meant to put on the page.
This is where writing benefits from either a second set of eyes, or from resting for a while before you proofread. If your deadline is looming and you can't manage either of these techniques, be sure to proofread as slowly and carefully as you possibly can, and to look up any and all words you're not absolutely certain you are using correctly. This will go a very long way toward ensuring that you have, in fact, said what you meant to say, and not given someone the thumbs up on murder. . . or adultery, as in one famous Biblical misprint. (Click through the link for some excellent advice on avoiding similarly embarrassing typos.)
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| Also check for spelling. via Mandatory. |
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| Keep an eye out for missing words, too. Assuming you still have eyes,. |
It's all in the delivery: punctuation and logical stops
Always consider the impact of punctuation on meaning as well as on style and flow. Punctuation was, in fact, initially invented as a means of indicating when orators (and, later, actors) should pause for breath. When actors ignore the supplied punctuation, it makes a mess of meaning. This is a common problem among students and new actors first encountering William Shakespeare's iambic pentameter verse: many people inherently feel that they should pause at the end of each line, regardless of punctation, or lack thereof.
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| via Motifake |
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| Thankfully, this particular comma fail was a hoax. via Museum of Hoaxes. |
Punctuation is even more powerful in writing. A missing or misplaced comma can change the meaning of an entire sentence.
The best way to check your own work for appropriate punctuation is to read it aloud. Where you naturally pause, there should be appropriate punctuation (usually a comma or period) to indicate the pause. If you don't naturally pause while reading the sentence aloud, you don't need a comma.
Don't skip the rehearsal process
No theatrical production goes public without an extensive rehearsal process, which generally includes a good bit of revision and adjustment. The final rehearsal, when we have everything just about right, is a preview performance. The audience for this show is comprised of family and friends, who serve as a sounding board of sorts -- the actors' version of proofreaders. They can offer feedback on the performance, pointing out any serious problems we may have overlooked. I strongly recommend that writers seek out a preview audience for their work before submitting it as well. For MALS students, please do consider making use of your friendly neighborhood writing consultant. I also strongly encourage the formation of writing groups, which can be a great resource for peer review.
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| And if writing groups fail you, look into acting groups. What was that I said about "energizing"? |
I hope these reminders serve you well as you head into the home stretch of the semester. Did I commit the very sins of which I speak in this post? If so, do point them out to me, and mock at will. And if you need a break and a good, hearty laugh this weekend, come on out to the theatre!
Cheers,
Emily
