Stanislavsky v. Brecht

[gauchecritic]

Clarity of symbol and experience. A minimal amount of assumption about how others think and exploring how you think, while helping translate between the worlds, both of these approaches are necessary for writing, and should be tools in the box.

Thankyou Recidiva. I think I'm often guilty of starting threads simply in order to catch someone who can clarify my thought for me.

how something evocative, particularly in art or stage, can unlock symbols and make them more vibrant to someone.

And I must have forgotten completely about that. Thankyou again.

Oh come on Grusha. What about "Stanislavsky couldn't act to save his life because he never actually knew what acting is about?" eh? eh?

 

[Recidiva]

What about "Stanislavsky couldn't act to save his life because he never actually knew what acting is about?" eh? eh?

There's a bit to be learned from "the method" - BUT. Some people's brains do not work that way. For instance, all methods of visualization and attempting to access visual cues doesn't work for me. I deal in emotional cues.

Put better by a lyricist:

A Chorus Line, "Nothing"

Morales -

I'm so excited because I'm gonna go to the High School of Performing
Arts, I mean I was dying to be a serious actress. Anyway, it's our first
day acting class and we're in the auditorium and the teacher, Mr. Karp,
puts us upon the stage with our legs around everybody, one in back of the
other, and he says: 'Okay, we're gonna do improvisations...Now, you're
on a bobsled and it's snowing out and it's cold... Okay, go!'
Ev'ryday for a week we would try to feel the motion,
Feel the motion down the hill.
Ev'ry day for a week we would try to hear the wind rush
Hear the wind rush, feel the chill
And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
To see what I had inside.
Yes, I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
And I tried, I tried!
And everybody's goin' 'Woosh... woosh ...
I feel the snow, I feel the cold,
I feel the air...'
And Mr. Karp turns to me and he says:
'Okay, Morales, what did you feel?'
And I said...
'Nothing, I'm feeling nothing,'
And he says 'Nothing could get a girl transferred.'
They all felt something,
But I felt nothing
Except the feelin' that this bullshit was absurd!
But I said to myself,
'Hey, it's only the first week. Maybe it's genetic,
They don't have bobsleds in San Juan!'
Second week, more advanced,
And we had to be a table,
Be a sportscar, Ice-cream cone.
Mister Karp, he would say,
'Very good, except Morales.
Try, Morales, all alone.'
And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
To see how an ice cream felt...
Yes, I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
And I tried to melt!
The kids yelled,
'Nothing!'
They called me 'Nothing'
And Karp allowed it, which really makes me burn.
They were so helpful, they called me 'Hopeless',
Until I really didn't know where else to turn.
And Karp kept saying,
'Morales, I think you should transfer to Girl's High,
You'll never be an actress, Never!'
Jesus Christ!
Went to church, praying, Santa Maria,
Send me guidance,
Send me guidance on my knees.
Went to church praying, Santa Maria,
Help me feel it,
Help me feel it pretty please.
And a voice from down at the bottom of my soul
Came up to the top of my head,
And a voice from down at the bottom of my soul,
Here is what it said,
'This man is nothing! This course is nothing!
If you want something go find a better class.
And when you find one You'll be an actress.'
And I assure you that's what fin'lly came to pass
Six months later I heard that Karp had died.
And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul And cried--
'Cause I felt nothing...

+++++

Great song, and it took me most of my life to realize (and a LOT of acting and meditation exercises like the above)...when other people close their eyes, they see pictures. When I close my eyes, I see...nothing. Black. I feel, though. So I write emotionally. Visual cues for other people very often have static emotions attached to them that I find to be empty. Like the word "Door" written on a door. You can't show me the word. I need context. Physical, emotional...don't assume I feel one way or the other about the door. Draw me a picture or sing me a song, but don't shove the word "door" at me and expect me to get your specific door.

 

[Grushenka]

Oh come on Grusha. What about "Stanislavsky couldn't act to save his life because he never actually knew what acting is about?" eh? eh?

Lauging.

Not going to 'edit' the post, but I did mean to say, "Now that I get, excellent use of your analogy".

Really, when Recidiva brought up symbols I knew I had to run for cover.

Going offline now.

Grrrrrrrrusha

 

[3113]

To take 3's point about taking your reader on a journey and that it matters not that there is any message in a story....If you see a story as simply entertainment then I have no grounds to argue. Entertainment, like logic and maths, just is. It's ultimately a passive way of passing time.

I'm astonished that given my example of Grisham and Dostoevsky you'd believe that I'm talking about mindless, passive entertainment with no message at all!

Grisham may be that--but my argument was FOR Dostoevsky, who is one of the LEAST passive and message-free writers I know. So I'm afraid if THAT is what you thought I was saying you got it dead wrong. My point about messages was that great writers, and great novels rarely have a single message that can be sifted out of them, or that such messages, even if distilled into one sentence, can be divorced from the reader's take. I can't tell you how many times I've written a story thinking the message was one thing, and yet gotten e-mails from readers who saw something completely different. Does that mean the story had no message? Or that I communicated it wrong?

I don't think so. I think it means that communicatons between reader and writer works both ways and, in the best writing, goes very deep indeed. And I think that so long as you draw the reader in and get across some form of communication, engage them so that they think, feel, respond and get their own ideas, then you've done your job no matter what message they take away from the novel.

why do we talk of 'arcs' and 'plot' and 'conflict', then that message can be clouded or obscured by it's medium or elements of its medium.

I don't understand what you mean. We talk aobut arcs, plot and conflict because, for the most part, they are what make up our medium--at least arcs and conflict do, plot is debatable. A cook can hardly talk about cooking without discussing prep work, temperature and cooking time, can they? The message of the story may or may not be obscured by such arcs. For example, there are several interesting "messages" in A Clockwork Orange. One very important and interesting message is that allowing people in power to take away freedoms from "undeserving" people can open the door to them to take away everyone's freedoms.

Yet the PLOT, conflict and character arc of the protagonist have NOTHING to do with this message. You have to ignore HIS plot, conflict and arc in order to see, for example, that the main character is being given this questionable treatment to make room in the jails for political prisoners--a throw away line that has NOTHING to do with the plot, character or story arc. Yet this very obscuring of one of the messages is what makes it such a brilliant book.

In my view, a 'good' writer, an engaging writer or even an entertaining writer is unobtrusive and their characterisation will, at some level, contain pathos and/or antipathy.

Agreed. But what his this to do with Brecht who is, I think, one of the most INTRUSIVE authors there is--who's characters speak with HIS voice and offer HIS message, and hardly are autonomous?

But if you start laying on approximations of the emotions that they feel in the situations that you put them in then you, as the author, are intruding in the story.

How else are you suppose to do it? You have to think, "What would this character feel in this situation?" They're not real people who can tell you--they are your creations. One hopes that you've brought them enough to life within yourself that you know the answer instantly--but ultimately, all characters are relying on you making some connection to what they're going through in order to find out the answer to that question.

What you seem to be saying is that you don't want to see the puppet master, and if that's what you're saying, then we're in agreement. But I don't understand how Stanislavsky is a form of acting where you see the director/actor puppeting the character and mouthing words that belong to director/actor/writer...and how Brecht, of all people, is the opposite...the invisible author whose characters and story are so alive that no one notices the voice behind their "messages."

 

[3113]

An emotion can be 'defined' or 'portrayed' without resorting to telling the reader what the character's emotions are, or to a lesser extent, by 'showing' the character's emotions.

So...um...all you're saying with all this is the old writing rule "Show don't tell"?

You could've said.

And a character's emotions, unless you're relating a personal incident, can bear little resemblance to the emotions of the author.

Not so. We all feel anger. We may not kill out of anger, but we all know that emotion where we think, "I could kill him!" And thus, we can write up such a character who's emotions DO resemble ours even if we'd never go that that extreme.

If we've NEVER felt that we could "kill" someone in anger, then we couldn't write up such a character convincingly. This is what is called, "write what you know." And if you don't know it, find out about it.

any kind of reasonable facsimile to what 'you' would do or feel in that situation.

It's not? I disagree. Even if I write about a character meeting an alien from outer space it's a reasonable facsimile to what I *might* do or feel in this situation. I don't understand your arguement to the contrary.

 

[Recidiva]

Not so. We all feel anger. We may not kill out of anger, but we all know that emotion where we think, "I could kill him!" And thus, we can write up such a character who's emotions DO resemble ours even if we'd never go that that extreme.

If we've NEVER felt that we could "kill" someone in anger, then we couldn't write up such a character convincingly. This is what is called, "write what you know." And if you don't know it, find out about it.

It's not? I disagree. Even if I write about a character meeting an alien from outer space it's a reasonable facsimile to what I *might* do or feel in this situation. I don't understand your arguement to the contrary.

The problem with being accurate about your responses is that writing like this gets hung up on accuracy for one person and lacks variety.

The more interesting writers I find to have been well researched about "what would someone else do here" and then even mix in completely off-the-wall responses and ingredients into it to mix it into something unique.

There are many writers when you can tell the book is all them, there's "a message" and it's so cohesive and thought out that it's...um...boring. No space for chaos.

I think injection of some chaos is key...and it's hard to "research" chaos and make it real.

Chaos and mystery are those things that needs to go into a story, like shadows need to go into a painting.

 

[gauchecritic]

I'm astonished that given my example of Grisham and Dostoevsky you'd believe that I'm talking about mindless, passive entertainment with no message at all!

The message of a story is not so important, I think, than giving the reader a journey with these characters from which they can derive their own personal moral.

I know you didn't actually say that, but it was pretty close and I bent it a little in order to make the point about communication. Which I know you understand as well as anyone, probably better than quite a few, because you then mention the reader's take which I heartily agree with.

I don't understand what you mean. We talk aobut arcs, plot and conflict because, for the most part, they are what make up our medium--at least arcs and conflict do, plot is debatable.

<yadda-erudite/intellectual-yadda>

Yet this very obscuring of one of the messages is what makes it such a brilliant book.

Which goes some way to explaining what I mean. A Clockwork Orange actually uses those very devices to make it's message opaque. A window doesn't allow you to see outside, it allows you to see an image of outside, whilst all the while letting you know that it is a window. (these analogies are getting very tortuous)

Agreed. But what his this to do with Brecht who is, I think, one of the most INTRUSIVE authors there is--who's characters speak with HIS voice and offer HIS message, and hardly are autonomous?

If you walk out of the cinema commenting on the special effects then the story has been obscured. However, if every time you think of the special effects and get a sense of torment about teenage angst and betrayal then "Episode Three - Revenge of the Sith" has passed on a message to you.

How else are you suppose to do it? You have to think, "What would this character feel in this situation?" They're not real people who can tell you--they are your creations. One hopes that you've brought them enough to life within yourself that you know the answer instantly--but ultimately, all characters are relying on you making some connection to what they're going through in order to find out the answer to that question.

But not by translating your own feelings about real things in or onto your imagined people. This is simply a variation of anthropomorphism at best and displacement at worst.

What you seem to be saying is that you don't want to see the puppet master, and if that's what you're saying, then we're in agreement. But I don't understand how Stanislavsky is a form of acting where you see the director/actor puppeting the character and mouthing words that belong to director/actor/writer...and how Brecht, of all people, is the opposite...the invisible author whose characters and story are so alive that no one notices the voice behind their "messages."

As I said somewhere previously the two things aren't directly related but I see method acting (method writing) as obscuring the character by approximating what has been written and that Brechtian theatre (Brechtian writing) doesn't allow the writer to obscure the communication.

 

[gauchecritic]

So...um...all you're saying with all this is the old writing rule "Show don't tell"?

Not so. We all feel anger. We may not kill out of anger, but we all know that emotion where we think, "I could kill him!" And thus, we can write up such a character who's emotions DO resemble ours even if we'd never go that that extreme.

If we've NEVER felt that we could "kill" someone in anger, then we couldn't write up such a character convincingly. This is what is called, "write what you know." And if you don't know it, find out about it.


It's not? I disagree. Even if I write about a character meeting an alien from outer space it's a reasonable facsimile to what I *might* do or feel in this situation. I don't understand your arguement to the contrary.

I actually wanted to avoid using the words show or tell but failed miserably and obscured my own message with extraneous frills.

So it wouldn't have been possible (in your view) for me to have written a convincing female pov story which garnered a PC to the effect that the commenter would like to meet the 62 year old female author?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'm not sure what this thread's about - kind of Roschachian to me - but I find it interesting that it's framed in terms of acting and theater, because I think for me, acting is pretty much the very antithesis of what I find myself doing in fiction these days.

Acting is the art of convincing an audience that you're someone other than who you really are. In my writing, I no longer even try to create characters who aren't essentially some aspect of myself. I've just given up on that. It seems dilletentish to me, like doing impressions or talking in dialect - "acting". I see fiction now as an attempt to reveal myself. I guess that sounds very self-important and grand, but that's what I do. I think trying to do anything else is at best entertainment (nothing wrong with that, I'm just not interested) and at worst just lying. If you want to be someone else, you should do it in non-fiction. Pick someone real and try to figure them out.

Anyhow, aren't all great fictional characters based on real characters anyhow? Was anyone ever invented out of whole cloth?

Of course you can't avoid inventing characters and describing the world through their eyes in fiction. I happen to write a lot of sex stories from the female POV and occasionally get e-mails from women thanking me for putting into words things they couldn't express themselves, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm guessing at these emotions and experiences. They're my interpretation of what my characters are feeling, not my own truths.

There's another reason you can't wholly invent your characters in fiction, and that's because invented characters are to be too predictable. Like Recidiva says, you need chaos and surprise ina story, and that's the kind of thing that only comes from real experience. Cliched characters react in cliched ways. The only characters I can come up with who surprise me are the ones who are feeding off my own energies and needs and desires.

As for why I write or what I expect my stories to do for people - I don't even think about that anymore because I really have no idea. I think I write for the same reason that I'll run over to a friend and say, "Come here. I've got to tell you this!" It might be a good story or it might just be weird or it might just be something cool. I certainly don't think of my stories as necessarily being dramatic or emotionally moving or heavy on character. More and more they seem like self-indulgent screeds - me talking about how things seem to me.

 

[3113]

Which goes some way to explaining what I mean. A Clockwork Orange actually uses those very devices to make it's message opaque. A window doesn't allow you to see outside, it allows you to see an image of outside, whilst all the while letting you know that it is a window. (these analogies are getting very tortuous)

And this is....good? I'm afraid I no longer can tell what you think is positive or negative.

If you walk out of the cinema commenting on the special effects then the story has been obscured. However, if every time you think of the special effects and get a sense of torment about teenage angst and betrayal then "Episode Three - Revenge of the Sith" has passed on a message to you.

So Brecht fails (for me) because everytime I see one of his plays all I can talk about is how unlikeable the characters were and how I didn't give a shit about them or what they were saying. Is that about right?

But not by translating your own feelings about real things in or onto your imagined people. This is simply a variation of anthropomorphism at best and displacement at worst.

You've moved out of theater and writing and into philosophy and psychology. You've also run into an important wall, one that Stanislaw Lem focuses on in his book "Solarius." It's this: a writer can create a truely alien alien in a sci-fi story. But if you do, they remain a mystery from beginning to end--there is no communication between you and the alien, or if there is, it breaks down outrageously along the way.

For example, there's a famous short pulp story called "Martian Odyssey." What's famous about it are the aliens that the hero runs into. A creature made of silica that builds larger and larger pyramids--no one knows why. No communication possible. A creature where communication happens...up to a point. Then the creature leaps up, dives down and buries it's beak in the sand. And keeps doing this for no reason our hero can figure out.

This is the delemma faced by sci-fi writers--that it's very difficult to write a really alien alien...and yet also have communication, not just between it and the human protagonist, but it and the reader. Which gets us back to Lem's very valid, philosophical and psychological arguement: We can't know anything but ourselves. We're stuck inside our heads, with only our experiences to know. We can NEVER know another human being from the inside, and we can NEVER know anything outside of whats human--which is what we are.

In short, we anthropormophize EVERYTHING and anything. There is NO way to escape it. And trying to escape it is absurd anyway, because our READERS all do it. Read "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" or "The Incredible Journey" and even though they involve animals, the antrhopormorphizing is there--because the writer can't avoid it, and the reader NEEDS it so that they can identify with the characters. So, your point about it being bad for a writer to create characters by using their [the writer's] own feelings and experiences because it anthropormophizes makes no sense at all to me. What ELSE can we possibly do? What else, as human beings, DO we do?

So it wouldn't have been possible (in your view) for me to have written a convincing female pov story which garnered a PC to the effect that the commenter would like to meet the 62 year old female author?

This sentence makes no sense at all to me. Talk about a breakdown in communication. I can't make sense of this. "PC"? What "commentator? A female pov story about meeting a 62 year old female author? Um...why shouldn't you be able to write that? Convincingly?

You've totally lost me. Then again, at this point, I have NO idea what you think is good or bad, I have NO idea what you think writers should do or not do. Maybe if you tossed out Stanislavski and Brecht and used actual prose fiction writers to *SHOW* us what you're talking about--are you, for example, urging us to write more like Hemmingway and less like Steinbeck?

 

[Grushenka]

So Brecht fails (for me) because everytime I see one of his plays all I can talk about is how unlikeable the characters were and how I didn't give a shit about them or what they were saying. Is that about right?

My pick-me-up for the day, thanks.

3113 is worth this thread. No offence, Gauchecritski, but lately it's been very difficult understanding what you're are trying to say. Still, you give good thread.

Off to enjoy my weekend, Gru

 

[CharleyH]

Well, you didn't ask for reasoning the first time.

I'm thinking of poetry and its extension into prose -- how the verse touches and tells a story completely without context.

It's why vignettes are effective at evoking feeling AND thought. It's why a short story makes a better movie than a full-length novel. It's why that single sentence can leave a reader drained.

Intriguing.

(Getting bearings as to where the thread has travelled, Gauche).

 

[CharleyH]

GC: your thinking is always intriguing. However, I do not see, except for your own seemingly personal opinions, how one can truly compare dramatic acting and writing; these are two entirely different art forms (to say the obvious). Are you simply trying to use Stanislavskiian and Brechtian metaphorically for a certain style of narrative? For example, one might call a certain writer impressionistic or surrealistic, etc.

I must say that there are many actors who would greatly differentiate between Stanislavsky and 'the method'. Stanislavsky came before Strasberg and was much abused by him I think. Thousands of actors in Russia (and all Europe) would take offence at being called 'method' actors. Neh?

Also very interesting and I at least agree that Stanislavsky is miles apart from Strasberg ... separated by different times and different parts of the world, cultures and goals. However, Gauche is correct in assessing the basics of both. (Need to read the full thread before completely answering).

 

[CharleyH]

I'm much the same Rob. None of these things are in my head as I write, they're what I think about when I ought to be writing.

Next you'll be telling us that you don't bother using grammar or spelling as you type.

LOL - that was funny. to you both.

 

[CharleyH]

While I agree that acting and writing are very different, they do draw upon common literary parts; at a minimum, character development and plot. In that sense, I can understand GC's question, and it is not a simple discussion to find an answer. Forgive me if I'm repeating myself from other posts, but here is a little background that might throw some light.

It's been awhile since acting classes, but this is a familiar debate. It's often capsulized in an anecdote about an exchange between Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier during the filming of Marathon Man, which I can't recall. Here is a very coarse explanation of the difference, at least how I understood it as an acting student:

The dichotomy was between 'method' and 'technical' approaches to acting. 'Technical ' referred to the traditional craft of acting, a mannered style developed through history, from Commedia del'Arte through Elizabethan times to music halls. An actor learned movement, fencing, voice, etc., with the emphasis on the performance art. When playwrights started writing more naturalistic dialog [at roughly the beginning of the 20th century], the craft of acting adapted by trying to become more realistic. This gave rise to Stanislavsky and his pupils, eventually leading to Strassberg and The Actor's Studio. As Grushenka alludes to, it's a misnomer to say that Stanislavsky's approach was not 'technical'. There are repeatable exercises one does that center around breathing and movement, but the focus is more internal - the goal is more to create a realistic emotional state than to try to represent one believably. This emphasis on creating probably reaches its goal in contemporary moviemaking, where sometimes the 'script' is just a situation in which the actors improvise their own dialog.

Brecht's contribution was partly to turn away from the naturalistic style, but also to include the audience as a part of the theater experience. Thus, he wanted the audience to be self-aware of their experience through such stagecraft as putting stagelights focused outward and having actors address the audience directly. The goal was for the viewer to reach a state of self-reflection rather than a catharsis, and so the emphasis was again on dialog and representational content.

So, rather than just two approaches, I can see at least those three threads in GC's question. I'll try to relate them more to writing in another post - I'm still trying to work out that bit in my mind.

I am not sure I can say the differences more succinctly as you have. However, I will disagree with you on the point: that acting and writing are different. Yes, I do understand that an actors job is to interpret ONE character. What amazes me about a author is their ability to interpret multiple characters. In this way ... an author must be an actor whether he or she knows it ... how else in our writing would we be able to pry one character from another emotionally or narratively?

Gauche is referring to a statement I made where I said that I write characters from a Stanislavsky view. I am true to that. I believe in that because to write that way is to make characters rich. Still, Gauche puts me in a pickle because I love Brecht, yet I am thinking Gauche underestimates Stanislavsky and until more Brechtian theory is brought here I will reserve my response to this.

 

[Huckleman2000]

[snip]What amazes me about a author is their ability to interpret multiple characters. In this way ... an author must be an actor whether he or she knows it ... how else in our writing would we be able to pry one character from another emotionally or narratively?

So when you start to write a scene, is it more like filming a movie? I mean in the way I mentioned before, where there is a scenario of what is supposed to happen, but where such things as dialog and motivation are largely the province of the 'actors', ie, the characters you are writing?

Or, do you just sort of put the characters into a room and see what happens, trusting the richness of the character development to lead the plot? And in this case, how are literary techniques then imposed on the narrative? [I don't mean to sound accusatory, I'm really interested, since I've never really approached writing quite in that way.]

Gauche is referring to a statement I made where I said that I write characters from a Stanislavsky view. I am true to that. I believe in that because to write that way is to make characters rich. Still, Gauche puts me in a pickle because I love Brecht, yet I am thinking Gauche underestimates Stanislavsky and until more Brechtian theory is brought here I will reserve my response to this.

I think I now understand better what Gauche is saying, though I don't want to put words in Gauche's mouth. In Brecht, there is an acknowledgement, an embrace in fact, of the technical accoutrements of the theatrical form. The experience depends far more on a Director's (and Playwright's) vision than on the performance of any particular actor. Within that framework, each character takes on an overt representational aspect beyond their own motivation.

I used to refer to Directors who took that idea to extremes as having "a concept with a capital K." Interestingly, they all seemed to come from the Yale drama school in the seventies. I don't recall who the resident guru was at that time, but the idea that the director MUST have a 'concept' was very strong.

 

[CharleyH]

So when you start to write a scene, is it more like filming a movie? I mean in the way I mentioned before, where there is a scenario of what is supposed to happen, but where such things as dialog and motivation are largely the province of the 'actors', ie, the characters you are writing?

Or, do you just sort of put the characters into a room and see what happens, trusting the richness of the character development to lead the plot? And in this case, how are literary techniques then imposed on the narrative? [I don't mean to sound accusatory, I'm really interested, since I've never really approached writing quite in that way.]



I think I now understand better what Gauche is saying, though I don't want to put words in Gauche's mouth. In Brecht, there is an acknowledgement, an embrace in fact, of the technical accoutrements of the theatrical form. The experience depends far more on a Director's (and Playwright's) vision than on the performance of any particular actor. Within that framework, each character takes on an overt representational aspect beyond their own motivation.

I used to refer to Directors who took that idea to extremes as having "a concept with a capital K." Interestingly, they all seemed to come from the Yale drama school in the seventies. I don't recall who the resident guru was at that time, but the idea that the director MUST have a 'concept' was very strong.

We are discussing Stanislovsky and Brecht here and I am not certain there is a division as you make. Yet, I like the thought of "see what flies"

 

[3113]

IWhat amazes me about a author is their ability to interpret multiple characters. In this way ... an author must be an actor whether he or she knows it ... how else in our writing would we be able to pry one character from another emotionally or narratively?

This is certainly true on a literal level for a lot of writers. I remember one writer's description of how he created a "demon" character--he thought about the character as being heavy and confined and all--imagined how that would feel--as he did so, he started to move about his apartment, walking squatted under the imaginary weight, *pretending* to be the demon, trying to feel what it would be like, how the demon would act and react.

And I *THINK* this might be where we hit on Stanislavsky over Brecht (though I'm still not sure what Brechtian acting class is like by compare). In a play, the actors are speaking lines that have been written down for them. In the case of modern plays, the playwright can include an enormous amount of directive details on how to say those lines (angry, scared, defiant--waving arms). As if this wasn't enough, almost all plays involve a director who is also going to chime in on how the actor should act.

Given all this, an actor who tries to know everything about a character so as to interpet it--using himself and his experiences as a model (Stanislavsky method?), may be going against the intent of the writer/play. He may not be doing what the play or director tells him to do.

But we writers are not *just* actors in a play. We are the creators of the characters as well as the directors. Using our own experience to figure out feelings and actions, knowing all the details (even if we don't write them down)--helps us create something that otherwise would not exist. This is very different from a fully realized character on the page which has to be brought to life on stage.

Am I making sense?

I know a lot of writers who pretend to be their characters, who act out the parts--like a one-man show. That is not, however, the way all writers work. Some, like Dickens, feel like they're taking dictation--they sit and the characters talk around them and they just write down what they say.

If I've learned anything about writing, it's that no one method of character or story creation works for everyone.

 

[CharleyH]

This is certainly true on a literal level for a lot of writers. I remember one writer's description of how he created a "demon" character--he thought about the character as being heavy and confined and all--imagined how that would feel--as he did so, he started to move about his apartment, walking squatted under the imaginary weight, *pretending* to be the demon, trying to feel what it would be like, how the demon would act and react.

And I *THINK* this might be where we hit on Stanislavsky over Brecht (though I'm still not sure what Brechtian acting class is like by compare). In a play, the actors are speaking lines that have been written down for them. In the case of modern plays, the playwright can include an enormous amount of directive details on how to say those lines (angry, scared, defiant--waving arms). As if this wasn't enough, almost all plays involve a director who is also going to chime in on how the actor should act.

Given all this, an actor who tries to know everything about a character so as to interpet it--using himself and his experiences as a model (Stanislavsky method?), may be going against the intent of the writer/play. He may not be doing what the play or director tells him to do.

But we writers are not *just* actors in a play. We are the creators of the characters as well as the directors. Using our own experience to figure out feelings and actions, knowing all the details (even if we don't write them down)--helps us create something that otherwise would not exist. This is very different from a fully realized character on the page which has to be brought to life on stage.

Am I making sense?

I know a lot of writers who pretend to be their characters, who act out the parts--like a one-man show. That is not, however, the way all writers work. Some, like Dickens, feel like they're taking dictation--they sit and the characters talk around them and they just write down what they say.

If I've learned anything about writing, it's that no one method of character or story creation works for everyone.

Well, you are making sense, but it is not a pretending (edit to add: writing in essence an artifice) ..I get you, yet I believe we are missing the greater point in the initial question, no? Shall we get back to it?

 

[3113]

Just to add, I wanted to make sure I knew what I was taking about so I did a quick google on Stanislavsky. Here's what I found:

Stanislavsky's System is

frequently...confused with the Method. The latter is an outgrowth of the American (mainly New York) theatre scene in the 1930s and 40s, when actors and directors like Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, Lee Strasberg, etc., first in the Group Theatre and later in the Actors Studio, discovered Stanislavsky's system. Stanislavsky's emphasis on life within moments, on psychological realism, and on emotional authenticity, seemed to attract these actors and thinkers....while the System and Method share many chracteristics, they differ immensely. Method places a heavy emphasis on Affective Memory, that is, recalling experienced emotions for use in performance (which Stanislavsky found to be ineffective in his later years).

The early and original Stanislavsky system is described as follows:

One of Stanislavsky's methods for achieving the truthful pursuit of a character's objective was his "magic if". Actors were required to ask many questions of their characters and themselves. One of the first questions they had to ask was, "What if I were in the same situation as my character?" The "magic if" allowed actors to transcend the confines of realism by asking them what would occur "if" circumstances were different, or "if" the circumstances were to happen to them.

So, are we talking Method or Stanislavsky or both? I will say this--the Stanislavsky stystem of "if" (a version of it) is one I've used with writers and works very effectively in creating characters. I can't speak for it's effectivness with actors, but a lot of writers create half-assed characters. They'll say, for example, that they want the character to be a farm boy who is really a prince.

But then they get stuck when their farm boy meets a dragon. Why? Because all they know about him is that he's a blond, blue-eyed farm boy who's really a prince. They don't know whether he's going to react with fear or wonder when he meets a dragon. Asking "if" questions helps people to create that character so that they will know. You ask silly questions: "What's his favorite sandwich? What would he do if he was stranded on an island?" All kinds of questions till the character solidifies in the author's mind.

This is subtily different from an Actor. An Actor knows ahead of time how Othello is going to react to being told that his wife is sleeping with another man. That reaction never changes. So it hardly matters if our actor thinks Othello prefers a ham sandwich to a tuna sandwich. But if you are creating a character and you haven't written chapter 2 yet, the part where he suspects his wife is sleeping with another man...if you don't even know what's going to happen in the story, what this character is going to face...then getting to know him though such "if" questions can help you enormously. They allow you to know his reaction to anything you come up with--if he meets a dragon, you'll know how he will react. If he suspects his wife of infidelity, you'll know how he reacts.

You've got him down--and you can think like he thinks, act like he acts, and play his part, whatever that part requires.

 

[CharleyH]

Just to add, I wanted to make sure I knew what I was taking about so I did a quick google on Stanislavsky. Here's what I found:

Stanislavsky's System is

The early and original Stanislavsky system is described as follows:


So, are we talking Method or Stanislavsky or both? I will say this--the Stanislavsky stystem of "if" (a version of it) is one I've used with writers and works very effectively in creating characters. I can't speak for it's effectivness with actors, but a lot of writers create half-assed characters. They'll say, for example, that they want the character to be a farm boy who is really a prince.

But then they get stuck when their farm boy meets a dragon. Why? Because all they know about him is that he's a blond, blue-eyed farm boy who's really a prince. They don't know whether he's going to react with fear or wonder when he meets a dragon. Asking "if" questions helps people to create that character so that they will know. You ask silly questions: "What's his favorite sandwich? What would he do if he was stranded on an island?" All kinds of questions till the character solidifies in the author's mind.

This is subtily different from an Actor. An Actor knows ahead of time how Othello is going to react to being told that his wife is sleeping with another man. That reaction never changes. So it hardly matters if our actor thinks Othello prefers a ham sandwich to a tuna sandwich. But if you are creating a character and you haven't written chapter 2 yet, the part where he suspects his wife is sleeping with another man...if you don't even know what's going to happen in the story, what this character is going to face...then getting to know him though such "if" questions can help you enormously. They allow you to know his reaction to anything you come up with--if he meets a dragon, you'll know how he will react. If he suspects his wife of infidelity, you'll know how he reacts.

You've got him down--and you can think like he thinks, act like he acts, and play his part, whatever that part requires.

Well, I would love to tell you I agree or do not 3113 ... but it is late for me and so I am merely bumping the thread because I am intrigued and hope I will find this on my next visit to Lit.

 

[gauchecritic]

3. I Lem. I heart Lem as much as I love Chekhov's short stories.

Solaris is one of my very favourite books (along with Algis Budrys' "Who?" is there a link here?) and your statement, or gleaned message that "a writer can create a truly alien alien in a sci-fi story. But if you do, they remain a mystery from beginning to end--there is no communication" is entirely applicable to writing human characters in your story. The people that you invent, in the same way as the people that you meet in RL, must always be alien, because they are not you.

The only person that you can write about with full authority is yourself. In this matter then it follows that if you're writing about someone else then, for that character to be understood, for your message about that character to come across 'cleanly', anything you write about that character must inevitably be shorn of any outside influence, namely the author's own feelings.

If your 'message' is about yourself then do what you like, if your message is about a situation and someone's reaction, growth or character then you are bound to invent, if only because you want to stimulate or resonate with your readers rather than lecture.

If I write "the sky was a cloud free blue" then I am either indicating a mood of my character or setting up a conflict of events versus weather. (this is where show don't tell is marginalised) and this kind of writing (to my mind) is Brechtian rather than Method. It indicates, by symbology, the mood of the character.

As an end note. Nothing is good or bad, positive or negative. Only the application in the writing

 

[3113]

The only person that you can write about with full authority is yourself. In this matter then it follows that if you're writing about someone else then, for that character to be understood, for your message about that character to come across 'cleanly', anything you write about that character must inevitably be shorn of any outside influence, namely the author's own feelings.

First, I'd like to know how you're going to do this. You say you know Lem...but if you know Lem that well, then you know he says that it's IMPOSSIBLE to do this. There is no escaping yourself. There is no writing ANYTHING that isn't YOU and your take on what you see, experience, even read.

So what you're suggesting isn't possible. There is no way for an author to EVER write a character that is shorn of their own feelings.

Second, evidence says you're wrong. Concrete evidence.

I wrote a story about a girl who tries to commit suicide. I have NEVER tried to commit suicide myself. I have, like many people, thought about it. So I drew on those personal thoughts and feelings and times of deep depression to create this girl. YOU would argue that I was merely offering people "Me"--and that there was no way for this character to be understood as someone else given that I'd imbued in her all sorts of "me" stuff. But when I posted this story I got the most remarkable feedback over and over and over again. Dozens of different people said, "That girl was ME!"

Them? Okay. It was THEM, not me. (Remember, I *never* tried to committ suicide. But this character tried...and these people writing to me had tried. So...she was them, not me.)

So. Even though I drew on myself and MY experiences and feelings to create this girl, in doing so, I managed to KNOW others and create OTHERS. Or, if you will, to create a part of them that they recognized as themselves.

Lem is wonderful if we're going to discuss philosophy and anthropology. But if we're going to discuss character creation and writing, and connecting with a reader, and writing up characters, then that's different. I believe that by drawing on ourselves we can write up not *just* us, but, often by sheer happenstance, create characters that readers recognize as THEMSELVES. As if we magically *did* get into their heads and went through life as them.

Writers have done this. It's not theory or philosophy--there is concrete evidence of this from readers who read books and identify with characters that the writer based on themselves and their own feelings and experiences. Readers who say, "That's me! I went through that, I felt that, I did that! That's me!" The proof is in the pudding. And you can argue till you're blue that this isn't true...but from my perspective, you're saying that there's no gravity--yet everytime the ball is released it keeps falling to earth.

There are transparent authors out there with characters that are very obviously "them"--people putting on puppet shows and you can see the strings attatched--but there are also plenty of authors, using their own experiences, who manage to create fresh, unique, different characters that don't seem like them at all. So you can argue against using this method all you like...but evidence from readers shows that what you're saying is only technically correct. Yes, we can only know ourselves. But even if we leave in all that messy, unclean personal influence (which you've still not proven we can ever rid outselves of), we can still create characters who are *not us*--or, if we want to be technical...they are a lot of people as well as us.

They CAN be someone else.

 

[elsol]

This is the delemma faced by sci-fi writers--that it's very difficult to write a really alien alien...and yet also have communication, not just between it and the human protagonist, but it and the reader. Which gets us back to Lem's very valid, philosophical and psychological arguement: We can't know anything but ourselves. We're stuck inside our heads, with only our experiences to know. We can NEVER know another human being from the inside, and we can NEVER know anything outside of whats human--which is what we are.

You misspeak here as this being a dilemna for sci-fi writers; it is a dilemna for some sci-fi writers, but not those who use the alien as a mirror for us.

Let's take the classic literary function of robots in sci-fi, they are used to dehumanize an issue and allow the writer to deal with the issue without the reader immediately putting it down because it DIRECTLY relates to them.

On some levels, I hate Solaris and always have... because the alien is not us.

I have no interest in writing a truly alien... alien, there's only one message (IMO) in that story; "You cannot know the other." That's not a message I care about so an alien that cannot be used as mirror is useless to me.

 

[gauchecritic]

No 3, I said I Lem, I don't claim to know him.

So what you're suggesting isn't possible. There is no way for an author to EVER write a character that is shorn of their own feelings.

and I heartily agree, it is impossible but I believe it is still something worth striving for in a work of fiction.

Your evidence is subjective and even if you take it on face value then you are proving my theory and not your own. It's not what you wrote, but what you wrote about that forged a connection with the reader.
What readers take from your work (my work, anyone's work) is, I would hazard, what they themselves put in by reading, like measuring particles or the efficacy of opening the box to see the state of the cat. A story, in this way, is very much like a Rorschach ink blot.

Whatever you write is open to interpretation and I say that if your characters are pieces of you then you are muddying the waters for the reader.

What I am not saying however (not that anyone said I am) is that the story I write affects the way I write it. If I'm writing a stroke piece and it gets me hot then that is definitely going to affect the way that I'm writing it. If I'm writing a brazen bully and I don't like that character, that too is going to affect the way I write him but in this case too I would say that the author should stay well clear of injecting their own feelings about the character because they would be intruding on their originality.

My villain must have as much character as my hero and so neither of them can or ought to be affected by my feelings for them. My feelings for them include any emotions that I give them and if I give them my emotions then I am ultimately writing about myself and my own feelings about myself.

"Classical" (for want of a better term) actors become their characters, method actors make the characters into themselves. And so it is with writing. You either create your characters out of whole cloth or you write about yourself in different disguises