It has been said that real life isn't like a story. Life is a convoluted collection of actions with no guarantee of anything coming to anything. Stories are supposed to have a plot that connects a series of events and drives them towards a climax. Note the 'supposed to.' A lot of the time, authors do not write with more than a few plot points in mind, and when we're filling in the gaps, we forget about the idea of events entirely. Yes, things happen between plot points, but we don't bother

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Disney World is an interesting entity. It is ostensibly a theme park, which most people associate with things like Cedar Point: really tall, really fast, roller coasters. However, if you walk into Disney with that attitude, you will be sorely disappointed. Apart from Space Mountain and the Rockin' Roller Coaster, there aren't many 'thrill' rides. Instead, Disney is focused on a different kind of experience: one of bringing fantasies to life. The main draws are focused on their narrative

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Editing for other authors is one of the most draining things I do. I generally end up sending the comment boxes on the side of the gdoc through the floor of the document before I hit the halfway point, and it's rarely about grammar. Time and time again, I come across fics that have no more than a missing comma here and there, but the story just cannot spit its words out. Below are a few of my pet peeves for your entertainment and consideration. They don't instantly kill a fic. They just

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Taking a break from my usual "Writing from an Actor's Perspective" series this week to showcase a story doing a commonly mishandled concept right.

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The work of the playwright is to tell an engaging story. The work of an actor is to bring that story to life. These tasks have two sets of very differing needs. A playwright has to think about theme, tone, plot, and so forth. The burden often falls to the actor, set design crew, and so forth to actually figure out what it means to live in this strange world of the playwright's imagination. Trust me, it's much harder than it looks.

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We've all found ourselves staring with glazed eyes at the front page mumbling over and over: "Every story has already been written, and I've read them all." Actors find themselves in a similar situation. Sometimes, we rehearse a scene over and over until we're going through by rote, everything is hammered out, and there aren't surprises anymore. We'd seen that scene a thousand times, and it showed.

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Things just got super busy today with end of semester business. I'll be resuming normal operating procedures Saturday or Sunday.

Until that wonderful time, have a pony:

Part of my Writing from an Actor's Perspective series. First part here.

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Part of my Writing from an Actor's Perspective series. First part here.

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