THE CREATIVE PROCESS OF A SUCCESSFUL PLAYWRIGHT

This past weekend I had a chance to participate in a chat session with comedy playwright Norm Foster and talk with him in person. Having written nearly forty plays, and with an average of about 150 productions of his work taking place every year across Canada, he’s the country’s most often produced playwright. Yet he didn’t begin writing plays until middle age—he hadn’t even seen a stage play until, on a lark, he got the lead acting role in an amateur production of “Harvey”. He had a twenty-five-year career in radio before becoming a full-time playwright, which tells me it’s never too late to pursue the dream of being a writer.

What does a writer of stage comedies have to do with writing science fiction? Clearly all writers can benefit from any insight into the creative process, especially from someone so successful in his field.

As a former radio morning show host (something I know a little about) Foster still gets up most days soon after 5:00 am and usually finishes his writing by noon. On a slow day he completes two or three pages, while a good day might produce seven, so he can complete a ninety-page script in two or three months. He claims the best advice he was ever given was to write every day. If he’s not working on a specific play, he’ll write character monologues for practice. Foster also sometimes works on two projects at the same time, because if he gets stuck on one he can switch to the other, although he admits that he rarely gets writer’s block. He also agrees with Hemingway’s advice that you should stop work for the day knowing exactly how you’ll pick it up again the next day.

Foster doesn’t begin the actual writing until he’s got the play planned out in his head, so he at least knows where it starts, where it’s going to go, and how it will end. He doesn’t picture specific actors as he writes, but he does have pictures of the characters in his head. He produces a few drafts, then ‘workshops’ the script (because he’s almost always writing for a given theatre, the cast will get together and read the script out loud). Another rewrite follows that, and once the play is finally produced, he’ll watch several performances to see what works and what doesn’t with a live audience. That leads him to one final revision, and then he never touches the play again. According to Norm Foster, one of the most important things a writer needs to know is when to stop. So with that in mind, I’ll close by saying, Norm Foster isn’t just a very funny writer and actor, he’s also an inspiration.



WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU COULD WALK THROUGH WALLS?

People always ask writers where we get our ideas. There must be as many answers to that question as there are writers. No—scratch that. There might be as many answers to that as there are stories. Because each story is different and comes to us in a slightly different way.

My story “No Walls” is the only one I can remember that sprang from one line. The first line of the story. Suddenly it was there, in my head: I almost died the first time I learned that I could walk through walls.

Along with that first line came the basic premise: the main character can sometimes, for some reason, walk through walls. Of course, some of the walls of a structure are exterior walls, and if you’re on the thirteenth floor of an office building, that’s not a good wall to walk through. So he almost dies, taken off guard by this sudden ability.

Neither a first line, nor a basic premise, do a story make. SF writers have to come up with a basic concept, then extrapolate for all its worth to make an actual story. As the narrator of the story says, “What would the average person do with a ‘gift’ like mine? Is it good for anything but larceny?” I guess that depends on what kind of person you are before getting the gift. It also could depend on who finds out about your gift and what ideas it gives them. Clearly, the dark direction I took with the premise must say something about me.

It also struck me that a man with the power to ignore barriers would actually be trapped by that ability. And hopefully you’ll see the many ways that occurs when you read the story.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Gerard Houarner of Space and Time Magazine because, although he rejected “No Walls”, he gave me his reasons for doing so. There will be a special place in Heaven for all editors who take the time to do that! He was right—I made some changes, and my very next submission, to Neo-opsis Science Fiction Magazine, the story was bought. It became my first published story in Issue 18 of Neo-opsis in December of 2009. For that reason it holds a special place in my estimation. I hope you like it, too.



HURRICANES AS A SOURCE OF ENERGY...AND STORIES

We live in a time when we’re encouraged to worry about our future sources of energy. Our society consumes energy at a ferocious rate, and our release of carbon dioxide is making changes to our climate that will last for hundreds of years. So it’s popular to speculate about alternatives, often in the form of “if we could only…” kinds of statements. You know what I mean. If we could only capture all of the sun’s energy that falls on Earth. If we could only harness all the tidal power in the Bay of Fundy. There are lots of them.

One day I heard an off-hand comment about the amount of energy produced by hurricanes. I did some searching, came up with some numbers, and thought Wow! If we could only harness that.

According to the Hurricane Research Division of the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, harnessing the winds of an average hurricane would produce the equivalent of half of the world’s electrical generating capacity—in one day. If we could somehow tap the heat energy produced in one day by the hurricane’s condensation of water vapour into rain, that would equal 200 times the world’s generating capacity! Other estimates claim a hurricane’s whole life cycle involves the energy equivalent of 10,000 nuclear bombs. Now that’s power!

I was sure that someday someone would try to do it, so I had to write a story about it. And my story “Hurricane” was born.

Of course, I had to come up with a plausible scientific way to collect some of that energy. I think I found it, though some may disagree (and I’ll let you read the story itself for the details). But I wanted a story not a science article. So, given the technology I was inventing, and the vast power of these destructive storms, I knew what was bound to happen and where the story had to be set. I also knew right away that, because of those elements, many people would swiftly condemn the story as cheesy, or simply unoriginal, so I’ve never submitted the story anywhere. That’s a shame, and I may do it yet because I think it’s a good yarn. It’s also a good chance to vicariously ride along with the Hurricane Hunters of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi. So climb aboard, but whatever you do, don’t forget to fasten your seat belt.



DOOMOLOGY IS NOW AVAILABLE

I’m sure every writer knows the feeling: it seems to take forever from the time a story is sold until it finally appears in print. So today’s a good day.

My story “Tartarus Rising” is part of an anthology of disaster stories called “Doomology: The Dawning of Disasters” from the Library Of Science Fiction Press, and the anthology was just made available through Amazon.com yesterday. I haven’t held a copy in my hands, so I’m really looking forward to getting my copy and reading it. I love disaster stories, and this anthology features 23 of them, so I hope it finds a great audience. You can find the cover art on an earlier posting from November (below).

My story “The Wind Man” will be included in the Winter edition of On Spec: the Canadian magazine of the fantastic which, according to their website, is due out “Soon, very soon.”

In the meantime, another story of mine called “Shakedown” has picked up an honourable mention in a Canadian SF contest, which includes an anthology publication. But I’ll refrain from giving details until the publisher posts all of the information officially.

All in all, a good month so far. Although waiting for the next story to hit print will still feel like forever.