Act Out

Not this kind of acting out...

I was recently reading Aristotle's Poetics. It is the earliest surviving work of Greek dramatic theory and the first ancient philosophical treatise of the West to solely focus on literary theory. If you can push past a few odd moments about the status of women and slaves in narrative, there are solid ideas about how to create literature.

It explains what constitutes a complete story, what it means to have a beginning, middle, and end, and how character arcs are worked into the plot. It talks about what might be too big a story, too small a story, or what should even be written about. Now, of course, some of these are dated, because we have come to understand the value in the depiction of the grunt, the slave or the lowest rungs of society, who can convey a wealth of information, while Poetics is less inclined to think so.

One of these gems is in Chapter 17, he gives a truly wonderful piece of advice to writers:

-          A good dramatist should imagine the scene so intensely that they can see the characters before them.

Specifically,

-          By gesturing, speaking, and feeling as if they themselves were the characters, the poet can better convey authentic emotions.

Exactly quoted:

“In constructing the plot and working it out with the proper diction, the poet should place the scene, as far as possible, before his eyes. … Again, the poet should work out his play, to the best of his power, with appropriate gestures; for those who feel emotion are most convincing through natural sympathy with the characters they represent; and one who is agitated storms, one who is angry rages, with the most life-like reality.”

I thought to myself immediately that I have read my works, I have reread them, both silently and aloud, but not once have I ever acted them out. Taking on the parts of each player and, sitting in a room by myself, asking: how would people actually act it out? It was brilliant, and could let me eliminate white room settings, improve dialogue tags and attribution, and even capture how a person truly speaks as I went through the emotions and motions.

He was speaking, of course, to writers of plays, but I immediately thought: this applies to novels too.

Despite what you may have been taught as a child, it is time to act out. Lean into the act. Over act. Fling your arms around, and yell and spit and flail and move around your space. Try to embody what the character is feeling and doing in the scene you are describing. As you go back and forth if you find there are important action beats or statements you left out, pause and put them in. Record yourself if you want to make sure you can review it later.

Find an empty room, or a quiet corner, or maybe stand in front of your best friends, and get acting. You might find your writing improved for it.