I am a sarcastic jerk.
Or at least my writing voice is. (No, I am too. Honesty matters.) Whenever I write a novel or a story it is inevitable that is laced with sarcastic asides by characters, deadpan jokes that no character notices, and wry observations. I cannot not write like that — it flows as naturally out of me as breathing. Too much Stoppard and Pratchett, I suspect, in my background. My problem now, though, is that in experimenting with script writing has shown me that such a voice absolutely blows up the script.
In novels, this tendency is not a problem. The sheer weight of words needed to build a novel mitigates against the sarcasm overwhelming the story. Asides stay aside sized. Observations flow right into the next detail. Character dialogue becomes a quirky indicator of personality. The tone of the work is enhanced, not changed. None of the beta readers for my novels has ever had an issue with the tone of my novels. Not so the script.
This week I had a table read of the second draft of the first script I have ever written. As I mentioned before, I wanted to try a script to flex different story telling muscles and the writing group I am a part of has a robust script writing section. There were a couple of the usual issues — two characters were too similar; one character’s motivations were unclear. Standard stuff as you, or at least I, work through a story. However, the readers also consistently told me that the tone was off. It was sometimes comedic and sometimes too serious. I believe that the sparseness of a script inadvertently emphasized the sarcastic jerk aspects of the writing. With much less in the way of descriptions and the dialogue much more front and center, there are fewer places for the sarcasm and humor to hide so to speak.
This is probably obvious to professional writers, but for me it does reinforce the idea that different forms are different arts. While the basics of story might be the same, it is easy to forget the fact that function is influenced by form. A script is not a novel, and you don’t have the easy novelists’ tricks to “hide” voice in a script. Which is why I think that trying new forms is helpful. It sharpens your, or at least my, appreciation for how limits influence creativity. And it can show you things in your writing that you would miss otherwise.
Because the other thing that came out of the read was the consensus that the funny parts were the best parts of the script, that leaning into the sarcasm and dry humor made the piece better. This is not something I would have ever thought about my own writing. I am not funny (except to look at) but apparently my writing can be. In the words of one of the readers “[KC] has great comedy chops. He just needs to get over the disbelief that his ‘sarcastic jerk’ voice IS his comedy chops.”
So, I am going to try one more version of the script, this time leaning into the sarcastic jerk voice. I am not entirely sold that process will work — I think building a deliberate, even if dark, comedy requires more than that. I am much more likely to produce something closer to Ishtar than Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. But I am willing to make the attempt. And that is an aspect of my writing that never would have surfaced, a risk I would never have known was worth taking, if I hadn’t tried a new form.
Weekly Word Count
Couple of pages. As noted, I am trying a new version of the script (they take surprisingly little time to write, comparatively). I am also plotting the Leverage Meets Person of Interest book, but the emphasis right now is on the script.