Tim Fountain Masterclass
When Tim Fountain's play, Rock, was on at Library Theatre in May 2008, NWP invited Tim to give a masterclass to a small group of developing writers. Shirley Bailey was among them....
Saturday 24 May and there were 12 of us, including Tim, in an upstairs room at MMU's Capitol Theatre, 11 of us hoping to learn what the trick of it all really is.
And, according to Tim, it's the basics; when a play doesn't work, you need to go back to the basics of character, objectives and conflict.
A character comes alive when s/he has objectives to achieve and internal and external blocks to them. And a writer should always be looking for the cost incurred by an action when usually, good leads to more good, bad leads to worse, and self-loathing drives a person on to self-destruction. A character cannot win or lose any money without entering the casino but the struggle for a writer is to stop a character rushing on to the end by focusing on what it feels like, beat by beat, to be on the gaming floor.
Of course, we discussed hundreds of other things, lots of stuff we probably knew but needed someone like Tim to say again. His take on the class was that writers want little tricks to take away. Like these:
See each scene as a unit of time. Work out what worlds you really need. Consider the gaps between scenes and what happens in the gaps and know that it's exciting for an audience to fill in the gaps.
On getting down to writing the thing, think in broad brush strokes, write very quickly to get the first draft. Write the second without looking at the first and be ruthless about pushing things to one side. Accept the first draft as no more than Notes to Self. Tim personified the first three drafts: the first is like taking a long train journey with the character, the second a weekend away with them, the third is like you've known them all your life.
Writers should read aloud, and with other people, it self-edits your work.
Writers should do some acting. Luckily for the likes of me, he doesn't reckon you need to be much good at it. You simply need to realise how important having an objective is.
Other people. Amongst us, there were several actors, a composer and a TV scriptwriter... And I can't be sure that had anything to do with the turn of things but there's no denying we laughed a lot about the clap clinic, less so about being shy with the girl in Tesco and doubly so at the thought of what we did on Saturday night but were too ashamed to relate. Tim was full of enthusiasm and encouragement for our writing, full of quotes and examples from his own experience.
And we wanted the benefit of his experience. Apart from how to write the best play, we wanted to know how to get it put on, and found that, even for Tim Fountain, it's a game of chance. And opportunity: if there's a character in your play you think a particular actor might play, send it to that actor. Send your script to directors whose work you like, seek out Arts Council funding, try putting together a package: actor/ director/ script; because, in Tim's words "Talent finds a way. Talent comes though. Theatres are looking for new writing".
Tim Fountain's plays include Sex Addict, Resident Alien, Julie Burchill is Away, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People and Hotboi. He has also written for TV and radio. His book Rude Britannia is published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson. Formerly Literary Manager of the Bush, Tim currently lectures in creative writing at Strathclyde University.