Play Writing in Depth (Part 1: Begining)

Hey so I know I kind of did a blog like this a few weeks ago but that was a very small portion of it so I want to get more into it this time around. So for the next few blogs I am going to be going over play writing just different points of it. The first part I am going to talk about is your Beginning with your plot, setting and characters.

First off you need to know the plot of your play, this can literally be anything. Your plot can range from a serious plot like a broken family trying to come back together, or very comical like a horrible bank robbery. The main is trying to figure out what genre of play you want to write, and how serious you want it to be. The other main thing you need to do with plot is just getting your ideas down anywhere, so that if you get stuck you have ideas to fall back on.

The second thing you need to have many ideas about is your setting. Now I know you are most likely thinking that, “oh setting is really easy, everyone knows how to do that”, and technically you wouldn’t be wrong but you also wouldn’t be fully right either. See when it comes to plot you have to think about more than just the location. You also have to think about the time period, the time of day, how specific the location has to be, and etc. Now for some plays I know you can get away with just doing a very basic setting but you still should go into a little more depth with location.

And now finally characters. I know I have done many, many blogs about characters but this will hopefully be the last blog for a while that talks about them, but the reason I bring them up is because they are so important. See without ideas for your characters you really don’t have a character. Now if you want to know how to make characters go down a few blogs and you will find some of my ideas for them.

Well that is all I have on the topic of your beginning. Next on the list we move onto how to enhance your plot ideas.         

2015: A Year of Books or Movies?

I was totally going to do a list of my best books of 2015 by then I got to looking into books that actually came out in 2015 and realized I read no of them. Basically every book I personally was able to read this year didn’t come out in 2015 so I really can’t do that list so I am going to explain why I feel this year wasn’t a very strong year for books.

The major reason I believe this year wasn’t a very strong year for books was book to move adaptations. From some small research I did there were a minimum of about 40 or so book to move adaptations this year, and you would think with how many books get released each year, they would be fine, but I don’t think so. See I feel that movie adaptations are over shadowing their books because it isn’t that big of a time commitment, it’s easier, and they are about the same price.

One reason books are getting over shadowed by movie adaptations is because of time. Not a lot of people now a days have the 6-7 hours to sit and read a book, but they do have the 1 and a half to 2 hours to go sit in a movie theater and watch it.

Another reason I believe books are getting over shadowed by movie adaptations is because is because of laziness. Again no one really wants to spend 6-7 focused on a book picturing it in their minds. But people will gladly go and watch it, because then they really don’t have to think about anything.

Finally I believe that books are getting over shadowed by movie adaptations because of cost. A hard cover book now a days cost somewhere in the ball park of about 20-25$, (not including online deals, old books, stuff like that). A normal trip to the movies for one, about the same price. Including all of the factors earlier I believe this is why books are getting over shadowed by movie adaptations.

Now do I believe that movies will completely over shadow books? No of course not. There are too many people in the world that love reading books so books are always going to stay, but maybe they just won’t be as prominent as movies. But hey we won’t know until it happens.

Books to Movies: 2015

Man I have never been a huge fan of books to movies after I went and say Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, but the year 2015 might have changed that for me. If you have been with my blog for a long time then you will remember back to one of my first few blogs that dealt with the horrible movie adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief or more recently why a book turned Movie will never be as good as the book. But I think the year of 2015 might have changed my mind. (Any books listed will not have any spoilers).

2015 had a lot of great book to movie adaptations, the list is just huge. The list includes Mockingjay (part 2) by Suzanne Collins, The Martian by Andy Weir, The Scorch Trials by James Dashner, Paper Towns by John Green, Even Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James had an adaptation and the list just keeps going on and on. All of these movies were extreme successes and were for the most part, (not including Fifty Shades of grey) were pretty. Most were loyal to their original plots, and weren’t horrible.

Now does this mean that the movies were better than their books, no. I am still staying true to what I said in my blog post, “why a book turned Movie will never be as good as the book”, but book to movie adaptations are getting a lot better. And I have a feeling I know why this is the case. Because authors are now caring about what people are doing to their books.

I know for a fact that John Green the author of Paper Town was on set of Paper Towns and helping “direct” the movie to make sure that it was how he wanted it. And I feel that more and more authors are doing this, because they don’t want to see their books get turned into something that even they don’t recognize, like the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief move.

Now will there be flops of book to movie adaptations like the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief move, yes of course there will be that always will happen, but are they getting better and better with each try, yes they are. Even though I do trash on it a lot the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief move was an attempt but it just didn’t work. So I have a feeling we are going to be seeing more and better book to movie adaptations in the future.         

Book Review: Life of Pi

I am actually really upset that I haven’t gotten to this books sooner. So I finally got to reading Yann Martel’s: Life of Pi thinking it was going to be a mediocre book but man was I wrong. I am hoping most people who read my blog have already read the book I will give you a quick summary of the plot. Oh and SPOILER WARNING for anyone who hasn’t read Life of Pi yet.

Life of Pi is about the story of Piscine Patel (Pi) and how he survives the sinking of a ship and being stranded out at sea with a Hyena, an Orangutan, a wounded Zebra, and Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

Life of Pi is just such a cool story to me. It just shows one kids will to keep moving forward even though it looks like there is nothing to move forward towards. Yann Martel did an amazing job writing Life of Pi. Just how much character and life she gave Pi is so cool. Now I did personally have a few problems with the book, and they just may be my own weirdness but just go with me.

The two main problems I had with the book was the beginning and the end. See personally the beginning was really slow to me, and I felt like it should have and could have picked up a lot faster, and the beginning was still good I just wish that it could have picked up a little bit faster. Now the end is where I have my major problem.

See the ending just really confused me and didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I just didn’t get why Pi tells the original story and then changes it when he tells the men that are interviewing him so it’s humans instead of animals. My question was is that what actually happened, or did he just make it up so that the men would get off his back? (If anyone knows please leave a comment so I can understand the book better).

But besides those two things I loved the book. The detail that was put into explaining the scenery and the struggle that Pi had to deal with every single day was astonishing. Yann Martel again did an amazing job and I am still upset that I didn’t get to this book faster, because it is now one of my favorites.   

Good always beats Evil. But is it Right?

Good and Evil, Light and Dark, Pure and Impure, we’ve heard them all before, it is the basic plot of almost every book and story. You have the good pure protagonist what every that might be against the evil and hateful antagonist, and always good comes out on top. But why? Why does good always have to win? Why can’t the bad guy get his happy ending? Well I think there is a few reasons for this.

One reason why I think authors don’t usually step outside this idea of good always wins, is because it’s what everyone knows. I say usually here because not every author does stay inside this boundary. See everyone believes that no matter how hard evil tries the good guy will always come out on top, they will always win, but I think that it doesn’t always have to be this way. Imagine a book where through the entire story the good guy always won, but at the end he was defeated and he lost. Imagine the backlash and hate that author would get. But see I think we should use the idea of good not always winning, because it makes people think.

My second reason why I believe that authors usually stay in this idea of good always wins is because it sells. Most of the popular books follow the idea of good always wins. And back to my first point the amount of hate and backlash the book that steps outside that idea would get would be insane. There would be people upon people bashing on it just because it changed the way a story is supposed to work. But that is why I think it the idea of good always wins needs to be broken more often.

See I personally think that books need to stop sticking to the overused idea of good always winning, because that isn’t was always happens. Sometimes the guy doesn’t get the girl, sometimes the bad guys should be able to win. But now should this happen every time? No. I still do feel that the good guys should save the day, triumph over whatever evil they faced, and maybe even get that girl. But I still do feel that authors should from time to time change up that old idea of good always wins. Or maybe even change it so that it is a neutral ending. But that is for another blog.  

How Children plays effect children

The Heartless Giant, like I said a few blogs ago I kind of bashed on the musical a little but I thought about it some more and then, I read a blog on Musical Theater and Other Things (the author was one of the cast in the show), and she wrote about her experience with the musical and watching how kids were connected to the show, so I thought I would put my own to sense in.

So personally I did not enjoy the story of The Heartless Giant, but I did see a lot of kids who did. Being a musician and being in the pit gives you the opportunity to actually see the kids in the audience and how they react to certain things. See kids are very weird and they will do some pretty weird things when it comes to children’s theater. They will laugh at things that you would never expect, and they won’t laugh at things you thought they would, so when you do a children’s theater you have to be careful of the jokes you make.  

Another thing in children’s theater you are allowed to break the 4^th wall, a lot. And when you really get the kids involved and it is really cool to see. It really makes them feel like they are in the story, it makes them feel like they are helping move the plot along, or helping solve a major problem, even if they are thinking they are just helping answer a simple question. But there is a down side to doing too much 4^th wall breaking because if you overload the kids with too many questions then they won’t be interested any more.

Finally I am going to kind of steal something from the blog post by Musical Theater and Other things, and that is the kid’s reaction after the show. See at my school after every play we go out and do autographs for the kids and ask them really basic questions like, favorite character, or favorite part of the play. But there are some kids that it gives them ideas. Like personally I was talking to one of my fellow actors and he told me that a little kid had come up and told him that after watching our play she wanted to become and actor herself, which being an actor is one of the best compliments you can give.

So that is how I think Children plays effect children.       

Political Ad Campinas

Oh it’s that time of year isn’t, the time when every Politician starts trying to trash talk every other Politician just to get into congress or even become the President of the United States of America. Now when voting comes around I sadly will not be able to vote which I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing still but none the less I still hate ad campaigns but for a couple of my own personal reasons.

The first reason I hate political ad campaigns is because of what they tell you. Presidential candidates and they team of ad developers will seriously pour millions upon millions of dollars into creating ads. Now this is not me saying that advertising your message and what you see for the country is wrong, on the contrary that I am mostly fine with. It’s when they are pouring all of that money into ads bashing on all of their other opponents. Now again if there is a few ads explaining why the other opponents would not make a good president, and what you would do better is fine. But a lot of those ads are just they saying “they are wrong and vote for me” and that is basically it.

The second thing I hate about political ad campaigns is how much you see them, now like I said early advertising your message is fine but I don’t want an ad bashing another candidate every other commercial. Now don’t get me wrong shaving people see your message is very important when it comes too wining a presidential campaign, but please don’t shove it down our throats. We get that you want to help the country, but we don’t have to hear it every 60 seconds over and over again.

Finally the last reason I hate ad campaigns and where the literature part comes in is how affective they are. Seriously with how much money the pour into making these ads it is shouldn’t be a major shock to people but to me it is kind of scary just how effective these things are. Even though in the last ad I said I hate ad analysis, just looking at a political ad and not even doing an in depth analysis, what they do is very effective.

So yes I hate ad campaigns. Even though they are very hateful and very constant, they are very effective at what they are supposed to do. So that is why I hate ad campaigns.