A Working Actor's Lament (Chapter 35)

If A Writer Falls In The Woods...

For those of you who have seen both "The Adventures of Mapboy" and "Lucidity", you know that dialogue is not my strong point. The fact that I wrote the latter with no words (and the hardest part of that script was what to write on the letter) should have been your first clue. I know my weaknesses, and trust me when I say my writing dialogue couldn't lift a 5 pound weight over it's head.

I was talking to my acting teacher about this and he told me the reason I can't write dialogue is because I don't think I can write dialogue. He brought up a good point; most of the television shows, sitcoms especially, are not written well. If you sat down and really counted how many laughs you audibly had during any one sitcom to how many laughs the studio audience had, you might have one or two, compared to the audience laughing after every line. The laugh track seems to make the show (and the writing) better than it actually is. I tried this and now I can't ever watch "Friends" again.

The great thing is he offered to let me try my skills in his class. If I want to, I can write scenes for my fellow actors and see if, when they perform them, my words work or not. What a great opportunity to fall on my face. I have already written two scenes and sent them to my teacher. It will be interesting to see if we use them in my class any time soon.