Over the past few days I’ve been revising Safe and Sound, trying to gut out the flaws and replace them with new, living flesh. With every rewrite, though, it’s hard to tell if I’m actually making things any better. Sometimes I can tell that I am, but sometimes I have no idea, and I have to wait long enough for it to cool down so I can step back and look at it somewhat objectively. Or I get a third party to look at it. (Second party? I don’t know. :P)
Anyway, it’s been interesting to see how the play’s evolved so far. Originally it was about two guys, Dave and Martin. Dave’s dad had died. In the second draft, it was Martin’s dad who’d died. Then we had auditions, and not enough guys showed up, so we ended up casting a girl as Martin. That of course meant rewriting the script so it would work with a girl in that role. On Thursday we had a full company meeting and read through all the scripts, which was the first time I’d heard the new rewrite read aloud. I’d written the new draft pretty hastily, and the ending was fairly pathetic, so earlier today I rewrote the script once again, completely redoing the beginning and ending, and touching up the middle section as well. And now I’ve learned something new about Dave’s dad (I needed a reason Dave was close to Abbie’s dad — Abbie is Martin’s name now, though it was Gwendolyn in the last draft and it could very easily change in the next draft :)).
Writing really is a discovery process for me. I feel like I’m unearthing pre-existing characters and situations, not inventing them. It sounds weird, but that’s really how it is. And it’s awesome. :)
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