Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Good Stuff

When I was designing my course, The One Act Play, I initially intended to name the play, the characters and provide a basic plot outline. I reasoned that there was so much ground to cover that providing some of the creative infrastructure would get the student launched in the right direction. As I went along however I decided against this approach....as did one of the ladies who looks in from time to time and gives me advice in words I understand.

So one of the things I won’t be doing is anything that involves the creative process. If the student can’t come up a story or some unique characters, they're going to have a struggle as a writer. When I say “Come Up” I mean formulate a story line or have one spin off of some material they have already read. Shakesphere, had some pretty thin story line materials and look what he did with it. As for characters… well they’re all around the writer and if someone can’t see them, they just aren’t looking…

Now let me interject a caveat here that will give everybody some hope. There isn’t much “thinking up” that goes on anywhere…Most of what is written are variations off a theme that is already well know…

Hesiod, a contemporary of Homers, said there were three types of minds; those that can think up good stuff, those who know it when they see it, and everybody else. Occasionally a genius has a brain cramp and comes out with something new and profound…Einstein did it with E=MC2. I think of “The Gift of the Magi” as the same sort of thing. There're a lot of physicists out there who can grasp the meaning of Einstein's formula. (I'm not one of them) As as a writer, however, I can look at the story line of "Gift of the Magi" and say “Oh my Gawd! He sold his watch to buy her a comb set and she cut her hair to buy him a chain for his watch." Is that a great story line or what?

A great writer on a clear day might stumble onto something truly “Good.” But I remain convinced that most of the time ALL writers tread water in the same pool looking for something half-baked, they can adapt to their needs.

I'm including a link to my Introduction of the One act Play."Introduction to the One Act Play"  [E]