Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Spin Offs

Spin Offs

I find that the classes I take at WDC offer an unexpected benefit. It never fails that I get something out of them even if the instructor and material are not so great….As a matter of fact that seems to be more the rule than the exception….

That doesn’t disturb me because I believe the onus is on the student to learn and not on the teacher to teach…..Some people want to be entertained by the teacher and lets face it there are some charismatic teachers we all had in life that taught us a lot and also had a big influence, but these were the exception more than the rule. No, if I fail to learn in a class I don’t blame the teacher and without failure, even in the most half baked of classes, I learn a nugget or two…..Its just like I read a novel or poem or short story and invariably take away something I didn’t have before…..

This however, isn’t the unexpected benefit….When you read you expect to get something out of it, however what I find is that a class often launches me in an unexpected direction…

For example one class I took required writing a short story based on a prompt of the Spanish Inquisition….I wrote a novel off of that short story. In another one of the short stories launched me into the Car Builder and Real Estate Agent series that has led to some unexpected consequences…. Its almost as if some hidden hand is guiding me into a vista of creativity I never would have found otherwise.

In this One Act Play class I am going to be teaching I get the feeling there will be more developing from the experience than helping a few students write a drama…..I’m not sure what it will be but I’m sure there will be some pleasant surprises that will lead me in directions I would otherwise never have taken….Even if the initiative bombs….like my Heat Beneath your Wings contest, It will not have been in vain. I continue to learn about drama and aspects I never realized before….

For example I learned that the Central Character needs to have a life changing experience and the whole purpose of the play is to show that event….the crisis that shaped it the culminating moment of action and the aftermath that followed.

For another that each crisis needs to build on the momentum….For another that of the eight or nine unique plots that have been defined only one is really suited to a one act drama.

Maybe I intuitively knew these things but the importance is etched now with a boldness and clarity I never saw before…What we do leads us on and on into new and unexpected venues and not only does our writing get better at WDC so we get to see others with talent and exercise our own unique skill sets. I don’t want this to sound like a testimonial….but it seems for everything I write, the product opens the door to half a dozen more new ideas and as these come to fruition they spawn exponentially and there seems no end to it….how cool is that?