Page 160 - Student: dazed And Confused

Cath - It's just me. What're you staring at?

Kirstie - I heard some-one but it was probably the wind. Come on, Blob's cold.

They walk off with Kirstie constantly glancing over her shoulder.

What problems did you encounter during this collaborative process and how were these
dealt with?

There is no 'how-to' manual or guidebook which tells you everything to espect and

do whilst committed to a collaborative writing project. But there are books that provide
some ideas on writing a play and the traps one might fall prey to. The individual; experience

is different each time, though. For my group of six - the process was hard, long and very

stressful.

With such little guidance, we found ourselves deep on two new things - playwriting,
which had only previously been touched on, and working as a group. We will take the group

work very briefly as our first point, then talk about the writing.

Working with the other members of the group was not new to any of us. But we had

never attempted to write anything together before. There was a clash of ideas, styles and
plans. We found it quite hard all the way through to find anything we all agreed on.

Everyone had problems with at least one thing during this time but we knew we had a

deadline to meet so we had to raise our points, make a quick decision and move on. The

collaboration was a shared learning experience and I wonder if perhaps we learnt more
about the process, by making mistakes? Following on from that point can come a discussion

about the actual writing of the piece and these points will focus on establishing the theme,

world and conflicts used in the play.

Theme is central to any piece of writing - novel, play or poem. In this case the play
needed a theme to focus it down. It is not enough to simply recount events, though it is