Page 163 - Student: dazed And Confused

they live on rival estates to name just a few. We wanted to end the piece with some kind of
resolution to these problems but we all agreed that we needed to leave a satisfying solution

that left a bit of a question hanging over these storylines. Conflict is also raised by giving

each character obstacles or difficulties to overcome. The tricky part was always going to be
slotting these obstacles in without them seeming too contrived or awkward. Luckily we

have all been writing for long enough that we knew how to make this seem true to the

characters we had made and also to the world. A housing officer would feel threatened and

powerless in a rough neighbourhood where gangs rule and good people are ignored. A

young girl would feel alone and ready to take drastic action when intentions are all she sees.
It was important, to me at least, that we wrote the play well enough that nothing seemed

like padding or like it was just there to meet some requirement.

Each character had to have things they wanted and their own reasons for
doing things. This is essential to any form of creative writing for why are they getting a story

if they have no desires or difficulties? It was clear that Kirstie wanted her child to be born

safely, she wanted somewhere to live, she wanted Shane to accept his paternal

responsibilities. I also wrote the monologue for Deano when he first speaks. He lost part of

the apathy when his other lines were written by some-one else but that was out of my
hands. I had not intended him to simply defect from gang life but the addition of a history

with Shane was quite clever. The monologue I wrote for him was meant to show him as

wanting the protection and power being in a gang gave him. No doubt the actor here, and
indeed all over, flesh out characters to want and need things different to how the writer

imagined it.

The final point I have to make concerns the theatricality of the piece. How did we

ensure that our script formed a piece of theatre rather than a piece of prose being read
aloud? To make sure this was clearly theatre, we all went to see a play and looked at the

works of other writers. I was assigned Tennessee Williams. I think this was a good thing to

do because, by examining the techniques and works of another, I had a better idea of what

to include and leave out to make it successful. For example, I could not set up scenes and
situations as well as in screenplays and the scenes could not really be as short as they have

to be for film. By paring down props and set dressing. By describing the settings through

dialogue and, because it was short, making sure the audience got clues as to the ending as