Pursued By A Bear is our weekly advice column with playwright Adam Taylor.  He’ll tackle your playwriting questions – from practical issues to existential dilemmas – relying on nothing but his bare wits, brute strength, and questionable personal experiences.

“I feel like a marathon runner who has just ran a 10000 MILES and in search for water, but has just been informed water no longer exists; I thirst for hope. So please, HELP ME! Forgive me if that did not make any sense.

I have just finished my first full-length play, I have spent months on end editing and proof-reading the damn thing. I truly believe it is ready to be read and performed. I have submitted the play to some Theatre Companies; however as expected I have either not received a reply or have been told my beloved play is sh*t (in the most formal and polite way). So the question that is continuously running around my mind like Usain Bolt on steroids is, WHAT DO I DO NOW THAT I HAVE FINISHED MY PLAY? 

There are only so many theatres I can submit my play to, as submission windows are only open once in a purple-moon. So do I just wait until a theatre company wants to produce my play?

 I live in the most deadest, culture-less (if that’s a word) place ever that has only ONE theatre, and which chooses to only play pantomimes. Okay, I might be exaggerating, but you get my point? There’s no writing opportunities here in Milton Keynes.

Do I produce the play myself? Which I have thought about doing, however I am apprehensive to because I don’t know ANY like minded artists who work in the realm of Theatre. (Yeah that’s right I’m Billy-no-Mates). Also, If I’m going to produce my play for the first time, I want it to be amazing and not mediocre, and I feel like in order to succeed in doing so I need the right backing, if that makes sense?

You know, I read about so many playwrights who have worked with successful Theatres who have become residential playwrights, and have won numerous awards etc. But one thing they never do is detail (in depth) how these playwrights succeed in doing those things. 

If you would be so kind to advise me on what to do next Guru.”

This is the multi-million pound question – what to do when you’ve put your heart and soul into a play and slaved over it for months/years/decades on end, only to find no one wants to put it on?

It’s a horrible place to find yourself, and it’s probably small consolation, but I’m sure most playwrights have been where you are at some point.

It’s like walking through the Channel Tunnel.

You’ve been stumbling through total darkness for what seems like forever, constantly tripping and falling on your face as the lack of light tricks you into thinking you can see a Starbucks up ahead, and you finally reach the end of that horrific journey, emerging into glorious sunshine, drinking in fresh oxygen like a drunk hobo with a stolen pack of alcohol hand rub from A&E, only to realise you’re in France.

You can’t speak the language and no one likes you.

You just want to give up. I don’t blame you. Writing can be a lonely and thankless vocation. It can seem like you’ve done everything all the successful people did yet you’ve still got nothing to show for it.

Why them and not you?

I don’t really know. There could be a million reasons why a theatre turns down a play – it’s not long enough, it’s not short enough, it’s too controversial, it’s not controversial enough, they did a similar play last month, they don’t do this sort of play, there are too many characters, there are too many sets, you used the C word, you didn’t use the C word, it’s too political, it’s not political, it’s not funny, it’s too funny… I could go on forever.

Every theatre has its own preferences when it comes to the plays they put on. And these aren’t even fixed; they change from month to month or even week to week, depending on any number of factors. It’s impossible to predict if someone will love or hate your work. It’s impossible to predict whether it’s exactly what an artistic director is looking for or it’s everything he despises.

And even if you absolutely nail it – you write a play of the perfect length about the perfect topic with the perfect amount of bad language and the perfect number of perfectly flawed characters – someone else may still have done it slightly more perfectly that month and just beaten you to it.

So the bad news is there’s no way of knowing what you could have done better.

Let me tell you the good news:

Actually, there isn’t any really.

It sucks. That’s all I’ve got.

You want to be a writer, this is what you have to deal with. It’s not unusual for writers to go through years of rejection before they finally get a break and one of their plays is successful.

You mentioned in your question that other writers never give up the details on how they made it to the top – from what I’ve heard, there’s no big secret.

They persevered.

Rejection isn’t a one-time thing, it’s a continuous process that constantly eats away at your soul.

If you love writing enough to keep writing and keep submitting plays to theatres with only negative responses (or no response at all) you should keep doing it.

Let this rejected play serve as motivational fuel for your stubborn creative fire. Tell yourself; “Maybe they didn’t like this one, maybe they won’t like the next one or the one after that, but one of these days they’ll like one of them and then this will have all been worth it.”

If you really want to be successful the first thing you need to do is develop a thick skin. Let the rejection wash over you and forge forever onwards.

I appreciate the fact it totally sucks, it would be a lot nicer and we’d all be a lot happier if there was a place for every play we wrote. But there isn’t. There are a limited number of seats at the table, and half the people who get a place still only get a mouthful before they’re kicked off by the next ravenous writer.

Every playwright I know has come up against the same brick wall and asked the same question; “Why her and not me?”

If I had the answer I’d have a play on at the National and you’d have all heard of me (outside of this blog).

Of course, I’m aware this hasn’t been a very positive or encouraging answer so far. You were probably hoping for something more helpful.

My main piece of advice is to keep going. When your work is rejected it’s easy to take it personally and let it affect your work. The best thing to do is put all the feedback to one side for a few months.

I know it feels like you’ve been mauled by a particularly angry bear, but when the wounds are healed and you’re able to once again drag yourself along the ground on your belly, you can escape your icy exile like Leonardo DiCaprio and continue your arduous journey through the snowy wilderness to avenge your pain upon your tormentors.

Put this play completely out of your mind and start writing something new in the meantime. In a few months this rejection will feel like an old scar that’s long since stopped hurting and you’ll be able to objectively evaluate the feedback and maybe make some revisions to the script.

Don’t give up on the play. Most successful plays go through a ton of rewrites and edits. This is no different. When you come back to it you may see a way to improve it that just isn’t visible to you right now, and that could be the one tweak that makes it a masterpiece.

For now, forget the entire thing and write a new play. Always be writing. That’s how you improve.

And even if the same theatres reject your next play and the play after that, each time there’s more chance they’ll remember you and start to pay attention.

It’s important to also explore other avenues; full-length plays aren’t the only way to skin a cat. Enter competitions, write short plays, attend writers’ nights, work as a reader, get an internship, make a sex tape, fake your own death. Do anything and everything you can to get noticed.

I agree there probably aren’t a lot of writing opportunities in Milton Keynes – unless you’re writing a coffee table book about roundabouts. I did learn to ski in the Snozone there though, so that’s pretty cool.

On the other hand, London Midland trains go direct from Euston to Milton Keynes. I happen to know this because I’ve picked my drunk-ass brother up from Milton Keynes more than a few times after he’s fallen asleep on said train and sailed right past Watford. But that’s another particularly bitter story for another day.

My point is that London isn’t a million miles away. This goes for all aspiring playwrights out there – don’t feel restricted to your hometown. I don’t think people should feel forced to move to London in order to succeed, but there’s a reason so many artists do it; the capital is the capital. There are more theatres and more opportunities here.

You don’t have to move here but if you can visit every so often and attend a writers’ night or go to a workshop you’ll meet some people. Then all you need to do is exchange emails and keep in touch.

And that’s the final point I’ll make; network, network, network. The more people you know, the more people you can share your work with and the more likely something will come of it.

Don’t get demoralised or assume it’s not meant to be. Thousands of others have made that mistake before you, and they aren’t successful writers.

The successful writers are the ones who kept slogging away at it. If you want to be one of them, that’s what you need to do.

Have a question or problem you’d like to send in?  Email advice@londonplaywrightsblog.com and keep your eyes peeled to see if the answer turns up on our site!

(DISCLAIMER: If you send us a question, you’re giving us permission to publish it!  Be sure to indicate what name you’d like us to use as a sign-off when we publish your column, and a just a heads up that we reserve the right to edit submissions for length if needed.)

Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar via CC license

Pursued By A Bear is our weekly advice column with playwright Adam Taylor.  He’ll tackle your playwriting questions – from practical issues to existential dilemmas – relying on nothing but his bare wits, brute strength, and questionable personal experiences.

“I’m purposefully not saying what gender I am, because I don’t want this to be about that. Thanks for understanding. I feel like my partner really hates it when I write. They don’t say this directly, but they find excuses to interrupt me. They ask stupid questions or start talking to me. Or schedule things during time I’ve booked to write. Maybe this is because of issues with one of their parents, who actually was quite a successful writer and wasn’t around a lot. I’m not like that, it’s mostly for fun, but it’s still important to me. I don’t want to hurt my partner, who is great in every other way. How do I get them to be more supportive of my desire to write?”

I feel for you. It can be really difficult to find time to write these days, modern life is just so busy. We spend most of our time at work, then we have to do the chores, wash, watch Judge Judy, spend a few hours arguing about Taylor Swift with strangers on Youtube comment boards, and sleep.

When we do have that precious little bit of spare time to do what we want, it’s understandable that our friends, family and partners want to spend time with us. After all, their lives are likely just as busy as ours.

It can easily feel like the world (or just your partner) is against you when there’s never any time to write. I often think my friends and family are trying to sabotage my creative efforts because whenever I put time aside to do something creative I seem to get a phone call or someone pops round or the football’s on or it’s someone’s birthday or a wedding or someone’s in the hospital or the car breaks down or whatever.

In reality we should count ourselves lucky, there are plenty of lonely people in the world who would love someone to disturb their silence and drag them out of the house. The fact someone wants to spend time with you is a blessing, even if it sometimes feels like a bit of a pain, or at least a disruption.

And don’t forget, having a writing career and having a life are not mutually exclusive. Life informs art, so a bit of social activity from time to time is actually essential – it sparks ideas and gives you more to write about. Here’s where I shamelessly plug this previous post about balancing writing with life.

That said, when you have lofty artistic goals you do need time, and often silence, to work. I wonder if anyone’s ever done a study to determine what percentage of artists, writers and performers were single when they first became successful? It would definitely make for interesting reading.

I know in my case I had a lot more free time before I got married. I don’t even know how it happened, it’s like my wedding ring sucked me into an alternate dimension where the days are half as long but there’s twice as much to do.

Obviously I’m joking (not really but my wife might be reading).

What’s my solution to this?

I don’t really have one at the moment. All I can manage is snatching odd moments when no one’s around. She’ll go to visit her mum or to the shops or out with friends at the weekend, and I’ll get a few hours’ work in. Sometimes I’ll sneak off while she’s making dinner and do a cheeky half an hour, but I have to make up for this by washing the dishes at least.

This is making my wife seem like a bit of a tyrant, which she totally isn’t. She just likes to spend time with me, and I feel the same way. But I also like to spend time writing and making music, and they’re pretty solitary pursuits.

There’s no easy way around this issue. If you feel your partner is genuinely trying to stop you from writing I’d say you need to discuss this with them. Frustrations can easily build up until you find the relationship has become too much work, and it doesn’t seem like you’re unhappy with him/her so I’m guessing you want to avoid that.

Your partner’s frequent interruptions might be annoying to you, but try to consider the situation from their side as well; they have limited time to spend with you, maybe they’re out all day at a job they hate, and when they finally get home all excited to see you, you’d prefer to sit in silence in front of a computer.

Have the conversation. Try to find out why your writing might be an issue. It’s not a one-way street, relationships require compromise. If you want to spend time alone writing make sure you allow some time to do something together to make up for that. Also, make sure your partner understands when you want a bit of quiet time and why. Explain what you’re working on, get him/her invested in your story. If you can get them hooked into the plot they’ll want to know how it ends and even see it up on stage.

Pitch the play to your significant other. If nothing else this will be great practice for when you need to do it professionally. Get them on board with what you’re doing, discuss plot points and character development. Be careful not to overdo this though, always show an interest in what they’re doing as well. No one likes a broken record.

Explain how important the writing is to you. Make this very clear, and be honest. You said in your question you write mostly for fun. That’s absolutely fine but if you’re describing it that way to your partner they might be thinking it’s not that serious so you won’t mind being interrupted. Let your partner know that although you’re not aiming to be the next Tennessee Williams, you do value your writing as a creative outlet or therapy session or just a way to unwind.

My only other suggestion would be to encourage your partner to find a hobby. This could be anything, from learning a language to indoor skydiving. Whatever it is, they’ll have something to do once or twice a week which gets them out of your hair. You’ll also have more to talk about when you are together. And sometimes they’ll want to get away from you to do their thing which will balance out the times when the shoe’s on the other foot.

It sounds as though there could also be some insecurity on your partner’s part resulting from a writing parent. It’s sad if your partner’s harbouring some resentment towards a distant parent, but it’s unfair of them to reflect that onto you. I’m not a psychologist but my instinct would be to reassure your partner about your ambitions. Talk to them about your work and get them involved where you can. They need to know the writing isn’t more important to you than they are.

Unfortunately there’s no easy way around this, all of us have different ambitions and desires, we enjoy different things and we all have our own expectations. It can be difficult to balance writing, whether doing it professionally or as a hobby, with our personal lives. I think it comes down to compromise and balance. You have to be willing to give and take.

Always be considerate of your partner and make sure they understand you expect the same in return.

Have a question or problem you’d like to send in?  Email advice@londonplaywrightsblog.com and keep your eyes peeled to see if the answer turns up on our site!

(DISCLAIMER: If you send us a question, you’re giving us permission to publish it!  Be sure to indicate what name you’d like us to use as a sign-off when we publish your column, and a just a heads up that we reserve the right to edit submissions for length if needed.)

Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar via CC license

Pursued By A Bear is our weekly advice column with playwright Adam Taylor.  He’ll tackle your playwriting questions – from practical issues to existential dilemmas – relying on nothing but his bare wits, brute strength, and questionable personal experiences.

“I see a lot of competitions asking for short plays. But it seems like theatres only put on full length plays. Should I write short plays (because it’s faster and fits in my working schedule easier), or am I better off trying to write a full length play and putting my energy here instead?”

This is quite the conundrum. Competitions are almost invariably asking for short plays, yet theatres always want full length pieces. What’s a playwright to do?

It’s worth thinking about why competition organisers tend to prefer short plays. Here are some reasons that occurred to me:

1. Short plays are less labour intensive for the organisers; they take less time to read, so the organisers can read more of them and have a higher chance of discovering a gem
2. Short plays are less labour intensive for playwrights; we’re more likely to take a punt on a ten minute play about a random topic, so the competition organisers will receive more entries than if they asked for an hour-long piece
3. Several short plays can be combined in a single evening, giving coveted exposure to several playwrights, thus making the competition more appealing, and allowing the organisers to establish relationships with more of us
4. It’s easier (arguably) to write a well-formed short play than a full-length, so the quality of work the organisers receive will generally be higher
5. Short plays generally have fewer locations and characters, making them easier to cast and stage on a budget.

You may not agree with all of these, and they certainly don’t hold up in every situation, but I suspect it’s a bit of a numbers game with competitions. The organisers want to maximise the number of quality entries they can read, and subsequently the number of promising writers they get to meet.

For argument’s sake look at it this way; in one hour they can read ten short plays, or one full-length.

But how does writing short plays benefit us as writers?

First of all, it’s great practice. With a short play you need to tell a cohesive and engaging story within a limited timeframe. There’s no room for waffle, there’s little scope for spewing forth grand ideas, there’s just enough space for a good story. Writing plays is, first and foremost, the art of telling good stories.

You can write a whole bunch of short plays in the time it takes to write one full-length. This gives you the opportunity to develop the skill of telling powerful stories. I always find the restriction of telling a story in ten minutes forces me to focus on exactly what I need to say, and nothing more. All extraneous dialogue will be cut, every tenuously linked subplot is scrapped and the characters are kept to the barest minimum because there’s no room for extra development.

I won’t say it’s less challenging than writing a full-length, but writing a short play is definitely a different sort of challenge. Once you start writing longer pieces you’ll realise your storytelling skills and understanding of structure have to be absolutely on point or you’ll get lost. Writing a full-length means you have far more creative leeway, you have the scope to go anywhere and let your story twist and turn to your heart’s content. You can also go a lot deeper into complex issues in a long play.

A full-length play also needs to tell a coherent story, it needs to feel like a single piece of writing, it has to gel from beginning to end. This is a whole new challenge, and it requires the kind of storytelling instincts you can develop writing short plays.

Of course, writing short plays isn’t the only way to develop great storytelling skills. I’m sure there are a ton of writers out there who jumped directly into the full-length arena and kept slogging away until they slayed that particular beast.

However, I will say writing short plays is possibly less painful, and I think it’s probably a faster route. I’ve spent months working on a full-length before realising I had no idea what I was writing about. That’s a pretty crushing experience. The reason that happened to me was because I didn’t have a very well developed sense of what makes a good story at that time.

I’ve been in exactly the same situation writing short plays, but I’ve probably only wasted a week or so on each aborted endeavour. This allows me to take more risks and be a lot more experimental without losing a lot of time.

So you can write more short plays – great, but theatres want full-lengths don’t they?

Not necessarily always. Most of the competitions you’re talking about are run by or with a theatre. As I pointed out above, a lot of theatres want to meet playwrights. Short play competitions are a way for them to make contact with talented writers.

There’s nothing stopping you from writing a full-length play and sending it out to every theatre in the land. However, it will probably go to the bottom of a large pile of unsolicited scripts, so your odds aren’t great. Unless you know someone at the theatre. How do you get to know someone at the theatre?

Stalking is always an option. You could chloroform them and tie them up in your basement until they agree to read your play. Kidnap their prize-winning labradoodle and hold it hostage with a rehearsed reading as ransom. Disguise yourself as their nanny a la Mrs Doubtfire and tell them all about this great new playwright you stumbled across.

But all of those suggestions are clearly insane and highly likely to result in prison time. Or at the very least, community service. So don’t try them. And if you do try them, don’t tell anyone you got the idea from me.

You’re far more likely to be successful if you just send in a worthy entry to their short play competition. I would definitely recommend this route, and just to help you out (and shamelessly plug the column), here’s another blog post about deciding which competitions to enter.

Once you’ve entered a few short play competitions and made a bit of noise, you’re in a much better position to send a full-length to your new contacts. Your script is no longer unsolicited, you’re a known entity. They liked your short play so they’ll probably give your full-length debut a look on the strength of that existing relationship.

I’m not trying to sell the short play route to you as a shortcut or a back-door to success. It isn’t. You’ll still have to work really bloody hard and drag the most intriguing and spellbinding stories possible from the depths of your brain. I do think it gives you an advantage in the numbers game though. You can build up a bit of a rep, get your plays in front of a few audiences and theatrical gatekeepers, and make valuable contacts within the industry.

You’ll also be able to develop your storytelling talent while concentrating your efforts on specific goals and experimenting with different styles of theatre.

Don’t forget, the people putting on short play competitions want to meet playwrights. You want to be a playwright, which means you want to meet them. Invest a little time in writing short plays for worthwhile competitions and you could find it does a lot for your career.

At the very worst you’ll have written more, which is the only surefire way to improve.

A short play can also be a great way to explore whether an idea’s strong enough to carry a full-length play. Write it as a ten minute piece, get the bare bones of the story down, see how it plays, and then decide whether you want to invest the time in making it full-length. Think of it like a testing ground whereby you try plays out to see which one has the most potential.

The ultimate answer to your question is to do both. Full-length plays are the dream for most of us, you don’t really get into the Playwrights Hall of Fame without at least a few notable plays of length under your belt. However, that doesn’t mean we should ignore short plays. Writing concisely is a great skill to have, and not every idea merits a two-hour epic. Some stories work best in ten minutes.

I find the odd short play increasingly satisfying to write. They can be a lot of fun and also give a more immediate reward than the months or years it takes to write a good full-length. Plus, as you say, short plays are a lot easier to fit into a busy schedule, so you can use them to keep your skills sharp when you don’t have the time to commit to a large project.

Have a question or problem you’d like to send in?  Email advice@londonplaywrightsblog.com and keep your eyes peeled to see if the answer turns up on our site!

(DISCLAIMER: If you send us a question, you’re giving us permission to publish it!  Be sure to indicate what name you’d like us to use as a sign-off when we publish your column, and a just a heads up that we reserve the right to edit submissions for length if needed.)

Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar via CC license