The Writers’ Nook is a place where we, as a group, can provide a safe and positive environment in which to encourage one another and hone our own writing skills.
Past, Present and Future
We, in our culture, are obsessed with time. We eat, sleep, and play by the hands on the clock, by the day of the week, and the season of the year. Is it any wonder then, that verb tense is important in our writing? Everybody wants to know what happened when, and which event came before the other. How else can we participate in local gossip and the rumour mill?
At this meeting we will discuss verbs, and talk about how to use which one, where. That’s the short of the meeting. The longest part of the meeting will be used in a fun activity which places us in the present, whether it’s the past, present or future. Join us in this Reader’s Theatre event and enjoy!
This meeting was held via zoom at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, February 2nd, 2022 Blind Bay Time (aka Vancouver Time). If you would like to join our group, please contact us. Your first meeting is free.
In preparation for this meeting please download the following two pieces of information.
The Verb Tense Chart and
The Handout, Verbs and their Tenses
Your Challenge
The challenge to work on during the time between this meeting and the next one is to begin working on your own personal past, present and future chart. To do that, for this time: make a list of verbs and write a sentence about each of them in the Past, Present, and Future Tense. Make sure that at least one third of the verbs are Stative Verbs. (Find information and examples of Stative Verbs on the last two pages of the Handout.) At our next meeting we continue with other tenses of verbs until, by the time summer comes, we will have covered and understood all of them.
MORE IMPORTANTLY and more fun: The written challenge to be submitted before the next meeting on February 16th is to write a short Reader’s Theatre piece of dialogue, include narration if you wish; or
Please share with us a poem, story, or essay that you have written.
Responses
Paul’s Pride, a story for Reader’s Theatre by Shirley Bigelow DeKelver
Davey, a story for Reader’s Theatre by Joyce Adrian Sotski
Pooh’p’d, a short one act play by Kevin Gooden
Going to the dance, a short one act play by Karen Lesli
Shirley, Paul’s Pride: The first chapter of your story definitely lends itself more easily to Readers’ Theatre script than the second one does, because Chapter Two is, for the most part, only the narrator reading. However, from a story point of view, the second chapter is definitely the more dramatic!
But going back to the first chapter, there are places where you could do more with the characters’ voices and delete some of the narration. For example, instead of the narrator reading, “Paul did not answer,” just insert the word (Pause) in the middle of Jessica’s lines. This will show instead of tell that Paul didn’t answer. Instead of the narrator reading, “suddenly a voice called from Ma and Pa’s bedroom, ”just use Helen’s voice with directions, eg. HELEN: (in a faraway child-like voice) “Yessie, Yessie.”.
It seems to me that the fact she’s in Ma and Pa’s bedroom is not really important this story.
Remember that you can use sounds too, like the sound of a door slamming, etc. instead of the narrator chiming in so often. Try to save the narrator’s voice only for information that cannot be imparted using the characters’ voices, or where the facts in the story are so necessary and/or so descriptive that you cannot tell the story with out them. This also helps to speed up the pacing and makes the goings-on more urgent.
I also changed my story from prose to script and I found that I was using the narrator’s voice in way too many places. It’s hard to do, like another way of thinking.
Another way of handling this story could have been to have it begin the moment that Ma and Pa got back home. That way, entire story would have been told to them by the voices of the children, in their own words; with almost no need for a narrator at all.
Joyce, I enjoyed your script, and can’t wait to hear more.
Kevin, Pooh’p’d: Very clever! And yes, very mysterious and fun! You’re so creative and I love it but do you think the audience will get it? I found that I stumbled when reading it for the first time, in part maybe because of the formatting. I couldn’t tell if some of the paragraphs were stage directions which would probably have been in italics, and then I wondered if perhaps they were supposed to be Narrator’s lines. And why are (or were) they switching tenses on the verbs?
Now, speaking of paradoxes, since I’ve started trying to write scripts, I’m constantly being told to remember that the audience cannot go back, like in a book, and re-read a sentence or a paragraph to figure out why it didn’t make sense to them in the first place. If the audience doesn’t get it the first time, they’ll go home not understanding the play.
So I’m wondering if there’s a way to go back in and clarify some of the puzzles. Who is the Writer? The first writer or one that came after? Where is Pooh’s shirt? Why does he not have it on when he is his real age. What is the Writer doing in the meadow? Writing, I suppose. What are those sassy rascals supposed to be working at? I love it and I understand, and yet I could have so many questions that if I was a director, or someone in the audience, are not answered and it leaves me wondering.
Shirley: “Paul’s Pride” You adopted the “Stave lingo” immediately, nice! Seems like Ma and Pa should have stepped outside when they left, rather than step. I remember reading this story previously, and enjoy it. Your descriptions and dialog immerse the reader in the setting. Stave 2 is mostly narration, which wouldn’t work if this was an actual play.
Joyce: “Davey” Gasp! Scandal! Goodness gracious and other surprised exclamations! Nicely done twisteroo, Joyce—I did a double-take at “…has your cowlick..” Enjoyable piece even though I guessed nearly immediately after the shocker that Isobel was doomed. Good set up, setting, and character dialog. I also enjoyed the stage directions like (Not a sound).
RE “He was sweet”—I didn’t get much sense of WHY he was considered sweet, seemed like a generic word use needing some more description of attributes or actions that would SHOW sweetness.
Final point: I found the sentence “His wheelchair was going in circles and, ‘this would be funny,’ Nancy thought…” confusing to read, probably because it contains two separate nouns (the wheelchair and Nancy) and verb phrases accompanying those nouns (‘going in circles’ AND ‘thought to herself.’). Something along these lines would be more logical IMHO: “…way to turn, literally—his wheelchair was going in circles. ‘This would be funny,’ Nancy thought to herself…”
Thanks, I’m breaking up the sentences regarding the wheelchair and Nancy.
Joyce,
I found that the long intro was absolutely critical to the story, but didn’t know that until later. Are there usually long intro narrations, or only because of the target (reading) audience/players?
I liked the characters and character development and did not, as I expect, like Tom, initially, but I would like to know a bit more about him, perhaps to make the anger a bit less confusing. Or perhaps more hint earlier?
However I liked the play and how it left the audience with the oops-aha at the end! Real characters.
Kevin
Fanciful idea to move the characters out of “time” where they stayed the same, and aged like us, or changed the environment (townhouses. 🙂 I liked the ongoing back and forth and somehow my brain kept the exchanges clear. I wish I had something more to offer. You kept the personalities of the original characters, pretty accurate…though I haven’t read it in a while…
Maybe Pooh was just too fat for his shirt. 🙂
You could certainly have a group read this aloud. Would they move around much while talking?
Good smiles.
Shirley,
This would be a good story on its own. The narrator would definitely have to be ready for the parts. Perhaps more narration from the characters, rather than description, would help.
Jessica” Help me Paul, I can’t find Helen
Paul: She’s probably in the kitchen where she was with you.
Jessica: I thought she was with you.
Paul: Oh no, she loves the creek.
Narrator: They both look at creek with horror…
The characters are plausible and there is room here for the seniors’ read to flesh out , with tone, each one.
Did you call your father sir? Perhaps this takes place in an older time “Ma” “Pa”
A good story with an appropriate ending.
Kevin,
Fanciful idea to move the characters out of “time” where they stayed the same, and aged like us, or changed the environment (townhouses. 🙂 I liked the ongoing back and forth and somehow my brain kept the exchanges clear. I wish I had something more to offer. You kept the personalities of the original characters, pretty accurate…though I haven’t read it in a while…
Maybe Pooh was just too fat for his shirt. 🙂
You could certainly have a group read this aloud. Would they move around much while talking?
Good smiles.
Joyce
Hi, oops, submitting twice. Duh. I have some other thoughts since. Imagine. “More” children. Did you want to slip Gladys in there or leave it as an emphatic “more” because he was thinking about Davey. I wondered if “lunch at their house” would help. Had Tom met Davey before and that was Isobel’s nervousness?
Would a woman plop a child…I don’t the age…on a man’s lap if he didn’t even know the child, or is this the hint that she has figured it out quite surely?
Great switch ending though. Not expecting it. 🙂
Karen, Going to the dance: At first read, I am confused about who is who. I will print it out and use markers, give them each a different colour dress. One suggestion would be to put stage directions in brackets so we know that’s what it is. Italics can be confused with emphasis.. I have seen plays where the actor is typing, aloud, and because they have to speak slowly it gets tedious for the audience. On the positive side, it sounds very real and typical. Dating as a teenager is both exciting and painful.