What Writers Can Learn from Acting

Of all the modern conveniences that technology has afforded us, I’d say it’s our access to information that is the most valuable. Colleges and universities are no longer the only places to get an education; much of this knowledge is now available at our fingertips via the internet. This is especially true since the emergence of websites like Udemy, Skillshare, Coursera, and Masterclass. These websites offer paid classes in the form of high-quality video downloads, workbooks, and assignments. Of course, there are also free alternatives (though usually of lesser quality) that can be found of popular video sharing websites like YouTube.

If you’re an aspiring writer (or even a seasoned one), these videos and classes are worth your time. What’s become apparent to me, after subscribing to several courses in different subjects (Due to time constraints I skip around a lot and rarely complete an entire course, but I've dabbled in screenplay writing, stage play writing, directing, acting, and music production), is how closely linked these arts really are.

So today, I want to take a little time here to make a case for how acting relates to writing, and why writers should be interested in the art of acting.

Here’s the bottom line: actors and writers are trying to achieve the same goal–accurate, believable character portrayal. A talented actor makes us forget all about acting; we believe he is the character. Similarly, a talented writer should make us forget we are reading words on a page.

For a moment, let’s imagine a scene in a stage play. The scene unfolds in the bedroom of a teenage boy named Jack. In the scene, Jack’s mother enters his bedroom and confronts him about returning late the night before and not answering his cellphone while at a friend’s house.

Can you picture the scene in your head? Good. Don’t worry about the dialogue–that’s not important here. What’s important in this exercise is what you see the actors doing, not what they are saying. In fact, if the actors and the director are good enough, they could be having a conversation about the weather and we’d still be able to get what’s going on in the character’s heads.

But how? How would the actors really convey this? First off, they’d need to thoroughly understand the characters. And not just the characters' overall personality traits, but the characters in this moment. Remember, people are dynamic. We change from moment to moment and are constantly being molded by our surroundings. Characters in books and on the stage should be the same.

For example, the actors might ask these questions: What’s motivating the mother in this scene? What does she want? Is she simply frustrated with her son because she feels she’s being shut out of his life, or is she actually worried for his safety (or spirituality)? What about Jack? Is Jack a good kid, or is he troubled? How is his relationship with his mother? Is he trying to rebel, or was he merely being careless the night before?

For the sake of this experiment, let’s imagine the following scenario: Jack and his mom have a good relationship. He’s a diligent student and a responsible adolescent. He cares about his mom, but lately he’s been feeling too restricted, which he feels is unjustified given his good track record. Jack’s mother knows he’s trying hard, but doesn’t want him becoming independent too soon. Deep down, she doesn’t want to lose him, and dreads the day when he finally becomes his own man.

Now, given this understanding of their motivations and the dynamics of their relationship, how might the actors and director go about bringing the scene to life?  First off, Jack and his mother probably won’t be having this conversation sitting or standing in a room facing one another. They need to be moving around, doing something. But what?

Remember, we’ve already determined a few things about Jack. He’s a good kid, a responsible student, and he loves his mom. Since this scene happens in the morning, perhaps Jack is preparing to leave for school. He’s gathering his textbooks and binders and packing his bag when his mom comes in and wants to talk. Giving him this action in the scene is great–the repetition of packing his bag will allow us to see how the attitude behind his movements changes over time. (Perhaps in the beginning of the scene he's packing things neatly and carefully, but by the end he’s so frustrated that he’s just stuffing the remainder of the papers into the pockets of his backpack.)

And what about the mom? Remember, essentially Jack’s mother has a fear of him growing up. She wants to hold on to the version of her little Jack as a child. She can’t handle the idea of him growing up so quickly and becoming an adult. At the same time, she knows he’s a good kid and doesn’t want to smother him. These are two very conflicting sets of emotions, and frankly would be a challenge for any actress to clearly convey.

Perhaps the mother enters quietly, trying to be respectful in her son’s space. Maybe she’s just prepared breakfast, so she’s got an apron on, and is wiping her hands on it when she enters. Perhaps the wiping goes on a little too long, giving the audience a clue about her anxiety. Maybe, as they talk, she notices a stuffed animal on Jack’s shelf, something that he’s clearly had since he was a little boy. She goes over to it and touches it fondly or picks it up, telling us how she feels about Jack’s younger years.

Can you imagine the scene a bit better now? Did it come to life a bit more? It should have. Because we went from what could have simply been a conversation between a nagging mom and her unresponsive teenage son to a multi-layered interaction between two complex characters. The final result would be something much more interesting to watch performed on stage.

The same is true for writing a novel. Novice writers tend to tell us how characters feel by A) Having  them vocalize their emotions (“I’m so frustrated with you!” “I can’t stand this restaurant!” “I’m so excited about our trip to the Bahamas!”) or B) Peppering their writing with adverbs (“I’m leaving,” he said angrily.) Seasoned writers, on the other hand, show us how the characters feel by what they do, how they move, and how they talk.

In summary, good writing and good acting are tied by a common thread of understanding people–the way they think, they way they behave, and the way they interact. Both writing and acting require being able to step into a character’s shoes and accurately convey the complexity of their thoughts, desires, fears, and emotions.

If you’re an aspiring writer, here’s an assignment for you: take the above scenario (the one with Jack and his mom) and try to expand it into a full-fledged scene. There’s no length requirement, but make it long enough to convey the characters' emotional states.