Day 7: Help! My Main Character Is A Twat

 Today's exercise was to take something we previously wrote (a letter, a short story, a play, anything) and pick it apart and re-write it. I'm actually doing that with a lot of plays of mine right now that started off as small pieces for scratch nights or commissions but I want to see as longer pieces. However as their original function was to be like short story or pop song extending them is not simply a case of making them longer. Currently they're also too long and unfished to really use for this exercise. So I wrote a play about trying to rewrite a play.                                            

                                                       Help! My Main Character Is A Twat!

                                                                    By Jeremy Linnell

Sitting at a kitchen table Jeremy agitatedly works on a laptop. Alex enters.

Alex: How’s it going? You getting anywhere?

Jeremy: No I’m completely stuck.

Alex: What’s the problem?

Jeremy: I just can’t seem to figure out the third act.

Alex: Well have you tried anything other than just staring at the page?

Jeremy: Look if you’re not going to help you can just piss off.

Alex: Don’t take your frustration out on me.

Jeremy: I’m frustrated at you taking the piss.

Alex: Sorry. I was trying to lighten the mood.

Jeremy: Yeah, you know how well that works when I’m trying to work.

Alex: I said I was sorry. Look, why don’t we talk through it. That sometimes helps.

Jeremy: <sighs> Fine. I’m going to go make a cup of tea first. Do you want one?

Alex: Yeah.

Jeremy: Biscuit?

Alex: You need to ask?

Jeremy: True. I’ll just wait while the kettle boils.

Alex: Jez…

Jeremy: What?

Alex: Stop procrastinating. Sit down.

Jeremy: Ugh. Fine.

Alex: So what’s the issue.

Jeremy: My main character is an unlikeable twat.

Alex: Well they do write what you know.

Jeremy: Har har.

Alex: And aren’t all your characters unlikable twats. That’s your thing isn’t it.

Jeremy: Well…not on purpose.

Alex: Bullshit not on purpose. You constantly play up the whole “humanity is a bit shit really” thing.

Jeremy: I’m just a realist.

Alex: So I take it you weren’t considering a happy ending then?

Jeremy: Well…define happy.

Alex: Romance, kissing, sunsets?

Jeremy: Well he kills and embalms his girlfriend and then himself so they can be together forever.

Alex: Have you ever considered the possibility that there is something supremely wrong with you.

Jeremy: It’s just my creative process!

Alex: What? Coming up with sick shit like that?

Jeremy: It’s a commentary on the dangers of trying to hold on to the past at the expense…

Alex: Yeah yeah I’m sure it’s very very clever. You just like being shocking.

Jeremy: Well it’s better than being predictable…

Alex: Hang on. Didn’t you write this months back?

Jeremy: Yeah. I’m trying to work it in to a longer piece, see if I can make a full show of it.

Alex: Who’d want to see a long play about a dude who kills his girlfriend?

Jeremy: People. Some people. A few. Dark comedy is popular.

Alex: Oh yeah, sounds like a real hoot.

Jeremy: Well the short one was, it was really funny in an awkward way. But when it’s longer he just looks like a twat.

Alex: So make him…not a twat?

Jeremy: But he has to be. It’s about toxic masculinity and nostalgia.

Alex: You really are a pretentious dick sometimes.

Jeremy: This isn’t actually helping my writer’s block you know.

Alex: Ok ok. So what’s the plan? Pick the story apart?

Jeremy: Done it.

Alex: Change the ending?

Jeremy: The endings the entire point!

Alex: Leave it and come back to it?

Jeremy: I did that six months ago! This is me coming back to it.

Alex: Well….yer fucked. Eff you see kay ee dee.

Jeremy: I know how to spell. Dick.

Alex: Then how come all those words on the screen are underline in red

Jeremy: I just…use a lot of spell check. It’s helpful!

Alex: So what are you going to do?

Jeremy: I dunno… I thought the start was pretty perfect for what I wanted but maybe the changes need to start there. A few little things just to give him more grounding before he goes mental.

Alex: That could work.

Jeremy: Maybe introduce the ideas I want from later in the play a bit earlier so it doesn’t seem to come out of nowhere. Just pick it apart. Be less precious and start a bit more from scratch. 

Alex: Glad I could help.

Jeremy: You didn’t do anything.

Alex: But you couldn’t have done it with me.

Jeremy: Oh piss you silly bastard. Daddy’s got writing to do.

Alex: Only if you promise to never call yourself Daddy again. See ya later.

END