Sidney's Rule

"Believable action is based on authenticity, and accuracy is very important to me. I always spend time researching my novels, exploring the customs and attitudes of the county I'm using for their setting."

Sidney Sheldon

Authenticity

I believe a writer's first obligation is to be truthful. That doesn't mean historical correctness. Dramatic truth is not necessarily reflecting reality. What it demands is the writer's honesty. For one, he must not write about things he does not know nor understand. Even fictious characters and situations must be understood. If you write about, let's say, a day in a policeman's life you have to understand how policemen spend their days. The same applies, and even more so, to emotions. If you don't believe in true love, you'd better write about kung-fu, provided you're familiar with it. What you write about something you don't know can only be a cliché.

The Writer's Truth

Every good story reveals the writer's heart and soul. It is not coincidential which tale you choose to tell. Certain stories touch you, others, though maybe more interesting to others, leave you cold. I actually feel an inner connection, almost an intimate relationship, to certain historical individuals. That makes me often believe they want me to tell their story. As I start researching and structuring, I often realize that the story's theme has something to do with my own life. There's usually a dilemma - a choice between two ways of equal value - which is mirroring problems I had to solve or wish I could solve. In the decicive last third of any good story the protagonist needs to make a decision. It's necessarily the decision the writer approves of.

Create!

“I want to thank anyone who spends a part of their day creating, I don't care if it's a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece of music - anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us - I think this world would be unlivable without art and I thank you.”

Steven Soderbergh ( one of those who deserve a thank-you)

Next: 3D

The Metropolitan Opera's production of Siegfried that premiered in the last season featured amazing 3D projections. They were developed by the Canadian firm Réalisations which had previously created effects for Cirque du Soleil and other theatre groups. The new technology allows projected 3D images on-stage to be seen without special eyewear. For instance, an opera singer might move inside a projection down the stairs of of a castle, which would appear three-dimensional to the audience. As the singer moves, the set around him or her would shift in what appears to be 3D. As far as I know those projections have not yet been used for a musical.

In The Garden Of Dreams

Sven

Projections have been used for a long time in the theatre. As new technology such as computer animation and powerful beamers has made it much easier and more affordable to apply them, the use of projections has become inflationary. Some directors like moving projections, and the latest thing is 3-D. I'm all for it, as long as the stage is not turned into a movie screen. Theatre must never try to compete with reality because it must stay above it. Its purpose is a play with reality. My favorite theatrical video designer, Sven Ortel, has internalized that
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The Difference Between Good & Great Drama

"The basis of drama is the struggle of the hero towards a specific goal at the end of which he realizes that what kept him from it was, in the lesser drama, civilisation and, in the great drama, the discovery of something that he did not set out to discover but which can be seen retrospectively as inevitable."

David Mamet

David Mamet

Among the dramatists I admire most David Mamet will always stay in my personal top ten. His work includes two of my favorite films, The Verdict and Wag The Dog, as well as two perfect plays, Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed The Plow. He's great with words, a "brain-dead liberal", a vitriolic critic, and also a great teacher. "Any drama is a succession of scenes," he keeps reminding his fellow playwrights. "Each scene must end so that the hero is thwarted in pursuit of his goal – so that he is forced to go on to the next scene to get what he wants. To write a successful scene, one must stringently apply and stringently answer the following three questions: 1. Who wants what from whom? 2. What happens if they don't get it? 3. Why now?" 

Inspiration

“When I am ..... completely myself, entirely alone... or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence and how these ideas come I know not nor can I force them.” 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart