Finding a Voice

"Let's go over my lines"

This is a phrase I mentally say to myself for three separate occasions.

"Let's go over my lines before I say 'em."

I speak. I try to speak, but often when I go into a sentence blind I don't really come out the other side with all my contents still on me. I'm not the best speaker, I've said this before, but I feel it's important to reiterate so I can get used to saying it, making it easier to say for future reference. Words are delicate and my confidence at speaking even more so, so when I speak it's usually best for me to have a few moments to prepare beforehand, just so I can say what I mean and say it in full, although I often lose the perfect moment to speak by thinking about what I'm going to say. I say to people that I'm not good with words, but I am good with words. It's just that if I don't have as much time to think about my words then I often fall into incoherence or overuse of the most simple words, so in those cases I'm not good with words, but if I can think about them, and especially if I'm behind a screen where I can think without pressure and even backtrack on sentences in medias res, then I'm brilliant. 

Local Man Captured Thinking About What He's Going To Say About A Topic Of Conversation That The Group Moved On From Three Minutes Ago (2018, colorized)

When I'm with people I'm most comfortable with in person then I can talk mindlessly for ages and some of it works and some of it doesn't but it's all okay because the people I'm with understand, so it's not massive barrier in my life. It's not something to worry too much about. It's more like an annoyance I wish I could more easily handle. So before I speak, I try my best to go over my lines in my head. In certain contexts, such as around children or members of my family, I often have to really focus on what I am about to say and really revise my voice so I can edit it in ways such as removing inappropriate language or avoiding any reference to current affairs. A lot of the time when I speak, it's almost like I'm playing a character of who I am.

In fact, as I have been outlining and writing and rewriting this blog article, I came to the realization that I am a very filtered person. Which is strange for someone who lives inside my own head to hear, because it's very unfiltered up there. It's almost like I, myself, am a character being written only to convey the ideas of the author behind them. Either that's interesting or literally just how brains function, either way; whoa.

It's strange, going over your lines like you're an actor playing a character. It's strange to mentally go back and revise what you're about to play just to be sure it's the right voice. Oh well, I'm sure that won't come up again.

"Let's go over my lines before I lay 'em."

That Moment In My Recent Lockdown Vlog Where I Forgot What Decade It Was And My First Guess Was The 2000s (2020, colorized, annotated)

I write. I write a lot. Just recently I took all the notes from a notepad document relating to a single story I've been thinking and writing ideas about since 2015 and I put them onto a word file, and it added up to 216 pages and over 120,000 words, and that's a fraction of the notes compiled on that notepad document, the rest being for other stories and ideas. So I like to think that I write a lot. When I'm writing proper drafts, not just notes, I like to follow outlines and all the post-it notes I have lying around to inform me of what I'm writing, as well as my own feelings about how it fits in the surrounding text. I like to ensure that I've gone over what I am going to write before I write it.

Similar to how I go over my lines before I say them, I need to carefully think about written lines before I start writing them, as I have a bad habit of disliking any major substantial changes to what I've written; I'd rather tweak a line than remove it. This is a large obstacle I seek to overcome through the Young Playwrights Programme, as it's important to ensure that the work you produce isn't full of filler or lines that are weak at their core.

My voice is important to me as people will remember me for the things that I've written, the words I leave behind. I want to ensure that when I am writing, there's at least a small aspect of my own voice within it.

"Let's go over my lines before I play 'em."

I reflect. When it's not my voice, that's when I have to go back. Before I send off the written lines, before they go off to be played in someone's head or by an actor, I have to ensure the voice is right.

I found this problem of mine very recently when we started working on our monologues with Morna Young, writer of the fantastic "Lost at Sea". As I was writing my own monologue, I was writing under the voice of a character that didn't have my voice, but through the theme they were exploring spoke my personal truths. I knew my voice, but I kept forgetting his, and therein lay the greatest obstacle for me to overcome. As I wrote, I thought about my lines before I was laying them, but I thought about them in my own filtered voice, I thought about them in the context of the character arc, in the story structure, and in the core function of the character speaking, but not in their voice.

This character represented falsehood and facades, and although that was conveyed in the dialogue, my first draft failed to convey it in the voice. A trait of this preexisting character was that, as a result of his moral weakness of a facade, he faked a Southern accent but also kept unwittingly using posh metaphors, exemplifying his attempt at the lie and the truth hidden beneath. Reading the whole monologue as it was, the story and character was revealed, but it never felt real. It was one thing for the character to say that they lie about every element of their life, but it's leagues better to show it; the old show don't tell rule. So as I wrote my first draft, this character expressed dialogue but lacked any of the details. They would say "I'm planning to get wasted tonight" but in the second draft I was able to reveal their voice with "I'm fixin' to get rather tight-very drunk, I mean just totally wasted", showing their attempt at a Southern drawl with "fixin'" as well as showing their posh vernacular slipping through with "rather tight" to mean getting very drunk.

As I wrote my second draft I came across the problem. I would still write the lines, thinking about their place in the arc and structure and character intentions, but I would struggle to remember their voice, or struggle to employ them as I was writing, leading to me to, after ever paragraph, stop and go back to see where I could tweak it to make it more in tune with their voice. I found their voice, but struggles to implement it in real time.

I've always struggled to use my voice, to speak or write on the spot. I'm not the best at thinking. However, it was only a few months ago that I didn't have a voice at all, just a makeshift collection of loose thoughts and ideas and structures, with no cohesion or direction to any of it. I'm getting better. I've gotten so much better at finding my own voice through the workshops with the Young Playwrights Programme, and it only makes sense that in the coming months I will continue to get better. I'll get a hang of going over my lines as I say 'em, as I lay 'em, and as I play 'em. I'll grow.

My task now may be to find out how to give my characters a voice, but I have found my own voice. I know who I am.

I am Thomas McClure. I have always been very interested in storytelling and improving how I can tell stories. I joined the Young Playwrights Programme so I can refine my craft, meet new brilliant people, and gain experience in the creative industry, as well as creating a play that presents my kind of work. Through my stories I want to be able to educate and inspire, especially relating to social issues and progressive ideals, and I believe theatre is a very useful way of conveying these.

Thomas McClure

Thomas

is part of the Bunbury Banter Young Playwrights Programme 2019-2020