Drafting, Confidence, and Feedback

Hi again! It’s me Livia, here with another blog!

Since I last wrote, I’ve been really trying to embrace the goal of “playfulness” that I set for myself at the start of the year. I think I’ve been successful in this, resulting in a second draft of my play that is very different to my first. Part of developing my voice as a writer has definitely been learning not to write things that I think you ‘should’ write, but to write something that captures and interests me personally. This means following my own passions and seeing where they take me, rather than trying to imitate the style of what I think modern theatre ‘should’ be about or ‘should’ look like. It seems to me that the idea of ‘should’ in general is a misleading and unhelpful term, because part of what makes theatre exciting and enticing for is the self-expression if offers. By looking inward into what stories I want to tell, instead of outward into what I perceive to be good or popular theatre at the moment. I think this can be hard to internalise, especially as someone who is just starting out in the world of writing, because when we have less confidence our instincts can be to couch our ideas in something we know works because we have seen other people try it, rather than being authentic to our own ideas and talents. But it’s definitely something I’m working on, and looking forward to growing my confidence in in the future. 

 

Recently we have been talking about how to work on our confidence In our gathering this month, when Rosanna realised we were all lacking confidence in our own abilities as a writer, she set us the task of thinking of our own strengths as a writer and sharing these with the group. I spoke about how I write interesting and witty dialogue, which I definitely think is one of my strengths as a writer. It’s something that comes a lot more naturally to me than plotting and structuring my pieces, as I sometimes struggle to see the bigger picture. I really enjoyed this exercise as it helped me grow in my confidence as a writer and identify areas that make my pieces interesting and unique to me. I also really enjoyed hearing everyone else’s strengths too, as it felt like a very lovely way to share how we all feels about ourselves as writers, and a safe space to use as a sounding board of our own ideas of ourselves.

 We also spoke about our own feelings around giving and receiving feedback as we were all reading and responding to each other’s work. This got me thinking more widely about how I feel around feedback in general. Often when responding to people’s work I find it hard to think of what to say, other than “I really like that part” or “it’s very good”, but the other playwrights’ pieces were all so interesting and intriguing that I found I came away with lots of questions and suggestions for future drafts. I think this is both a testament to how exciting all three of their drafts are looking so far, as well as how far I have come as a writer and a critic over the course of the programme. I really enjoy feedback which asks me questions and gives me more to think about moving forward, because it serves as a good motivator to continue working on a new draft . Sometimes when I finish a draft to a place I’m somewhat happy with, it can be daunting to begin working on it again. But if I have feedback with big suggestions or questions that are inspiring or challenging it can give me an exciting starting place to continue developing my piece. This is exactly what I am up to at the moment, and really looking forward to getting stuck in!

Livia Nicholson

Livia is part of the Bunbury Banter Young Playwrights Programme 2020-2021