Fork

Ice cream fork, Shreve & Company, Iris service, silver, 1903-1917.jpg
By WmpearlOwn work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17718251

I’ve reached a point in a project where I can go one of two ways:

  1. go for the laughs — they’ll be earned laughs, but laughs nonetheless (not that there’s anything wrong with laughs); or
  2. go for the pathos — it’ll be painful but resonant and truthful (though painful).

Laughs are easy — at this point in development anyway (in front of an audience it’s a whole other thing). Pathos is a bit of a balancing act of grabbing an audience member’s heart and squeezing it just enough to leave an impression (and not, like, killing it).

A handy reminder at this point of development is to do what best serves the story — except that, with this project, it’s character-driven, so it’s down to how I best serve the character.

And if I want to serve the character to the best of my ability, then I must be honest with it, and see where that takes me.

… Well. That’s sorted, then.

 

(There’s a third way, of course: I could write both versions and test-audience the shit out of them.)

(Once upon a time I wrote a post where I said characters [are] only part of the story I want to tell — there’s something karmic going on here, I think.)

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