Week 3: Meeting with Martha and Phil

Today, I met with both Martha and Phil at the Wright Center after playing scheduling shuffle with both of them over the last couple days. We were able to talk about the revised draft of Act I that I submitted last weekend, and where I was going from there.

The thing I realized the most is that I have a very vivid picture of my characters, but I'm not writing it, and that's affecting the way I'm telling the story. Phil recommended a lot of great resources for working on the structure thus far, and I think that'll help as I work on act II and further revising act I. 

here are some of my notes from the meeting -- points made, plus my internal monologue.

A lot of what we talked about in this meeting, as seen above, were things I sort of already knew but didn't exactly know how to point to them or how to begin to fix them. Some of the things that I struggle with come from "stylistic" issues. Phil pointed out a number of places where I slipped into the passive voice, or where I became too novelistic in my action. The first point is a complaint I get from nearly every teacher who reads my writing, and the second, well, I'm an English major. 

The other thing, and the thing I think I know how to fix, comes in with the lack of agency (my own words) the characters have in response to each other, and the amount of information I haven't shared with the audience in these first twenty pages. I'll probably take at least two more passes at Act I in some capacity before my final draft submission, so I have a little bit of time to get it right.