I'm working on a play called "Summer People" that involves multiple time frames, and several shifts in time. I had a meeting with Suzan yesterday, talking about the next draft. Here were some points that seem worth remembering.
*You should know how many time frames you have at work in your play.
*At some point, if you don't know what the "trigger" is that moves you from one time frame to the other, you should figure it out. This isn't being persnickety, it's about the logic and motion of the story...even if it's a weird trigger...
* CHOOSE where your story is complicated and where it is simple. If you are working with a very complicated overall structure, there may be events or smaller sequences of events that you need to make simple, so that the audience can have some touchstones.
*Are there places where your story can PARALLEL to trigger a shift in time?
*Is it the MEMORY of a character that triggers a shift in time?
*Are you dealing with an INTERNAL flashback (particular to a character's memory) or an EXTERNAL flashback (where the whole play is moving)? How is each triggered?
*If Character A is having hallucinations, and that's a major plot point, maybe B and C shouldn't have moments of hallucinatory theatricality -- who OWNS hallucinations in the play?
For now, these all seem like very good points, maybe not just for this play but for other plays.
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