Pick Any Direction

“It doesn’t matter what you pick, just choose a definite direction and go with it until you realize it’s wrong. Then go in a different definite direction.”

This advice was given by an acting professor after my wishy-washy performance during . Acting 101. The class was required. I hated it. I didn’t realize this lesson would shape my creative philosophy. 

If the idea of picking a direction seems obvious, consider the hours you’ve sat staring at a blank screen trapped between whether your main character opens the door to the basement or not, says yes to the date or slaps the guy, breaks down into tears or throws a plate at the wall. Maybe you try to do both and end up with something middling and half-baked. Maybe you chose, then waiver. You write a page, second guess, delete back, make the other choice, waffle, delete, go back to the first. Then you think of a third choice and the cycle begins again.  

If you never do what I just described, read no further - you are a master. I, however, continue to force myself to practice this each time I write. Earlier this week I got to a point in the draft of my current novel where I realized I had totally gone the wrong direction with the son’s emotional arc. I had wavered early on but played my definite decision out until it was clearly, absolutely wrong. Instead of brow-beating my foolishness or starting over from the beginning I pivoted. I wrote a note to myself: ‘Rewrite: son is pissed, not sad’ then blazed forward with my new definite decision, trusting the change to future edits. Who knows, in another fifty pages I might find out I was wrong again. Leave perfection to revisions. A draft is a voyage of discovery. You won’t get anywhere if you keep turning around.  

This truism played out for me live in front of hundreds at The Boston Theatre Marathon. For this day-long festival of ten-minute plays a composer and I created a mini opera from Kate Chopin’s short “The Story of An Hour.” This emotionally packed Victorian-era story carries the main character from joyful liberation when she learns her husband is dead to shock and her own death when he walks in very much alive. Perfect for opera, right? 

The laughter began rippling through the ornate theatre almost as soon as the singing began. I sweat through my shirt in the velvety seat as I realized at the same time the actors did that (Historical drama + Opera) ÷ 10 minutes = Comedy. Mortification set in as giggles turned to guffaws. 

Then a miraculous thing happened. The singer pivoted. She played up the comedy. She went big with the melodrama. I held my breath and watched while it totally worked. The next day with a little rehearsal they went in even bigger. It was a smash. (My apologies to Kate Chopin)

It didn’t matter that it wasn’t the choice we made at the beginning. What mattered was what we found along the way. If the singer hadn’t gone in big, hadn’t pivoted when things went wrong and then come back bigger we never would have discovered something unexpected and wondrous.  

When you are sitting at your keyboard and the story’s compass is spinning don’t spin with it. Make a choice. No guilt, no vacillation, no looking back. Save that for editing. Believe in your choice and go in that definite direction. When you hit a dead end, go in a different definite direction. Otherwise you’ll never get anywhere. 

It sounds scary and it takes practice, but just be thankful you aren’t a singer making that choice in front of a packed auditorium.