Beware Who's Advice You Take

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > WORKING > ADVICE > EDITING BILL

Order 'I'm a cancer, and every fortune-teller I've ever been to has told me that if I want to be truly creative I should be living by the water. (One even said that if I wasn't living in such a place, at the very least I should put a glass of water on my desk. I did, of course. For years.) The biggest problem, the one no fortune-teller ever gave me good enough advice about, was that for most of my life not only couldn't I afford to live by the water, I couldn't even afford to live within miles of a habitable shoreline.'

-- Larry Kramer


A Literary Manager's editing of Old Bill's play as part of a development process. Unfortunately it's not quite as fanciful as we might hope. Hang this over your word processor . . .

Bill - - see below for revisions before we can think about going into rehearsals.

Why is he talking to himself again?
Can't do this 'harlot's cheek' stuff -- our subscribers & NEA!
Unclear -- who's this 'him'?
Why is he telling us all this? Motivation needs to be stronger.
Ludicrous image!
Save this for your 'Suicide Play.' Too much going on here.
Cut! -- he said this 'sleep' stuff already.
		KING
	(Aside) 
O, 'tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my 
	conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plast'ring 
	art, 
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word.
O heavy burthen!

		POLONIUS 
I hear him coming. Withdraw, my lord.     

	(Exeunt King and 
	Polonius. Enter Hamlet.)

		HAMLET
To be, or not to be, that is the 
	question: 
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind 
	to suffer     
The slings and arrows of 
	outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of 
	troubles,           
And by opposing, end them.  
	To die; to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we
	end
The heart-ache and the thousand 
	natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a
	consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die; to 
	sleep;
To sleep! Perchance to dream! Ay,

Thanks to the Los Angeles Times for this gruesome idea.

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