The Buddying Scheme

This scheme is a benefit to members of Swan Playwrights and enables less experienced writers to have the benefit of constructive feedback on their writing from more experienced writers.

You can be 'buddy to' or be 'buddied by' someone and even have more than one 'buddy'. The process fosters networking among members, helps us get to know each other better, provides encouragement and develops our writing.

'Buddying' complements the regular Saturday morning sessions when members meet and read/perform and discuss each others work and/or consider and conduct exercises on specific aspects of writing for performance.

It's not compulsory to join the 'buddies' - but it can be fun and it definitely brings on your writing!

The Principles of Buddying

1. You must contact your buddee every month so see how his/her writing is going: prodding the recipient of your advice is essential. You should encourage them to enter competitions, carry on with the exercise from the last month's stimulus session, give suggestions on how to develop something presented in a rehearsed reading, ask to see some writing from the past which may have been discarded etc.
2. Whoever you buddy, you should provide detailed feedback on their work, adopting the ten point model
3. If someone sends you work, make a contract with yourself to comment on it within two weeks at the latest. If you cannot do this, then phone them up.
4. You should suggest watching different programmes, going to plays, getting hold of books if you think it will help that person's writing.
5. Make a point of swapping scripts, chatting to each other at meetings - either before of after the session. Why not go for lunch afterwards?

Examples of Ten Point Model Critiques

The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

Example 1

I like the script – potentially light farce: but

1. Change the title – too many plays been there already. Putting on the Spread? Then you can introduce a slimming strand? And maybe relate that to Brian wanting to get his clothes off.
2. Try to make your first page work more. ***** likes things where the whole play is hinted at or sort of encapsulated. It’s obvious your play is about a party, family issues and misunderstandings, but is that enough? Keep these areas but give it a bigger theme such as incompatability or seven year itch and get that into the first few lines in some way such as "I hope there’s not going to be a row" or "You’ve took your time. Lots of skirt on display?" (If you go for this, don’t have Brian rise to bait of last bit.)
3. Try to suggest your kitchen minimally eg farmhouse table. Just saying large kitchen might have people thinking of fridge, freezer, cupboards, etc and decide it’s too much for an hour long play in the studio.
4. Good movement of characters, but it’s variation on duologues, which is okay for one scene but don’t get into a pattern. Make sure you manipulate different numbers of cast in subsequent scenes.
5. Twins idea is a good one, but you can’t have Ben/Brian in same scene at same time which is difficult for a party. Play this for comedy later on. You may want to order a play out of library, Ring Round the Moon by Jean Anouilh, to see how an established playwright manages this. Differentiate the two brothers.
6. Get a few more jokes in. Double D one good!
7. What’s Mayor’s relationship to this family? Why does Sheila call him Micky? Does this come out later?
8. Linked to latter point, you could have characters address him in different ways: Micky, Mike, Michael, Mr ?, Lordship, Your Highness, etc
9. Make more of sexual situation at end of first scene.
10. Put set requirements at top of page outside scene divisions – in the studio, you can’t really have different sets for different scenes, which is probably not what you’re going for but could be suggested by this layout. Remember ***** on phone in *****: didn’t really work as rest of play was on doorstep/at table.

Some alterations suggested on script. Keep going but you need eight times this amount of pages. Don’t have all your scenes the same length.

Example 2

I don’t know why you think I should hate it – it seems pretty focused to me and says something about you and the world. Your figures are differentiated verbally and Matt’s violent language is up to date. It still needs a tweak or two, though, although some of these points are a matter of choice rather than definite advice:

1. Title puts all the weight on Eve; I wonder if a more thematic title which includes both characters such as (Self)Protection or Survival (of the Fittest) might be more appropriate.
2. The thing I have problems with is the setting (although I like its unusualness) – expensive to do properly and on an open stage requiring big imagination from the audience. I don’t think you should write a book about how it might be realised but you could suggest different levels from rostra blocks at the start or a gap between two rostra blocks for the pot hole. You might also include a few lines in the dialogue at different points in the script to place the audience and remind them of the location – types of rock, stalagmites, stalactites, whatever.
3. My other main problem is that this is dark (black) but the night ref is I think only mentioned in Matt’s first speech. It’s a useful script with a good chance: don’t allow it to be overlooked because it only glances at the brief. Audience/reader need reminding of time setting.
4. What exactly is Matt doing? Why has that area been targeted? I get the general thrust, but want it underlined as guns and bombardment could go in different directions without the link at some stage. You have something specific in mind; make it clear to audience in latter stages. If this is based on a news story or information from some organisation, you could submit that attached to a cast list and synopsis.
5. Linked with 5, you know who Eve is – is that a genuine name for this entity? Is this a Welsh thing? If not, I’d go for something like Terra., if that’s appropriate. If yes, maybe you could play on her name: eve of destruction etc and I think certainly on a cast page put down some of the beliefs surrounding the figure. Obviously you could talk in rehearsal and at a talkback about such matters, but the reader doesn’t have that advantage. Why can’t Eve go to surface on her own? Is this part of the belief or a Colleen contrivance?
6. Stage directions bottom of p1 not clear: the problem is the "them". You probably need a line like "He repeats this action, pulling out another bagged gun; then he secures both weapons with a rope".
7. You may want to consider some music with this if you can find: ***** is contact for the day and I’ve suggested music between the pieces to make it more of a presentation. Your themes could suggest something eerily ethereal.
8. P12: is Matt a screamer? I know you would like this moment of humiliation. It might be an idea to make it part of his journey ie at start he slags off a spineless snivelling colleague that he has "eased out of the picture".
9. I wonder if you could get the theme of the play in the first speech in some way, subtle of course: what you’ve got is character, situation and urgency, but – again back to your title – it’s not where the piece is as a whole.
10. Other things on script. Accept or not as you wish.

Hope this is useful.