GAP Atelier #1 Post 4

We are now only three sessions away from our private show-and-tell. Much has been learned from the writing retreat weekend and the resulting decision on the first piece we shall work on.

Writer’s Retreat

The core group was joined by fiction writer Pat Olney and actor and writer Genevieve Adam. Warren Chow joined us also online from Vancouver, and the tripod with the notepad joined us wherever we went.

I had already spoken with Pat and given him a tutorial on the GAP technique. One thing that became clear was that as a fiction writer he had a deep understanding of his characters - their traits and motivations. This made establishing their GAP relationships easy - but also led to revelations about their core motivations. Although these are already present in his fiction, the technique allowed these to be made explicit in a way that surprised both of us.

We tried various approaches to writing. First was to write a script defined by a “moment” when there was a change in relationship. We then used the technique in full on a couple of these scenes. The scenes were more complex and we got bogged down in the weeds a bit. So the next round, we wrote from the perspective of a pre-defined use of the GAP technique. This also did not work very well. What did work was using the technique in a staged approach - from least complex to most complex with a sense of play.

Did it help us write? I don’t think so, and I think I know why. The GAP technique is a psychophysical technique, and like Laban the proof is in the practice. I know from personal experience, and note even in this present moment, I am not physically embodying my relationship to you. If I am writing for a character, I don’t improve the scene with other actors and then put down what I have discovered…

And that, if anything was the real takeaway. The technique can be used to write but lends itself more to devising than mental image to words on a page. It is therefore on my list of experiments and may well be a part of our show-and-tell on Aprli 10th (Click here to register interest to be part of the invited audie nce)