Has anyone ever experienced or acted out scenes while they write them? For example, rapidly breathing during suspence/tension beats, getting angry when a character you are is experiencing rage, etc. I feel like I can actually get myself into my characters perspective in a way I don't think I could if I didn't act them out, which helps me make my scripts feel more alive. Just some food for thought. As always, I appreciate your feedback!
Screenwriting : Acting While Writing by David Bentley
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When I write, the world inside me becomes cinema. I see the colors, the lights, I hear the silence, I even smell the rain. I slip into my characters until I cry or laugh with them. It feels as if invisible cameras flow from my eyes, filming from above, below, behind walls, even beyond physics. The same happens with music, it shapes itself in my mind like a hidden film. This has been with me since childhood, a secret language between imagination and reality.
One of my earliest memories is sitting with my mother on a bench, under a shelter at school, listening to the rain and the gutter, smelling the wet concrete. We didn’t speak, we just watched the rain. Even as a child, I saw it as a film, with invisible cameras moving around us. Since then, this secret language between imagination and reality has never left me.
I have a post dedicated to it on my profile.
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I noticed I feel sympathy or empathy for the characters I write. Not acting them out, but a true feeling of anxiousness. While I don't share their feelings, I feel them regardless.
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I act out scenes when I outline and write a script, David Bentley. I also picture myself in scenes, observing characters and things.
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Yes it really happens to me
Very dialogue l write, l see my characters already acting without even knowing and finding them
It helps me to enjoy my scripts as l write
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Yes, David B. For example, one character in one of my screenplays is a teenage woman who is an aspiring concert pianist. i’m a 70 year-old man who has never been a professional musician and knows nothing about piano, yet find myself, fingers pouncing the air while I listen to Rachmaninoff or Tchaikovsky, imagining her going through hours and hours of practice to accomplish her goal!
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for me, I must become my characters, in order for them to be real. Each character has its own style and different dialect. For my male characters, I always lean on my son who is an actor to give me the perspective of a male and how they would act in certain situations. By doing this, I believe it makes the dialogue way better and it feels like real people.
At times I have become so immersed in my characters and the world, That I have laughed, cried, and even find myself saying such things as, “ why are you doing this”? etc.
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David Bentley Ohhh, I didn’t actually act it out, but when I was writing, I could see them.
I saw them at night, in the dark, standing by the window, looking at each other. And when their hearts broke, I could feel the pain too. When one of them found only an empty space in the bed, or when they had a huge fight – it was all right there in front of me.