Audition by Michael Shurtleff - Discoveries

The following is the sixth in a series of twelve articles based upon the twelve guideposts listed in Audition: Everything an Actor Needs to Know to Get the Part by Michael Shurtleff. The author was the casting director for many of David Merrick's Broadway productions. He also worked with Bob Fosse and Andrew Lloyd Webber. His book is known as the actor’s bible. If you take a college acting class, it will likely be required reading. While Shurtleff’s book is aimed at actors, his principles are beneficial to both writers and directors as well. This series is geared toward writers.

Discoveries

To keep engaging readers in a story, authors must fill each scene with discoveries, things that happen for the first time. Discoveries may revolve around the protagonist, another character in the scene, or someone who is offstage.

Don’t let your discoveries be limited by time. They may be about the situation now or the situation as it existed ten years ago and how they affect the now. The more discoveries authors create in a scene, the more interesting the scene will be. Take nothing for granted. Readers are sucked into stories by emotions, so make an emotional discovery as often as you can find one in each scene. To build upon this emotion, let one character supply the opposite to this emotion, even if he or she is not seen in the scene (subtext).