Post-dramatic stress
Jan. 2nd, 2010 06:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfinblazeThere's this article in the Sydney Morning Herald today about so called "post-dramatic stress" which actors suffer after they take on a dark role.
To quote:
Examples of actors whose roles seep into their lives abound in film and theatre, including Heath Ledger struggling with mental exhaustion while playing the Joker in The Dark Knight, a sobbing Daniel Day-Lewis quitting a production of Hamlet after seeing the ghost of his own father on stage and Robert Downey jnr admitting that playing a cocaine addict in Less Than Zero contributed to his own addiction.
It reminded me of an interview I read with James O'Barr, creator of The Crow comics, where he talked about writing something that was so dark, with so much hate and anger painted across each page. He said, "I was pretty messed up afterwards". And of course the site where I read it has long vanished, and Google is no help, but the quote stuck with me.
It got me thinking, even back then, about the effects that writing a dark story can have on a writer, and after reading this morning's article I'm thinking about it again.
It's been a long time since I've written anything dark, mostly I stick to adventures, romance, and a touch of humour these days, just fun stuff, but I do remember sitting down to write things that I knew would leave me shaking afterwards, and if I remember right, last time I made sure to write such a scene on a Saturday so that I could have the weekend to ground myself again. And this is why I don't like writing dark stories, because when I write, I try to make myself feel whatever the characters are feeling. I figure, if just a fraction of my feelings makes it only the page with the characters, I can be content. Hence no deep, disturbing, emotional stories from me, because I know they will mess me up. Yeah, I'm a coward.
It's made me wonder about other writers though, and how many of them have the same problems. And can anyone come up with a similarly catchy description, like "post-dramatic stress", except for writers? Because I'm sure there's a similar effect for writers, not just actors.
To quote:
Examples of actors whose roles seep into their lives abound in film and theatre, including Heath Ledger struggling with mental exhaustion while playing the Joker in The Dark Knight, a sobbing Daniel Day-Lewis quitting a production of Hamlet after seeing the ghost of his own father on stage and Robert Downey jnr admitting that playing a cocaine addict in Less Than Zero contributed to his own addiction.
It reminded me of an interview I read with James O'Barr, creator of The Crow comics, where he talked about writing something that was so dark, with so much hate and anger painted across each page. He said, "I was pretty messed up afterwards". And of course the site where I read it has long vanished, and Google is no help, but the quote stuck with me.
It got me thinking, even back then, about the effects that writing a dark story can have on a writer, and after reading this morning's article I'm thinking about it again.
It's been a long time since I've written anything dark, mostly I stick to adventures, romance, and a touch of humour these days, just fun stuff, but I do remember sitting down to write things that I knew would leave me shaking afterwards, and if I remember right, last time I made sure to write such a scene on a Saturday so that I could have the weekend to ground myself again. And this is why I don't like writing dark stories, because when I write, I try to make myself feel whatever the characters are feeling. I figure, if just a fraction of my feelings makes it only the page with the characters, I can be content. Hence no deep, disturbing, emotional stories from me, because I know they will mess me up. Yeah, I'm a coward.
It's made me wonder about other writers though, and how many of them have the same problems. And can anyone come up with a similarly catchy description, like "post-dramatic stress", except for writers? Because I'm sure there's a similar effect for writers, not just actors.
