Why Writers Should Take ACTING Classes

By Jacob Krueger

It’s no wonder that some of the greatest writers began their careers as actors.

The art of writing and acting have always been profoundly intertwined. Great writers tend to have an instinctual understanding of the actor’s craft: the ability to create a character, to play with and against text, and to shape a journey over the course of a play or movie.

Similarly, great actors need an instinctive understanding of a writer’s craft: the ability to cultivate a compelling arc for a character, by exploring the dramatic structure and the conscious and unconscious desires that lie underneath the text.

Dramatic writing could not exist without acting. And acting could not exist without dramatic writing.

Yet strangely, these interrelated fields are often taught as if they were separate disciplines, with actors receiving little training in writing, and writers receiving even less training in acting.

Experience your characters from the other side of the page.

As any of you who have taken my classes know, for precisely this reason I’ve always integrated acting concepts into my writing classes.  By learning to see your characters through an actor’s eyes, you develop an intuitive understanding of structure, character, dialogue, action and the kinds of specific choices that make your writing jump off the page.