Discover how Eimear McBride’s method acting training transformed her writing – and how you can use her techniques to create more authentic stories.
Writer Eimear McBride, acclaimed author of “A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing,” attributes much of her distinctive writing style to her background in method acting. At 17, she left Ireland to study at the Drama Centre London, an institution renowned for its rigorous training methods. Reflecting on her time there, McBride notes, “Three years’ training in [Stanislavski’s] acting method at the then notorious and now defunct Drama Centre London, where I’d been taught…”
This intensive training immersed her in techniques that demanded a deep emotional and psychological connection to characters. McBride’s experience at the Drama Centre profoundly influenced her narrative approach, leading her to explore the intricate interplay between thought, emotion, and language in her writing.
Over the years, she has spoken to a number of media outlets, including most recently The Guardian, about her experiences and what she learnt.
Incorporating method acting principles into her literary work, McBride offers valuable insights for writers seeking to deepen their craft. Here are five key lessons we’ve drawn from a number of her interviews:
1. Avoid judging your characters
McBride emphasizes the importance of allowing characters to pursue their own ends without authorial interference. She warns that directing attention to their flaws can reduce them to mere puppets, serving only as mouthpieces for the author’s ideology. Instead, she advocates for understanding characters as they see themselves, creating authenticity in storytelling.
Lesson for Writers: Resist the urge to impose your judgments on your characters. Allow them to exist independently, with their own motivations and perspectives, to create more nuanced and believable narratives.
2. Embody your characters
Method acting emphasizes fully inhabiting a character’s physical and emotional world. McBride applied this by delving deep into her characters’ internal experiences, allowing her to write from their perspectives authentically. She describes her writing as “trying to draw in all these disparate experiences: so what is being said, and also how a person is reacting and feeling, what they’re feeling about the feeling, what they’re thinking”.
Lesson for Writers: Strive to fully immerse yourself in your characters’ lives. Understand their thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations to portray them authentically.
3. Embrace emotional truth
Method actors access genuine emotions to bring authenticity to their performances. McBride channels this by exploring her characters’ deepest feelings, even when they’re uncomfortable. She believes that “if you are not uncomfortable as a writer, then you are not doing your job. Your job is to look at what is difficult and to try and understand it in some small way.”
Lesson for Writers: Don’t shy away from difficult emotions. Confronting and understanding them can lead to more compelling and truthful storytelling.
4. Focus on sensory details
Method acting involves paying close attention to sensory experiences to ground performances in reality. McBride incorporates this by vividly describing her characters’ physical sensations and environments, enhancing the immersive quality of her narratives. She aims to “make the language express them simultaneously.”
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Lesson for Writers: Use sensory details to create a vivid world for your readers. This can make your writing more immersive and engaging.
5. Break conventional structures
McBride’s method acting background encouraged her to experiment with narrative forms, leading her to develop a unique, fragmented prose style that mirrors the immediacy of thought and emotion. She describes her approach as “trying to do method writing rather than method acting.”
Lesson for Writers: Don’t be afraid to experiment with structure and form. Breaking away from traditional narratives can lead to innovative storytelling.
By embracing these lessons from method acting, writers can deepen their connection to their characters and stories, leading to more authentic and impactful narratives.
Eimar McBride’s new novel The City Changes Its Face is out now.