> This might be part of the problem. The best writing comes when the author pours himself into it. It's like acting with words. Have you ever watched a method actor work? So some scene involves a character undergoing an emotional breakdown of some kind: in acting such a scene, many actors will recall past traumatic experiences in their lives and relive them. It's a myth that acting is all false. Some of it is, but a lot of the best acting is absolutely genuine, just channeled in a usable way.

I don't "get" method acting. I've been a professional actor (didn't much care for it), and I've been officially "taught" how to act, and I never did manage to understand method acting. I'm a character actor through-and-through, and let me just tell you, acting school doesn't like that. They want everyone to be a method actor. :-}

I think my problem with it is that I'm too laid-back and detached. I can act like I'm all upset and despondent, but I can't really feel it. A really good method actor get get so worked up about it that his acting goes totally out the window and he's just *being* the character - that's the flexibility of a method actor. Of course, the flexibility of a character actor is that we can be in character at the drop of a hat - or in a different character, for that matter. And we can play any part pretty completely. We just can't *feel* the part the way a method actor can.