Interview with Lynne Biles
Lynne Biles is an English and Drama student. This year, she switched from an English with Art History course at a different university to pursue her love of Shakespeare further. Since joining Royal Holloway she has become the President of the Shakespeare Society and when she is not onstage at university she spends her time volunteering at Shakespeare’s Globe.
CARMEN: Could you start by telling us your name and what course you're studying?
LYNNE: Hi, I'm Lynne Biles and I'm doing English and Drama.
CARMEN: What was your essay about and what interested you in the topic?
LYNNE: My essay question was on The Tempest. It was analysing a review of The Tempest and giving my perspective on it, which suits me absolutely perfectly because I adore Shakespeare; it's my main subject of interest.
CARMEN: Out of all of the options given to you, how did you go about selecting this specific question?
LYNNE: Luckily, we weren't given multiple questions which is usually how things run. Instead, for this essay, we had to look at multiple different reviews and choose a review that spoke to us.
CARMEN: A massive part of essay writing is the preparation side of things. So how do you tend to go about planning, researching and drafting your writing?
LYNNE: My biggest tip would be to consume all media you can find on the subject. The first thing I did was watch all of the trailers on the RSC website and make sure that I knew in and out the version of 'The Tempest' we were studying. After that, I looked through the Theatre Record and wrote a fact sheet about every author, about the newspaper that the review was published in, the time frame that it was published in, whether it was early on in the run, late in the run, or whether it was after they'd moved. Then I could quite easily cross reference with other people and other critics that were writing about the same piece. This meant that I had a more informed answer to the actual question and that I knew not only my own opinion, but other opinions. In terms of planning, I always make sure that I've roughly done the math on how long each paragraph should be to fit into whatever count we have. It'll usually be about 250 words per paragraph. I also roughly worked out each argument chronologically through the review and looked at what I should be prioritising in terms of what I felt most strongly with at the start and the end so that it was nicely tied off.
CARMEN: When it came to the research side of this essay, did you feel that there were any particular books or articles that stood out to you and that you found useful?
LYNNE: The Theatre Record was the biggest help. It is just the best when you're trying to find other reviews, because they have all the reviews of the same show in one place. I read through literally all of the reviews and made notes on them so that I was able to get a broad scope of what everyone's reactions to the play were.
CARMEN: As you mentioned previously, with this essay, you had to focus on a specific review that was by Henry Hitchings. However, you were given different reviews to choose from. How did you go about picking the review that you wanted to use?
LYNNE: The reason I chose Henry Hitchings' review initially is because there were enough points in there that challenged my viewpoint. I like to take into account social and political context of when a work was written and how and who published it and acknowledge my own biases and who I am and what I believe. It's quite nice to pick someone who is in opposition to your natural bias because it makes you think a lot harder about why you think the way you do. It also makes you question how you agree with this person and why you agree with them. It gives you lots of openings to talk about really interesting points that you maybe wouldn't have considered if you had just tackled the question as 'a person said this, so I think this'.
CARMEN: When it came to this essay, of course it was important to look at Henry Hitchings' view, but it was also really important to look at your own view and get your voice across. You do that really well with this essay, but it's not necessarily something that is easy to do. Especially when you first come to university, it's difficult to find your voice and find ways to put your voice across in an essay. Do you have any tips on doing this?
LYNNE: My main advice is to make sure your argument is as clear and concise as possible and make sure younever lose sight of the question that you're being asked. It doesn't matter how obscure or interesting you make your line of argument, because at the end of the day, everyone wants to read something that is interesting and brings up new ideas and points of argument, but as long as you have kept in mind what the actual question is asking of you and you keep focused on that, you will always be on track and you won't go off on a massive tangent about something that isn't the most important thing that you could be arguing.
CARMEN: We've spoken quite a lot about the process of writing your essay, the positive side of things, but of course, when writing an essay, it's never easy. There's always going to be challenges. What challenges did you face whilst writing this essay and how did you go about overcoming them?
LYNNE: As Shakespeare is something I very much love, I get into a headspace where I think 'that will be an easy essay because I love what I'm writing about and I love what I'm doing' and then I forget how important time management is and how much time you should really put aside for an essay. At the time I was actually in Macbeth and I got quite sidelined with line learning and being in rehearsal and I left this essay quite last minute and I don't think that was very productive. I still managed to write a substantially good essay, but still, no matter matter how much you love a subject, you need to give it the time that you need to be able to do your best and write an essay that reflects your love for that subject.
CARMEN: As you said, when you wrote this essay you were in Macbeth and from that you learnt that you've got to look at prioritising your work and make sure you're keeping on top of things and keeping organised. From doing this, would you now have any tips for keeping that balance between your studies but also your extra curriculars?
LYNNE: The way that I manage it is I make sure that if I've got a show coming up or I know that there's a week left before a show, that all of the work that will be due that week or the week after is done. A good solid two weeks before a show every piece of work that I've been given, whether or not it's due in two weeks, three weeks or a month, is completely finished so that I can allot myself enough time to learn my lines and make sure I'm comfortable. The other way that I do it is if I've got a deadline quite late after my show, I make sure once the show is finished, it's full steam ahead on the work. I treat them quite separately; deadline here, show here. I work out whether or not for me it works better to have a free week after the show where I just write an essay or I make things easier for myself and get all my work out the way as soon as I get it.
CARMEN: With every single essay, especially in first year, you tend to gain something different from each one, whether that's learning something new or figuring out a style of writing that works best for you. What do you feel like you gained from this specific essay?
LYNNE: I actually did a first year in an academic subject previously in a different university, but something I never quite grasped there was the fact that essays should always be in conversation with the subject and with every other person before you discussing it. I didn’t really appreciate that until I did this essay in particular because of the amount you have to engage with other people and their opinions. It is very much a case of responding and discussing and having a broad idea of the conversations you’re having and who you are and the role that you play within it. You’ve got to identify how and why your views are different. There’s no use in being overly critical in absolutely everything and saying that someone’s opinion is completely wrong and terrible for whatever reason. Instead, there has to be a fairness and you have to see eye to eye. You can disagree as much as you want, but you should acknowledge strengths as well as weaknesses. It is really nice to appeal to the human side of the person behind the computer, behind the pen, behind the typewriter, behind whatever they’re writing on at that time!
CARMEN: You mentioned previously that you do both Drama and English and I think quite a lot of people do this joint honours course because English and Drama tend to overlap quite nicely. It would be interesting to know if you find that there’s a lot of overlaps between the subjects, or do you find that it’s quite different writing essays for the two different departments?
LYNNE: In terms of essay writing, the two subjects are very different; I’ve always found this since A Level. Drama and English writing is so different but the subjects are always so similar. For example, I do Shakespeare in both topics all the time – it is the main topic that I deal with. However, with Drama, it’s a lot more to do with describing what’s going on and talking about how something is done and how it looks and appears and how the process feels to you – it’s very personal. With English, you still have a level of personability, but it’s more a case of thinking why things have been used and why that appeals. They’re both quite sensation based, but English looks at the images it creates and the things that it evokes.
CARMEN: Finally, you’ve mentioned that you did an academic year previous to this, so this isn’t necessarily your ‘first’ first year, but regardless of that, looking back at your first year here, or even looking back at previous experiences, what would your key advice be for student’s starting out writing in the Drama department.
LYNNE: I think something that Drama students often panic about, is trying to make everything overly academic and trying to make it sound academic. I think this can be to a student’s detriment because it’s much more important to make sure everything is as clear as possible and that you can say as much as you can in as little as you can. Be concise and make sure you’re cross referencing absolutely everything. If you’re not cross referencing, you’re not going to be in the lovely conversation with other people and you won’t be able to understand how a work is engaged with in a much broader scope. Make sure you put your money where your mouth is, back everything up! Referencing is key to university. Make sure that if you’re saying something, you do have the power behind you to state something that is fact because you don’t want to get caught out and you want your arguments to be as solid as humanely possible.