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Attention all playwrights
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Attention all playwrights
Attention all playwrights!!
I've always been interested in writing plays, and now that I see all the options at local blackbox theatres and online contests, I think I'm ready to give it a shot! The only issue is I know nothing about writing plays.
How do I format it? How do I make it compelling? How do I show character development and other things important to any good story?
Thank you in advance for your advice. Also, if anyone has any interesting prompts you'd be willing to share, I'd love to hear them!
submitted by The Girl Next Door, age 14, Washington
(April 23, 2019 - 5:36 pm)
(April 23, 2019 - 5:36 pm)
My school had a really awesome ten-minute-play-writing unit last year in theater class, and it was super fun! We started with a plot diagram that's a line with a sort of triangle in the middle and then another line, and it represents the exposition (intro), the inciting incident (thing that changes the "normal"), rising action, climax, fallng action, and denouement (which means unraveling and is basically the end where everything settles into a "new normal"). Hope this was helpful! Good luck!
(April 23, 2019 - 8:48 pm)
A big problem of mine is I tend to just write with no general direction in mind, so I think this sort of plot diagram or something similar could be really helpful! Thanks!
(April 26, 2019 - 8:13 pm)
(April 24, 2019 - 9:21 am)
AHA! Alright! I'm so glad you asked. I've been a member of an invitation-only playwright's group with a local theatre for a year now, and one of my plays is actually going to be performed at the theatre in a week! I can help mostly with formatting, but I'll do my best on other things, too. For the purpose of explaining, I'll use my play, Chills.
In my opinion, the first page should be a title page. This is if you're going to be submitting a physical copy to somewhere. It should have the name of your play, your name, and your email/phone, all centered left/right and up/down on your page. So for my play, Chills, I'd write:
Chills
By Starseeker
*insert contact info here*
Make sense? After that, a character list ion the next page s always helpful. Just names (preferrably in some sort of order, like main characters first or alphabetical or in order of appearance) and maybe an age as well. So for my play, I'd say:
GIRL-- 14 years
MAN-- Unknown Age
NURSE-- 30 years
DOCTOR-- 50 years
Those last two parts are something that my theatre requires for physical submissions. You should check with whatever contest or theatre you're trying to submit for their requirements. And of course, it may be different for online submissions as well.
Now, on to the actual play format! This is explained as best I can, with an example at the bottom.
Dialogue: centered on the page, name of the character speaking written above in all caps. If there's a specific way you'd like the character to say a line, put it in parentheses and italics before the dialogue.
Stage Directions: in italics, not centered (left align). See if you can go light on these. A lot of how the set looks and how the characters are interpreted is up to the director, not you (the playwright). I actually went pretty heavy on my stage directions here, which you can see in my example at the bottom. Put character's names in all caps. That's actually a general rule, I think.
Act and Scene notations: I'm actually not super sure about this, but I put mine not centered (left align) in bold and underline. Different people do this differently; just make sure people know when the scene/act changes.
Oh, and make sure to write in present tense! I read an entire play once that was written in past tense and just... don't.
As for making a play interesting... well, I tend to go for shorter plays rather than longer ones. Chills is only one scene. But that doesn't mean that longer plays aren't interesting. Make every character distinct. Have some use slang, some have speech patterns... everyone speaks differently, so study people around you and see what fits your character. Have a clear, concise storyline, set, and character list. As fun as it may be to have a play with 20 characters, 15 sets, and 3 subplots, that's not really something that will transer well to an amateur play. And look, if you want to do that, go right ahead! But I'd recommend not. An audience will enjoy a play that they can follow. Most people can't keep track of even 10 characters and 2 subplots. Also, try not to make your scene changes too frequent. I get that maybe there's a lot going on. But try to have less, longer scenes rather than more, shorter scenes. It'll make your play flow a lot better.
Alright, those are my tips! Take a look at the picture below (a screenshot of my play with examples of everything I've talked about) and let me know if you have any questions. Have fun!
~Starseeker
(April 24, 2019 - 12:58 pm)
Ooh, thanks for your advice, Starseeker! Maybe I'll try writing a play at some point, too.
Your play is really interesting, judging by the first page, and I'd love (theoretically) to actually see it in a theater!
(April 24, 2019 - 10:18 pm)
Wow! This is really amazing advice, Starseeker! Thank you so much!
How did you end up with your play being performed by a theatre? Were they hosting a contest? Regardless, you seem like a very talented and experienced playwright.
(April 26, 2019 - 8:17 pm)
So, about a year ago, my school held a workshop with a local theatre. The theatre invited kids from the creative writing class and Gifted class-- both of which I happened to be in that year-- to come attend, and so I did. At the end of the workshop, people who were interested in joining the theatre's full-time writing group submitted the writing samples that they had created in the workshop. I thought what the heck and submitted my work on a whim. A few weeks later, I learned that I was one of two kids chosen to interview for a spot. One thing led to another, and I ended up as part of this theatre's young writer's writing group! All year long, we bring in plays, poems, and songs that we've written and have them be read aloud during a session. (I can explain more about a session if you're interested.) The only criteria for a piece is that it must be something meant to be performed. Our director also prefers that we stay away from romance, but it's not a rule. But anyways-- at the end of each school year, we all submit a piece (such as my play, Chills) to try to be selected to be performed as part of an end-of-year performance showcasing our work. Again I thought what the heck and submitted the only thing I'd written, Chills. To my surprise, it was actually chosen! That's how I got to have my play performed, but I doubt it'll be the same where you live. If you're public schooled, I'd recommend talking to your English, Gifted, or Creative Writing teacher (even if you're not in their class) to see if they know of any opportunities to get your writing out there. An online search would do the same thing, but there are a lot of writing scams out there! Best of luck :)
~Starseeker
(April 28, 2019 - 11:04 am)
Wow! I'm definitely going to look into this for the future, thanks for telling me about your experiences!
(April 28, 2019 - 12:56 pm)
Someone once suggested to me that I might be a good playwright! I don't know if that's true, but hey. Maybe I'll try.
Some general rules, characters' names are always in all caps, stage directions and discriptions of the set are in italics below the announcement of the new scene/at and above dialouge in I think brackets or parenthises, italicized. I don't know very much about where on the page things are centered, and I'm pretty sure Starseeker covered all of this, but I hope I could've been of some use to you!
(April 25, 2019 - 7:23 am)