Tried and tested tips-if only I could follow my own advice :)

Play writing tips

© David O'Sullivan, 2000

"The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life—and one is as good as the other."
-Ernest Hemingway.

Everyone else has a list they expound and ignore. Here's mine (or what works for me):

1. Before you write one line of dialog:
   • Read and re-read Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare.
   • Know who your main characters are, where they came from, what they want, where they are going.
   • Know why you are writing the play. Plays happen in the present so ask yourself why now? What's so special about today (in the play) that shouts out for it to be written down?
   • Make sure you have a story, something to tell, something the audience can get a grip on. Avoid having a bunch of characters on stage speaking at the audience about some shared problem. Without a story, the audience will prefer not to share in the problem.
   • My favorite: imagine that the action is happening as you eavesdrop. Imagine you are a mere recorder of events and speech. These events are happening whether you like them or not and you're just writing it all down. Write down what you hear and see, not what you want to hear and see!
2. Get acting experience. At least volunteer to help backstage and watch how it works.
3. Attend as many plays (good and bad) as possible to study different structures and techniques. Read plays. Read plays slowly. How could you do better?
4. Outline your scenes but don't be afraid to go with a character who takes you off the outline. Rewrite the outline, if necessary.
5. Spend 80% of your time thinking and "what if-ing" the story in your head and 20% writing dialog. You can fine-tune the dialog in the second and third re-writes. You can't fine tune a play that falls through a hole in the ground because of a serious flaw in the structure.
6. Remember it's your play and, unless you're working in Hollywood, you don't have to please anyone.
7. If your play has been through umpteen readings but you can't get a producer interested, maybe it's based on an uninteresting story. This may be tough to swallow but it may be the only way to get your creative energy working again on a new (and better) play (and better story). The more you flog a stubborn donkey the less likely is it to get up and walk. On the other hand, you will know it when you have a good play. Stick with it, ask for specific reasons why it was rejected, tweak it. If it still doesn't sell maybe the world isn't ready for it. Console yourself that your grandchildren may be able to live off its royalties.
8. You don't have to educate anyone. What you have to do is open unanswered questions in the minds of the audience. You can choose to answer the questions or not.
9. Remember that conflict does not have to be shouting and screaming. It doesn't have to be killing or violence of any kind. Quiet conflict is extremely effective. Look at the plays of Horton Foote.
10. Try to write the first draft without going over what you have written. If you keep going over everything, you'll get a great first act and nothing else. I have a drawer full of perfect first acts. If you think of something pertaining to earlier action, make a note in your "rewrite notebook" and keep plodding on with the first draft. Having a completed draft is a major morale boost. You can even put it on the shelf and do something else, confident that it will be there when you come back.
11. If you have a badly formed character in a good story or a great character in a lousy story, instigate divorce proceedings. Build a good story around the great character, or drop the good character into an interesting situation.
12. Characters, like people, spend much time thinking about what they want. What they say is not necessarily what they want.
13. Get into the story within the first ten minutes of playing time, preferably a lot sooner. You'll know you are in the story when the initial balance between the main character(s) and/or the situation has been upset.
14. Learn how to write a good scene. Practice. When it's perfect, rewrite it to 80% it's original length. There are plenty of books on the market that explain scenes and how to write them.
15. (Revised 11/2004) Character action is the internal motivation that causes the character to do or say something. Character action is based on the character's desire in the moment (immediate desire). It is what the actor is looking for so make sure it is there. A character's desire is based on many factors and changes during the course of the plot. It is based primarily on their goal (see Cermele's Criteria) and secondarily on immediately preceding events. Stage characters act for a reason (they are reasonable people). Only in real life do we seem to act without reason.
16. If one of your characters suddenly changes his/her emotional level, give the actor enough time to make the change. Give the actor the opportunity to create a gesture or movement to help him/her make the change. If you don't provide the cue, the actor will. However, beware of inserting too many stage directions or character directions. They get ignored anyway. Make the transition a phrase of dialog and/or a pause and/or interaction with an object. In the last analysis, the actor and director will figure out how to handle the transition, what you are doing is suggesting possibilities to them. Remember, actors and directors are human, they dislike being dictated to; they want to exercise some creativity. Same goes for set, costume, light, and sound directors.
17. When an actor asks me why a character says or does something, more often than not, I have to say "I don't know, figure it out for yourself." The playwright is none of the characters. The characters are themselves and behave according to their own rules and motives (which may vary over the course of a run).
18. While rewriting ask yourself:
    • is my dramatic question established by page 10? (Draw a heavy line across the bottom of page 10 to remind you of this essential requirement.)
    • does each beat contain conflict between two characters, or between a character and her environment, or between a character and herself, or between groups of characters?
    • am I thinking like a director? (How does a director think? Go ask.)
19. Ultimately actors will deliver your material to the world. Create roles with range, power, wisdom, lightness, depth, whimsy, and all the other things actors are in the business for, and they will do the rest. Remember that roles that allow actors to show how good they are (to the next producer), are roles they will play well.
20. In dialog:
    • use the least number of words (this could be a problem if you're Irish or if your day job is in marketing). Actors have limited lung capacity and audience members have limited comprehension capacity. Quick exercise: delete every second word in a line. Is the meaning changed? If no, you have too many words in the line.
    • use words that invoke the senses, especially the little used senses of smell, touch, sound
    • use words with the fewest number of syllables (do not use utilize, use use)
    • repeat important lines (in case someone in the audience coughs) or actions. Don't overdo this. If you are trying to tell us that Fred loves Pam, one simple action will make it clear. They don't need to have sex at the end of every scene to remind us of how they feel for one another.
    • don't have characters repeat the last words of the previous line. After five minutes of this, the audience is looking for an imaginary echo in the hall:
      "The train is late."
      "Late! I think not. Perhaps we are at the wrong station."
      "Wrong station! Never. It's past 6:15."
      "6:15. That late? Time for dinner."
      "Dinner! Haven't had lunch yet."
    • don't explain the obvious. The audience is smarter than you might think-at least the one still going to live theater is.
    • write action into the lines. This ensures that the actors (and director) are more likely to make the decisions you want them to make.
    • don't repeat "good" lines. Some actors do this to milk another laugh. No point in the playwright doing it too. Any actor who milks an audience for another laugh with the same line (it happens!) should be taken outside and disposed of. Same goes for the actor who ad-libs with relish when the lines escape him/her. The occasional ad-lib is expected, but not a whole scene of experimental improv.
    • watch out for tongue twisters, especially ones containing 's'. Actors hate those and will stop mouthing them at the first opportunity. s-lines are not only awkward, they make some actor's spit and spittle flying through the beam of a spotlight is a scene stealer. I inserted and s-line in Willy Loman is Dead and Gone. because I needed a specific response from another character. It goes: "....and take offense whenever they want, 'specially the ones with sensitivity sensors stuck on their skulls?"
      However (there's always a however) if avoiding "s" or any other tongue twisters severely restricts your creativity, go with your creativity and give the problem (challenge) to the actor.
    • (revised 11/2004) don't allow characters to draw unsubstantiated conclusions (at least not too many). Let the character's action show us not tell us:

      Tell	Show
      "I love her."	him saying or not saying something to her (or doing or not doing something for/to her).
      "Bill is a fool."	Bill doing something foolish.
      "I'm a failure."	talker making repeated mistakes.

    • beware of monologues (or very long lines in dialog). They are great for developing character (talker and talked about) but can kill forward movement and may bore the audience (most of whom were reared on visual pandemonium on TV and don't follow "talk" very easily). You might also be leaving one or more actors on stage with nothing to do while another character spouts. Since most actors have difficulty doing nothing (try it!), they will start making all kinds of bad choices while waiting for the spouter to stop.

    Last but most important:

    1. Rules are for breaking. Just stay out of jail.
    2. Stop thinking about tips and rules and go write the play.