What does your character want? What is keeping your character from getting what they want? What stands in their way? Thinking of interesting jobs can be a good way of developing a character. What’s the hardest job you can imagine? What’s a job you’ve always been curious about? What kind of person becomes a podiatrist? How does one end up with such a job? Don’t worry about the name or the physical description of your character. It doesn’t tell you anything about a character named Rafe to know that he is 6'4 and has washboard abs and wears t-shirts some of the time. Stick to one notable and telling physical trait. Maybe your character has a scar on their eyebrow from being bitten by a dog, or maybe your character never wears skirts. This reveals something about them and gives them depth. Know your character and review everything you have written down so far. [2] X Expert Source Melessa SargentProfessional Writer Expert Interview. 14 August 2019.
Be as specific as possible when developing your setting. “The Modern Day” isn’t as interesting as “Dr. Wilson’s Family Podiatry, next to the The West Hillsboro Suburban Mall, just south of town, at 3:15 pm on Good Friday. " The more specific you are, the more you’ll give yourself to work with. Consider what other characters the setting may introduce. Who works the desk at the podiatry office? If it’s a family business, maybe the podiatrist’s daughter. Who has an appointment on a Friday? Who’s waiting? What are they in for? Take into account what would be probable. If you’re making a play based on the future, make sure you prepare ideas for how you would stage this futuristic world. If your play takes place in the forest, be sure you have enough time and budget to make the forest come alive. Be sure to include why the setting is how it is. For example, a tornado passed through the forest and the forest is now a big mess.
Maybe your podiatrist wanted to be a brain surgeon but lacked the stomach for it. Maybe the podiatry program had the least strenuous schedule, and allowed the med-school version of your character to stay up late partying while still passing all their classes. Maybe the podiatrist is deeply unhappy and unfulfilled about having never left Paris.
If it’s Good Friday, maybe the podiatrist’s retire parents (former podiatrists themselves) are coming for an Easter Dinner. Is your podiatrist even religious? Will she go to Church? Does she have to get home and clean up the house before the weekend starts? Is her father going to make her check out his bunions, AGAIN? Will this be the last straw? What will happen?
Alternatively, break from traditional theatre and write a play with impossible-to-stage scenes as a way of exploring the writing itself. If you have no plans to actually stage the play, treat it as a different form of poem. Bertolt Brecht, Samuel Beckett, and Antonin Artaud were all innovators of experimental avant garde plays who incorporated audience participation and other absurdist or surreal elements into their drama.
It’s important to see new plays if you’re going to write new plays. Even if you’ve got a good working knowledge and love of Shakespeare, it’s important to get familiar with what’s going on in the here and now. You don’t live in Shakespeare’s era, so it wouldn’t make sense to write plays as if you did.
In the exploratory draft, don’t worry about formatting the play or writing it “correctly,” just let everything get out that needs to get out. Write until you’ve got a beginning, middle, and end to your play. [7] X Research source Maybe a new character will wander into the story that changes everything. Let it happen.
Your play might end with a simple decision being made, or it might end with a character confronting something they’ve never confronted before. If your play ends with a character killing themselves or someone else, rethink the ending.
Avoid any scenes in which a character is alone. Nothing can happen on stage with a character in the bathroom looking into the mirror. Avoid too much preamble. If the podiatrist’s parents are going to arrive, don’t delay for twenty pages. Make it happen as soon as possible to give yourself more to work with. Make it easy on yourself.
When the podiatrist’s daughter asks “What’s wrong?” the way the podiatrist answers will tell the audience how to interpret the conflict? Maybe she faux-dramatically rolls her eyes and sobs “Everything!” and throws a stack of papers in the air to make her daughter laugh. But we really know there’s something wrong she’s making light of. We’ll look at her character differently than we would if she said, “Nothing. Get back to work. “[9] X Research source Don’t let your characters shout their inner turmoil. A character should never shout, “I’m a shell of a man since my wife left me!” or anything that explicitly reveals their internal conflicts. Make them hold onto their secrets. You want their actions to speak for themselves, and not to force them into explaining themselves to the audience.
Go back through your drafts with a pencil and mark any moments with a circle that pause the drama, and underline moments that move the drama forward. Cut out everything that’s circled. If you end up cutting out 90% of what you’ve written, so be it. Fill it back in with things that move the story forward.
Save each version of the draft so you can feel free to take risks and always go back to the old version if you want to. Word processor files are small. It’s worth it.
An act is hard to distinguish. The podiatrist story, for instance, might end its first act with the arrival of the parents and the introduction of the main conflict. The second act might involve the development of that conflict, including scenes in which the parents argue with the podiatrist daughter, Easter dinner is cooked and Church is attended. In Act three, the daughter might reconcile with the father, giving his troubled foot a once-over. The end. The more experienced you become at writing plays, you’ll be able to think in terms of acts and scenes as you write your initial draft. Don’t worry about it in the early-going, though. The formatting is much less important than getting the drama right.
Also include character directions throughout the dialog. The actors will take their own liberties with the dialog and move about as they and the director sees fit, but it helps to have any particularly important (as you see it) physical motions included throughout the dialog. A kiss, for instance, is probably important to direct, but don’t overdo it. You don’t need to describe every minute physical movement of a character, because the actors will ignore such directions anyway.
