Playwrighting Tips

assembled by Leo Heska (amateur playwright)
version: May 12, 2006

Of course you can only learn to write plays by writing them, reading them, getting them read, getting them performed (if you happen to be so fortunate!), learning what worked and what didn't, and repeating the process. But if you have written other things, like stories or poetry, and want to try your hand at a play, there are special "tips" to keep in mind, that you may not have already learned by writing stories, novels, poetry, or sales brochures. Here are some of the tips I've found useful and interesting - maybe you will, too.

Good luck and good writing!

First Principle (of all writing): Write To Your Audience

This famous "first principle" applies to all writing, whether technical, literary, or journalistic. Think about who will be reading (or hearing) your work. Make sure you don't "lose them" because of wording and style issues.

Use language and vocabulary that's appropriate to their age and education
Don't talk down to them; don't talk "over their heads", either.
Try to include things they'll like and exclude things they'll hate, be bored by, or won't understand.

Second Principle (important to playwrights): Write To Your Cast

There are more people involved in your play than just you and the audience. The cast matters, too. Keep them in mind. If you don't, they may not perform your play. Or, they may perform it badly.

Think about the role from the actor's point of view.

Make sure you don't put them in a calm, peaceful love scene immediately after a vigorous fight scene; they'll be out of breath and unable to perform.
Say your lines aloud. Have someone else read them aloud, if you can get them to do it. Try to spot clumsy wording, lines that don't "trip off the tongue", things that sound odd or funny when spoken aloud. You want to make it possible for the actor to do well.

You may write characters who don't speak, or who have very few lines. But consider giving them more lines than you may think your story needs. This benefits the actors (actors like to speak), but it can help your play, too. Non-speaking actors are usually required to stand as still as posts so as not to distract from the main action and dialogue. That can work for a while, but too many non-speaking actors standing, sitting, fidgeting, adjusting their posture, or lounging around for too long, can be a distraction to the audience.
If you're involved in the production, consider working with the director; allowing actors to toss in an unexpected "one-off" line, or allowing a character to improvise a bit. You're not trying to turn your play into an improvisational workshop. But actors can sometimes come up with good ideas, lines, and bits. You may want to incorporate one. It could break up monotony, add laughs, improve your play.

What to write about, what to put in, what to leave out

You can write on any subject.

Your play can be set in the past, present or future, though don't forget that period costumes can be expensive and/or hard to get.

Try not to cram too much in. Too many events can confuse your audience. Too many ideas can overwhelm (or bore!) them.

Structure: How to put it together and break it up.

You usually write a stage play with relatively long, solid scenes, but you may also write them to be swift and fragmentary. Just be careful not to destroy the overall illusion that the audience is there to experience.

It is useful to think of a scene as a sequence. One sequence, or scene, might consist of one line of dialogue. Or it might just consist of a crucial sound effect.

Vary the pace, length, and setting of scenes. A play which has five twelve-minute scenes, each set in a living room, is likely to be less effective than a play which varies its scenes and settings. If you have no sets, vary the "location" by varying the sound, light, emotional tone, volume of the actors' voices, or who is on stage.

Getting started - Opinion 1: Draw in the audience immediately

What you're aiming to do at the beginning of a play is hit the ground running. You don't want to spend time introducing, laying the ground work and saying this and that. You just want to get in there and grab the audience so that the drama is moving from the very second the play begins. Set up a number of sub-texts as well as the text. Put in place several running ideas or themes that will emerge later in the play.

- Mike Walker

One of the golden rules of playwriting is that you must always start the story as late as possible because that's where the conflict is. Begin with a crisis.

- Marcy Kahan

Getting started - Opinion 2: Ease them into it

The other point of view is to include just the sort of set-up and introductory lines that the above quotes recommend against. If you put in too much of this "setup stuff" your audience will get bored, feel like you're lecturing or preaching to them, fall asleep, or get up and leave. But delaying the "big bang" advocated above, and adding some setup stuff can

Keep latecomers from missing the big bang.
Keep latecomers from distracting other audience members from the big bang.
let the audience have time to get settled in their seats.
Give the audience time to forget the argument they had on the way to the theatre, that mean thing their sister said, and other distractions.
Ease them in to the alternate reality that is a play.

Characters: Whom to invite to the party, and what to make them do

Get to know your characters really well. Each will have their own individual speech mannerisms. Don't have them all speaking in your tone of voice.

Establish your characters clearly because you could say that most drama is about characters in conflict, either with each other or with life. If there's no conflict, there's no movement (in the dramatic sense).

Play with the audience's expectations. If they think they're going to encounter the hero here and the villain there, swap them. Surprise the audience, but without annoying or outraging them; you don't want to lose them.

Information for Actors

Maybe you have an idea in your mind's eye about where actors should be and where they should move, and when. Of course you remembered to to write all that out, in the form of stage directions, right? Check again. There's a very good chance you left a lot of this out. Go back and put 'em in.

Also put in to your script adjectives describing the way in which you want the line to be said, e.g. "angrily" or "mad", "trying to be brave", "cheerily".

Do put this stuff in, it can really help actors figure out what to do. But do not be surprised if your directions don't get followed. The director and the actors are creative; they may tinker with your precious work. There's nothing you can do about it. If the play works, you all get the credit. If it doesn't, you can blame them for not doing it the way you wrote it.

Dialogue: What to say, what not to say

Good dialogue is not simply a matter of stringing together different conversations. Every bit of speech must help the plot move in some direction, increasingly involving the listener as it does. If you have a problem with a scene, ask yourself - "What is happening at this point?" If nothing is happening, that may be the problem. Try fixing it.

In addition to speech and movement, think about sound effects, music, and something you may not have thought about (but very powerful) - silence. Silence can convey a variety of things: suspense, anxiety, tranquility. Pauses also help the audience take in what they have heard, and help prepare for what happens next.

Be careful when relating things that happen offstage or that happened "in the past" (from the character's point of view). Though the audience can't see the characters they don't want to be told what they are doing in clunky dialogue. Storytelling is a real art and not all actors can pull it off. Also, the rules for writing a monologue are special and different; writing one can be a big challenge. Consider keeping monologues, descriptions, and anything that can't be "shown" as well as "told" to a minimum.

"Your dialogue shouldn't be - what's called - too much on the nose. Your characters shouldn't be saying exactly what they're thinking or you give the actors nothing to play."
- Marcy Kahan

"Try to remember that as far as possible, characters shouldn't actually answer each other's lines, they should jump off from each other's lines onto something else, or turn corners or surprise people. This will also create movement."
- Mike Walker

Thinking in sound

Did you know that when the ancient Greeks went to a play, they didn't say they were going to "see a play"? The ancient Greeks said "I'm going to hear a play". Even though we say it the other way, the sound we experience during a play is at least as important as all the rest (makeup, lights, sets, action) put together. Think seriously about the sound of your play. It forms the emotional landscape, it keeps your audience awake, it's the sea that floats all the other bits of the play. If you get the sound right, your play can be great, wonderful, fun, or at least enjoyable. Get it wrong and the whole play will feel wrong.

Use a variety of sounds to hold the audience's attention and engage their interest. You can do this by altering the length of sequences, the number of people speaking, the pace of the dialogue and location of action.

The contrast between a noisy sequence with a number of voices and effects, and a quiet passage of interior monologue (the actor thinking aloud to himself or herself) is very effective. You can also create a good contrast by alternating between an indoor setting and an outside setting.

Music is important, but you are likely to face an important limit here. Few theatres have good sound systems. People are used to good-quality music, and if you play a beautiful classical piece, or a famous rock-and-roll song, over tinny loudspeakers, you will not get the effect you had in mind. Imagine a scene with a character dancing around the living room, rocking out to a rock and roll song with a really strong beat. This scene is not likely to work in most theatres. If the quality of the sound is bad, the scene will seem ridiculous. It will also seem ridiculous if the sound is quieter than "very loud". No one would really dance around in the living room unless the rock song was both loud and "decently rendered".

If you are involved in the production and can arrange for live musicians, that is a tremendous plus. The authenticity they add to the performance really improves it. Unfortunately, if you count on having live musicians, and you play is performed without them, your play can suffer from their lack.

"I began my play about the future with an old song because the play turns out to be an elegy for all the cultural things we've lost by 2099."
- Marcy Kahan

"Music can give an atmosphere to a piece of work. Writers should ask themselves - how are people going to feel after this play stops? What are they going to take away with them?"
- Mike Walker

Use sound effects sparingly and effectively. They can be used functionally (car door slams offstage, car roars away) or to create a mood, (wolves howling, birds chirping, stream babbling). If used to excess, sound effects become tedious and pointless.

The most important part of the sound of your play will be created (of course) by the actors. There is not much you can do to cause them to produce good sound - this is the major craft of an actor. You can help somewhat by giving them tips of how you want them to come across (see above).

But most importantly of all, "think in sound". Always keep the sound of your play in the forefront of your mind; try to "hear the lines in your head" as you're writing or reviewing your work. Check yourself by reading your play aloud. Get friends or helpers to read your play in an informal "readers theatre" reading.

The Look - Lights, Sets, Costumes, Makeup

First, remember that a play is not a movie. In a movie, the looks need to be very, very good. Whole crews of people work to ensure that there's no microphone boom or mop handle in the picture, levels of liquids in glasses are just right, scenes are perfectly lit with no unwanted shadows and plenty of highlights.

Plays are far more forgiving. We routinely accept the fact that audience members seated front and side can see behind the curtains and flats. People seated in the front rows can see the theater lights, and notice that the props aren't real. Costumes are often approximations: some things are just too difficult or expensive to reproduce exactly. Examples include military uniforms (especially historical ones) and wedding dresses. Your bride's wedding dress is very likely to be whatever fits the actress that's hanging in the back room or the nearest costume shop. Don't bother specifying it in detail.

Of course you would like your play to look nice. But, when was the last time you saw a script that included detailed sketches of set designs, or drawings of faces showing how they should be made up? Probably never. Even scripts for movies don't include this level of detail. Like it or not, getting the visual aspects of your play "just right" is not up to you. Set designers, directors, stage crew, accountants, and others will determine the final look of your play.

That doesn't mean you have no say at all. Do mention things like "comes onstage with mussed hair and smeared makeup, looking distraught". Describe the sets for each scene in a few sentences (any more will probably be ignored). Describe what the characters are wearing, in a sentence or two per character or group ("Sam is in his dress uniform", "Andrea enters wearing coveralls", "crowd is dressed mostly in dirty, torn rags"). Those others who will determine how your play looks to the audience? Help them out. Give them hints, instructions, guidelines. Then hope for the best.

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