Writing Your First Play
From brainstorming, to plot, to dramatic techniques, to formatted script
David K. Farkas, Professor Emeritus, University of Washington
© Copyright David K. Farkas 2025. All rights reserved. (FarkasWords, LLC)
Written for publication on Medium.com
Version 03–015–2025
This ideas in this essay are drawn from my Kindle-published book, Writing the 10-Minute Play.
Introduction
Life as a creative person is very satisfying. When one of your aspirations is to create art — be it painting, writing, or something else — you live your life with a higher state of awareness. Plus, you have something of interest and value to share with others. If your creative interest is literary, writing plays is a very good option. Because they are meant for performance, plays are inherently social. Plus, with playwriting you can reach a high level of quality more quickly than with other kinds of literary writing.
When you write a short story or a novel, you immediately face the tricky problem of narration. You may choose an omniscient narrator, a first-person narrator, an unreliable narrator, etc. Many stories call for you to switch from one kind of narrator to another. With plays, this complexity disappears. You think of a plot, and you let your characters speak. If your plot is based on people and situations with which you’re familiar (which is a good way to start), you know how your characters behave and how they talk. Also, there is almost no descriptive writing in theater, no detailed descriptions of mountains or sunsets. You write stage directions, but stage directions are brief and straightforward and aren’t seen by the audience.
It’s best to start with a 10-minute play, which is why this is my focus here. Because of their brevity, 10-minute plays employ relatively simple plots, with little or nothing in the way of subplots, and very likely only two, three, or four characters. Often, your plays will consist of only a single scene. The script of a 10-minute play is only about ten pages, so If someone suggests that you revise the middle or the ending of your play, you will only be re-writing two or three pages. Furthermore, you can always expand your 10-minute play into a 30-minute or full-length play (typically about 80 to 90 minutes running time).
Getting your play performed is a high hurdle but not nearly as high as getting your novel published. Some theater companies, both mainstage and community theaters, will consider submissions of full-length plays from unknown playwrights. But a great many community theaters stage 10-minute play “festivals” and have an open, anonymous submission process, although there may be a $10 or $15 submission fee.
When you write a poem, short story, or novel, you can invite your friends to read it. But plays are so much more social: You can invite a few friends to join you for a sit-down reading in your living room. Or, as I suggest at the conclusion of this essay, you can go a step further and invite folks to stage a full-action performance for 20, 30, or 40 people in the community room of a local library, a church basement, or similar venue. You can also entertain folks at a senior residence. Most likely your actors will perform script-in-hand rather than memorize their lines. Sets and costuming will probably be minimal, but the costuming and set-buildings are themselves creative activities along with the writing, acting, and directing. We now turn to the jumping off pointing for playwriting: brainstorming a plot idea.
Brainstorming
Once you commit yourself to playwriting, plot ideas may start popping into your head. Everything you see around you, all your memories, and even your dreams are possible plots. If someone tells me an interesting story, a part of my brain considers it as a plot idea. A key point is not to be constrained by the actual facts of a story or event. Unless you are going to present your play as a documentary, allow yourself to depart from fact. Exaggerate. Make things up. Raise the stakes. If Kim got fired, in your play she can be jailed.
But perhaps ideas do not just pop into your head. Fortunately, there are some productive brainstorming techniques, which I describe below. Note that “brainstorming” generally refers to the moment when you get the initial idea for your plot. These techniques, however, also help us with the brainstorming we do after we have the initial plot idea. They help us turn the plot idea into a complete, ready-to-start-writing plot.
Brainstorming prompts
A brainstorming prompt is a word, phrase, or image that a playwright — or any other kind of literary writer — uses to spark their imagination. I heard the playwright Debra Ann Byrd say that anyone can think of a plot when given the prompt, “The day that your dad . . .” There are many lists of brainstorming prompts (some with further elaboration). Search the web using phrases such as “brainstorming prompts,” “creative prompts,” and “prompts for writers.” Ann Kroeker’s clever little book, 52 Creative Writing Prompts (Amazon/Kindle), provides annotated prompts and puts the writer on a schedule of weekly deadlines. As an example, one of Ann Kroeker’s prompts is to think about bad advice you were given and acted upon.
You can also think up your own prompts, as I have done here:
- One person’s ceiling is another person’s floor.
- I learned a lesson, but the cost was high.
- The course of true love never did run smooth.
- Sunset
- Life can be good if only you keep your expectations under control.
- No good deed goes unpunished.
- Wherever you go. There you are.
- The buzz of a drone overhead.
- Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.
- If the fool would only persist in their folly, they would become wise.
- I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.
- The sad café
Master plots
From a highly generalized point of view, it can be said that human beings tell a limited number of stories over and over again. For example, across many cultures and time periods, there are a vast number of stories built around revenge, escape, temptation, and more. We can call such stories master plots. Perusing a list of master plots is a useful brainstorming technique. Furthermore, master plot proponents often provide guidance on using each master plot. For example, you may be told that if you are writing a revenge story, make sure the bad guy has done something sufficiently bad that the audience morally supports the protagonist as the protagonist seeks and exacts their revenge.
In 1895 Georges Polti published The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations (English language edition, 1931). Polti divides each of his 36 master plots into subgroups, provides brief guidance for using them all in storytelling, and cites examples (1200 of them!). For example, one subgroup of Polti’s revenge master plot is “Vengeance for a Mistress Slain.”
The best-known modern master plot book is Ronald B. Tobias’ 20 Master Plots and How to Build Them (1993). Tobias’ list of master plots is anything but systematic, and his choice of master plots and, especially, his guidance tilt heavily toward Hollywood action movies. The book, however, has proven useful to many writers. One strength of Tobias’ book is that he distinguishes between action-oriented and mentally oriented instances of each master plot. An escape plot, therefore, does not need to be a literal escape (action-oriented) but can be an emotional escape from a bad family situation.
Here, in no special order, is my own list of master plots:
One way to employ a list of master plots is to try to match a particular master plot with your own life experiences. I am an easy-going person, but I can easily recall some plot-worthy revenge events in my life, either when I sought revenge or when someone decided to seek revenge on me. You can also brainstorm a plot by drawing upon several master plots at once. On one occasion, I perused this list and picked “Need for a Change,” “Recklessness,” and “Love.” Bouncing them around in my brain, I recalled that my father, just back from World War II, proposed to my mother on their first date. Her response was interesting, and this date could surely be the basis of a 10-minute play.
Domains and texture
A domain is the cultural landscape from which plays may emerge. The American Civil War is a domain. The term domain is related to but is more general than a setting. A play may be set on a particular Civil War battlefield or at Appomattox Courthouse, where Lee surrendered to Grant.
Certain domains immediately engage audiences. The domain may be fresh and new — an interesting corner of the world that audience members have never encountered. In fact, an intriguing domain may float an otherwise humdrum play.
When a playwright first brainstorms a plot idea, that plot idea is almost always set in a particular domain. However, a worthwhile form of brainstorming is to consider alternative domains that will add something to the play. For example, let’s say that you envision a play about your uncle, an experienced insurance claims adjustor who has trouble finding work because he’s developed a reputation for bad judgment. The domain is the contemporary world of commerce, in particular the insurance industry. Can you find a more exciting domain? Perhaps you can transform your uncle into an experienced pilot who fights forest fires. He has a reputation for bad judgment because he’s crash-landed a plane or two.
Texture is my term for the background details that make a domain seem authentic. When your play is set in a domain you know well, you already have ample texture in your memory. But in many cases you will need to go out and find the texture you will need. When I decided to write “Horizons,” a play based on Richard Russell’s fatal flight in a stolen Horizon Airlines jetliner, I conducted extensive research — news stories, the FAA accident report, the audio recordings of Richard Russell talking with air traffic controllers, and more. I wanted the events of my story to be anchored in fact, and I wanted my dialogue to sound real. This play is one of the ten plays included in the appendix of Performing 10-Minute Plays with Friends. I have placed these plays in the public domain.
Human Behavior
One way to brainstorm a plot is to think carefully about human behavior. When you change a character’s personality, you are likely to change what they want, how they set about getting it (the tactics they use), and how they react to what happens around them.
It is easier for us to think about our characters’ behavior if we peruse a list (or taxonomy) of personality traits. Here is a widely respected taxonomy developed by Raymond Cattell (Cattell & Kline, 1977):
- Abstractedness: Imaginative vs. practical
- Apprehension: Worried vs. confident
- Dominance: Forceful vs. submissive
- Emotional stability: Calm vs. high-strung
- Liveliness: Spontaneous vs. restrained
- Openness to change: Flexible vs. attached to the familiar
- Perfectionism: Controlled vs. undisciplined
- Privateness: Discreet vs. open
- Reasoning: Abstract vs. concrete
- Rule-consciousness: Conforming vs. non-conforming
- Self-reliance: Self-sufficient vs. dependent
- Sensitivity: Tender-hearted vs. tough-minded
- Social boldness: Uninhibited vs. shy
- Tension: Impatient vs. relaxed
- Vigilance: Suspicious vs. trusting
- Warmth: Outgoing vs. reserved
An alternative list is the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator:
- Guarded-Optimistic
- Defiant-Compliant
- Carefree-Worried
- Decisive-Ambivalent
- Intrepid-Inhibited
- Leader-Follower
- Proactive-Distractable
Human behavior: Moods
It is also valuable to think about our characters’ changing moods. Moods are temporary emotions. They derive from personality traits but are tied to specific circumstances. Your character may respond to an event with anger, but then become resigned to the situation. We can also think of moods as the emotional atmosphere that envelops multiple characters. In other words, a character’s socially awkward comment can create a mood of embarrassment among all those involved in a conversation.
Human behavior: Tactics
Finally, we can brainstorm by thinking about our characters’ tactics: how they set about achieving their goals. As an example, if you create business executive who is non-conforming, uninhibited, and tough-minded (Cattell’s traits #10, #12, and #13), you will envision a particular set of tactics for that person to employ in climbing the corporate ladder. Keep in mind that we can conceptualize tactics at different levels of specificity. If the executive’s tactic is to beat out a competitor by revealing damaging information about the competitor’s personal life, they can do this in numerous ways. Therefore, we may want to think about tactics and subtactics.
Plot and the Dramatic Arc
Not every plot idea makes for a good plot. Fortunately, however, you can keep thinking about an unworkable plot idea until it becomes the basis of a good plot. But what is a good plot? One issue is stageability. Does the plot require too large a cast or overly complex sets? But the most fundamental requirement — unless you are an adherent of experimental theater — is a to develop a plot with a sound dramatic arc.
We can understand the dramatic arc by means of the IDMR model (see Table). I call it the IDMR model for its main components: Instability, Disruption, Movement, and Resolution. The IDMR model is straightforward, applies to both comedies and serious plays, and is very well suited to 10-minute plays. It centers around the protagonist. Below is a table representing the IDMR model, followed by a detailed explanation of its components:
Instability
Most plots begin with the model’s instability component. The instability is most often a situation that will need to change. Perhaps the protagonist hates their job, their marriage, or the system of government they live under. The instability may also be an opportunity with big consequences.
You might say that the instability is the countdown, the rocket’s ignition and lift-off is the disruption, the movement component is the rocket’s flight (which does not go smoothly), and the resolution is the rocket’s landing, be it successful or unsuccessful.
When you write your play’s instability component, your goals are to give the audience some background information, to engage the audience, and to put everything in place for the disruption. The background information is called “exposition.”
Disruption
The disruption is a specific event or discovery that sets the world of the protagonist out of balance and set the story in motion. It is often a highly consequential choice on the part of the protagonist — perhaps a decision to quit their job or set out to achieve some important goal. But the disruption may also be an external event. Perhaps the protagonist gets fired or finds that their romantic partner has been unfaithful. Many science fiction plots are built around an extreme disruption such as an invasion by space aliens or computers joining together in a rebellion against humankind.
Sometimes the disruption is relatively gentle, which will give you a gentle, low-key play. Such plays can be interesting and enjoyable, but more often you will want a bigger bang, whether comic or tragic.
Movement
The movement (by which I mean forward movement) is usually the main part of the plot. There will be plot turns, let’s say a downward turn and then an upward turn leading to a happy ending. These turns are comprised of plot events. Stated differently, the protagonist will face complications in trying to achieve their goal. A complication may be a boost (upward turn) as well as a setback (downward turn). There may well be a crisis, when the outcome hangs on a single climactic event. In other words, an event in the movement component can be of equal or greater consequence than the disruption.
As you think up your plot, envision a disruption, consider alternative events that might follow from the disruption, and then imagine what resolutions these events lead to. You can also fix upon a resolution you especially like and then work backward to the disruption and the events it causes. There are many good 10-minute plays that consist entirely of conversation, but at least it should be a dramatic conversation. A good rule of thumb is that you don’t want all your characters seated throughout the play. Something should happen to make someone stand up, if only out of tension or excitement. If a story includes some physical action, something beyond a conversation, that’s a plus. I have learned that sex, comic or serious, is definitely a plus.
Subplots: A digression
Th IMDR model applies in the simplest and most direct way to 10-minute plays. In the case of a 10-minute play — which is how I recommend that you start writing plays — the subplot, if present, will usually be minor and closely tied to the main plot. In the case of full-length play, you will almost certainly have major subplots. These subplots must both support the main plot and be satisfying in themselves. They should therefore have their own dramatic arc.
Resolution
The resolution brings the disruption to a final resting place. Resolutions may be happy or unhappy. They may be bittersweet, somewhere between happy and unhappy. Sometimes resolutions are uncertain or open-ended, although this is a risky strategy in playwriting or any kind of storytelling.
Resolutions are almost always less satisfying if they are the result of some random outside event, something entirely new to the story — for example, if the protagonist, facing destitution, inherits a fortune from a rich aunt. Better if the money comes from some sacrifice the protagonist made early in the story. Resolutions need not be surprising or complex. However, the best resolutions provide at least something in the way of surprise — a surprise that is organic to the story.
The parting stroke
The parting stroke, when present, is a short sequence that follows the resolution and ends the play. When your play has a solid but unexciting resolution, consider adding a parting stroke. The parting stroke may be a joke, a song, a poignant or philosophical statement by one of the characters, or something else. The parting stroke may be a look into the future. The tragic resolution of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is followed by an important parting stroke in which the Montagues and Capulets end their feud.
For a radical challenge to traditional playwriting, see Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage (2024), a collection edited by Carolyn M. Dunn, Eric Micha Holmes, and Les Hunter.
Dramatizing Your Story
Your dramatic arc suggests, but does not fully determine, how the story will unfold on the stage. There may be more than one way to sequence the events, notably by incorporating a flashback, and there are apt to be options regarding what parts of the story will and will not be dramatized on the stage. By this I mean what will and will not actually be seen by the audience. For example, if your plot includes a naval battle, you’re not likely to try to dramatize it on the stage. Rather, you will convey it via exposition.
Furthermore, if your play consists of more than one scene, the scene changes (except for flashbacks) jump the action forward in time. These time jumps create time gaps with unseen events that the audience understands through inference. If two young people decide to marry in Scene 1, and they are living in an apartment and caring for an infant in Scene 2, you have a good idea what happened in the time gap between the scenes.
A good way to visualize the unfolding of your story is a plot timeline, such as that shown in Figure 1. To keep things simple, Figure 1 represents a real-time play consisting of 10-minutes of uninterrupted action. The core segment on the plot timeline consists of the events we see onstage. But during the play we look backward at previous (undramatized) events, and we project forward to what we believe will happen beyond events that we see in the play. If a young couple declares their mutual love at the end of a romantic comedy, we make a general assumption (unless the playwright hints otherwise) that they will live their lives together in a successful relationship.
Figure 2 represents a two-scene play and depicts the time gap between the scenes. When Scene 2 begins, the audience should be able to quickly and easily ascertain what happened during the time gap (unless the playwright has some reason for withholding information from the audience). Occasionally there are brief time-gaps within a scene. The actors freeze for a few moments to indicate a short forward jump. Note that scripts need to be written to facilitate a quick transition (ideally no more than 15 seconds) to an upcoming scene. Scripts, therefore, should not require elaborate sets or anything more than a quick and simple costume change between scenes.
An example: “Porcelain Dolls”
We can usefully examine both the IDMR model of the dramatic arc and how plays move forward in time by considering the real-time 10-minute play “Porcelain Dolls” (one of the example plays included in Writing the 10-Minute Play).
“Porcelain Dolls” begins with a disruption. Ralph, whose life revolves around his job, comes home from work with the news that he’s been fired. The instability that led to the disruption is not dramatized but soon becomes clear in the backward look: Ralph has been neglecting Betty, his wife, and cheating on her as well. The disruption becomes still larger as Betty reveals that Ralph’s firing was all her doing. She phoned Ralph’s boss with incriminating information. In shock and fury, Ralph tells Betty he will immediately divorce her.
After these enormous downward events, we see the beginning of a slow but ultimately complete upward turn as Betty, employing shrewd psychological tactics (a quick series of small but effective events), explains that she had felt cut off from everything that mattered in Ralph’s life and that she knew Ralph was having affairs at work. Furthermore, Betty subtly reminds Ralph how much he depends on her, for both practical reasons and for emotional support. As this turn tilts more steeply upward, Betty re-affirms her love for Ralph and puts their relationship on a much stronger footing. The play ends with them exiting to the bedroom to make love (an emphatic parting stroke).
The six major events that constitute the story are listed below and are shown numerically on the play’s plot timeline (Figure 3). The figure also shows the play’s IDRM components.
- Ralph has been neglecting and cheating on Betty.
- Betty phoned Tom to get Ralph fired.
- Ralph, arriving home, has a major blow-up with Betty and announces his plans to divorce her. She accepts his decision but shrewdly lets him see how much he stands to lose.
- Ralph and Betty reassess and begin to re-plan their lives.
- Having healed the breach in their marriage, they make love.
- They will try to build a viable business selling dolls. As a back-up plan, she will work as his legal assistant.
Time jumps and scene transitions
As noted, time jumps normally take the form of a transition to a new scene. Very often, there are new characters (or a mix of old and new characters) and a different set. In contemporary theater the default transition technique is the blackout. (In earlier times, it was the closing of stage curtains.) Whenever your script shows the end of a scene and does not specify a particular scene transition, the director is apt to employ a blackout.
In some performances, however, such as an outdoor daytime performance, blackouts are impossible. Also, there are viable alternatives to blackouts, such as having all the characters clear the stage or just withdraw to the periphery of the stage. These actors return (possibly with some switching of actors) to center stage for the new scene. Sometimes a playwright will specify one of the alternatives to a blackout in the script — for example with a stage directions like this: “Omar, overcome by emotion, exits. Actors withdraw to the periphery to end the scene.”
Telling a bigger story
Real-time plays offer the momentum and intensity of uninterrupted action. However, the playwright is limited to stories whose dramatized action takes place during the continuous running time of the play. In other words, the playwright needs to find a very special 10-minute period of time — when a couple breaks up, when a lonely person is dissuaded from committing suicide, etc. This is not the usual way in which big changes in people’s lives take place. Relationships dissolve in stages. A suicidal person is saved by the intervention of several friends over a period of time. Time-jumps make possible more plausible and bigger stories and open up more plot possibilities during the brainstorming phase.
Management of Values
Everyone instinctively makes ethical judgments regarding the people and events around them. Therefore, to tell a meaningful story, playwrights must be aware of the ethical judgments that audience members are apt to make. Furthermore, without creating an over-simplified, cartoonish fictional world, the playwright must guide the audience into making the ethical judgments that the playwright intends in order for the story to succeed.
Sometimes a play establishes a tolerant attitude toward certain characters — often lovable and amusing rascals — that most people, in real life, would condemn or at least regard as morally questionable. Literary works that do this are called “picaresque.” In the caper movie genre, the very likable thieves who shrewdly burglarize a casino or jewelry emporium are most certainly criminals. We wouldn’t appreciate them stealing from us. But the picaresque vision prevails because (1) the thieves are so likeable and (2) because the people they steal from are morally much worse than the thieves.
Humor and Comedy
There are many ways to categorize plays (and other literary forms as well). These categories are called genres. There are sci-fi and fantasy plays, realistic family dramas, stories with criminals and detectives, and much more. A very basic distinction is comedy vs. drama. We must recognize, however, that even the most serious dramas are apt to incorporate humor. Prince Hamlet is, at moments, a funny guy.
Comedy takes many forms. There is the humor of silliness, often with nonsensical banter between characters. When such humor suggests that we live in a world devoid of meaning, we speak of the theater of the absurd. There is physical comedy, such as two characters bumping into one another or someone getting a pie thrown in their face. There is satire, both harsh and good-natured. There is the humor that derives from mistaken identities. “Romantic comedy” is often comic, but the genre is more focused on finding success in love than on actual humor.
You can simply include jokes in a script, but it is a better when the humor is inherent to the story. Often you can establish a comic premise, a circumstance from which many humorous moments arise. In my 10-minute play “Solo to Tandem Canoe Club,” the comic premise is that Franz does not realize that the canoe club he has joined functions primarily as a means for single people to hook-up. He is baffled by the uninhibited flirting and sexual invitations that take place around him. Because his paddling gloves hide his wedding ring, some of it is directed at him. The comic premise, however, should not carry the whole play. There should also be a story, a dramatic arc, even if it’s subordinated to the humor. In “Solo to Tandem Canoe Club” Franz’s experience with the canoe club serves to re-ignite his lagging romantic relationship with his wife.
Comedy very often employs a special value system. Comic heroes exhibit these comic virtues: Flexibility, love of freedom, generosity and love of community, spontaneity, nimbleness in thought and action, willingness to question authority, mischievousness, and subversiveness. Our picaresque characters exhibit at least a few of these virtues. Comic butts exhibit rigidity, rule-following, joylessness, excessive caution, dullness, prudishness, and clumsiness (both physical and social), authoritarianism and self-enslavement. An example of self-enslavement is the person who subordinates his whole self to the goal of accumulating riches or achieving social status.
The comic film series Captain Underpants depicts an ongoing comic war between the clever, fun-loving fourth graders George and Harold — our comic heroes — and a school staffed by joyless, authoritarian dullards, in particular the principal, Mr. Krupp. The latter are our comic butts.
Characters and Dialogue
Playwrights develop their characters in many ways, notably through the actions they perform, the clothing they wear (the play’s costuming), how other characters react to them (Are they shown respect? Are they feared?), and — most of all — through dialogue. Very often our plays are intended to be realistic, and so we write dialogue modeled closely on what our characters would say if they were real people experiencing the events of the story. However, there are important exceptions to striving toward absolute realism in dialogue. First, people write fantasy plays or absurdist plays that don’t even attempt realism. Also, even in a realistic play, the playwright is always making artistic decisions. Especially in a 10-minute play, the dialogue may move more quickly and directly than we’d expect from absolute realism. Also, playwrights may give their characters — especially at climactic moments — more eloquent and more insightful speeches than would be likely in real life.
An important consideration is depth of characterization. Some characters — even realistically drawn characters — don’t need to be developed in detail. The function they serve in the story does not require us to learn much about them.
There are also practical issues. When we read a novel, we can re-read any passage that confuses us. Not so in a play. Audiences must be able to fully understand every speech. Obscure vocabulary is dangerous, unless the context makes the word’s meaning clear. Often you need to “nail down” your meaning to avoid puzzling the audience. Absolute realism might call for a character to say, “I can’t imagine why you did that!” Or, “I can’t imagine why you loaned him the money!” But it is safer for your character to say, “I can’t imagine why you loaned money to Joe!”
Dramatic Techniques
Below are some of the most important dramatic techniques used in playwriting.
Exposition and the use of a narrator
As we have learned, “exposition” is information, often background information, we learn as characters converse. Often exposition is the plot’s backward look, and often it reveals the instability of the play’s dramatic arc. “Becky, while you were on maternity leave, there’ve been some big changes around here.” Exposition, however, can also inform the audience about offstage events that take place during the running time of the play or events in the future (the play’s forward look).
A familiar theater adage is “Show. Don’t tell.” But this adage misses the fact that there are often difficult trade-offs to consider between showing (dramatizing action on the stage) and telling (exposition). Furthermore, there may be no alternative to exposition, as when a character shouts, “My God, that ship is going to hit the pier!”
It is not always easy to manage exposition deftly. Sometimes the expository purpose of a speech is so obvious that audience members smile to themselves and think, “Ha! Why is Character A telling Character B what Character B must already know?” One solution is for the playwright to introduce expository information gradually and subtly. Another solution is to create a newcomer character who genuinely needs to be informed.
You can also introduce a narrator who addresses the audience in order to provide exposition. Many commentators on playwriting regard narrators — who are not actual characters belonging to the play’s fictional world — as an intrusion. However, especially in a short play, a narrator can quickly provide a lot of necessary background information, as shown below:
Soliloquies, asides, and interaction with the audience
Playwriting is storytelling, not reality, and the audience fully understands this. Therefore, audiences are not surprised if one of the characters turns to address the audience. These speeches are called asides. For example, a character may reveal their emotional state. Also, a character may temporarily assume the function of a narrator and deliver an aside consisting of exposition.
Also audiences are not surprised by soliloquies — characters talking to themselves at greater length than happens in the real world. (Some speeches are both soliloquies and asides.) A risky but potentially exciting technique is audience interaction. For example, in a melodramatic comedy the hero, when they set out to pursue the villain, who has fled offstage, may ask the audience, “Which way did he go?”
Surprise, suspense and revelation
A surprise is an important event that one or more of the characters and the audience as well did not anticipate. Suspense is generated when the audience has an idea that something important is about to happen but doesn’t know how the upcoming event will play out. Surprise endings should not be telegraphed. That is, the surprise is ruined if it is too easy to guess. On the other hand, there should be some underlying logic, some plausible groundwork, for the surprise. Audiences, for example, will be dissatisfied by a seemingly realistic play in which the protagonist triumphs because she suddenly turns out to have super-human powers. Revelation is a special kind of surprise. Whereas most surprises are events — things that happen — revelation is about information. Revelation is information that becomes known in the story — often late in the story — that radically alters the circumstances of the story or our understanding of the story. The impoverished suitor who has been rejected by the girl’s wealthy parents is revealed to be very rich.
Cosmic irony
Cosmic irony shows us a capricious universe in which events are beyond our control. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Oedipus attempts to evade a prophecy that he will kill his father. But this attempt leads him to unwittingly fulfil the prophecy. Sometimes we are shown a very generous universe. This may take the form of a clueless person who somehow bumbles their way to success. In the O. Henry short story “The Gift of the Magi,” an impoverished young couple both need money to buy the other a Christmas present. The wife sells her lustrous long hair to a wigmaker for the money to buy her husband a fob chain for his treasured watch. Meanwhile, the husband has sold his watch to buy a set of decorative combs for his wife’s hair. The purpose of each gift is defeated. However, the overall resolution of the story is positive, because we and the young couple recognize their deep love for one another.
Dramatic irony
Dramatic irony takes place when the audience knows more than the characters. Imagine a play about rescuing trapped miners when the audience knows that they are all dead and that the effort will be in vain. Often, dramatic irony is joined with cosmic irony — for example, if the would-be rescuers perish in the attempt.
Poetic justice
Poetic justice, which has nothing whatsoever to do with poetry, appears when people receive their just deserts. Let’s say the mayor of a small city accepts bribes to acquiesce in the closing of the city’s only community health clinic, thereby increasing the time it takes for citizens to receive emergency medical care. Soon afterward, the mayor’s son is hit by a car and dies because of this delay. Alternatively, a mayor who fights fearlessly to save the city’s community health clinic is rewarded: when his son is hit by a car, the short trip to the health clinic saves his life. Note that poetic justice often overlaps cosmic irony.
Flashbacks and framing stories
Flashbacks provide the audience with broader context. We understand characters better when we have seen some significant event at an earlier point in time. Flashbacks, however, are easier to execute in cinema than on the stage because in film we can instantaneously move (with a jump shot) to a new location without a time-consuming change of sets. Because of their brevity, 10-minute plays do not regularly include flashbacks in which the story jumps backward and then returns from the flashback and moves forward. However, a related technique, the framing story, works well in a 10-minute play. The play opens with brief scene and then jumps backward and dramatizes all the events that lead up to the opening scene.
Fantasy sequences
Fantasy sequences give the playwright extra freedom in constructing a plot. You can introduce characters and events that are not possible on the plane of realism — the world of fact as we generally understand it. One kind of fantasy element is the use of apparitional (unreal) characters. Often an apparitional character is simply the psychological projection of an actual character. However, apparitional characters can also be supernatural beings (aka “ghosts”) with their own point of view and agenda.
Script Format and Stage Directions
Scripts written by experienced playwrights will differ somewhat, but there is, at least roughly speaking, a standard format. Adhering to the standard format will make you look like a professional, and major deviations from this format will distract theater people when they read your script. Standard script formatting consists of introductory elements on the first page, notably the title of the play, author’s name, a copyright notice, a list of characters, and (often) a description of the setting. The body of the script consists of the speeches and the stage directions. There are paragraph-length stage directions, usually at the beginning of a scene. There are also shorter, more specific stage directions (including exit and entrance stage directions). Finally, there are very specific, very brief stage directions embedded within a speech. Below you can see the formatting of an entrance stage direction and a speech with the embedded stage direction “Spoken ironically”:
Conclusion
You are now ready to write your first play, whether it’s a 10-minute play, a full-length play, or something in between. For a more complete discussion of the topics covered in this essay and many others besides, check out my Kindle book, Writing the 10-Minute Play. The book includes engaging exercises after each chapter and the full scripts of ten 10-minute plays, with which I illustrate many of the ideas in the book.
If you like the idea of gathering some friends to perform (and then discuss) several 10-minute plays, check out another of my Amazon Kindle theater books, Performing 10-Minute Plays with Friends: A guide to do-it-yourself theater. Theater does not need to be an all-out quest for fame and riches. You can add creativity and enjoyment to your life acting, directing, stage managing, and writing plays as a recreational activity. A good plan is to both submit and self-produce your scripts. Self-producing is not only great fun, but it will also almost always lead to an improved script that is more likely to be accepted for production.
