Drama Overview

1. Your first goal as a dramatist is to convince your audience that the actors are not actors, that the stage is not a stage, and that the people onstage are not speaking your words but words from their own hearts and minds. Poet William Coleridge described a similar situation in poetry "as a willing suspension of belief." How does a writer create this suspension of belief? By using:

1. details that convince
2. actors who believe their roles and are skilful enough to portray characters
3. a set that allows the audience member to believe that he or she is visiting a Russian villa, a medieval English forest, or an apartment in steamy New Orleans
4. realistic dialogue
5. interesting actions
6. props that provide symbolism and/or give texture to the play

2. Conflict/Reversals/Complications

These keep your audience in their chairs for the length of your play. Without conflict, your play will become boring, just "actors strutting across the stage." Here's playwright Raymond Hull's rule for conflict.

Main Character (s) + Goal + Opposition = Conflict.

Cordelia + telling the truth to her father + her two sisters' (Goneril's and Regan's) greed in trying to take their father's land = the conflict in Shakespeare's "King Lear."

Amanda + Marrying her Daughter off + Daughter Laura's deep shyness = Conflict in "The Glass Menagerie" by Tennessee Williams.

3. Surprise

Don't forget the element of surprise. Surprise is important in fiction as well as in drama, but having real objects and real people interacting in real space, makes surprise in plays even more dynamic and interesting. Remember to keep the DRAMATIC in drama.

Monologues / Scenes / Elements of Dialogue

Differences Between Plays and Other forms of Writing

1. Plays are performed while stories are told. Plays show what actors do; stories tell what they do.

2. Action is the main ingredient of a play. Dialogue is considered an action in plays. Words are the main ingredient of a story.

3. Time is much more elastic in fiction. A play deals with one or several units of time which should provide the effect of real time passing. (Unity of Time)

4. Place or setting is more restricted in plays. Stories and especially novels can have many far-flung settings, but a play should be restricted to only several at most. (Unity of Place)

5. Fiction tells what occurred in the past; drama presents what is happening right now.

6. Story is a finished when written, while the finished form of a play is not the script but the production. The script of a play presents a blueprint for action, but not the real action.

Here's a chart which reiterates these differences:

Aristotle's Six Main Elements of Drama (From Poetics)

1. plot
2. character
3. thought
4. diction
5. music
6. spectacle

       Of these Aristotle considered plot and characters the most important.

Plot

       As in a story the plot of a play is the series of accumulated actions which create changes in the main characters.. In drama plot also happens in the meetings between characters. Each character that enters the stage should turn the plot in some way, should turn or advance the plot in some way. A dramatic plot also includes all the choices that each character makes during the course of the play.

Characters

Your play must reveal many things about the main character or protagonist.

1. what he or she wants
2. how he or she reacts to obstacles
3. enough about his or her past to reveal what he or she wants
4. what other characters think about your character and how they relate to him
5. The actors reveal how the characters look, their costumes what they wear, and the props the objects that they carry use.

       In a story you must describe how the character looks in words, but in a play, the physical presence of the actors makes much of this description unnecessary. This is one of the most amazing things about playwriting to have your character come alive in an actor's actions, and your words come alive in an actor's voice.

       Sometimes in plays, other characters give verbal descriptions about the protagonist. This is particularly true of plays where an element of appearance is vital to the plot. Look at this bit of dialogue from Edmond Rostand's pay Cyrano de Bergerac.

Such a nose!—My lords, there is no such nose as that nose—You cannot look upon it without crying: "Oh no, impossible! Exaggerated!" Then you smile and say: "Of course—I might have know; presently he will take it off." But that Monsieur de Bergerac will never do.

Dialogue

       In plays dialogue is not idle conversation. Dramatic dialogue should only be included if it does at least one of two things (if not both): advance the plot, and/or develop characters.

Definition: William Packard defined dialogue as "the rapid back and forth exchange that takes place between onstage characters." He said that "good dramatic dialogue always advances the major actions of the play."

1. Remember most people seldom speak in whole sentences.
2. Have each character speak in unique patterns, vocabulary, and choice of subject.

       Carol Korty said that the "words of the whole play are like a piece of music—they create sounds, rhythms, tones that are heard and physically felt. They also create images. In this way, dialogue is also poetry, whether or not it rhymes or has a definite meter."

Monologues

       Technically monologues are considered a type of dialogue in plays. The difference is that in a monologue only one character speaks. Monologues are quite effective at revealing character. They are also a good place in a play to give exposition, or provide background material for the audience about what has occurred in the past, or what will occur in the future. In monologues characters also reveal their emotional states, as well as their dreams, wishes, problems, and conflicts. Characters also share in monologues their feelings toward other characters.

       In real life people seldom speak in monologues. In that sense monologues are artificial constructs. But just as in life when thoughts run through your head, monologues in plays are usually not directed at the character's self but at a significant other character; such as, a father, mother, lover, sibling, or close friend.

Suggestions from Louis Catron about Writing Your First Play:

1. Write a one-act rather than a full three-act play.
2. Write about something close to your heart.
3. Make sure that your drama is full of conflict. "Force must be opposed by force, person against person, desire against desire."
4. Make sure your characters feel and reveal emotions.
5. Use a realistic setting and a realistic plot.
6. Use only a few characters. The more characters onstage the more actions and dialogue you must create for them, and also the more people your audience must keep track of onstage.
7. Keep all your characters onstage for as long as possible. But make sure you keep them active and involved onstage. No naps, no quiet games of chess.
8. Start the conflict as soon as you can. Remember "in media res?" It applies to plays also.
9. Short speeches and rapid dialogue between characters work best.
10. Keep complications coming. Drama and fiction succeed best when characters continuously face new problems. Remember to keep raising the stakes.

Suggestions for Writing Plays:

If you have never written a play, a good idea before beginning the script is to write a scenario. Your scenario should answer the following questions:

1. What is the major conflict of the play? Who wants what? Why?
2. What is the central thought?
3. Who are the characters? Names, ages, relationships to each other?
4. Is it a drama or a comedy?
5. Length? One act, two-act, three-act? Forty minute monologue?
6. Setting? Where and when does the action take place?
7. Basic plot? What major events happens in this play?

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©Fall, 2003, Dory Lynch Page location: www.bloomington.in.us/~dory/creative