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A sloppy way to write a play
I've written many plays over the years, and normally I'm a big fan of putting together a strict outline first. There have been times when I just start with dialog, just start on page one, and let it happen. That only occasionally works out ...
Currently I find myself trying to do both: I started an outline, got stuck, and started writing dialog of scenes that may or may not even make it in ... oddly, I'm enjoying it but I think I'm going to regret this. Does anybody else write like this?
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Richard T. Young on -
Kevin:
Hi. The title of your post reveals volumes!!!! If you saw how I write you'd probably grant me the most amazingly sloppy award!!!! :-)
I think we all know there is no one way to write a play. There's Kevin's way and Richard's way and . . . .
I had a reading in St. Louis just last night. (CAMO the Deer Hunting Musical) It started as funny idea about four years ago. Along the way it became a collaboration between three of us. Early on I wrote an outline of the whole play. The outline of the first ACT is pretty much what we wrote, but the outline for ACT II doesn't look anything like the final product.
Most of my plays start with a scene that I see and hear clearly in my head, and then go from there. CAMO was the first time I tried an outline and it sort of helped but not much. CAMO started with a song title that actually never made it into the script.
In the end play writing is an art. Artists change and grow.
I'm reminded of the story about a young composer asking Motzart for some tips on writing an opera. Mozart told him he should start with a less ambitious project. The young man complained that Motzart had written opera at a young age. To which the maestro replied, "Yes, but I didn't have to ask anyone how do to it."
You and I are that young man looking for the Motzart part of our souls!
Kevin, you probably know that what counts in the end is what actors and directors can do with the words you give them before an audience. And even then judging wether or not it "works" is an artistic call. How you get there is how you get. Break a leg.
RTY
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Richard thanks for all this (and btw I'm based in St. Louis myself!). That is a great Mozart story. I hadn't heard that one. And good luck with your play!
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Permalink Reply by Richard T. Young on
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Kevin:
OH MY GOSH. You need to join St. Louis Wrtier's group. The group is focused only on plays and film scripts. They have a web site http://www.stlwritersgroup.com/ We meet every first and third Monday's, 6:30 at Big Daddy's. it's down near Soulard. Next Monday is a workshop reading. The guy who runs the group, Mario Farwell, is an award winning writer with some film credits too. You should come. Let me know.
RTY
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There is a lot to be said for organic structures. The trouble with having a strict outline is that you will be stuck within the limits of your own foresight. That is fine if you are a genius, but can lead to the kind of formulaic writing that is so favored by our most self-assertive second- and third- tier playwrights.
An outline is great to have, but I always think that if you actually follow the outline there is probably not much going on in the play itself.
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Permalink Reply by Thomas Boyle on -
Most of my plays have outlines but that doesn't mean they are written in a linear fashion. In the one I am just finishing up I had dialogue for different scenes popping into my head at different times so I wrote the scene that was happening at that time. Later, when it was all out there and I reread it I moved things around and edited as I went. The only question is, did it work? At the end what did you think of the product?
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