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ZakAttack
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Posted: Wed Jun 4th, 2008 08:31 pm |
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| Alright so i really want to write a full length (60-90) min play and produce it but ive never written one before. Any suggestions? I write/wrote movies but i know its very different. Im having a hard time using a minimal amount of settings. HELP?!?!?!?!
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Edd
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Posted: Thu Jun 5th, 2008 12:49 am |
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The easiest way to figure out the beast is to read every play you can get your hands on. There is no reason you can't have two dozen settings if you know how to write it. However, this always amazes me. If you don't know exactly what you want to write and why you want to write a play, if you don't have a passion for it--why bother? I know many great and some brilliant playwrights who are starving. Only their passion enables them to survive.
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lovechild
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Posted: Thu Jun 5th, 2008 03:14 am |
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Good advice, Edd. At least, in the first half of your answer. But from viewing ZakAttack's profile, he or she sixteen years old. Is it really such a good idea to tell such a young and inquiring mind that they should have it all figured out already? He or she is just learning and asking for guidance from a stepping off point.
ZakAttack, take Edd's advice and read as many plays as you can. Then just write. Trust your instincts, be brave, and be prepared to make mistakes. Something good will come of it. Jump in, and if you then feel you don't like the water, then simply climb out.
As for the number of scenes, a good designer and director will make it work...just be realistic about the space and resources you're working with.
Good luck!
Lovechild
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ZakAttack
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Posted: Thu Jun 5th, 2008 12:08 pm |
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Alright thanks for the great advice from both of you. I think I will take your advice Edd and try and write out first; who my characters are and what they are trying to accomplish, the major confict in my play, the motivation for the characters and I think i will make a list of the major events that take place then write so i always can refer back and see where im going if i get lost.
Lovechild,
Thanks for your advice also, i am only 16 (male :D) and just starting out but i think you unerstood where i was coming from a little better. Im just not sure how to start. And since i want to produce my play then im obviously not going to have a huge budget any suggetions on how to keep the set numbers down? I do have a passion for writing, i write movies and i just decided to take a chalange and write a play.
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katoagogo
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Posted: Thu Jun 5th, 2008 09:48 pm |
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Get involved with your drama club at school --
or with a community theater --
or take an acting class --
make some theater happen.
Start writing for it because you love it.
Theater is the most resrictive form of the performing arts. You are restricted by size, location, semantics, duration, memory -- all sorts of things.
Ed Bullins said it best in a talk that I attended a few years ago -- this is a paraphrase --
"Every playwright should, for a time, spend part of their life, a few years or more, making theater happen, learning the process, in order to write for it."
You would be hard-pressed (and probably wasting your time) writing for the theater if you don't understand how it works -- from the inside.
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HarveyRabbit
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Posted: Fri Jun 6th, 2008 01:39 am |
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Last edited on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 10:35 pm by HarveyRabbit
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Basso
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Posted: Fri Jun 6th, 2008 12:57 pm |
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I notice, Zak, that you made a number of spelling errors. Yes, I know this is the Internet, and things are jotted down quickly, but it made me think about the craft of writing. A playwright, just like a shipwright is someone who constructs something; which in our case is a play. This implies an attention to detail, a knowledge of the craft of writing. Just as a boat is made more sailable by the solid knowledge of a builder, so to is a play made richer when one's passion is coupled with good writing skills.
Basso
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IanFraser
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Posted: Fri Jun 6th, 2008 12:59 pm |
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Just to throw my two cents cat amongst the pigeons, theatre-writing requires imagination from the start. Whether you have a story unfolding in a limbo world lit by stage light, or flanked by a solid set - you have to have the concept and creativity to imagine it and put it on the page, to begin with.
Any idiot, er, most writers, ahem, can detail series of camera shots, scenes, and assemble a film script, with all the required trappings to have it seen as a fluid and genuine film script. Theatre and play writing is however not like the machine-code formality of film scripts - which can be taught as a technique, even to those who have minimal creative ideas to begin with.
Yes, the 'technique' of play writing can also be taught - but there's no explanation or space in the academic form of 'learning play writing' for the Harold Pinter-type writers, who plan nothing, and have no formal technique other than their own creativity, to tell their stories.
You have to have idea's and stories to begin with. Theatre is unforgiving, and an audience can spot 'filler' dialog - even if they couldn't put their finger on it.
You also have to have the ability to SUSTAIN the world you create on stage. Film has a million tricks to allow the writer to cut away towhatever you want the viewers eye to see - make cartoons out of reality, and add a nice musical soundtrack to push the buttons of the viewer. Edit. Close ups etc...
Theatre has none of these standard 'tricks'. Its got its own set of tricks, which you can learn best by writing your own stuff, and finding out how best to convey a 'reality' to an audience sitting in darkness in front of your unfolding story.
Theatre is storytelling in its purest form - and is probably the oldest form, perhaps originating from grunting cavemen re-enacting the days hunt for the benefit of the rest of the tribe, huddled around the fire.
To me, theatre's a three dimensional canvas on which the playwright works, making broad and detailed brushstrokes in the air, using dialog, stage light and beats, to create a unique experience for the viewer.
Its also a fabulous medium which shows you instantly when you've got it wrong, or right. In film, if it fails, you can blame a horde of other people connected to the project - in theatre, its pretty much reliant on the quality of the originating writer. If the writer has a banal concept or insipid dialog, and trudging execution, its very obvious from the get-go.
And another layer to the whole concept - is the question one has to ask:
Are you wanting to write plays because you have stories to tell, ideas to share, magic to weave with your dialog?
Or do you simply want to provide corporate theatre with onstage fodder?
There's no right or wrong choice, as the market is big enough for all kinds of playwrights, and output, but a little self analysis is a good thing from the start. Understanding what you're doing it for, and then setting about simply 'doing it.'
I always use the simple approach of writing stuff that I would bother to go and see. I don't really care what the 'market might want' - I write material that interests me, from a conceptual point of view. Which also makes it a lot easier to write. But that's just me. Others definitely operate differently.
If you want to write a full length piece - my advice would be 'crawl, walk, run' - so start off by writing a ten minute play.
Tell a story in 10 pages, with all the scenes, lighting changes, FX etc, that you require.
Get used to finding the theatrical (ie: zero budget) ways of illuminating your story, or showing time passing, or settings in different places, and doing it while creating interesting dialog that itself is set on top of an interesting concept that pleases you.
The ten minute play form is a useful method of sharpening your skills - if you can avoid doing the 'and then I woke up' or creating what is ultimately just an extended sketch, disguised as a play.
Start off with a ten minute, then gradually try 'longer' - until you get to the area of one acts, and ultimately the full length...
Another suggestion, if you have no practice in play writing, is to find a writing group near you, that you can share your work with, and get solid quality feedback.
Family and friends don't count, and aren't useful as 'bouncing boards' for opinions - you'll need folks with the skills, to give you constructive help.
Theatre writing is way more simple in some ways, yet far more unrestricted, than film writing - you can create epics on stage, if you so desire - using very little other than light, sound, and the imagination of the audience.
Reading other peoples scripts only goes so far, the object of the game is to find YOUR 'voice' - your unique perspective. You don't want to end up copying other peoples styles.
Try watching some theatre, either live, or on video - which means you get the benefit of seeing the 'close ups' and wide views, showing the whole experience in action.
I'd hunt down things like the Royal Shakespeare Company's 'Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby' - all ummm, eight or nine hours of it. The piece is so long that it has to get staged over two nights, and comes from a THOUSAND page script - and none of it boring.
I regularly watch it every few years, for inspiration as to how to make really good theatre - ie: something awesome from almost nothing, apart from the imagination of the audience.
Last edited on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 01:11 pm by IanFraser
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Shanahan
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Posted: Fri Jun 6th, 2008 01:29 pm |
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Basso wrote: I notice, Zak, that you made a number of spelling errors. Yes, I know this is the Internet, and things are jotted down quickly, but it made me think about the craft of writing. A playwright, just like a shipwright is someone who constructs something; which in our case is a play. This implies an attention to detail, a knowledge of the craft of writing. Just as a boat is made more sailable by the solid knowledge of a builder, so to is a play made richer when one's passion is coupled with good writing skills.
Basso
"Don't get it right, get it written."--James Thurber
It's all well and good to build a perfect boat, but if you worry about putting on the paint before you've figured out if you even WANT to build it, you're not getting anywhere.
Too many people, aspiring writers or not, get daunted by the idea that writing needs to be perfect from the get-go. While I absolutely agree that any work that's going to be publicly presented needs to be as sparkly clean as possible from a technical writing standpoint when it's presented, insisting that a potential writer should worry about grammar and punctuation and which sentence requires a semi-colon first is a sure way
to chuck a big ol' set of stumbling blocks in their path.
Commit the ideas to paper first as best you can, kid. Let it flow. When it's done, go back and pay attention to the technical details.
Two cents, firmly banked,
js
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Basso
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Posted: Fri Jun 6th, 2008 02:37 pm |
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Too many people, aspiring writers or not, get daunted by the idea that writing needs to be perfect from the get-go.
Your two cents are well banked, indeed. We certainly don't need any more impediments, than there already are in life, to stop us from sitting down to write. The process of writing, and learning craft, can be learned parallel with one another.
Basso
Last edited on Fri Jun 6th, 2008 02:37 pm by Basso
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