Amateur Playwrighting?

[fabala4077]

Posted: 12/4/07 at 11:49pm

Has anyone ever experimented with playwrighting? I've written short scenes & short plays before, but never an entire play. I'm working on a full length play to produce next semester for my senior project, and it's very frustrating. I know I just need to pound out some sort of draft, but now it's just sitting there with fragments of disconnected scenes & character ideas. I'm kind of pressed for time on this, because I need to have edited it & cast the thing by the end of January, and it's stressing me out. Any suggestions?

[bebe de broadway]

Posted: 12/5/07 at 3:25am

I'm writing a play for my college thesis right now. It's tougher than it looks. I've written stories before, but the formatting for a play can be tricky. And you have to be careful not to write all the blocking in the play. Most directors HATE that.

I'd love to beta read for you. Whatever you're writing about I can guarantee mine is a different topic. lol Maybe we could be writing buddies (if you're interested, that is).

Either way, break a leg!!!

[EmieMarie]

Posted: 12/6/07 at 1:45am

I've written plays before, 2 of them performed by my classmates, one at THe Seattle Rep Theater

just note
DRAFT DRAFT DRAFT

THe final is always so different from the first, but is always better,
Wrokshop, get friends to read the parts as if they were doing the show, it helps show you what needs to be changed and how everything flows

Any qs, feel free to PM me, I love anything that has to do w/ Playwrigting and would love to help!!!

[gumbo2]

Posted: 12/6/07 at 2:11am

Ooh, good luck! I'm studying scriptwriting (including playwrighting) right now, and yeah, it's definitely tough to get an entire, cohesive play put together. I guess my suggestion (and this is what our professor always says) is write faster than your critic thinks. If you think something won't be good, hey, write it down anyway and you can go back and fix it later. Get the first draft of a completed work down on paper (or computer), and go from there. Like EmieMarie said, once you have it there you can always make it better through revisions.

And yeah, feel free to PM me too...I always love reading peoples' stuff/if there's any way I could help, I'm here.

[thetheatrekook]

Posted: 12/6/07 at 9:33am

and NEVER delete anything!!! Wrote a scene that doesn't really work? Don't delete it...move it to the end of the document, and maybe put it in another color. You never know when you may return to the script and the ONE thing missing is that scene!!!

[erinrebecca]

Posted: 12/6/07 at 3:13pm

Crafting a play is different than working on a short story, or narrative, or a novel. The main difference is that it is a medium which requires that it be performed. Thus, part of the process MUST include readings. No play is written without many drafts, readings, usually a workshop or two, before the finished product is called the final script.

Also, people, one who writes plays is a playwright. The act of writing plays is playwriting. :)

[myshikobit]

Posted: 12/6/07 at 5:01pm

Don't get sidetracked. And be open minded. It's almost guaranteed that your final project will be totally different than your first. If it is overburdening, do an update of an old story, film or book. Avoid intricate plotlines and too many characters. Read "On Writing" by Stephen King (the last half of it, not the biography part, unless you have time). It really improved my writing. PM if you have any problems

[fabala4077]

Posted: 12/8/07 at 9:12pm

Thanks for the advice, everyone! I'm actually having real problems with finding a coherant plotline - I tend to write out of order, but since the plot is still changing in my mind, if I write a scene a few days later it will be completely out of date & have very little to do with what my play is now. I have a feeling that once I finish a draft, I'll end up with a bunch of illogical, incoherant fragments that don't fit together well at all. Grr.

[sleepyguy1717]

Posted: 12/8/07 at 9:26pm

That could work couldn't it? Songs of a New World anyone?