Writing a Play

Steve Gooch

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781350201163
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Writing & Presentation Skills

A practical guide to the process of play-writing, this book will take budding writers for the stage through the process, beginning with original inspiration, through plotting, structuring and characterization, to the successful realization of the idea. This revised edition includes a new chapter covering stage realism.

1. 'What's it about?'

When people think of plays (in the plural), they tend to think of their fabric – characteristics of dialogue, setting, atmosphere, tone. The plays of Noel Coward, for example, are full of people in silk dressing gowns, with elaborate cigarette holders, speaking brittle repartee. The plays of Harold Pinter combine shadowy North London settings with a certain elliptical menace. Tennessee Williams’ plays are set in the steamy South with sultry, yearning heroines barely disguising their deeper urges. Brecht means bare, open stages, simple narrative and songs. When we think about plays in the singular, however, our focus is different. ‘Oh yes, the one about the tramp caught between the two brothers’ or ‘The one where that woman lugs a wagon through a war and loses her children’.

In other words, our appreciation of plays is torn between ‘the world of’ Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams or whoever, and the particular story-line. Immediately after we’ve seen a play, we may say ‘I thought that bit where he strangles her because she left the top off the marmalade is a bit far-fetched’ (even though it’s happened in real life); but our longer-term response tends to remain with the silk dressing gowns and cigarette holders, or the sultry heroines with deeper urges. This can be misleading when it comes to considering the individual play. Of course atmosphere, tone and setting are important, but the question most directors, actors and audiences ask of a play is ‘What’s it about?’

This can be difficult to answer, especially if, for the author, the play’s setting, plot and themes are all of a piece. Some writers refuse to answer, on the grounds that such a dissection somehow diminishes the play taken as a whole. Possibly there are circumstances when one is wiser not to reveal one’s whole hand: in publicity interviews it may be better to stimulate interest rather than give the game away; with actors it may be better that they discover the reality of a part through doing it rather than talking about it. It may be that there are genuine ambiguities and nuances which are better left as just that. The ‘life’ of a play is often indivisible; once you begin picking at threads, the whole thing unravels. There is a very real sense in which to define a thing can kill it off.

On the other hand, it can help enormously if writers are conscious of what they’re doing. Nothing is worse than spending several months on a play and then discovering half-way through that you don’t like it any more. Or that it’s turning out quite differently from what you’d initially imagined. A large number of plays end up broken-backed, in the sense that the second acts seem to be about something quite different from the first. The process of exposition, of digging in and opening up the concerns of a play, can be very different from that of denouement, discovering what it’s about and tying up all its loose ends.

In one sense this always happens. My favourite anecdote about this is one I heard from Brian Clarke, author of Whose Life is it anyway? He said he starts every play thinking this is going to be ‘The Big One’, the masterpiece of 20th-century dramatic literature, the play to end all plays. Then, when he gets to the end, draws a line underneath and looks back over it, he thinks ‘Sod it, it’s me again’.

There is no doubt that whatever one’s aspirations, whatever the external goal one is aiming for, a writer’s innermost thoughts and feelings are going to come through. To writers in other literary forms this may seem obvious. But, because dramatic writing is so much bound up with giving those thoughts and feelings a satisfactory external form (as I shall explain later), the danger of ambush by the unconscious or of losing sight of one’s original idea is considerable.

Even a consummate craftsman like Arthur Miller can write 2000 pages to get 125, or work two years on a play and throw it out because it isn’t ‘the playwright’s unique vision’. In this sense there is no ‘formula’ for writing plays. Each new play is a fresh challenge with its own special demands. As Miller puts it, ‘You can create theater any way you want but it has nothing to do with a play’. Each ‘idea’ implies a structure peculiar to itself. And for that ‘It’s essential to be able to identify the main thrust of a work’. (Arthur Miller in ‘Conversation With’ Otis Guernsey, editor of the U.S. Dramatists’ Guild Quarterly, Summer 1987.)

A 'sense of the world’

How can the central ‘idea’ of a play be defined? On the face of it, it can be anything: an existing story (from a newspaper or an old play perhaps); a simple visual image which sparks the imagination; a recurrent feeling one has about human relations or a social issue; a philosophical theme which seems to throw light on certain aspects of human conduct – any number of things.

The moment one has that idea, whether the initial stimulus is emotional, sensual or intellectual, all these faculties come into play. At the same time as you’re thinking about how the play will develop, or whether you’re finding the right style, your senses and feelings are also actively guiding you through a series of choices.

It is these feelings which will act as motivator as you progress through the work, whether consciously or subconsciously. For some it’s more productive to leave these feelings at a subconscious level; for others, it’s better to become acquainted with them as soon as possible – to avoid their creeping up on you later. But, whichever your approach, it’s important to recognise the power of your emotional involvement with it.

You may, for example, think you’re writing a play about South Africa, but in fact it’s your sense of injustice towards your boss which is really motivating you. As the play develops and scenes unfold, you suddenly find yourself unexpectedly writing a powerful confrontation between a black mineworker and his white boss. It may be something you hadn’t planned. It may knock the structure of the play completely askew. But it’s the best bit of writing in the script. Every other scene pales beside it. That’s what you’re really writing about. That’s your ‘idea’, your sense of the world.

It may be impossible to know this till you get there. Possibly it may never even happen. So how can you test whether your idea is worth all the effort of writing a whole play? After all, creative people are supposed to have ideas all the time. What distinguishes the idea that’s worth pursuing from the one that remains forever on the back burner? The only way to decide is to take time over it.

A play’s idea is, after all, the most important thing in it, the thing people are most likely to ask about it and remember it for. Above all, it’s your motivator. Whether the initial stimulus is external (a social issue, a book or an article) or whether it’s more personal (an image which sticks in your mind or a feeling about something), there’s something you want to get off your chest. That feeling is your reason for doing it, is most likely to propel you through the grind of writing it and, if you temporarily lose sight of it, most likely to haunt you later.

It’s as well therefore to familiarise yourself with that sense, get to know how it feels, remember its feeling and use it as a reference point as the idea develops. Whether your focus is outward or inward, your process more rational or intuitive, that sense you have of the subject is the key to your relation to it, and your familiarity with it is your best chance of expressing it successfully.

This is where the process of asking yourself questions begins, a process which will continue until you finish writing. Is it an idea that keeps coming back? Does it survive the harshest criticism you can throw at it? If so, does it grow and take on new facets? Does it retain its appeal – both to you and others you might discuss it with? Do you begin to hear or see the characters, as it were, outside yourself?

It then becomes a question of finding the right story-line, the right structure to express that idea dramatically, and the right elements of plot and character to flesh that structure out. The longer you live with an idea, the likelier you are to find a satisfactory dramatic form for it. You begin to see it externally, as others might see it. This is the first step to the play’s having a life of its own, being able to stand in its own right in the arena of theatre production. If you’ve lived with an idea for some time, and it keeps getting stronger, there’s a good chance that it will end up demanding to be written – in which case you won’t have much choice in the matter.

Inspiration and perspiration

The element of compulsion is important. Far better to be propelled to the desk (or the kitchen table) because of an urgent need to write, than to drag yourself to it because you feel you ought to. One of the dangers of being commissioned is that a sense of duty can intervene between the natural development of an idea and its final expression. Some writers even refuse commissions because their sense of guilt at taking the money makes them seize up. Certainly a commission deadline can hang over you like Damocles’ sword, reminding you that the happy combination of money and the freedom to write are short-lived. On the other hand, it may provide that extra nudge of discipline which many of us need to stick at it rather than walk the dog, mow the lawn or rearrange our pencils yet again.

Whether commissioned or not, for many professional writers some sort of disciplined routine is a necessity. Knowing the time when you’re most likely to be productive and trying to clear away any distractions during that time are part and parcel of living by a precarious skill. Even if it turns out that you write less than the target you set yourself during that time, the routine of setting aside a certain part of the day and sticking to it can be useful.

Sometimes, by keeping your nose to the grindstone, ideas will come which you might have lost, had you packed up and gone away. By the same token, however, you may find that forcing an idea produces less than your best work. Being your own boss can take on an ironic ring when you find yourself standing over yourself with a whip. No one should imagine that the task of playing both servant and master to one’s own creative imagination demands less than two people’s energy. Nor, given the writers I personally know with bad backs, stiff necks, migraines, clicking shoulders and poor digestions, that it’s a job without its share of ‘industrial disease’.

On a roll

The happy balance between discipline and the release of the imagination is elusive. But it needs to be sought actively. That initial, maybe idle, idea is your most important asset. It needs to be nurtured. Knowing how it feels is the surest guide you have to its consistent development. If structure is the spine of a play, then your feel for its idea is its nervous system, and the connecting thread between one part and another which keeps them all in touch. It is your main motivator, the reason you’re writing, the engine which propels you and which, you hope, will compel your audience. If you don’t get off on it, there’s not much chance the audience will; but if you do, you’ve made a start. You’re probably already writing.

This quality of a dynamic pressure behind the words is particularly important in dramatic writing, and in the live stage most of all. We’ve all heard stories of people mulling over an idea for years and then writing it in two days. Such moments are rare. But they do indicate the kind of head of steam which it’s good to build up. For an essential ingredient of dramatic writing is that it moves, that it has its own dynamic, that actors and audience alike are swept along by the pace, rhythm and sheer vitality of the writing. The American expression ‘on a roll’ best conveys that sense of being swept along by a tide of one’s own creation. It can be exhilarating and profoundly satisfying if you get it right.

Unfortunately it is equally likely to be totally deceptive. When you come down from your Olympian ‘high’ and examine what you’ve written in the cool light of day, you may discover it’s all tosh. Nevertheless, that rush of blood to the head (or whatever it is) can serve writers well. There are some who can only write like that and rely on theatre directors or their own (quite separate) editing skills to make sense of what’s come out. Others prefer to maintain a steadier progress, with passion and reason moving in parallel, keeping their original idea firmly fixed before them. Whichever way you look at it, understanding the relationship between inspiration and perspiration is crucial t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. ‘What’s it about?’
• 2. Entering the arena
• 3. Bare bones
• 4. Summing it up
• 5. Free speech
• 6. The forces with you
• 7. Shaping up
• 8. On second thoughts
• 9. Into the market-place
• 10. Into production
• 11. The mind’s eye
• 12. First and last
• Index
• eCopyright