Play Writing

Hey everyone. The main reason why I haven't posted in the last couple days is that I got caught up in writing a play for a production that the I.V.C.F is going to have in March. Today, I sort of finished a horribly cobbled together version of a first draft and let me tell you, play writing is hard. Novel writing may present its own challenge, but writing a play is a completely and totally different thing.

Now, you're probably thinking the exact same thing that I was thinking before I started writing this play. Writing a play shouldn't be much different from writing a story right? All you have to do is pretty much write a story, take the dialogue and put the characters name in front of it with a colon and then voilà! You have a play. When, no. That's not how it works at all. For example, say you have character that does has pretty dangerous habit, say jumping up and down off of furniture. Pretty simple to write into a story, right? If the guy falls, then he just has to get back up again. In a play however, seeing as how the guy is real, when he falls, there's just a chance that he won't just get back up. He may actually get hurt. When you're writing a play, you need to keep in mind at all times that this is being written for a real flesh and blood person to act out. You need to write you story within the realms of human abilities.

Another problem I ran into is interpretation. Say you want to give some history on a person. In story, you just pretty much write it in.

"Cassie went to a pre-school a little way from her home. She didn't remember much, but she remember the feeling of the cold air blowing against her cheeks."

Pretty simple, right? Now try putting that into a play. You pretty much can't convey that unless one of the characters say that. Now what about a page long flashback description. You may end up having to write an entirely new scene which has the possibility of coming across as boring to your audience. You just can't write down your ideas. You need to write them in a way that the audience would understand exactly what you're saying and you risk looking weird or stupid.

There are a bunch of other challenges that come with writing plays, but I think I filled my quota of literary whinny for the day. As the day draws nearer for prop purchasing and casting auditions and all that, I can't help but feel nervous. I've never done a play that's going to be performed before the students of the campus. But its something new and I'd never refuse an opportunity to do something like this. It's a new type of writing and it'll help my artistic side grow. And maybe, I'll learn something new about myself in the process.




See you tomorrow.