Getting Started - The Idea For A Play
You've decided to write a play. Where do you start? Do you have an idea for your play? Is that idea suited to the medium of a stage play?
My Play Idea Notebook
I get ideas for plays whether I'm awake or dreaming. These ideas may come from:
There is an infinite number of interesting things going on in life - things that can become ideas for plays - if a person is observant.
I collect my ideas for plays in an ever-expanding notebook. I currently have about 130 entries. As snippets and pieces come to me, I insert them into the notebook under new or existing entries. Even when I'm focused on a particular play, my mind comes up with things that could be used in other plays, so I collect as many of those little bits as possible. And when I'm finally ready to write a certain play, all my notes are gathered in one place.
Examine Your Idea
Even a great idea may not be a good basis for a play. Each idea needs to be examined carefully to see if it is stageable material.
1. Is The Idea Suitable For The Stage?
Or is it a TV sketch, or a novel, or a screenplay? This seemingly obvious consideration is incredibly overlooked, as evidenced by the hundreds of scripts I read for publishers, producers, contests, and festivals. Many playwrights create teleplays, scripts that read like popular sitcoms and dramas. Others come across as variety show sketches, with feeble plot lines and one-dimensional characters. Apparently, a lot of people are writing plays based on what they see on television.
I read the works of other aspiring playwrights who envision dozens of vastly different scenes, populate them with numerous characters, and call for outrageous props, such as working kitchens and natural hot springs. These are easily achievable in novels, or with million-dollar movie budgets, but not within the general reality of theater.
What is a stage play? The classic definition of dramatic theater was written 2,300 years ago, titled Poetics, by Aristotle. This ancient essay is packed with the essence of theater, describing methods still used today by the best playwrights. Also see Thornton Wilder's Some Thoughts on Playwriting. And a more modern reference is a recent interview with Neil Simon, offering insight into the workings of the mind of one of the most successful playwrights ever.
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