Will Dunne - The Dramatic Writers Companion: Tools to Develop Characters, Cause Scenes, and Build Stories

TO THE DRAMATIC WRITER

As a dramatic writer working on a play or screenplay, you are engaged in the process of telling a story. It is a process both old and new-old because its roots stretch back through centuries and offer time-tested principles to guide you, and new because it must be adapted to an utterly unique set of dynamics: you and the story you want to tell.

This guide is designed to help you manage both the old and the new of the storytelling process. Written from a playwright's perspective and making room in its embrace for both playwrights and screenwriters, the guide offers sixty-two in-depth character, scene, and story development exercises. The purpose of these tools is to spark creativity and steer analysis as you develop your script.

TOOLS FOR LEAPING INTO BLANK PAGES

The exercises in this guide build on certain basic assumptions. First, though stage and film are each a distinct medium, the writers of plays and screenplays are more alike than different. Both must create the blueprint for an emotional experience that is meant to be seen and heard. Both must tackle the idea that "less is more" and convey a lot-often a character's entire lifetime-in one audience sitting. Both must use the present to imply the past. Both must figure out how to "show, not tell," the story so that the audience's knowledge of it comes not from hearing explanations, but from observing and interpreting character behavior. Like storytellers of any kind, dramatic writers also must try to grab the audience from the start, keep them interested to the end, and communicate something meaningful along the way. It is common challenges like these that the exercises in this guide are designed to address.

Second, though there may be no rules for creating art, dramatic stories tend to reflect certain basic storytelling principles. For example, most plays and screenplays focus on the dramatic journey of one main character. This journey usually consists of a series of events that change the world of the story for better or worse. Most of these events are caused by the character's need to accomplish something important and are shaped by the conflicts and risks that stand in the way.

Some dramatic writers adhere faithfully to classic principles like these and produce great works like A Streetcar Named Desire and Long Day's Journey into Night. Other writers cherry-pick such principles-using some and ignoring others-to produce great plays like Waiting for Godot, where nothing really happens, and great films like Crash, which has no main character or central throughline. Whether you wish to use traditional techniques or ignore them, you can benefit from an understanding of storytelling principles that have proven to work. The exercises in this guide are designed to remind you of such principles and give you leeway to adapt them in whatever way best fits your specific needs and story.

American playwright and director Moss Hart once said that you never really learn how to write a play. You learn only how to write this play.

CHARACTER: THE HEART AND SOUL OF STORY

While emphasizing different aspects of the dramatic writing process, this guide draws from the theory that character is the root function of scene and story. The more you know your characters and the world they inhabit, the better equipped you will be to discover and develop all of the other dramatic elements for your script.