Drama Hints

For an entirely different audience, I have just devised a list of hints toward dramatic scriptwriting. It has been thirty odd years since a play of mine has been on the stage, but I'm still being an expert. In the mean time, many teledocumentaries and similar scripts have been written for that lovely money stuff, so I suppose I have some credibility. Here they are what use they are to anyone out there:

HINTS TOWARD DRAMATIC SCRIPT WRITING


Here are some basic hints for developing a good dramatic script. As with any basic rules in the arts, it is the creative artist’s duty to break them only when it improves the resultant piece.

1) Always remember it is a dramatic art. It needs to create an emotional impact. (In comedy, this is called vitality.) Very early on in the script, a dramatic question should be set: eg, whom are they waiting for? Is the stranger a threat? Why do they hate each other?

2) Drama is a visual art. The characters must DO something – action is the core of the production. The old ‘show, don’t tell’ dictum for creative writing was never truer. The visual art encompasses the scenery, costumes and lighting as well.

3) Drama is an auditory art. Here words are primarily speech. From chanting to musical comedy, from verse plays to the eloquent silences of a Pinter play, the playwright/scriptwriter must write with his/her ears, hearing the sound of the scenes.

4) Drama is a physical art. It is a false world made to look real or to symbolise aspects of a reality. Actors and audience are in a physical relationship with each other, projecting and accepting this illusion, this make-believe reality, for two and half, maybe three, hours

5) Drama is a continuous art. The audience cannot ‘read’ it at their own pace; they cannot go back and forth to check facts or characters. The playwright determines the pace of the story – he or she can make a scene move slowly or quickly. He or she can drop hints and move on, relying on the audience to keep up. It is a continuous art in the present tense.

6) Drama is a spectator art. A playwright is concerned with the audience’s reactions: did they laugh in the wrong place? Did they miss vital clues or facts? Were they bored at any point, and ‘let off the hook’? Nowadays, many plays are workshopped and then presented in front of a ‘charity’ audience to gauge just such responses. The reaction is often completely different on the stage from on the page. It is a writing skill which experience teaches.

When looking at the storyline of a script, make the central character(s) want something straight away (desire), then put obstacles in their path. Let the audience in on ‘secrets’ before the characters know – this bestows a privilege upon them which they enjoy and brings them emotionally into closer intimacy with the drama. Use humour to create light in the shadows of your characters’ interplay. (Shakespeare often used a clown or a ‘fool’ to say the wisest things early on in a play - the audience listened and were the wiser but the other dramatic or comedic characters were deaf to the wisdom behind the words.)