From Idea to Stage in 10 Weeks | Issue 3 | When a Story Takes Shape
Documenting the process of planning, writing, editing, and staging a short play in just 10 weeks
💡This article will outline my process for planning an engaging story.
Thanks for reading this third issue of my new weekly series, where I’m documenting my experience planning, writing, editing, and staging a short play in just 10 weeks. This exciting project is part of the 2024 Writers’ Studio programme at the OSO Theatre in Barnes.
I normally write novels and short stories, and I’ve never written a play before, so you can learn more about why I’ve chosen to take on this challenge here.
What Our Second Weekly Workshop Involved
Last week, in our second weekly workshop of the programme, we read and analysed everyone’s early drafts. We discussed each one as a group, sharing thoughts and feedback for each writer.
If you read these Substack articles regularly, you’ll know by now I believe the exercise of critiquing other writers’ work is a great way to learn and improve. It’s also very helpful to get a diverse range of perspectives on your own drafts to help make them as strong as possible.
Naturally, then, I really enjoyed this week’s session. There’s some really interesting, clever writing on display already. I’m actually really excited to see some of these plays brought to life on stage.
Here are a few random storytelling tips that came up during this week’s workshop that may be useful for other writers:
The inciting incident doesn’t have to happen in the actual story. For short stories, in fact, it’s often better if the inciting incident has happened before the story begins.
If you’re using a story or play to try to explore a specific topic with the audience — like a philosophical concept, for example — one of the characters usually needs to be the audience’s surrogate by learning about that topic as part of their story arc.
Stories with emotional stakes are usually a lot more compelling and engaging than stories without.
In stories that are dialogue-heavy, it’s beneficial to create contrast and balance between the way the characters speak. This isn’t just in the language they use, but in the style of speech, cadence, and the amount they tend to say each time they speak, etc.
What I Wrote During the Week
So far from the Writers’ Studio, I’ve found I’m able to draft a full 10-minute script in one or two morning writing sessions, which is great. I’ve actually got rough drafts of three different plays now, as I was unsure which idea to focus on for a while.
This week, I finally decided on which play to write for the programme.
But writing a rough draft isn’t that useful for me personally without certain planning in place. Until I spend time working out the deeper elements of the story, it always feels weak, messy, and directionless to me.
What do I mean by that?
Anyone can draft a rough story based on a vague premise (or even less than that!), and you can produce some half-decent work without having any idea what you’re really writing about.
In my opinion, though, this is like trying to produce a delicate, intricate painting, using a thick brush, without drawing detailed outlines on the canvas with a pencil first.
I’ve analysed and edited dozens of first drafts from dozens of writers. The difference between a well considered first draft and a first draft written without any pre-planning is usually massive.
Often, an engaging, compelling, layered story won’t take shape until you start to think about the following:
Your story’s protagonist must (almost always) have a clear goal they’re trying to achieve in the story.
There should be a hidden desire driving that goal. For example, someone’s goal may be to get a promotion at work, but the hidden desire behind that goal may be to live up to their parents’ expectations.
There must be various sources of conflict and antagonistic forces preventing the protagonist from achieving that goal. That should include both internal and external conflict.
The protagonist must make decisions and take action to try to overcome those obstacles. It’s important to note here that these decisions don’t necessarily need to be good or correct ones. Often, bad decisions make for a more interesting story.
The protagonist’s actions must have consequences that influence the story by creating new challenges and sources of tension.
That series of events should form a causal chain that leads the protagonist to some kind of change or growth. The protagonist shouldn’t end the story in the same state they were in when it began.
The characters should also have flaws, insecurities, misbeliefs, etc. that are related to their desires and inner-conflict, and which ideally all tie-in with the themes of the story.
And what does this all give you?
Relatable, proactive characters who the audience will want to follow and become emotionally invested in.
People connect with people, remember. That’s why we’re drawn to stories in the first place.
And that’s why these elements are so important for most writers to put sufficient thought into.
After working through that planning process with my play this week, I felt really excited and a lot more confident. It feels like a very strong story to me now, even though it’s still an unfinished draft.
However, I should also just quickly clarify a few things:
There are obviously a lot more elements than the ones I’ve listed above for writers to consider when planning a great story. These are just some of the things I find most useful and important based on my experience.
Obviously, these things don’t necessarily apply to every story. Some great stories are just about a certain place, others a specific idea. If you have a very unique or interesting situational premise, for example, your characters may not need to be as active as this.
Unless you’re an expert writer, though, your story may feel a bit directionless and unengaging without these things, because your characters are in danger of being too passive and/or unrelatable.
A Great Week of Writing
Last week was actually a really important, satisfying week of writing for me. It was the best one I’ve had for a long time.
And I think it may contain some useful insights or reminders for other writers.
Two reasons why:
1. I managed to write five days in a row
After a very disrupted summer full of work and social commitments, and not enough writing, it was so good to put together a run of five consecutive days of writing fiction.
I think that kind of momentum is so important for writers. The longer you can build and maintain momentum, the more immersed you become in both your craft and your story.
It’s a lot easier said than done sometimes, but if you can do a decent writing session every day of the working week, you’ll be in a good place.
If you can’t, it’s not the end of the world, of course. But it’s always worth trying to push for.
2. More importantly, I was writing at the same time of the morning
Granted, sometimes you just need to take what you can get and write whenever you can fit it in. We’ve all been there.
But if you can build and maintain a consistent routine, writing at the same time every day, your writing will probably start to improve.
Why is that?
Because the more often you do it, the better you get at optimising the use of that time. For example, recognising the point at which you usually get tired or distracted, and finding solutions to work through that.
I’d love to know — do you agree that a consistent routine is beneficial? Or do you find it works better for you to just write whenever you feel like it?
Follow the Project Here
I’ll be documenting the rest of the writing process, and sharing lots of insights from the experience, here in my weekly articles.
I’ll be doing that because:
Writing about it will help me process and explore what I learn each week, and should help me develop my ideas further.
Other writers who suffer from the same challenges as I do should be able to learn from the weekly articles.
Other fiction authors will hopefully be able to learn from the discoveries I make by exploring the similarities and differences between writing for the stage and writing novels.
If you’d like to follow along to improve your own writing and storytelling, or you’d like to keep up with my progress with the play, please do subscribe.
This Week’s Sunset of the Week
Have you ever been to Leith Hill? If you’re ever in or near Surrey, I’d highly recommend a visit.
It’s one of my favourite places to watch the sun go down.
