PlaywrightNow

A simple way to up the stakes of a scene is to give it an audience.

#playwriting #writing

The thing I want to stress to people: Authors (and other artists you admire) don't *expect* you to be scintillating when you meet us, so don't worry about being clever. What *is* appreciated is if you're nice. Just be nice! Nice is good!

Good morning, #5amwritersclub! Writing isn’t about controlling every word—it’s about trusting the next one. 📖

#6amwritersclub #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #AmQuerying #IndieAuthor #AuthorsOfTwitter #WIP #AmWriting #MorningWriting

NOT A LIFT, BUT, #WritingCommunity, This is the SINGLE MOST Important post that I believe should be posted EVERY DAY by every author so teachers and readers shop here first. IMHO steal and repost!

Does autopilot Web browsing ransack your concentration? (Like now?) Try an internet block. I like Freedom. Cheap, effective. It helps. (I have no affiliation.)

I'm starting an organization devoted to abolishing set changes. Our motto: There are better ways to kill your play's momentum.

Please join.

#playwriting

If you live in Los Angeles and like live theatre, go to the website in this article and you'll instantly see how useful it is.

theatrecommonsla.org

In 1959, an American schoolgirl wrote C.S. Lewis (THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE) and asked for advice on writing. This was his response:

"It takes as long to rehearse Hamlet today as it did four hundred years ago."

Nic Bencerraf, as quoted in the article "Masters Degree Preferred," by Maridee Slater in @howlround.bsky.social

The longer it takes to write the first draft, the more you invest in it— in a bad way. Write it fast so you can scoff at it.

#writing

Useful term.

The Magical Negro. A supporting stock character who comes to the aid of white protagonists. Spike Lee popularized the term, while calling out The Green Mile for containing a super-duper-magical Negro character, selflessly helping white people.

Rewrite stuck? Find important info introduced neutrally. Electrify it by using it as a tactic, a reveal, a weapon. (Follow the ripples.)

#playwriting #writing

If your antagonist is a cartoon, you drain away most of your stakes. No one will care.

#stakes #writing #scripts

If blocks of writing time are rare and you have one coming up, do yourself a favor and find 20 minutes a day in the days preceding.

You don't want to jump in cold. You want the play in your head, questions primed, and a list of tasks you're desperate to start with.

#writing

Read plays you just saw and see plays you just read.

Start writing. No matter what. The water does not flow until the tap is turned on.

—Louis L'Amour

Horror movies terrify us even though we know that nothing onscreen can reach out and grab us. If anything, it's plays that should be scary.

#halloween #horror #scary #writing

Jason is important to the history of horror because he's right at the border of the monsters who we pretend scare us and the people who actually do.

#scary #halloween #amwriting #writing

Theatre, especially high school theatre, needs scary plays.

What frightens us in a play is different from what frightens us in a movie. In theatre, jump cares rarely work,

Scary plays are about dread.

#scary #writing

The best way to raise the stakes of a goal is to show all the different things your protagonist does to achieve it.

#writing #writetip #writingcommunity

If a shark stops swimming, it dies. Writers are sharks. If the fingers aren't moving, the ideas don't come. Try writing while lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Maybe, you hope, inspiration will flow past my gills.

Perhaps a sea lion will swim into my mouth.

The quiet panic attack:

"This play is too big. I don't know what I'm doing." One strategy: a list of tiny projects. Typos, smooth a scene, change problematic names. When you don't know what to do, do SOMETHING. Even small progress relaxes you, leads to bigger progress.

#writetip #writingcommunity

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling Pixar's Rules of Storytelling were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, a Pixar Story Artist. Rule 1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling can be found all over the internet. I guarantee that you'll find at least three that are useful to you.

www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/07/p...

Why I use an internet blocker, in two sentences:

I see the headline "Chrissy Teigen's fall from grace" and I'm desperate to click on it.

First, I look up who Chrissy Teigen is.

#amnotwriting #writing

I love the phrase Jump the Shark, the moment a narrative so leaves its reality that it's ruined.

In the first 10 minutes, you make a contract with the audience. Jumping = breaking the contract.The contract terms are implicit:

This is a comedy.

No one will shapeshift.

The Fonz doesn't waterski.

Weaponize your exposition.

Put another way: the best character to dole out information isn't the friend who tells it over tea; it's the enemy who's lashing out, pummeling your protagonist with it.

#writing #writetips #writingcommunity #stageandscreen

Sometimes raising the stakes is as simple as letting your characters be distraught about what's happened, instead of tough.

#playwright #playwriting #writing #writingcommunity

Take a deep breath, lasting perhaps three days, before sending out your script.

You don't want to be the writer sending follow-up notes that say "actually, throw that draft out and read this one! It's way better."

Nobody likes that writer, least of all that writer.

#writing #writingcommunity

Thanks for the response, Alex! It never crossed my mind that the Refusal was well known enough to be overrrated. (I'm not a gamer.) It seems to me that whatever the genre, it's useful to hear why the task is impossible as a prelude to attempting it. But now I'll pay closer attention. Thanks, again.