Play Writing in Depth (Part 6: Props and Set)

Welcome back to Play Writing in Depth. So this part is kind of going to be an addition to part 5 but in much less of a rant format. This part is mainly going to be talking about how you should always be thinking of your sets and props during the entire writing process.

When focusing on your set and props there is a list in which you need to go through.

1. Does it work with my setting?

Imagine your play takes place in 1920’s England and all of your cast is sitting around a table having a nice brunch and a cup of tea. Then during the conversation one of your character I-phones goes off and it’s part of the script. Does that make any sense to you? Now the exception to a situation like that is if it is a completely comedic play and that what used for comedy, but still try to keep you props in the correct time period. The same thing goes for props. You would see the same cast of characters having tea at a sports bar in 1920’s England, again the same rule applies for comedy.

2. Make sure your sets and props are somewhat reasonable.

So you this amazing script with space battles, and fights on top of volcanoes while mid-explosion, with people flying all in the back ground. Yes that sound extremely amazing but two questions on how are you going to afford all of that and two how are your techies going to build all of that. Now maybe some of that is possible but like what I said in my last rant techies aren’t builder gods who can do everything that you desire and the snap of a finger. It take time, money, energy, man-hours, and a huge amount of experience to do all of that. And it most likely isn’t going to look exactly like what you think it will.

So there is my very, very basic list of what to keep in mind when writing scripts with set and props. So my next post will finally be the end of this series. And I can hear all of the cheers from anyone who actually read my blogs. But next post will mainly focus on all of the little things that I missed over this very long series, so see you then.  

Play Writing in Depth (Part 5: Techies)

Welcome to part 5 of Play writing in Depth. So finally we have gotten out of the actual writing portion of this series now the next few parts are mainly going to be focusing on the technical aspects of plays, and me being a trained in the technical arts, this will be hopefully very easy. So this part is mainly me going to be ranting about what you need in your scripts to make the lives of people like me a butt ton load easier.

First off write in your script what you want for you stupid props.

I cannot tell you how many times in my three years as a techie (technical person) I have had to ask “so what do you want for props?” and what is the usual response that I get. “Oh I don’t know I will just let you decide”. First things first you never let a techie decide what to do for props because you will either get one of two outcomes. One basically the most basic set of props that you need, or two the most elegant designed props. And what is usual response that most techies get after showing off the props they have created, “that’s not what I wanted”. That’s about it, and you don’t understand how much that angers us. Because you told us to pick it and now you don’t like it.

Secondly know what you need for music and mics.

Again I have learned that when it comes to sound and mics no one understands. What most of us have to do is watch the show at least three or four times to figure out what people need for mics and what sound goes where. So if you want to make your techies life a lot easier tell us how many mics you need not want need and write in where your music and sound effects go.

Finally do not mess with a techies stuff. (I know this doesn’t have to do with actual writing but it’s just something that needs to be said).  

Oh now if you really want to piss off techie do one of two things. Move a techies props/stuff, or two not tell us where it is. This is the one thing that so many actors do and don’t understand how much it pisses us off. It would be like a techie taking an actors costume and not telling them where we put it. You don’t understand I am pretty sure that some techies have hit lists of which actors touch our stuff without permission.

So if you want your show to run smoothly please treat your techies with some level of respect because if not we can very easily make your shows a living nightmare. Well there is that rant next we move onto more on stage and props. 

Play Writing in Depth (Part 4: Character Development)

Welcome to part 4 of Play Writing in Depth. After last week and us finishing up the beginnings, middles, and ends of plays, I believe it is time for me to get into the nitty gritty parts of writing plays. This part is going to be talking all about character development. Now I know I did touch on this a little in last three parts but I feel that this is such an important part of plays that it deserved its own part.

Character development is an extremely important part of plays in general, but is it the most important part of play writing, no, but it is still important. It may not be as important as plot, or setting but I mean you still need it. Imagine watching a play with an amazing story, with a beautiful setting, but there is truly no character to speak about, or there is character but they stay the same throughout the entire play. That would either be really boring or it would get very old very fast.

Now you also have to be very careful with character development and not over develop your characters because that it also a very big problem you can run into. See under developing your characters is bad but it is not the worst thing in the world and in some shorter plays you can get away with not really developing your characters. But if you are spending more time developing your characters then you are your plot, you have a very, very big problem. See if you develop your characters to much it again ca either can really boring or very old very fast.

So how do you make sure you that you aren’t over or under developing your characters? I really only have one answer to this one, ask others. But you have to make sure you ask the right people. You have to make sure that it is someone that will tell you the truth no matter how hard it is. And if some tells you that you don’t have enough or you have too much you now know what you need to fix. This also servers another purpose have people proof read your plays.

Thankfully in this series I will not be covering proof reading, but I might save that for another time. So next on our schedule is part 5: how to do stage directions.     

Play Writing in Depth (Part 3: Ending)

Welcome to part 3 of 7 on play writing in depth, and no just because the title says end does not mean it is the end of the series. So in this part of the series I mainly going to talk about how to get to the end of your play and how to fully wrap it up.

Now that you have just finished your climax you need to start wrapping up the entire book as a whole. Now you do have a few options on how you want to do this. You can start telling us what happens after the climax, either directly after the climax or you can even do a flash forward to a couple of years later to see what effects the climax had on the world you have created. Another option that you can do is build the end of your play into a cliff hanger, but I will get into more of that in a little bit. Finally you can just end the play. Once you get to the climax just find a way to wrap it up there. Now this is a very lazy way of making an ending, but for some plays it does work.

Now I am going to go back to cliff hanger endings for a little bit. See cliff hanger endings are good and are a very easy way for an author to make a sequel to the series, but it only really works in books. You can’t really make a sequel to a play. Now I know in some plays the author will decide to end the play during the climax or directly after the climax to allow the viewer to make the own assumption of what happens at the end, or after the climax. You make the audience think did the hero win, or what actually happens to character after the climax, kind of like those make your own adventure books. And when play writers do this correctly it can actually be really cool and really thought provoking. But do be careful with this idea, if done incorrectly it can make your play look unfinished, or just rushed, with no real ending to speak about.

So there is the major three beginning, middle, and end. Now you must be thinking, “wait this is a seven part series what is left to cover?” Well in the oncoming weeks I will be talking about, character development, stage direction, and how to set your stage and props. So I will see you then.     

Play Writing in Depth (Part 2: Middle)

If you haven’t been keeping up this a series of how to write plays in depth, this is of course part 2 and I forget to mention this is going to be a seven part series. So when you are starting the process of acutely writing the script there are a few things you need to think about. These are plagiarism, moving the plot along, and finally the climax.

First off you should probably think about this before writing but I do think that it matters here. Now I know everyone knows that plagiarism is a sin and you should never plagiarize other people’s work, ideas, characters, blah, and blah, and blah. Now don’t get me wrong, flat out stealing other people’s entire ideas or scripts is horribly wrong and I would never say to do that, but I do feel that a certain amount of plagiarism is ok. What I mean is that being inspired by someone’s work or having a similar plot to someone else’s is ok because it is really hard to come up with fully original idea  is extremely hard, even very famous plays do it from time to time. So inspired good, stealing bad.

Secondly what you want to focus on is moving the plot along. I have seen to many plays that are twenty minutes of story and the rest is just pointless filler dialogue. Now again some plays you do need a little filler dialogue here and there to help with transitions, and sometimes for comedy, but that is all it should be used for. Constant filler dialogue is boring and repetitive, and it gets way to over used. Something to ask yourself when writing your dialogue is how is this helping my story, how does it move the plot along in anyway. If doesn’t put it to the side for filler content, and don’t put it back in until you absolutely need it.

Finally the climax. When writing your play you need to make sure you are building to a goal. This also kind of ties in with moving the plot along. If you have so much filler content, and you don’t keep reminding us what your plot is, we will get to the end of the play we think, “Oh that’s it”. So just be careful to remind us your plot is.

So that’s it for your middle part of your play. So now we move onto part 3 your ending.     

Play Writing in Depth (Part 1: Begining)

Hey so I know I kind of did a blog like this a few weeks ago but that was a very small portion of it so I want to get more into it this time around. So for the next few blogs I am going to be going over play writing just different points of it. The first part I am going to talk about is your Beginning with your plot, setting and characters.

First off you need to know the plot of your play, this can literally be anything. Your plot can range from a serious plot like a broken family trying to come back together, or very comical like a horrible bank robbery. The main is trying to figure out what genre of play you want to write, and how serious you want it to be. The other main thing you need to do with plot is just getting your ideas down anywhere, so that if you get stuck you have ideas to fall back on.

The second thing you need to have many ideas about is your setting. Now I know you are most likely thinking that, “oh setting is really easy, everyone knows how to do that”, and technically you wouldn’t be wrong but you also wouldn’t be fully right either. See when it comes to plot you have to think about more than just the location. You also have to think about the time period, the time of day, how specific the location has to be, and etc. Now for some plays I know you can get away with just doing a very basic setting but you still should go into a little more depth with location.

And now finally characters. I know I have done many, many blogs about characters but this will hopefully be the last blog for a while that talks about them, but the reason I bring them up is because they are so important. See without ideas for your characters you really don’t have a character. Now if you want to know how to make characters go down a few blogs and you will find some of my ideas for them.

Well that is all I have on the topic of your beginning. Next on the list we move onto how to enhance your plot ideas.         

2015: A Year of Books or Movies?

I was totally going to do a list of my best books of 2015 by then I got to looking into books that actually came out in 2015 and realized I read no of them. Basically every book I personally was able to read this year didn’t come out in 2015 so I really can’t do that list so I am going to explain why I feel this year wasn’t a very strong year for books.

The major reason I believe this year wasn’t a very strong year for books was book to move adaptations. From some small research I did there were a minimum of about 40 or so book to move adaptations this year, and you would think with how many books get released each year, they would be fine, but I don’t think so. See I feel that movie adaptations are over shadowing their books because it isn’t that big of a time commitment, it’s easier, and they are about the same price.

One reason books are getting over shadowed by movie adaptations is because of time. Not a lot of people now a days have the 6-7 hours to sit and read a book, but they do have the 1 and a half to 2 hours to go sit in a movie theater and watch it.

Another reason I believe books are getting over shadowed by movie adaptations is because is because of laziness. Again no one really wants to spend 6-7 focused on a book picturing it in their minds. But people will gladly go and watch it, because then they really don’t have to think about anything.

Finally I believe that books are getting over shadowed by movie adaptations because of cost. A hard cover book now a days cost somewhere in the ball park of about 20-25$, (not including online deals, old books, stuff like that). A normal trip to the movies for one, about the same price. Including all of the factors earlier I believe this is why books are getting over shadowed by movie adaptations.

Now do I believe that movies will completely over shadow books? No of course not. There are too many people in the world that love reading books so books are always going to stay, but maybe they just won’t be as prominent as movies. But hey we won’t know until it happens.

Books to Movies: 2015

Man I have never been a huge fan of books to movies after I went and say Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, but the year 2015 might have changed that for me. If you have been with my blog for a long time then you will remember back to one of my first few blogs that dealt with the horrible movie adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief or more recently why a book turned Movie will never be as good as the book. But I think the year of 2015 might have changed my mind. (Any books listed will not have any spoilers).

2015 had a lot of great book to movie adaptations, the list is just huge. The list includes Mockingjay (part 2) by Suzanne Collins, The Martian by Andy Weir, The Scorch Trials by James Dashner, Paper Towns by John Green, Even Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James had an adaptation and the list just keeps going on and on. All of these movies were extreme successes and were for the most part, (not including Fifty Shades of grey) were pretty. Most were loyal to their original plots, and weren’t horrible.

Now does this mean that the movies were better than their books, no. I am still staying true to what I said in my blog post, “why a book turned Movie will never be as good as the book”, but book to movie adaptations are getting a lot better. And I have a feeling I know why this is the case. Because authors are now caring about what people are doing to their books.

I know for a fact that John Green the author of Paper Town was on set of Paper Towns and helping “direct” the movie to make sure that it was how he wanted it. And I feel that more and more authors are doing this, because they don’t want to see their books get turned into something that even they don’t recognize, like the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief move.

Now will there be flops of book to movie adaptations like the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief move, yes of course there will be that always will happen, but are they getting better and better with each try, yes they are. Even though I do trash on it a lot the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief move was an attempt but it just didn’t work. So I have a feeling we are going to be seeing more and better book to movie adaptations in the future.         

Book Review: Life of Pi

I am actually really upset that I haven’t gotten to this books sooner. So I finally got to reading Yann Martel’s: Life of Pi thinking it was going to be a mediocre book but man was I wrong. I am hoping most people who read my blog have already read the book I will give you a quick summary of the plot. Oh and SPOILER WARNING for anyone who hasn’t read Life of Pi yet.

Life of Pi is about the story of Piscine Patel (Pi) and how he survives the sinking of a ship and being stranded out at sea with a Hyena, an Orangutan, a wounded Zebra, and Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

Life of Pi is just such a cool story to me. It just shows one kids will to keep moving forward even though it looks like there is nothing to move forward towards. Yann Martel did an amazing job writing Life of Pi. Just how much character and life she gave Pi is so cool. Now I did personally have a few problems with the book, and they just may be my own weirdness but just go with me.

The two main problems I had with the book was the beginning and the end. See personally the beginning was really slow to me, and I felt like it should have and could have picked up a lot faster, and the beginning was still good I just wish that it could have picked up a little bit faster. Now the end is where I have my major problem.

See the ending just really confused me and didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I just didn’t get why Pi tells the original story and then changes it when he tells the men that are interviewing him so it’s humans instead of animals. My question was is that what actually happened, or did he just make it up so that the men would get off his back? (If anyone knows please leave a comment so I can understand the book better).

But besides those two things I loved the book. The detail that was put into explaining the scenery and the struggle that Pi had to deal with every single day was astonishing. Yann Martel again did an amazing job and I am still upset that I didn’t get to this book faster, because it is now one of my favorites.