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A few more tips.
1. Paroma mentioned one: just write. My goal is a bare minimum of ten minutes a day writing. I usually manage much more (several hours a day) when working on a new piece. Some days you may just get through one tough scene or one difficult piece of dialog, or maybe just one line, but often that is all you need to move ahead.
2. If you get stuck, let your characters decide what direction to take. This sounds impossible, but it isn't. In order to write convincing dialog, you must be able to put your self into each character. Say the line to yourself as you think the character would say it. You'd be surprised where this can lead you.
3. Give every character, no matter how small, something of interest (some 'meat') to do, or say in their part. This goes for large parts too. Read your play as if you are an actor that has to play each of the parts. Ask yourself, Would I want that part? Is it interesting or boring? If it is boring to you, it will be boring for the actor and also for the audience.
I have punched up one small role by making the character a stutterer, I then played with that characteristic to make the entire play better for it. He was a former suitor of the female lead she had a hard time explaining that it wasn't his stuttering, but that he just wasn't her type. He made appearances to make announcements to the family, and have conversations with the father, not making fun the stuttering, but using it comically. This one change in a character, from a straight part to a part with a unique characteristic made the part and the play that much better.
4. Visualize. Imagine the staging. Plays are a visual medium, you may need to drastically change your play to make it work. My latest play is an adaptation of a novel about a bunch of wounded soldiers. Three of the main characters can't move and one lays on the floor! In order for this to work as a play, I created a character that moves in and out of the scene and I staged a dream sequence and flashbacks where the characters all can move again.
5. Make sure timing works. In plays, characters come and go, change costumes, props, scenery changes, etc. Just make sure there is time to make these adjustments without pausing the play too long. You can use vignettes, or dialog, or action, or monologue, or make the changes part of the story, just make sure they can be done (you can't have one character exiting one side of the stage and entering the other without some time lag to get there).
6. Set up a read-through. Assign family and friends that are good readers to read the parts and assign someone to read the actions. Try and just listen and take notes. Listen for timing issues (for example, that character entering in the Santa suit just left two lines ago, he wouldn't have time for that costume change, or characters saying lines when they have already exited a scene). Listen for out-of-character lines or lines that just don't sound right. Listen for drama, humor, emotion. Do the scenes designed to make you laugh, or cry, make you laugh or cry?
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If writing is wrong, I don't want to be right.  
Last edited by vangoghsear : 09-04-2007 at 09:16 AM.
Reason: Added tip 6
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Elysia
