20 Principles of Dramatic Writing

1.) The characters of a play are significantly different from each other. Action comes from the dynamic of character interaction. 2.) The setting of a play is a metaphor for the action of a play. Settings must be carefully chosen to pressure the dramatic action. 3.) In a play something is at stake for more than one of the characters. Action is only possible when more than one person has a stake in what happens. 4.) Dramatic characters want something. To get it they want to do something, and they want to change something. The attempt to change the status quo is a necessary part of dramatic action. 5.) At the center of the play is a treasure of some sort, something of value that is fought over, struggled over. it almost always has a financial aspect. 6.) There are many obstacles to the pursuit of the treasure and to each character's pursuit of his or her goal. Obstacles are absolutely necessary factors in dramatic action. 7.) Characters must try to get what they want more than once. Otherwise the situation is a single incident, not a drama. Drama consists of multiple attempts and multiple strategies to solve the problems confronting the characters. 8.) Most plays are built on pretense. Most theatre is about theatre: about acting, about lying, about pretending. 9.) A play's story or dramatic action is accomplished by dialogue. The dialogue is the action. Dramatic dialogue is dialogue in which characters try to do something and try to change something, in which characters seek to have an effect on other characters. 10.) A play also has physical action, but the physical action should accompany and underline the dialogue, not substitute for it. The physical action is a pattern in itself, dance like, the play stated in movement terms. 11.) Plays are heavily dependent on the device known as dramatic irony. Dramatic irony keeps the audience engaged in the action. Dramatic irony is distinct from simple irony because it is a device for planning. 12.) Plays are also dependent on perepity. The idea of drama - what a drama is - is almost synonymous with perepity, or reversal of intention. 13.) The best dramatic characters are complex. The more human they are, the more faults they have, the more contradictions in their characters, the more interesting they are. 14.) Style is partly a matter of establishing a convention and using it more than once. Devices used only once are almost always unsatisfying. 15.) The language of a play may mimic realistic language or not, but it should be consistent with the style and meaning of a play and it should be language that an actor would like to speak. 16.) Everything must be set up in a play. This includes character entrances and exits, the use of props, jokes, important pieces of information. Plays require preparation, execution, and follow through for each of their elements.

17.) The scenes of a play must build. The tension of the overall play must increase from beginning to end, but individual scenes require mounting tension and releasing it as well. 18.) The end result, feeling of a play is irony. 19.) Plays gather meaning and significance by the use of analogy. 20.) Whole plays and individual scenes operate on three structural points: the inciting incident, the crisis, the climax. Sometimes these points are subtle and almost buried, but they are almost invariably there.