Briefly, how does a playwright write a play?

Answer 1

Briefly:
1) You have an idea, or a feeling about something, which you feel motivated to express in theatrical terms (as opposed to writing a story or a song or painting a picture). Example: how frustrating love can be sometimes.

2) You conceive of a character who embodies that idea or feeling, or (more likely) one who is engaged in a struggle to understand how that idea or feeling works in his/her own life. Example: they wonder why love has to be so frustrating sometimes.

3) You give that character a tangible objective which will allow them to try to achieve something specific while at the same time dealing with the idea or feeling. Example: I want her to love me, but she doesn't, and it's frustrating--how can I get her to care?

4) You conceive of a situation, usually involving another character, which makes the objective hard to get, so that the main character has to struggle. Example: unfortunately, I killed her brother in a knife fight. (Don't laugh--this is part of Shakespeare's "Richard III")

5) You think a lot and take a lot of notes about who these people are, WHY they are who they are, where they live, what they wear, what they do, how they talk, and so on, until you feel like you mostly know them.

6) Then you sit down and start writing the situation, and let THEM start talking to each other--with one trying to get what they want, and the other resisting, and any other necessary characters getting involved. The smaller and simpler the thing they want ("go out with me"), the shorter the play. The bigger and more complicated the thing they want ("get revenge for the murder of my father"), the longer the play. When they've worked it out, in dialogue and action, whether it takes 15 minutes or 2 hours, you have a first draft of a play.

7) And then you rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite...until it sounds the way you want it to. At which point, if you're lucky, you find actors and a stage, and watch it come to life.

Answer 2

I think the process varies widely. Some people begin with a theme, others with a single arresting character, others by drawing from personal experience. Myself, I tend to start with a basic dramatic situation or an opening image, and then see where things go from there.

In terms of composing the actual dialogue, it's mostly a matter of hearing the lines in your head. You can try out different things and see how they sound, but often your best lines will just spring up unbidden, out of your visualization of the scene.

I guess that's the simplest way to describe the process: picture the play happening onstage, and then write what you see.

Answer 3

I'm sure not all playwrights follow the same technique.

There are many online website about how to write a play.

Answer 4

He has to possess the appropriate word power for his dramatic intention and deploy characters whose traits would easily work towards the realisation of a coherent aesthetic end.

Answer 5

Plot
Players
Language

Answer 6

One word at a time.

Answer 7

First he thinks himself and then talks by himself.