LEARNING HANDOUTS IN CREATIVE

WRITING

INTRODUCTION

In this lesson, you will learn the concepts of playwriting and you will likewise know its basic elements,
plotting and constructing dialogues.

Before you enter the world of drama, let’s make sure to review all the basic concepts that you have
learned and heard before.
Drama, which is often used interchangeably with play, is a more theatrical term and deals with the art
of play production. It is more collaborative in the sense that it deals with the stage, the hall, the costumes, the
music, the synchronization of music and dialogue, and such things to bring the written play to a theatrical
performance. If you are skilled in the production of a play, you are called dramatist. A playwright can also be a
dramatist, but not all dramatists are playwrights, some directors do not write plays; so they are not playwrights,
but are certainly dramatist, too.
Play is a literary genre written by a playwright, usually consisting of dialogues between characters
intended for a theatrical performance rather than just reading. You may use the term straight play (for plays like
Hamlet by William Shakespeare, or The Passion of Jovita Fuentes by Peter Solis Nery, or Death of a Salesman
by Arthur Miller) in contrast to musical play (like Annie, or Miss Saigon) that has music, dance, and songs sung
by the characters. Sometimes the term playlet is used for a short play.

ACCORDING TO THEME
Tragedy is a play that is more serious and deals with a darker theme, usually marked by a sad and
depressing ending. Comedy, on the other hand, is a play that is meant to be humorous with a happy and
vivacious ending.
Subgenres of comedy:
● Satire is a comedy play that takes a comic look at people and current events while at the same time
attempting to make a political or social statement like pointing out corruption.
● Burlesque is a comedy play that tries to make people laugh by caricaturing the spirit of serious works,
or by the ridiculous treatment of their subjects.
● Farce is a generally nonsensical, overacted comedy play that often uses slapstick humor.
● Comedy of manners is a comedy play that satirizes the manners and pretentiousness of a social class
or several classes, and often uses stereotypes.
Subgenres of tragedy:
● Melodrama is a tragedy where you exaggerate sensational and romantic topics to play with your
readers' feelings and emotions.
● Tragicomedy is what you get when you blend aspects of both tragedy and comedy, as when you give
a happy ending to a serious play or when you put comedic elements in a tragedy to lighten the play's
mood.

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ACCORDING TO LENGTH
If you want to make a full-length play, a.k.a. evening -length play, your work, when performed,
must run from 70-80 minutes to about two hours, enough to be an evening on its own, but not very long enough
to push your audience to suicide.
If you plan on writing a one-act play, seriously consider something with a 30- minute running time.
But one-acts can play from 15-45 minutes. (Tip: To make a good one-act play, focus on one main action or
problem because you don’t have the time to get into complicated layers of plot. And keep your play to one set,
and only a very few scenes as much as possible. Why? Because set changes can take so much time.)
The ten-minute play, is not a sketch or an extended joke but a very short play with a beginning, a
middle, and an end. It is limited to ten minutes, and on paper, it’s actually ten pages or less.

ACCORDING TO MODALITY
● Closet drama is a play that is not meant to be performed onstage but maybe just enjoyed by solitary
reader; or perhaps, read out in a small group.
● Monodrama is a theatrical piece played by a single actress usually portraying one character
● Street play, a.k.a. street theater, is a performance piece in outdoor public spaces without a
specific paying audience. Most Filipino passion plays-plays about the passion and death of Jesus
Christ-are street plays.
● Puppet play uses puppets of many types including glove or hand puppets, rod puppets, or the
marionętte on strings.
● Dance drama, a.k.a. dance play, is a drama conveyed by dance movements and
sometimes accompanied by dialogue.
● Shadow play uses, well, shadows. You already know what a musical play is: it has songs,
dances, and music.

ACCORDING TO MEDIUM
A play performed on a stage is a stage play: a play meant to be made into a movie is a screenplay; a
play which is meant to be made for television is a teleplay; and a play that which is meant for radio broadcast is
called a radio play.
Intertextuality is a literary device that shapes the meaning of your text (called hypertext now) by
another previous text (called hypotext) by creating an interrelationship between the hypertext and hypotext, and
generating a related understanding of your separate works. As a discourse strategy, you can use intertextuality
in fiction, poetry, plays, and even in nonwritten texts such as performance and digital media.
Depending on your intention as a writer or the significance of the reference, intertextuality, or the
making of intertextual relationships, can be classified as obligatory, optional, or accidental.
Obligatory intertextuality happens when you, as a writer, deliberately invoke a comparison or an
association in your work (again, the hypertext), with one or more other texts (the hypotext).Your reader's prior
knowledge or understanding of the referenced text (or intertextual texts) is important for the better appreciation
and fuller understanding of your hypertext. Without this pre-understanding or successful connection of links,
your reader's understanding of your new text is considered inadequate or incomplete. In the Bible, the use of the
Old Testament prophecies (the hypotext) in the reading of the story of Jesus (the hypertext) in the New
Testament is an example of obligatory intertextuality.
In optional intertextuality, the connection of texts may or may not be recognized by your reader; and
this has no big significance in the understanding of your hypertext. Usually, if you employ optional
intertextuality, you are merely trying to pay homage to the "original" writers of the hypotext that you are
referencing, or to reward those who have read the referenced materials. When your reader finds some
connections between your text and some other texts that you had no intention of making as an intertextual
reference, that relationship of texts is called accidental intertextuality.

INDUSTRY STANDARD FORMAT

Plays are writen in a script format, and there are certain rules because the script is intended for
producers, directors, designers, and actors who will bring your play to life: and therefore, you want to give your
play in a format that these theater people understand and prefer.
If formatted correctly, your script should result in a ratio of one page equals (roughly) one minute of
time on stage. This is useful in estimating your play’s playing or running time. Other typological devices will
also alert actors, designers, and other production personnel to quickly find the information that they need.
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 What to do? Begin with a piece of 8.5" x 11" paper, 1" margin on top, right, and bottom, 1.5 margin
on the left to allow for binding later. The title page will contain the title, centered, and in all capital letters, and
underlined; plus a statement about the length of the play (for example, A One-Act Play, or A Three-Act Play, or
A Ten-Minute Play). The author's name, centered, is under the title.
The second page lists the Cast of Characters (names, brief descriptions, and relationships if they are
pertinent); and brief descriptions of Time and Place. These three titles are written in all caps, underlined, and
centered. For a play with several acts, describe the time and place for each act.
Now, on the script itself, your stage directions are indented to the right half of the page, and are typed
single-spaced. They are not put in parenthesis. You are to use all caps to call attention to special design effects
such as lights and sound. Identify your speakers by typing the characters' names-centered, all caps, before their
dialogues. Use a double space to separate each name from the preceding material, whether a stage direction or
another dialogue. Use all caps when the character name appears in stage directions (to alert your actor), but use
caps and lowercase when the name appears in dialogues. Actor directions are short phrases intended for actors
playing the role; place them under the character name or somewhere in the actor's dialogue,
centered, and in parenthesis.

DRAMATIC STRUCTURE AND DRAMATIC WRITING

In Unit 1, you learned about Aristotle and his philosopher's observation of the dramatic structure from
the plays of the long-dead Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Grandpa Aris said that the play must have
protasis, epitasis, and catastrophe. Translation: a beginning, a middle, and an end.
This concept of the plot unfolding in a linear fashion in order for the play to function successfully
has helped many playwrights, and future playwrights like you, for centuries; and although it has been
challenged and rejected by some, it is still to your advantage to know it so that you will know which rules you
will ultimately be breaking. After all, the elements of a playwright's craft-dramatic structure (plotting), character
development (characterization), objective and obstacles (conflict), et cetera are really just mechanisms to make
sure that your audience follows what is happening onstage.
Whether you use the traditional Aristotelian dramatic structure or not, just bear in mind that your first
job as a future playwright is to dramatize conflict. In order to do this effectively, you must first thoroughly
understand the basic elements of dramatic writing. There are four: objective, obstacle, conflict, and action.
Objective is your character's urgent want, need, or desire. This objective maybe connected to a larger or
abstract idea like a cause for justice, a desire for love, or a search for enlightenment, and so on, but to clearly
define your character’s pursuit, of this objective, you must make that object specific and concrete. Romeo and
Juliet desire love, that's the big idea. Specifically, their concrete objective is to be together.
Obstacle is a strong resistance, an impediment, or another character's action, that prevents your character
from reaching her desired objective or goal. Romeo and Juliet's obstacle is that their families are at war, and
their relatives and friends make it difficult for them to be together.
Conflict begins when your character wants something (that is, she has an objective) but there is an
obstacle that is in the way. Simply, conflict can be expressed mathematically as: objective + obstacle = conflict.
The conflict in Romeo and Juliet is between the young lovers and their relatives and friends (man against man).
Dramatic action is the journey, the trajectory, the events and happenings that your character takes to
actively seek her objective. But more than just physical action and activities onstage, it should be rooted in the
internal psychological need. Romeo's dramatic action is the whole journey including marrying Juliet secretly,
refusing to fight her cousin, Tybalt, and poisoning himself when he thought that Juliet was dead. Juliet's action
is the whole journey including her refusal to marry Count Paris after Romeo was banished, faking her death.
and stabbing herself to death when she found Romeo dead.

TRADITIONAL PLOTTING
Here is the deal in constructing the plot for your play: You are on your own; you make your own
decisions. No one is forcing you to conform to the Freytag's Pvramid; no one is pressuring you into following
Aristotle's traditional structure of beginning, middle, and end. However, if you feel a little lost and could use
some help, here's an example, a model, a suggestion, but definitely not a prescription, for your play. Start by
simply subdividing your plot into three basic parts:
Part One, the orientation, is your introductory material that will establish your play's initial sense
of equilibrium and stability. It can contain such storytelling devices as exposition and foreshadowing.
Part Two, the disorientation, is your play's action, and it starts with the point of attack that breaks
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 the equilibrium or causes instability. This part can contain your hero's goal. Recognition of the need,
complications and reversals, planning and obstacles, and continuation up to the climax.
Part Three, the reorientation, is your ending that follows the climax. It can contain the resolution,
denouement, and catharsis. It restores a sense of balance in your play's universe.
See how the three parts above neatly correspond to the Aristotelian beginning, middle, and end?
If you are wondering how long the parts need to be, here's an estimate. In a full-length play of
around 110 pages, your beginning can be 5-15 pages, followed by the long middle of 85-100 pages, and a short
ending of 5-10 pages. For a one-act play of 40 pages, 1-3 pages for the beginning, 33-38 pages for the middle,
and 1-4 pages for the ending usually do the trick. And for a 10-minute play, 1-2 pages for the
beginning, 7-8 pages for the middle, and 1 page for the ending is usually magic.
Now, look again at the word estimate. It means that these page breakdowns should not be slavishly
followed, but you should already get the idea of the relative importance and development of each part. Recall
the plot points in Freytag's Pyramid from Unit 1, exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling
action, resolution, and denouement. Here's another suggestion: Apply these to your three parts.
Can you see now how your Part One, the beginning, can contain the exposition and inciting incident;
and Part Two the middle, can contain the rising action and the climax; and Part Three, the ending, can contain
the falling action, resolution, and denouement?

DIALOGUE, MONOLOGUE, ASIDES, SOLILOQUY AND THEATRICAL DIALOGUE

Dialogue by definition, is conversation between two or more people. In a play, you can refer to all
the lines of exchange between characters as dialogue, except when a character makes a lengthy, extended
speech in a scene, which is called monologue, and everyone else is forced to listen. Soliloquy, which is also a
one character's speech, is like a monologue, but differs from a monologue by the fact that it is spoken when no
one else is onstage. An aside, on the other hand, are words spoken in a play for the audience to hear, but
supposed not to be heard by the other characters. You can define theatrical dialogue as the dramatic exchanges
expressing conflict between two or more characters. Your play's characters talk. And their active and vital
dialogue thrusts your play forward by revealing your characters' emotional involvement on issues and by
showing conflict between your characters working at cross-purposes. Real-life dialogue is usually disorganized,
idle, rambling, and emotionless. What you want to do for your play is organize, condense, individualize, select,
and shape the dialogues to serve your plot and characters. Aim for an artistic reproduction of real-life speech,
but focus on artistic reproduction, not real-life speech.
Note that you have three different vocabularies: the spoken (the smallest vocabulary), the heard
(second largest), and the read (largest). You may understand the word quotidian when you read it in a
sentence somewhere, but in most likelihood, you will not use the word in everyday speech to mean
"commonplace" or "trivial." So, if you remember that your play is meant to be spoken by actors and heard
by people, you may want to stay away from much of your reading vocabulary because people do not speak in
the way that they read.
Aside from vocabulary, you might also want to mind the length of your dialogues. You are not
writing a novel wherein readers have the chance to go back and reread your convoluted sentences. You just
want simple, clear dialogues to move your plot forward.

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 MINDANAO INSTITUTE
United Church of Christ in the Philippines
Mayor B. Atega St., Brgy. 10, Cabadbaran City, Agusan del Norte

FIRST SEMESTER SECOND QUARTER-PRELIM

CREATIVE WRITING
WORKSHEETS

NAME: STRAND: GRADE/SECTION

PRE-ASSESSMENT:
Directions: Answer these questions based on your experience.
Which movies do you enjoy more: tragedies or comedies? What was the last tragedy movie you
saw? Why do you think not many movies in the tragedy mode are made in the Philippines?

ACTIVITY 1: What have I learned so far?

Directions: Answer the questions on What I Have Learned So Far. Write your answer briefly.

1. Differentiate a playwright from a dramatist.

2. Differentiate tragedy from a comedy.

3. What is the ideal length of a one-act play? Why?

4. What is intertextuality?

5. Why should you use a standard script format?

6. What is the standard playing time equivalent of one page of script?

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 7. Differentiate a monologue from a soliloquy.

8. What is dramatic structure? Why is it important?

9. Why should you try not to write lengthy dialogues?

ACTIVITY 2:
Directions: Answer the questions pose in this activity REFLECT UPON. Write your answer under the box.

Have you seen a silent movie without dialogues and narrations? What did it feel like? Did you like it? Film,
as a play medium, has an added advantage of zoom-ins, close-ups, and other camera tricks, to visually show
emotions and convey the development of character and story. In contrast, a playwright depends more on
dialogues than visual communication. As an audience, would you like to watch a play without dialogues? Why
or why not?

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