The Short Plays

REFLECT UPON

Without thinking about writing, what are the subjects or

topics that often interest you?
Enumerate at least five. Now, thinking as a playwright what do
you think are the easiest to write about from your list?
What are the most difficult to write about from the same list?
Explain these observations
 ACT
Is a part of of a play defined by rising action, climax, and resolution.
Climax

Rising Action Resolution

ONE ACT PLAY- Itself contains all the necessary elements of dramatic writing for one act:
Objective, obstacle, conflicts and dramatic action, and a running time between 30 and 45
minutes
PLOT-WISE- It has exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action,
resolution and denouement.
 SCENE
Is defined as part of an act marked out with the changing or regrouping of characters.

ONE-ACT PLAY- may consist one or more scenes

TEN MINUTE PLAY- Is a subgenre of the one-act play that is, well only ten minutes long.
It contains its own dramatic structure with a beginning , a middle and an end; and all the
play elements of objective, obstacle, conflict, and action, all covered in ten minutes.
 In Medias Res
Is a Latin phrase that means “into the middle of things”. As a literary
technique,, it is often used to describe the manner of opening your story
in the midst of action, so that exposition is bypassed and filled in
gradually, either through dialogue, flashbacks, or descriptions of past
events.
 The Eight-Step PSN
Approach to Writing a
Ten-Minute Play
Peter Solis Nery
 Theme/Subject
On a page of your writing notebook, write in big capital letters, red ink if
you must, a statement like the focus of your passion.
Let it be personal
What was it again that you deeply, truly believe in? Or it could be an issue
that is bothering you right now, or a premise that has been begging to be
written for a while. Just write it, and keep this idea in your mind throughout
this whole writing project. It could be anything like:

• WHAT DOES HAPPINESS MEAN TO ME?

• I WANT TO BE LOVED AS I AM.
• TRUE BEAUTY IS WITHIN.
 Characters
Make up a central character. Give her a name. Give her a need. And give her a reason why she
needs what she needs. Then think of two or more other characters. Try to make early
connections with your central character, think of relationships, but don’t worry about it too
much.
You can always change your characters later if they don’t fit in your idea of the play. Give
these other characters a name. give them a need. And give them a reason why they badly need
what they need at the moment.

For Example:
• Donato, a hunchback needs love and appreciation. He needs to feel loved because he feels
ugly and unloved.
• Marita, a mother, needs understanding and forgiveness. She needs to be forgiven and
understood because she is about to lose a son.
• Jed, a handsome, arrogant boy, needs a kidney donor. He is on dialysis now after he tried
to poison himself with Tylenol and Racumin because he felt unloved by his mother.
 Create a character for a play. Write a
short monologue for your character about
his/her/its dream job.
 Plot
Manipulate your characters. Define, refine, and redefine them to suit your story.
Let their stories intersect. Adjust their stories to make a plot. How can you put
them all together in one story? What situation will allow them to be in the same
place at the same time? In keeping with the example characters above, consider:

• What if Donato was abandoned by his mother on the church steps when he was a baby
because he was so ugly and was looking so sickly that he’d probably die anyway?
• What if Marita is the mother who abandoned Donato when he was ust a baby? And now,
she badly wants Donato to forgive and Understand her just so she can ask him to donate
his kidney to his brother.
• What if Jed and Donanto are brothers?Or, better yet twin brothers? And Donato turns out
to be a perfect match as a kidney donor?
 Setting
Decide on the setting of your play. Where can you put all characters together?
Where can their worlds collide? For the Donato-Marita-Jed example, consider:

• Does Maria bring Jed to Donato’s place? Is it in Jed’s character to go with his
mother?
• Does Maria see Donato beforehand for preliminary talks and invite him to visit
her ND Jed when he has finally made a decision to donate his kidney?
• Does Marita bring Donato to Jed
 Conflict
Remember: Objective+Obstacle =Conflict. Clarify the conflicts and reassess everything
you’ve got so far. Write them down. To continue the Donato-Maria-Jed example:

• Donato wants love. That’s his objective. He is ugly. That’s an obstacle. He can get the
love of his mother if he forgives her. But it is hard to forgive a mother who abandons her
child. That’s another obstacle. He can gethis mother’s love if he agrees to donate a
kidney. That’s still another obstacle!
• Donato is now thinking of donating his kidney to his twin brother. That can be a new
objective, a new goal. But Jed is arrogant and refuses to accept a kidney from a
hunchback. That’s an obstacle to the new goal.
 Storyline
Solidify your story as much as you can at this point. Throw in a few more ideas and see
where it goes. Try one, discard another. Try again until you have at least something
semisolid. Then, just to clarify what you have, write a sentence or two of your storyline that
is, your plot in one sentence.
For Example:
• This is a story of a hunchback who desperately needs to be loved because he fels ugly and unlovable,
but discovers in the course of the play that to be loved means one must first love, forgive, and give
until it hurts.
• This is a story of an ugly hunchback raised in a convent, who decides to donate his kidney to his
handsome but arrogant twin brother because ugly as he is, he realized that he is blessed with an inner
beauty that reflects the love of Christ.
 Reflect Upon:
The glass which holds the same amount of water
can be viewed either as half-empty or half-full.
Are you more of a “glass is half-full” thinker or a
“glass is half-empty” thinker? Will trying to think
from the opposite perspective help you improve as
a playwright? How?
 Write!
Now one more time, read the theme or germ idea that you have written at the
beginning of this exercise, on the page of your notebook in big capital letters,
perhaps in red ink.
Read that aloud three times, and just start writing. Don’t worry too much; don’t
think too much. Just write! You may not know what to write, but just write. That
will warm you up; ideas will come. Write everything that your guts tell you to
write. You can cut away later. You can toss away sections and edit later. For now,
just write. Write from your heart. Write what you believe in. And keep writing.
 For Example
• Start in medias res
• Start with a short monologue for Donato; maybe Marita. And build up on that. Write
something before the monologue and after the monologue. What about both before and
after?
• Start with the ending and work your way backward to the beginning.
• Start with a dialogue between two characters, and when you already have a fuller grasp
of the story introduce a new character. Start with two and layer it up.
• Start with a screaming match between Donato and Jed. Let Jed insult the ugly Donato.
Let Donato react. Speak true. From the heart!
• Start with Maria begging, and Donato refusing to donate his kidney. His Kidney! That’s
what’s at stake. Let Maria cry. Let her beg on her knees!
 Revise!
Your job now is to make your draft better. The goal is ten polished pages of
essential materials that work and satisfy, a play that actors and theater
professionals would like produce onstage a literature that readers would like to
read. Do as many revisions and as many drafts as you like but consicder these
questions in your every rewrite:
• Did you make it clear that the central character wants something? Was the conflict clear?
• Did you create enough obstacles that get in the way of your central character from
achieving her goal?
• Is there a structure that pushes the dramatic action causing one event to lead to the next?
• Can you add something to deepen characterization? Maybe an engaging behavior or an
interesting speech pattern, a certain diction, to give your characters more texture and
make them distinct from one another?
• Did you use theatrical or dramatic possibilities that a stage, live actors, sound effects,
lights, scenery, and costumes can afford?
• Is there something that you are just stubborn about, something that shouldn’t be in the
play and should probably be cut now?
• Did you write something that you really care about?
 How much did you know about writing a ten-
minute play before you read The Eight Step PSN
Approach to Writing a Ten-Minute Play? How
can this PSN Approach help you in your growth as
a playwright? How can this PSN Approach hinder
you?