1. Read great writers in chronological order to see how their writing developed from one play to the next.
2. If you think you’ve finally finished a draft of your play that’s ready to send out to theatres — you’re wrong. Put it away and take another look at it in a few weeks time and you’ll probably find there’s more work to be done. It’s very hard to get a theatre to read a play a second time, so really, truly make sure your play as close to finished as you can possibly make it before you submit it.
Wish-fulfillment is never so strong as when a writer reads his or her work after having “finished” it.
3. When you are suffering from writer’s block while writing a play, in my experience it’s usually because an inner conflict your protagonist has been facing has become submerged or obscured. In real life we try to escape our conflicts; in our writing we have to enter more deeply into them. Because this is not human nature, it is very easy to lose track of conflict as we write. If you’re stuck, try to articulate what your protagonist’s conflict is, and then see where and how you’ve gotten away from it.
4. Remember, a conflict is not a disagreement, a difficulty, or a challenge — it’s when a character wishes to take two actions, neither of which he feels he can live without, while only being able in reality to take one.
CHRISTOPHER SHINN
For the Royal Court: Now or Later, Dying City, Where Do We Live, Other People, Four.
Other theatre includes: Picked (Off-Broadway), What Didn’t Happen (Off-Broadway).
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