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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 10h

Pixar's 22 rules of storytelling can be found all over the internet. I guarantee that you'll find at least three that are useful to you.

www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/07/p...

Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling

Pixar's Rules of Storytelling were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, a Pixar Story Artist. Rule 1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

www.aerogrammestudio.com

PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 10h

Why I use an internet blocker, in two sentences:

I see the headline "Chrissy Teigen's fall from grace" and I'm desperate to click on it.

First, I look up who Chrissy Teigen is.

#amnotwriting #writing

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 3d

I love the phrase Jump the Shark, the moment a narrative so leaves its reality that it's ruined.

In the first 10 minutes, you make a contract with the audience. Jumping = breaking the contract.The contract terms are implicit:

This is a comedy.

No one will shapeshift.

The Fonz doesn't waterski.

PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 4d

Weaponize your exposition.

Put another way: the best character to dole out information isn't the friend who tells it over tea; it's the enemy who's lashing out, pummeling your protagonist with it.

#writing #writetips #writingcommunity #stageandscreen

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 5d

Sometimes raising the stakes is as simple as letting your characters be distraught about what's happened, instead of tough.

#playwright #playwriting #writing #writingcommunity

PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 5d

Take a deep breath, lasting perhaps three days, before sending out your script.

You don't want to be the writer sending follow-up notes that say "actually, throw that draft out and read this one! It's way better."

Nobody likes that writer, least of all that writer.

#writing #writingcommunity

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 5d

Thanks for the response, Alex! It never crossed my mind that the Refusal was well known enough to be overrrated. (I'm not a gamer.) It seems to me that whatever the genre, it's useful to hear why the task is impossible as a prelude to attempting it. But now I'll pay closer attention. Thanks, again.

PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 6d

The Refusal of the Call is an underappreciated part of the Hero's Journey.

Bilbo says no to the journey.

The refusal underlines the stakes, tells us how hard this quest will be.

My favorite eg: In the Hunger Games, Katniss doesn't refuse the call. She answers someone else's.

#writing

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 9d

If you've put your protagonist in a dire predicament—trapped in a lie, trapped in a well—congratulations.

Your next task is not to figure out how to rescue her.

Your next task is to ask the question: How can I make this even worse?

#writing #amwriting #writingcommunity

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 11d

A play audience sees the credits before the show, in the program. You need to take that into account.

"1st policeman" could be a minor spoiler (so too the lack of a character named Godot.)

"Orderly" tells the audience the playwright is too lazy to come up with a name.

#writingcommunity

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 13d

Making outlines of scripts you admire teaches you technique: transitions, entrances, keep how much time to spend with a subplot.

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 14d

Two-character scene: A wants. B opposes. Everything either one does or says is a tactic. The tactics get bigger or sneakier.

It should feel like a Jackie Chan fight. A throws a garbage lid. B climbs a fire escape. A hits B's bad knee, but B has a knife in her sock...

#writing #amwriting

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Reposted by PlaywrightNow

Lee Madgwick @leemadgwick.bsky.social · 16d

‘Drift’

Oil and acrylic on canvas 1.1Mx1.1M

A townhouse slowly beginning to ascend. Bricks floating up into a stormy sky.

13 140 670

PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 16d

A writer who's now under a bit of a cloud said something I've always found useful. Essentially:

Sometimes they have no idea how to write a scene. So they just jump in and tackle it, then retackle it. Years later, they don't remember which scenes were hard and which easier.

#writingcommunity #play

PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 16d

Get it on paper even if you don't yet know why. Three months of "She stares at the sea ..." and suddenly the ocean flows into your play.

#amwriting #stageandscreen #writing

PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 17d

Avoid the sad "Lost my Work" moment:

Your clipboard is easy to forget about. Reflexively hit Paste before copying to it lest you erase what's in there.

Treat “Replace existing file?”—like an electric fence.

If u do lose work, start re-creating instantly. It's still in your brain.

#amwriting

PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 17d

Shakespeare wrote in 5 acts, Ibsen in 4. Miller used 3 acts. Plays since the 70's mostly 2.

You see where this is going.

#theater #theatre #broadway #plays @playwriting

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 18d

Put aside those character lists. ("Favorite drink: strawberry milk!") What makes your protagonist is that she's the most active character onstage.

#amwriting #writing #theatre #writingcommunity #playwright

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 18d

Conflict is about the future.

Two characters arguing about an event in the past might give the audience insight into them.

But unless the debate affects what's going to happen, it's dramatically inert, lacks stakes.

It's not conflict; it's bickering.

#amwriting #theater

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 19d

If your scene has become an eternity of clunky exposition and forced transitions, here's the fix: Find the biggest conflict in the scene and move it to the first two lines:

"I want this."
"No, you can't have it."

Anything that doesn't flow from that doesn't belong in the scene.

#playwriting

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 19d

Aggrieved about rejection is not a good look.

#writing #writingcommunity

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 19d

Waiting for something onstage—an arrival, a kiss, a murder—is more compelling than just watching those things happen.

#playwriting #playwright

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 20d

Alas, you wrote an infodump: a scene that mostly exposits. It's a bad first draft but a good opportunity.

How can you weaponize that exposition? That is, have characters bludgeon each other with facts.

Or tease it? Make us desperate to know what they blurted?

#playwriting #writingcommunity

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 21d

My huge fave for a recent theatre book. Among other things, @richardschoch.bsky.social analyzes how the music of a Sondheim show informs the literary content. Listen to the audiobook, then jump to streaming to listen to the show.

My following is small. Please repost.
#theatre #musicals #broadway

Richard Schoch @richardschoch.bsky.social · Mar 22

Happy birthday, Stephen Sondheim! To mark the 95th anniversary of his birth I’m sharing the opening chapters of HOW SONDHEIM CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE—free for all to read. 📚📚 Link 👇 #sondheim

www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/hjint...

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PlaywrightNow @playwrightnow.bsky.social · 22d

Not an accident that a good story is often described as a roller coaster. The thrill is the same: danger experienced while completely safe.

#theater #amwriting #writing #playwriting

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