Writing a play ideas
Best Dramatic Writing Prompts of 2023
The term “dramatic” can feel fairly vague. In this case, we use the term to describe fiction that’s intense, powerful, and exciting. The protagonist can be a regular person, with a regular life — but drama somehow finds a way into their world. And while everyone has the capacity to be a little dramatic, sometimes as writers we’re still left with a blank page. If you’re suffering with writer’s block, we’re here to help. The Reedsy team has put together this list of creative writing prompts in the hopes of inspiring authors to write stories that leave readers wondering: what will happen next?
Don’t feel too tied to one genre — these prompts are to give you ideas for dramatic stories, but don’t be afraid to introduce elements of other genres. A dramatic story can be tinged with fantasy, science fiction, horror, the supernatural, and so on. All it requires to make it dramatic is a healthy dose of conflict, and enough tension to keep readers wanting more. Other than that, there are no rules!
Here are our top ten dramatic writing prompts:
- “Stop!” you cried. But it was too late — the plan was already in motion.
- You're pretty sure you've never been this scared before. Then again, anyone would be in your position.
- You know a friend is hiding something and you need to find out what it is before it puts you in danger. How do you find out what their secret is?
- Write about someone who decides it’s time to cut ties with a family member.
- Write about a character discovering something new about their past that changes how they remember an important moment.
- Write a story that spans a month during which everything changes.
- Write a story about a teenager visiting the place where they grew up.
- After a friend or family member's funeral, you come home to a stranger on your doorstep, who tells you that they're not really dead.
- Two old friends meet to reminisce about old times and find out they have very different perspectives on a shared memory.
- Write a story about a character who is certain the world is going to end today.
If you’re interested in writing dramatic fiction, check out these relevant resources for even more tips.
- Character profile template (free resource) — Drama stories are especially character driven. If you want to get into your protagonist's head and see through their eyes, you’re going to need to know them inside and out. That’s where character development tools like our character profile can help.
- How to Write Believable Dialogue that Develops Plot and Character (cree course) — Dramatic fiction can be pretty literary, and often relies on razor-sharp dialogue to convey the story’s plot. Luckily, anyone can write amazing dialogue — just sign up for our free, ten day course on the subject!
- Story Structure: 7 Narrative Structures All Writers Should Know (blog post) — Climax, denouement, resolution — if all these terms may as well be Greek to you, we’ve got you covered.
Our story structure guide runs you through all the major story structures you could ever need, to provide a framework for your story to form around.
Want more help learning how to write a dramatic story? Check out How to Write a Short Story That Gets Published — a free, ten day course by Laura Mae Isaacman, a full-time editor who runs a book editing company in Brooklyn.
Ready to start writing? Check out Reedsy’s weekly short story contest, for the chance of winning $250, plus potential publication in our literary magazine, Prompted! You can also check out our list of writing contests or our directory of literary magazines for more opportunities to submit your story.
100 Scene-Writing Prompts. At a fundamental level, screenwriting… | by Scott Myers
100 Scene-Writing Prompts. At a fundamental level, screenwriting… | by Scott Myers | Go Into The StoryOpen in appAt a fundamental level, screenwriting is scene-writing. Use these prompts to improve your scene-writing chops.
Add an original scene to a favorite film
A chase scene without cars
A murder scene
A scene featuring two characters sitting on the edge of a bridge
A scene in which someone says goodbye in an airport
A scene in which you introduce a character in a memorable way
A scene involving a medicine cabinet
A scene that begins with this line of scene description: “Smoke stings his/her eyes.”
A scene that ends with a cliffhanger
A scene with a reversal in it
A scene with a one-sided telephone conversation
A scene with a two-sided telephone conversation
A visual-to-visual transition between two scenes
A wedding proposal scene
An action scene with no dialogue
An establishing scene
An exposition scene… that is entertaining
An interrogation scene
An opening scene
An ordinary scene in an extraordinary location
A character disobeys an order
A character has to say goodbye to a good friend without actually saying s/he is leaving and won’t be back
A character says “I love you”… without using the words “I love you”
A fight scene involving actual physical violence
A lovers quarrel where something gets broken
A scene between a senior citizen and a child
A scene inspired by this photograph
A scene in which a character uses a computer
A scene in which a gesture plays a key part
A scene in which an animal plays a key role
A scene using voice-over narration
A scene that features a monologue
A scene where no words are spoken… but something important gets communicated
A scene where something gets stolen
A scene with a cliffhanger
A scene with a flashback
An apology
An interrogation scene
Someone talking to a gravestone
The first line of dialogue: “That’s the guy, right there”
A conversation between a white-collar and blue-collar worker
A post-sex scene
A scene at a sporting event
A scene in a confessional where the priest makes a confession
A scene inspired by this photograph
A scene in which characters whisper
A scene starting or ending with a hand holding a knife
A scene that involves texting
A scene using flashback and voice-over narration
A scene using something you hear in conversation today
A scene with just one word of dialogue
Adult answering a child’s questions
An accusation
An adulterer out for a meal with his/her spouse sees his/her lover enter the restaurant
En route to the hospital to have a baby
Someone has had too much to drink at a wedding reception when THIS happens
Someone is brought to tears
A character has a ‘conversation’ with him/herself in the mirror
A character reviews a series of voice mails, each with worse news
A man holding a gun
A pet uses voice-over narration to comment on a family fight
A scene inspired by this photograph
A scene involving a dead body
A scene involving a secret
A scene set in an inhospitable environment, e.
g., outer space, underwater, desert
A scene where the entire conversation takes place off-screen
An intervention
Interruption
Introduce a character with a memorable impression
Leaving a voice mail
Miscommunication
One character has to break bad news to the other
Settling an argument by playing Rock, Paper, Scissors
Smack talk at a sporting event
Strangers biding time in a hospital emergency waiting room
The audience knows something the characters don’t
Two people talk while dancing
Under a deadline
A 9–1–1 emergency call
A bar. A bartender. A patron… getting drunk
A coach gives a motivational speech to their team
A good, entertaining montage or series of shots
A parent-teacher conference
A ride-sharing driver and their customer
A scene in which a hammer plays a key role
A scene that ends with a cliffhanger
A scene with a twist
A scene with no dialogue
An adult just happens to run into their middle school bully
Asking someone to dance
Confessing to a priest
“I want a divorce”
Rehearsing an apology
Sales pitch
Saying grace at a big family event
Someone discovers their mate is having an affair
Someone gives a driving lesson to an amateur driver
Strangers stuck together in an elevator
Trying to appear knowledgeable about wine
Trying to talk one’s way out of a traffic ticket
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How to write plays - tips from Nikolai Kolyada
Nikolai Vladimirovich Kolyada is famous not only for more than a hundred plays and a huge number of talented students, but also for his advice for beginner playwrights in the style of “how not to write plays” (you can see them here - "How not to write plays" tips from Nikolai Kolyada part 1, part 2 and part 3).
And for the first time, Nikolai Kolyada wrote a text about how to write plays. This is especially true for those who are going to have time to send their play to the Eurasia-2018 international playwriting competition, the chairman and sole member of the jury of which is Nikolai Vladimirovich (details of participation in Eurasia are in the table of all play competitions.
So, the master's word:
I must confess that I cannot teach how to write plays. I myself still do not know, having written more than a hundred plays, how a play is written.
In addition to creativity seminars, at the theater institute I have a subject called Drama Theory. I always sign for this subject in my student's record books: “Passed” and say: “I don’t know what drama theory is, figure it out yourself, read books.”
After all, as you know, a play is written simply: on the left - who says, on the right - what they say.
Plus soul and heart is the most important thing.
I am often frightened by the dense ignorance, "lack of reading" of young people who come to enter "the playwright.
" These ignoramuses are legion in literature today. Remaining dwarfs, everyone thinks they are titans. That's why they write: "Dostoevsky for the poor." Or - "Lilliputian Dostoevsky".
You are amazed: ignoramuses, my God, ignoramuses write, ignoramuses who have not read all the literature of the 19th century, without which you are nothing if you are going to sit down at the table and write! They watch performances - ignorant Mitrofanushki, write reviews - ignorant Mitrofanushki. Mitrofanushka praises Mitrofanushka. And everything is fine, everything is in chocolate. Everyone is happy. Except for the public, which pays money in the theater and, therefore, provides everyone with bread and butter: playwrights, actors, director.
The great literature of the 19th century - no one read you, you are no longer needed, you have been forgotten! Everything is hearsay, everything is on top, everything is slipping - that's why it often takes me aback, and you don't know how to be here, what to say.
Don't know what to do
So.
1. Think long and hard about the first phrase. It must, like a red-hot awl, enter the brain of the reading director, or actor, or spectator, and hold it. It is necessary to build the first phrase incredibly precisely, it is necessary to make such a first phrase that it will pinch the viewer. It should be like a red-hot awl that you inject into the brains of each viewer and hold the whole play, the whole performance like this. And you bring him in - there, from here, and he reaches for this awl. The first phrase should be very powerful. I always come up with the first phrase for a very long time, because it starts to type further and further away from it, to move, without this phrase it is impossible. Remember how much information in the first phrase, say, Chekhov in “Three Sisters”: “... Father died exactly a year ago, just on this day, May 5, on your name day, Irina. It was very cold, then it was snowing. It seemed to me that I would not survive, you lay in a swoon, as if dead.
But now a year has passed, and we remember it easily, you are already in a white dress, your face is shining ... ". So many things: about her father, and about the name day that today, and by name she called one of the heroines, and how many more.
2. Stretch the phrase. Every phrase. It is necessary that there be music in the phrase, and let them reread the wrong phrase that you composed a hundred times in the theater, let them hear your music. Now it is very easy to “pull” a phrase with the help of a computer: technically it is done like this - you rearrange the words, drag them with the mouse, and that’s it. Don't be afraid of wrong speech. “I don’t like Russian speech without a grammatical error,” said Pushkin. Feel free to put two verbs, two adjectives side by side, make the phrase beautiful, irregular, not smooth. The phrase should be like a rope or wire stretched in the hands.
3. When I write a play, I write beautiful words, stories, and something else from my notebooks.
I'll hang one piece of paper, a second, a third, a fifth. Then I use something, I cross it out, I put a tick, I write further. Then out of these six leaves, two will remain. And the rest that is not included will go to another play. I collect everything in a pile, everything that I like. Get in the habit of writing everything down in a notebook. And then, if suddenly a dry, stilted situation, not very truthful, it can be saved by two or three living words in the mouths of the characters. The audience, or the reader of the play, will come across these words and believe that you are writing - the truth. You have to be able to deceive.
4. Make the text literature. Do not expect that you can write anything, and the actors in the theater will tell the text beautifully in different voices. Very often in the theater, directors cover up the helplessness of dramaturgy and actors with all sorts of “props”: turn on the music, start dancing, or something else. Because the directors do not hope that the actors and the playwright will stretch out, that the viewer's attention will be focused.
And they begin to do something with theatrical machinery in order to awaken people. But it is from this roar that you fall asleep, you get tired. Vitaly Wolf, the kingdom of heaven, always told me: “Anything is possible in the theater, but only tell about a person.” Right. Do anything, but about a person, about us, about me. If I read a play and just contemplate some fictional frills of the playwright, then nothing happens. I don't like this theatre. Write about yourself. Only about my feelings of life. Otherwise, Shakespeare in Velvet Pants comes out, where everyone plays, where everything is right: an event, an assessment, an extension, a rebuild. But life and man - no. When there is no live on stage, why then? Let sophisticated critics talk about you, writing plays about people, not about ideas, let them say that "this is a collective farm, the collective farm is everything, toothless, rustic." Well, let them talk. Read the plays of the classics: everything is about people.
5.
Back in drama school, I was taught that every play must have an initial event. So I lured the students: what is the initial event in your play, what is the initial event? The students are already laughing and saying: "A hopeless event." There must be something that happened before the curtain opened that unites all people together: the passer-by on the street, and the character, and the person who comes, and the cat. Then everyone starts moving. Gogol's ideal: "I invited you, gentlemen, in order to tell you the unpleasant news: an auditor is coming to visit us." This message, the event turns everyone upside down: even a pig lying in the Mirgorod puddle gets it - some Derzhimorda will kick it so as not to spoil the picture. Everyone is affected by the original event.
6. On the first page, all the characters must necessarily call each other by name, this is necessary. She should say: "Hello, Vasya," and everyone will understand: "Yeah, this is Vasya." And they answer him: "Hello, Masha", - "Yeah, this is Masha.
" “You don't love me,” he says. "No, I love you very much!" she answers. The conflict is understandable. The conflict should be identified on the first page. If two guys and a girl are standing and kissing. And next to it, a guy and a girl are fighting - where will you look, at whom? Of course, those who fight. Here is the basis of the theater: conflict. The public follows the conflict, how it develops.
7. Take a situation that everyone understands: a wake, farewell to the army, a meeting from the army, a wedding tomorrow - something that everyone in the auditorium understands. Again, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov wrote: "Father died two years ago, just on your birthday, Irina." Everything is clear right away: dad died two years ago, today is his birthday, the situation is clear. How will it develop further? And then you can move it anywhere. But everyone in the hall responds involuntarily - both to the death of their father and to their birthday.
8. There must be a climax, it must be very funny, wildly funny until the middle!.
Humor is the foundation of the play. The audience relaxes. And at the end of the first act, it is necessary that the characters scream, yell, swear, quarrel! No, not literally, but something has to happen that will hook the audience. This is so that the audience would go to the buffet, drink cognac or tea there and think: “What will happen next, I wonder? They were shouting something like that, shouting, how will they get out of all this? This is a lure so that they would come to the second act, so that they would not go to the wardrobe and then go home.
9. There must be hope in a play. “We must live, Uncle Vanya. We will see the sky in diamonds.” I didn't come up with this, these are just necessary things. So I drive students into these frameworks, and everything else - do what you want. But I always drag them to rehearsals, to theaters, to tour performances. You need to understand what is bad in the theater and what is good, what is dead and what is alive. Whatever you write, always write about Russia.
About the "bird-troika". About that - "where are you rushing." Write about Russia - unhappy, tortured, muzzled. About Russia - terrible and beautiful.
10. A play cannot be written on the table for eternity. The play must be staged in the theatre. If the author is sitting in the auditorium, he sees: well, it turns on the actors, makes them happy, but here the audience laughs or coughs, or starts to move, yeah, it’s sagging here, something else needs to be done here. The public pays money for tickets only to laugh and cry. This has been known for a long time. This is how plays should be written. Let the second act be sad, very sad, with long monologues, although I don't like monologues in plays. But all the characters in the play must dig deeper into their souls, they must understand themselves and people, and in the end, they must definitely give a little hope
11. The play must be written in silence. The play is written out of laziness. Plays, like children, are made at night and out of love.
You have to come to the dacha, lie on the couch for three days, or at least a day. You lie and think: what did you write, Kolyada? You wrote a hundred plays. Did you write about the wedding? Wrote. Did he write about seeing off to the army? Wrote. Did you write commemorations? Wrote, there was such a situation. The arrival of a new person in the city? There were many times. Why didn't you write? And here! That's what you didn't write about. We sit down at the table and do not wait for any inspiration. A writer is a job. Sit down and work. First, I come up with a name that I like, some beautiful word. Well, Sirocco. There is a wind. I write on a piece of paper: “Nikolai Kolyada. Sirocco. A play in 2 acts. I wrote, postponing. Second page: characters. I have a spelling dictionary, I open the last page - there are names, female, male. Those that I have already used are marked with a cross. Here's some Taisya. Okay, nice name: she will be called Tasya. Taisiya, 40 years old. Male - Mikhail, Pollock can be called: Misha, Misha, Pollock.
We write "Misha". We turn the page, write: “First action. First picture. A village house, a small provincial town, an apartment on the fifth floor - probably the ceiling is leaking - the ceiling is running ... ”What else could be there? The walls are painted with floor paint, yellow. A cat walks across the room, Misha enters. Tasia and Misha are talking. You need the first phrase, you lie down on the sofa, you think, you think ... Rearrange the word, pull the phrase, let's say, as Lyudmila says in “Go away, go away”: “Why did I give the address and took ... You came and I am ashamed of everything for this here all around right…” This mess, which is around in the apartment, she, the heroine, wants to close with these beautiful words. She is looking for words, trying to speak beautifully, but it doesn’t work.
12. On the third page, or the fourth, if everything works out, music starts playing in my head. And then this music sounds, and the sheets are simply shifted. But this must be done in silence and from laziness, so that there is free time.
You need to go crazy, get into the situation enough to understand, see the picture completely, enter it and write it down to the last fly beating against the glass. To be able to feel everything, then everything will work out, everything will work out. Rozanov said: “What is a writer? Eternal music that sounds in the soul ... There is no music - you can learn to write, but you will not become a writer.
13. From time to time I advise students to write the word "Fuck" across the page. Imagine that a person is reading, he loses interest and suddenly - "Fuck"! The man wakes up. Well, of course, it is not literally necessary to write this word. You have to be a psychologist and understand that something must happen all the time that “wakes up” a person. So, a man came to the theater, drank cognac, which is not bad at all - let him rest after a working day, - so, he came, sat in an easy chair, the lights were turned off in the hall and the man, naturally, falls asleep. So what to do so that a person does not sleep? Make "shit".
14. Write a play quickly. Maximum three days. But not six months. The play is a cry. A play is a language, and it changes instantly. In six months, everything will sound different on the street, you won't even notice. Write fast. Put a point. Type on the computer. You have to write by hand. Always write by hand. Touch, feel every word.
15. Check everything according to the formula: the play must contain a Thought, a Word, Characters pierced by the Pain of the author. Thought - what I want to say to people, Word - the great Russian language, Characters - in development: now such a person, then suddenly another. But everything makes no sense if there is no Pain of the author. Who will we pity? Someone must be sorry. Otherwise, there is no theater.
There are many things that could be written, but I am silent.
I'm a bore. I've been doing the same thing for many years.
"But the gossip's advice was just wasted."
Good luck to all who write plays!
Source - LiveJournal by Nikolay Kolyada
How plays are written - kilgor_trautt - LiveJournal
How I write plays.
First, an idea arises in the head - a certain plot idea. I fix it in my computer in the “ideas” folder, which, together with all the contents of the computer, is duplicated in two more versions, one of which is stored outside the home. This is the so-called "information security system". After that, for a sufficiently long period of time, the idea matures in the head, or remains in the “passive”, waiting for its time. Thus, a bank of ideas of very different directions and genres is compiled.
One fine day I decide that one of the ideas is becoming, or will become in the near future, relevant. I decide to bring it to life.
I take the file out of the "ideas" folder and put it on my desktop. After that, a switch is turned on in the head, which transfers the idea from the “passive” state to the “active” state. I begin to think about the play, giving this process all the time that is not occupied by the current operational work.
Paying special attention to the title of the new play and the first phrase, I gradually move along the plot, endlessly correcting it and building it up with new facts, phrases and elements of the characters' characters.
At some point, I begin to actively record these ideas in a notebook and a file called "context". One day I decide to start working on the material. I'm starting a file called after the future English version of the play. I enter my initials, the name of the play, the genre (if any), the list of characters and the entrance remark (more precisely, its variant). After that, I close the file and start working on the casts.
I create a separate file for each of them, in which I put a photo, which is associated with this character. Then I paint his characteristics: age, character, habits, distinctive features of appearance, speech and character. When the bank of characters is completed, I print out the files and hang them in front of me above the table. If there are many characters (as in the play I am writing now - 15), then I put them in a separate folder with transparent files. I also add printed files there, which may be related to the context of ongoing events - the historical period, cases, the background of what is happening, the semantics of names or titles, etc.
The day I start writing the first scene, I have to clean up my apartment/room and take a shower. This makes it easier to get started and does not allow you to deviate from your plan. Then the process of writing the play begins, which takes me a different period of time: from a month in which I wrote the Moonlight League to three years, during which I periodically return to writing The Guest.
I am writing almost without corrections - outright. And if the plot is stuck, I can't skip ahead and then return to the frozen fragment. Almost every day, returning to what I have written, I make minor adjustments: I change words, strengthening or weakening intonation; change the structure of sentences; I clean out the hateful introductory words that appear out of nowhere in the fabric of the text ... I don’t remember the case when I went back a few pages of text and changed the storyline, but it happens that I throw out the last paragraph, having come up with a new way to advance the plot before going to bed.
I can't take long breaks in writing, because I fall out of context, and then I need several days of permanent reading of what I have written in order to "come back."
The final is a special period of writing a play. Most of the problems of playwrights are the inability to build an ending. One day I sent out a play under control I had written to a reference group of readers, and a few days later, without waiting for their impressions, I reversed the ending. It turned out that only the reference group in the end did not read the text of the play in the form in which it went into the world.
After I finish writing, I put the text aside for a few days in order to take a break from it and look at what happened in 3-4 days with completely different eyes. That's when I make the final adjustments. Then I send the text to the translator to create an English version. With him, we discuss the nuances and important aspects of the text. In this case, special attention is paid to the English-language name.
