The Assignment on Friday May 19 each student should turn in a properly formatted play. Your play can be about anything!

Have a cover page with your name and play title

Have a page with a list of characters

Have at least 9 pages of dialogue

Getting Inspired to Write!

We have explored several ways to find a writing “seed.” The idea of the seed is that it something you can plant and take care of. The final product looks very different than the seed because of your creative energy.

We explored:

1. Inspiration by place: thinking about the name or feeling or events as a way to start writing. Using place as inspiration might give you a play title or location, but it could also give you a feeling to write about. Remember we explored the list of everyone’s favorite place…but what if you thought about the worst place, or a blue place, or a dry place, etc.
2. Inspiration by idiom or turn of phrase: thinking about things people say can inspire a character’s words or a full on story. Remember we used foreign language idioms.
3. Character: Some people start with characters first. We thought about a characters life and hopefully found interesting stuff as we explored.
4. Art: We explored various pieces of art as pieces of inspiration. Does the art tell you the start, the end? Are you exploring the entire piece or just a moment, a thing, etc?

4.5 It doesn’t just have to be visual art… could you get inspired by a poem, a song, etc?

5. Nature: Get outside. Sit, write, record, observe…the things you see, hear, or touch might inspire you.

Things we didn’t explore, but that might work

1. Audience: Could you write the play for a specific person or group? Could you write a play for a specific performer? Could you write the play that you want to see?
2. Truths: Is there an essential truth in life that you could explore?
3. Questions: Could you use your playwriting to ask or answer questions
4. History:  Is there a moment of history that you could fictionalize? Is there something obscure that you could share with a wider audience?
5. Inventions: How was the pencil invented? Or Love? Or the battery? Or sibling rivalry? Is there a play there?
6. Community: Meals, religious services, travel, government…all of these things require people to come together…is there a story in coming together?
7. 1+1= Play: What would happen if you put together 2 different things? Say Turkey and flashlight. You would have a Turkey Flashlight….what does that do? Is there a story there??