1. Common Playwriting Problems Advanced Drama Forrest September 2015

2. 1. Narration—Often the student playwright will make use of a narrator that speaks to the audience as characters do. This should be avoided. The story is best told through the revelation of information by dialogue and action: what the characters say and do. Show, don’t tell.

3. 2. Too little/Too much information —The whole story is not shared with the audience or there are details not important to the story presented (this can be hard to judge).

4. 3. Recycled lines —dialogue consists of recycled lines from movies, etc.

5. 4. Too little dialogue —Try having students create a scene with no action; where we must learn about a character only through what he or the other characters say.

6. Questions to ask yourself when writing: How might the characters’ true feelings be communicated to the audience through dialogue? What dialogue could be cut without damaging the story? What narrative clues have been left out? What is your favorite piece of dialogue? Why? Can you think of a way to say this that is truer to the character? How does each character feel about the other characters? Do we know this by something he or she says? Can you imagine something he or she might say or do, feeling the way she or he does?