Writing Tip: Only What You Need

Photo by Matthew D. Wilson (LtPowers)

In one playwriting residency that I taught at an elementary school many years ago, there was a fourth grade student whose story centered on a character trying out for the soccer team. The climatic scene involved a scrimmage match between two full soccer teams: that's 22 actors. My method was always to let students get everything out in their first draft and then begin paring things down through a series of conferences and table reads. In this case, I sat in conference with the student and talked through the logistics of staging something so large. Some of the questions that had an impact on the writer included:

• "Do each of these characters speak?"
• "How does each character help to tell the story?"
• "What would happen if some of those players were removed?"
• "Could you still tell the main character's story without them"

In the next draft, the scene shrank from 22 to about 5 or 6 characters. Just those who factored into the main character's journey beyond the one soccer match scene.

Much better.

Even the most imaginative young playwrights can be limited by real-world details and their experiences attending, or performing in, live theatre. Often, movies dominate their thinking about dramatic storyteling. In this example, a soccer story meant a full soccer team. That's a great place to start; the writer needed to realize that idea in action in order to be ready to revise and pare back the draft to only what is truly needed to tell the story. Once that lesson is learned, it can lead to leaner and more concise first drafts later.

Follow @TheYPGuide