Question

How to Write a One Act (Play writing)

Answer 1

There are many things you have to consider when it comes to playwriting, like the actors, the director, and the fact that it’s on a stage. Stages can be very limiting. It tends to be harder to do certain effects on the stage since it’s a live performance. Most special effects are possible on stage but tend to be costly. As the writer you want to make your story as economic as possible. No one will want to preform your play if it costs them more money than its worth. Especially not a one act.

Answer 2

"A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as distinct from plays that occur over several acts. One-act plays may consist of one or more scenes." Most one act competitions do not allow the play to go over 45min.

Answer 3

Just like anything you write you need to organize your ideas and brainstorm. These are a list of sites I like using when organizing any of my writings.
https://realtimeboard.com/
Mindly (App)
Pinterest

Answer 4

When forming characters the hardest part can be separating them from each other in order to make them all have different personalities. So if you have a hard time with this a good thing to do is to look into psychology and personality types. I personally like the Myer-Briggs personality test. You can look into the personality types and decide what you want your character to be or take the test as if you were the character. Once you figure all this out feel free to make your character page. Try to make each character description only have about 20 words. There are many different ways in which to begin writing. I typically write a bunch of monologues and build off of that. Another way is to just start from the beginning. It’s whatever works for you.

Answer 5

The dialogue is pretty easy but the stage directions is where things get tricky. The problem most writers run into with stage directions is not becoming the director. Only use stage directions as a necessity, so use it for things like they kissed. If you start becoming more detailed then you are probably overstepping your boundaries.

Answer 6

Another hard part about stage directions is that it’s very factual, very plain. So get to the point. There is no need to add things like the emotions. Developing emotions should be inferred through the dialogue, and from there it’s between the actor and the director.

Answer 7

The point of stage directions is to tell the director and actor where they have to be. This means that the grammar has to be perfect and while the stage directions need to be short it also needs to be precise. There should be no doubt as to what the actor is doing, or where they are.

Answer 8

Now moving onto format.
Format doesn’t really matter when writing your first draft. Do whatever makes sense to you. However, once it comes to publishing or competing you may have to change that. There are different formatting styles and it really just depends on who you’re giving it to and what they want. Here are some links with some different formatting styles.
http://playwrightscentersf.org/submissions/docs/PCSFPlayFormat2012.pdf
http://ptfaculty.gordonstate.edu/lking/CPF_play_formatting2.pdf
http://flthespian.com/wp-content/uploads/Hamlet1.pdf

Answer 9

Once you finish writing you have to edit just like all writings. Once you edit, you edit again. Have people review and just keep going till its perfect.

I hope this helps anyone and if you have any questions don’t be afraid to ask.
I’m putting some websites I have used and some websites that may help you.

Processing Link One-act play - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://www.jondorf.com/youngplaywrights.html#theplaywrightschecklistarevisiontool
http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2008/nov/25/theatre-writing-plays-playwright-royal-court