So I’ve been on a crazy writing binge as of late just trying to get caught up in with 31 Plays | 31 Days. And this process has taught be that I LOVE to write stories in script format! I still have to write today’s play, which I’ll do after the Niner Game (GO NINERS!), but I’m caught up. I took like 3 days off from writing and one day, I just buckled down and PADOW! Done! I think what I’m the most proud of is that I really got into each of the plays below. I could have “mailed” it in and wrote 1-3 page sketches, and even though I put my all into those as well, the plays I wrote to get caught up were more play-like. Some dramas even!
Lessons:
– Free writing is fun! Because I’ve been caught up in learning how to write for television, I’ve bought into the method of breaking a script and having an outline done BEFORE writing. It worked with ESPERANZA MEANS HOPE. And I feel that it works. Television shows as good as BREAKING BAD proves that it does. But because, I got behind in my commitment to write a play every day, I went back to how I’ve been writing before I got lost in the TV Dream – Free Write. One other thing, Stephen King, in his book, On Writing, says we need to, as writers, discover the special nuggets as we write. This is counter to outlining and planning the foundation. In a way, by free writing again, I’ve discovered the art of my craft. As Mr. King says, by writing without knowing how things will turn out exactly, it’s like discovering fossils. You’re just digging and digging until you find that special bone that links everything together.
But I’d like to add, without having the perspective of outlining, I think I’d still be meandering a story. Outlining forced me to know what my ending was. It forced me to know what the signposts were. To know what Act (in a 3 Act structure) I’m at, or where I should be at in a play or scene. So, it was a blessing in disguise to learn that method of writing because it’s like having a transparent map which I can lay over my story as I write it. If I get too far off course, I can see it and decide whether to reel it in or say, hey, this character is taking me somewhere interesting. Let’s peep this out for a little while longer.
– I love to write. I could’ve given up, but I chose to keep writing these undiscovered stories that were seeped deep into the crevices of my imagination. As much as I was worried that I wouldn’t reach my goal, it slowly turned into a “habit” to discover the story lurking inside. As I had stated in this blog, when I first started writing these plays, I needed to know what I was going to write about! I needed to know the character names. I needed to know how it was going to end. I needed an outline.
But when I got in my “rut”, I had to switch it up and thankfully a bit of advice came up in a blog post on the 31 Plays | 31 Days site, called “Stop Writing Good Plays This Month“. Those six words kinda unchained my way of thinking that each of these 31 plays needed to be PERFECT. And a funny thing happened with that thinking, not only did I write more freely, I truly think that the plays I did write were perfect. Perfect FIRST drafts!
“31 Plays” got me writing and writing hard and writing free. I know that I’m a better writer because I took part in this.
Okidokes, these are the Perfect FIRST drafts of plays 9-17:
- Day 9: The Bro-Date – A mother sets her son up on a blind date. All he wants to do is drink beer and watch his Dubs play with the guys. Apparently, his mother thinks she knows what he wants too.
- Day 10: Unwanted Cycle Stopped – A Pro-choice vs. Pro-life debate rages between a wooden door that separates a mother and her daughter.
- Day 11: The Bacon of Truth – The Beacon of Truth and Justice is looking for a sidekick to help him battle the life of crime in the streets of Raleigh, CA. Based on a REAL help wanted ad on Craigslist.com
- Day 12: Cha Cha Sliding into Life – While all of Ogie’s friends are getting married, he realizes that he’s alone. With the help of his bff, Regine, she gets him to focus back on life.
- Day 13: Ysabel The Pilot Santos – With the Olympic boxing trials just days away, a boxer, Ysabel “The Pilot” Santos remembers all of the boxing lessons taught to her by her first trainer, her father.
- Day 14: Finding Moonlight – Before a son travels to Bangkok to find the truth about his birth mother, he tries to seek out the information from his adopted mother first. An adaptation of Miss Saigon, when Tam, now named Michael, discovers that he is a product of his father Chris and a Vietnam Bar Girl name Kim during the Vietnam War.
- Day 15: Emo Moves the F*ck In – A comedy between the battle of nit-wits and the half-witted over a much coveted corner office.
- Day 16: Special Agent Harpo – While busting a spy, Special Agent Suzara, is given the option of arresting Jong or fulfilling his lifelong career goal – finding his kidnapped mother.
- Day 17: Floating Down Free – In an attempt to score some herbs from Genevieve in the High School library, Marcello offers Esperanza the chance not only get high, but to also find her freedom as well.