START SMALL!

Don't try to write the next Angels in America or Rent for your first play. A big problem for many young (and not so young) writers is starting a play and not finishing it. My favorite way to begin is with a ten-minute play, which, at a page per minute, is ten pages long. It's got a beginning, middle and an end, only everything happens more quickly. And you'd be surprised at how many theatres look specifically for ten-minute pieces (I have several that get produced fairly regularly). Once you write a few ten-minute plays, you can write a one-act of more substantial length and eventually work your way up to a full-length. Don't rush!

HOW DO I START: WHERE IDEAS COME FROM

Anywhere. Everywhere. Still stumped? Here are just a few possibilities:

A line of dialogue. A title. A character, either fictitious or based on someone you met or observed or read about. A historical event. A setting. A theme/issue. Anything observed. An object. A photograph or an image. The newspaper. Your own life. Anything you care about. And that's the bottom line. You can't write about something which isn't in some way really, really, REALLY important to you.

Find an idea? Take this germ of an idea and ask yourself "what if?" What if there's a homeless teenager? What if he's looking for someone? What if he's looking for his mother? (That became Ben.) What if there's a "milk conspiracy?" (This is what we might call a "concept," and it became Milk and Cookies.)

This is the first step toward creating the world of your play.

Now what?

Who lives in this world? It's time to build some characters.