Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Story Line and Characters

Story Line and Characters

Often my students and other writers I have known have difficulty finding something to write about. In order to help them out I tell them to write about something they want to write about and not worry so much about whether or not it has dramatic potential. Then I go to their port and find some ideas in their previous writings that would be useful in the stuggle to find some good material. What I’m saying is that often a great story is not one that comes readily to mind on a single thread but a synthesis of several different things that have been mulling about in their minds over the past week or month.

This happened with one of my students recently and when I read her Comprehensive Outline it sounded sort of like my Example Outline with a unique spin of her own….Still, it didn’t have the power of some of her other writings so I borrowed from one of them, combining it with her submission and came up with the story line of a pretty good drama. Of course it will remain for her to decide to use it, but the point is that as a dramaturge I used my perogative to take some of her materials and characters in helping come up with an interesting story line that has strong and compelling characters. It remains for her to write the drama but the materials are straight from her writings and contain people and situations she is very familiar with.

Shakespeare often used borrowed story lines and stereotypical characters but it was his rendering of these that showed where his genius was. Still, a good story and riveting characters that are believable, is an important part of a literary work and this is particularly true of a drama.

So if you are having trouble deciding what to write about then write something that interests you, regardless of where you think it's heading. Then go back into other things you have written recently for the story line and characters. I won’t be long before you have a hum-dinger of a story with characters the readers or audience will know are authentic… about real people and a subject you know something about.