GENERATING IDEAS
- Think without writing for five minutes.
- Write without thinking for five minutes.
- Write without stopping for ten minutes.
- Write without stopping for thirty minutes.
- Write to a piece of music. Don’t stop writing until the music stops. Vary the music to vary the prompt.
- Write for three minutes a list of as many things as you can that you remember.
- Write for three minutes a list of as many things as you can that you notice (deliberately draw on the senses).
- Write for three minutes a list of as many things as you can that you want.
Without thinking, write in response to the following headings for three minutes.
A field
A face
Masculine Things
Feminine Things
When I was a child
A room
A departing
I did not say…
If I was a woman/man
An arriving
The past
My enemies
Things I’d do if I wasn’t me
Home
The future
Clothes I have enjoyed wearing
Songs I remember hearing
Rooms I have lived in
Nightmares I still recall
Faces I have kissed
His body
In the attic
When it happened…
They wished…
Her body
This morning
It should not be the case that…
In the Bedroom
When she saw him
This country
His favourite dress
In the Garden
The sky changed
In the cellar
Her favourite shirt
In the Kitchen
The sky changed
A bad break
The taste on my tongue
In the cellar
REFINING THEME
Write without stopping for three minutes or five minutes in response to the headings:
I am frightened that….
I am angry that….
I hope that….
I am ashamed that…
You can refine it by including more septicity. For example with my play HARPER REGAN I wrote about mothers and daughters.
So wrote about all the things about mothers and daughters that made me angry, frightened, hopeful or ashamed.
CHARACTER
Write a list of 51 things the character can remember
Write a list of 51 things the character has forgotten
Write a list of 21 things about the character that they have NEVER known
Write a lost of 21 things the character wants
Think of the person you know best in all the world. (in this example my wife)
Write a list of the things you know to be true about that person. (She was born in Reading)
Now write a list of ten things you know to be untrue about that person. (She is a professional football player)
Look at your second list. Have you accidentally invented a new chatacter?
For one minute draw a picture of them with your eyes closed.
A description of your character getting dressed or undressed
A description of the process of your character eating
A description of your character as a child in a playground
Their favorite place
Their favorite word
What was the last thing they searched for on the internet?
Most exciting mode of transport
Most striking physical facet
How do they sleep
How do they walk
Their biggest fear
How do they smell
How do they have sex?
When do they blush
RELATIONSHIPS
For ten minutes write as many things that the character knows about themselves that nobody else knows.
For ten minutes write as many things as the character and others know about the character.
For ten minutes write as many things as others know about the character but that the character doesn’t know about themselves.
For ten minutes write as many things as YOU know about the character but that neither the character nor others know.
Relationship Questions (ask these of each couple in the play):
- How do the characters know each other?
- How long have they known each other for?
- What do they openly like about one another?
- What do they openly dislike about one another?
- What do they secretly like about one another?
- What do they secretly dislike about one another?
- What do they GET from one another?
- What do they want from one another but don’t currently get.
RANDOM SCENE GENERATOR
- Write a scene in which a character talks more than another
- Write a scene in which a character lies
- Write a scene in which a character behaves in the opposite way to their feelings
- Write a scene in which a character loses all control of grammar
- Write a scene in which a character does something physically possible but seems to have no logic or reason or sense to it
- Write a scene in which something physically impossible happens
- Write a scene for one of the actors from the company from the readings
- Write a scene set in a place you’ve never been to
- Chose a real character from culture or history or fiction and write a scene in which you confront them with an imaginary character
- Write a scene in which you change style half way through
- Write a scene in which the characters talk in a way that in no way resembles how a character would talk in real life, perhaps (although not necessarily, in rhyme
- Write a scene with no actors on stage
- Write a scene about someone who speaks to somebody who can’t answer
- Write a scene set in a location to which none of the characters of the scene have ever been
- Write a scene with no words just with action.
- Write a scene where the longest line is five words long.
- Write a scene including several lines written in a foreign language
- Write a scene based on one of the characters from the wall.
- Write a scene in rhyme.
- Write a scene in which a character murders another character. The build up. The murder. The aftermath.
- Write a monologue and then write a separate score for movement that operates only in counterpoint to the monologue, not to illustrate it.
- Write a scene entirely in colloquial idiom
- Write a scene with at least five characters in it.
- Write a scene in which there is more silence or behavior than language.
- Write a draft of a simple scene and then re-write it multiplying the emotional state by ten.
- Write a scene in which a character faces their biggest life changing experience but can’t articulate any emotional state whatsoever.
- Write a monologue in which a character articulates with sensitivity and compassion an opinion that you yourself abhor.
- Write a scene in which somebody sings a song in order to change somebody’s life and write that song
- Write a scene involving characters of genuine political power.
- Write a scene in which a character has sex with another character.
- Write a scene involving somebody from their family or somebody else they know in real life.
- Write a scene set two hundred years ago.
- Write a scene set two hundred years in the future.