When writing your new play, keep in mind that there is a difference between the story and how you choose to tell it.

Here is the story: boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy looses girl, boy looses girl for good and everyone dies. (Bonus points if you recognized this as the plot for “Romeo and Juliet”.)

You could tell the whole story in prose, as a novel. You could write it as an epic poem. You could put it on paper as a screen play, and shoot it on film. You could write it for the stage as a musical or as a straight play. You could condense it down, take out the everyone dies part and write a play for middle schoolers. You might simplify the sets and write it for readers theater, or eliminate the sets and write it as a radio play (in German–I’ve heard they love radio dramas in Germany).

In the novel, the words you choose would be very important. In a play, any kind of play, the words can be inspiring, but they MUST be clear so your final product comes out looking the way you want it to look. In radio, you might put more of the action in the dialog, and include a narrator part that is meant to be read aloud.

These are all different ways of telling the same “boy meets girl” story. Why is this important?

Knowing you COULD tell the story any number of ways, frees up your inner creative writer and lets you put off editing till the writing is done. “Yes, yes,” says your inner writer, “I k-n-o-w I used the word poison three times in the last four lines, but this is a stage script. Relax. It’s okay.” The inner editor wants his turn. He needs his turn. He just can’t have his turn WHILE your trying to write.

So, throw your inner editor a bone and he’ll start to relax. Writing a new play doesn’t have to be hard, if everyone will just wait their turn.

Break a leg.