1. Descriptions
2. Summaries
3. Actions
4. Dialog
5. Transitions
6. Soliloquies

That’s about it. Just stack up those bricks in an interesting and conflicting pattern and you’ve got yourself a story. Here is an example:

Description–It was a typical home office, except for the heads. Bison. Water buffalo. A middle aged woman with long blonde hair and startled grayish-blue eyes.They looked even spookier at this late hour.

Summary–He liked to tell people the head was a prop made up to look like his first wife. “Oh, she’s alive and well and living off half my income in Boca,” he would say. The truth was rather darker than that.

Action–Phil gently hung up the phone, leaned back and looked thoughtfully up at his ex.

Dialog–“Well, that’s it then,” said Phil. “They’ve called the loan.” “I told you they would,” said a voice from the corner. “So what are we going to do now, Dad?”

Action–Phil opened his desk drawer and took out a long-barreled frontier-style revolver.

Transition–It took almost 30 minutes to get back to Phil’s daughter-in-law’s house.

Summary–A long 42 minutes after that, they had reached the job site for one of Phil’s major competitors. The backhoe started on the first try. Phil clicked on the headlights. Barely 12 minutes later, she was gone without a trace. Well, almost without a trace.

Action–Phil shut off the backhoe, climbed down and stood by his son. Wordlessly, Phil took his gloves off and smacked them against his thigh.

Description–The night closed in around them. The scent of scrub pines, dust and diesel fumes hung heavy in the air. There were no lights, no sounds, no neighbors yet. That was what made the new development such a perfect body dump.

Dialog–“Where do you want me to put this?” asked the son, holding up his wife’s gold bracelet. Phil asked, “You don’t want to keep it for awhile?” “No,” said the son, “let’s do it all at once and be done with it.” “Well,” said the father, “How about under the driver’s seat?”

Soliloquie–As Phil drove them carefully back home, he thought about the small package in the trunk. He looked out the window and said quietly to himself, “I wonder if it was wrong to keep the head?”

You can see the patterns easier in a stage play because scene descriptions always come first, dialog is set off differently from action, and transitions are right justified. If you look for them, you can see the patterns in a novel as well.

Now you try it. Write something horribly good!

May our prayers touch you, even on death’s door, and

May you find the peace that surpasses all understanding.

• How do you get a guitar player to turn down the volume? Put sheet music in front of him.
• How does a guitar player make a million dollars? He starts out with seven million.
• What do you call a musician without a girlfriend? Homeless.
• A seven-year-old boy tells his dad, “When I grow up, I want to be a musician.” Dad says, “I’m sorry, son. You can’t have it both ways.”
• What’s the difference between a puppy and a singer-songwriter? Eventually the puppy stops whining.

For more jokes, check out “A Prairie Home Companion–Pretty Good Joke Book.”

In my outline for the new mystery novel, I’m using a question outline that includes the question each scene will answer. Another way to think of this is that each scene has a purpose. For example, one of my first scenes asks the question, “What is ordinary life for Chase and Kimbe?” After reading that scene, I want my audience to know what ordinary life is for my two lead characters.

Yes, he struggles with chronic illness, and she likes to get up early and go fishing. That’s the story. That’s what I want my audience to know about these characters when the scene is over. But that’s not enough. I nee to dramatize that information and THAT is what becomes the writing.

If I’m writing a novel, I can talk or tell about Chase’s illness. “Chase Lane woke half paralyzed–again. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t upset. He could still move–a little–so it was same crap, different bedroom.” Not great writing, but you know Chase regularly has spells of morning weakness. That doesn’t work nearly as well for a stage play.

For a stage setting, I might choose a monolog: “Woes is me that I struggle daily and mightily with this affliction. For it strikes my heart as well as my limbs, and every hour is like a day pinned under the foot of an evil God.” Shakespeare wouldn’t be scared, but it does sound like a play. Or, I could just have him limp across the stage.

On the other hand, for a film, I can use the camera and show little tiny things that mean everything: Morning. Chase’s bedroom. Chase struggles to sit up. He pushes his feet off the bed. We see a close up of a pill box. The label reads, “Potassium Bicarbonate.” He struggles to open the box and pulls out a flat packet that looks like an orange Alca-Seltzer. He tries to rip the paper but doesn’t have the strength. He sighs and lets his hands fall into his lap. You can do that on stage, but you are really telling a story in closeups and that won’t play to the back of the house.

Even in the same genre, stage play, I could show Kimbe packing to go fishing. I could show her greeting people on a path near the river. I could show her getting coffee for Chase, but stopping to buy a fishing magazine. I could have Kimbe want to go fishing, but see how much Chase is struggling and have her decide to give up her morning and make him some eggs and coffee.

There is always The Story you want to tell, The Story that is there, all the time, in your head. The Story that lives and breaths almost without you–as if it were a separate living thing. But what scenes from that story do you choose to write about? Which moments best dramatize your story for the genre and medium you are writing? The moments you choose to write about affect your Writing much more than the exact words you choose.

Ride Like a Pro is a motorcycle video by a former motor officer (motorcycle cop) named Jerry “Motorman” Palladino. He found a way to simplify and teach basic motorcycle handling skills using a video and a matching live seminar. So, he makes money from video sales, from teaching seminars and from franchises in other states. I recently took the Ride Like a Pro class with J. D. Redmon who operates a franchise here in North Carolina. I learned a lot and had a great time. In one sense, Jerry “Motorman” Palladino has performed his “play” (his class) hundreds of times for thousands of people all over the English speaking world. Have you had that much success with your shows? Would you like to?

What do you already know that other people could benefit from? It may or may not be theater related.

Maybe you can find a simple way to teach song writing, or auditioning skills. Maybe you have a day job in fire safety or really enjoy creating beaded jewelry. SOMEbody wants to get started with the skills YOU take for granted. You could write a play (lecture/video/seminar) about it. If you can write a stage play, with all the limitation proscribed by that live performance space, you can certainly learn to write a video script or a talk,  and create a matching seminar. I’m not saying to give up your dreams of having your new musical on Broadway, I am suggesting that having a couple of hundred bucks a month to throw at marketing your plays couldn’t hurt.

Besides, it is always nice to perform before a screaming crowd of adoring fans. It keeps the creative juices flowing.

Never tell anyone your plans.
Never fear telling anyone your accomplishments.

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Remember, to be success at this business you need to:

1. Write a play or musical
2. Tell people about it, and
3. Have a way to exchange payment for performance rights

If you are not sending out your plays and musicals, ain’t nobody gonna buys dem.