A Date for Dinner: Hearing Voices (Screenwriting/Playwriting)

This assignment came to me after reading the wonderful thread started by Nono in the Treehouse about, “Who would you invite to dinner?” Thanks, Nono, for such a creative inspiration.

The assignment is to invite the people you would most like to have dinner with to have a special meal together. You may invite anyone at all, choosing from real or fictional characters throughout history. I would only invite, maybe three at most, because you will have to develop each of their characters, and figure out what they sound like and act like. All aspects considered, this may take a day or two of 20 minute planning sessions before you actually begin writing the play or screenplay scene.

Once you have “sent your invitations,” take some time to have a conversation with each character you have invited. Ask them some questions. See how they respond in your head. You may want to make a brief character journal for each one. When you feel that you are really “channeling” them, go ahead and write your dinner scene (it could also be breakfast, lunch or a midnight snack, or some other ritual.) The setting and conflicts are completely up to you. Don't rule anything out or get caught up in realism. Have fun with it!

The focus of this assignment is to write dialogue that actually sounds like the character that is speaking. One of the largest problems new dramatic writers have is that their characters all sound rather the same. This exercise should really help you to differentiate the voices. Even if you already write excellent dialogue, it is still an opportunity to develop the inner workings of the characters, and to discover how character drives plot. I can almost guarantee you that if you really listen to your characters voices, your scene will take you somewhere you never actually expected to go.

Any questions? I will be glad to clarify. Looking forward to some wonderfully fun and oh! so creative scenes. I will pull Nono's thread back up to the top of the Treehouse (where the view is best) so we can refresh our memories:)

Andrea

Re: A Date for Dinner: Hearing Voices (Screenwriting/Playwriting)

This is a great assignment, Andrea, and excellent work on characters. I keep wondering why there aren't more posts in this thread, though, and wonder if maybe it isn't a little daunting. Maybe we could write scenes. After all, there' s no novel-writing thread, and if there were, I doubt it would get much action. People can handle reading or writing snippets or bits or even short stories.

Anyway, just an idea…which I got after I realized what a commitment this assignment would be.

Love & Idears,

Tom

Re: A Date for Dinner: Hearing Voices (Screenwriting/Playwriting)

Tom,

All it is supposed to be is a scene - who's going to write more? What I am trying to encourage is the prewriting work of channeling these characters so you would know how they sound and behave before you write the scene. You can do an interview with William Shakespeare, sit down at the Bodhi Tree with Buddha and feel his presence, or give Marie Antoinette a questionaire.

That is the prework. You may never get it all the way to a scene of a play or screenplay. However, you could post your conversations on the journaling characters thread. I believe they would be very fascinating. Also, you could write the scene and never show us the prework, or don't do the channeling part and just dive in. What am I, the screenwriting police? Please, do it as you see fit.

I hope this clarifies the assignment/expectation/whatever. This is not really an in-depth assignment, and it is especially meant to be fun and entertaining as well as a learning experience about character. You could even include yourself in the scene, as that was the original intention of the thread.

Thanks for speaking up. Glad to have your idears.

Andrea

Re: A Date for Dinner: Hearing Voices (Screenwriting/Playwriting)

I have moved this assignment to the Screenwriting board in case anyone would still like to work on it. I t got buried almost immediately on the assignment board, but it is a fun one, so i thought someone might want to give it a try.

Andrea