Tom Wells offers a simple model for planning one’s play.
- A character wants something, and sets out to get it;
- Things go well – the character manages to get a bit nearer to the thing they want;
- Things start to go badly – the character comes up against obstacles, but keeps going;
- Things go very wrong for the character – it looks like the thing they wanted is out of reach, unachievable;
- Some kind of resolution: maybe the character gets the thing they wanted; maybe the character doesn’t, and has to give up; maybe they get something different, something they need.
Lovely, right? I also love this advice from Tom: “Rather than telling a whole story in a scene, a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, make sure that the scene has just two of these – either a middle and an end, so the audience is watching the action unfold and, at the same time, figuring out what’s just happened, or how the characters got there; or a beginning and a middle, so the audience is left to wonder what the outcome of the scene is, something which can be answered in a later scene. Put a few of these together, different choices for each scene, and you will have an energetic, forward-moving structure for your play.”