This activity is designed to challenge ideas you may already have and to think outside the box. You can do this activity alone or involve a fellow writer or willing helper.

• Watch the film by playwright Ishy Din (link) in which he shares his thoughts on where to set a story and what decisions might affect this world and write down as many questions as you can from his suggestions.
• Now spend 2 minutes telling your story to an imaginary (or real) listener. It might help to give them an imagined role: potential audience member, work colleague, West End producer…
• You now have 10 minutes to ask yourself (or be asked) as many of Ishy’s questions as possible. It may help to record this section, especially if you are working alone. EACH TIME you answer a question, you (or your listener) must then ask “What if…” and suggest at least TWO alternatives. The aim is to make these alternatives helpful but challenging. eg:
  • Where is your story set? What part of the World? Inside or outside? WHAT IF it was set in a different country? Or inside a prison?
  • Where is your story set? What part of the world? Inside or outside? What if it was set in a different country? Or inside a prison?
  • When is it set? What if it was set in the past? Or in the middle of the night? Or over ten years?
  • What is happening in the World that might affect their story? What if there was an invasion or a war going on? Or a big sporting event? Or an environmental disaster?
  • What specific locations will you need? A prison or courtroom? What if it was set in a school? Or during a family wedding?
• When the time is up, jot down any answers or suggestions that interested you, using the recorded session to jog your memory. Have you changed your minds about any decisions? How will these changes help your story? What suggestions will you NOT choose and why? How does it feel to make changes like this? Liberating? Challenging?

Shakespeare’s World building

Sometimes a theatre can feel more restrictive than film or TV but Shakespeare managed to set his plays in a wide range of locations, including:

• A heath in Scotland
• A magical island
• A battlefield
• Venice (despite never having been there.)

In fact it is thought that Shakespeare never left England and yet his plays are set all over the globe. With limited special effects or scenery, he used his language to transport his audience to these places, often telling them directly where they were in a prologue.

Writers take their inspiration from all sorts of places. American author, Tracy Chevalier was inspired by a Dutch painting of an unknown girl wearing a pearl earring. Intrigued by the girl and why she wore the earring, she invented a story about her called Girl With a Pearl Earring, a bestselling book which became a feature film starring Scarlett Johansson.

Moodboards are a way of collecting this inspiration in one place and are used extensively by many creative people, including designers, artists and writers to awaken their senses and enrich their work, in this case, your story.

• Research the idea of moodboards on the internet or using your local library and see the range of options there are. Decide how you would like to create your moodboard. What would help you best? Large pieces of paper on the wall? A scrapbook filled with ideas? A collage on your tablet using an app?
• Start creating a moodboard for the World of your play. Try and take your inspiration from varying places in many forms: cuttings, photographs, drawings, fabric. If your story is set locally, take a walk with your camera, take or draw pictures and make notes of what you can hear and feel. If not, can you visit it or look it up online? If it’s an imaginary place, what it is most like or what comes to mind when you think of it? What can you find around you to suggest these things, however abstract?
• Imagine you are with another person (potential audience member or fellow writer, etc)) and talk through your moodboard. Record this session if you are working alone or invite questions about this World. Reflect on your recordings or notes afterwards: Did you come up with any details during your description or Q&A session that you hadn’t planned? Will you now include these details in your world?
• Keep your moodboard active throughout your writing process and update it, adding to your sensory information or removing details if they are no longer relevant.

You will need: pens, paper, access to a tablet with internet access, a recording device with playback facility.

Writing isn’t always about writing. Many writers like to immerse themselves in a subject before even picking up a pen. The following activity introduces a different way of exploring the senses to create your potential World.

• Think about what you understand by a soundscape? How different is a soundscape to a soundtrack? Why might a soundscape be useful to a writer?
• Spend 5 minutes thinking about your story and make a list of possible sounds that could be heard in this World. Consider the following: Is your story set in the city or countryside? Is it set in the future or the past? What is immediately outside or in the next room?
• Spend time finding (or creating) all the sounds or sound effects on your list and record them as a ‘soundscape’ - a journey of noise and sound that creates an atmosphere for your world: You could search for sounds on the internet or even borrow effects or soundtracks from TV, radio or film.
• Sit or lie down and close your eyes and listen to your soundscape. You may like to have a pen and paper in hand to scribble any thoughts down. (If you prefer, you could play the soundscape to a fellow writer or willing helper) and invite feedback: How did this particular world make them feel? What kind of person might live in this world? What type of story might they expect to have this atmosphere - a drama? A comedy?
• Consider your notes or feedback. Was it what you expected? Did you listener experience the same world that you imagined? What could you have done differently? How might you help the audience experience your world better?

Every writer has their own way of writing; this is often referred to as their ‘process’. Every writer’s process is unique to them. The best thing to do is to try lots of different ways of writing in order to find what works best for you.

Tips from our writers:

• “What time of the day do you think most clearly? We’re all productive at different times.”
• “Facing the empty page is daunting. Processing things is also valid time.”
• “Get rid of distractions, delete apps on your phone.”

This activity uses one simple scenario to help you explore the wider social context and how it affects the inner world of your play.

• Leaving your own story to one side for the moment, take no longer than 5 minutes to write a simple dialogue to create the following mini-scene. (Try not to judge yourself, worry about character or plot or even write for an audience at this stage, just set a timer and get it on the page)
  • Person A is alone, engaged in an activity
  • Person B enters and proposes marriage
  • Person A either accepts or not
• Once you have your mini-scene written, imagine that it’s taking place in one of the following social circumstances and rewrite it to match that environment. Things to think about in particular: What A is doing when B enters? Is the scene public or private? How does the scene affect other people?
  • A pub during a match
  • The visiting room of a prison
  • A busy hospital
  • After an environmental disaster with the last 2 people on earth.
• Compare both versions of your mini-scene. How has the change of social environment affected: both characters? Your choice of dialogue? Stage directions? The tone of the scene - has it become a comedy or far more serious? Has the ending changed - has A said ‘no’?
• Try the activity again with another change of scene. Or you may like to add a social circumstance of your own invention and try that. Again, take note of how your characters behave in this new circumstance. Are the differences huge or subtle? How might you make an audience aware of these social circumstances other than through dialogue?
• Now go back to your play idea. Take some time to consider the story and the world you’ve chosen for it. Are there any choices you can make about the social world outside that might make similar changes to your scenes? What could be happening to add comedy to your play or bring a dramatic, even tragic, element into it?

Context

In the film When Harry Met Sally, Billy Crystal’s character is trying to have a serious talk about his marriage with his best friend. However, they are at a baseball game where a constant Mexican wave interrupts their conversation.

More writers’ tips

• “The wrong place is often the right place.”
• “Juxtaposing situation and circumstance can often make for great drama or comedy.”
• “Start with a question that you don’t know the answer to.”
• “An audience enjoys and engages with characters struggling. No one wants to see things going smoothly”

“I grew up in Redcar. It always reminds me of crying on the waltzers for some reason but the ice cream, the smell of fish and chips… I use that to evoke memories of a place. Obviously I don’t know what it must be like to wander into an enchanted forest but I can imagine what I want it to be like…”                       
- Ishy Din, Playwright

Many playwrights connect with other people during their research to get a feel of how those people live their lives and feel about certain issues or subjects. This is a valuable way of widening your existing worldview and finding an authentic way of writing about an unfamiliar world.

The following activity involves talking with someone about a subject they know. (If you choose something personal, make sure they (and you) are comfortable about addressing it in this way.)

• Think about the people that you know. Make a list of anyone you think has particular knowledge of, or experience in, something unfamiliar to you. It can be anything, such as: A grandparent who fought in a war. Someone who lost a job recently or started a new business. A friend who lived or lives abroad. Someone who can cook a meal or play an instrument you can’t.
• Imagine you are this person and spend 10 minutes writing a short speech, in the first person, about this subject. Imagine you are telling someone else about it and try to describe the sensory experience - what did you see, smell, hear, feel?
• Now ask the person you know to talk to you about this experience for 5 minutes. You can take notes or record the conversation if they are comfortable with this. Prompt them with questions if needed (or appropriate) such as: Where were you? What do you remember seeing? Can you remember any other sensory experiences? How did you feel before and after this experience?
• Now spend 10 minutes altering your speech to include all the information and details you have been told. Use your notes or recording if necessary. This is not a case of turning their comments ‘word for word’ into a speech but rather rewriting your speech using the additional first hand knowledge that you now have.
• Compare the two speeches. If you have a willing colleague or fellow writer, maybe read the two speeches out loud to them and compare the differences: How does your imagined speech stand up to the lived experience? Are there any details in particular that help create the world of the experience to an audience? How can you create or replicate details like this for yourself in future?

It’s so easy to get distracted, especially in our world today with mobile devices, social media and instant news. How do we keep focus when working on an idea? Do we schedule writing time into our lives or stop everything when an idea hits? Some tips from our writers…

• “Keep a notebook by the bed. Take one with you everywhere, even when you go swimming.”
• “Write solidly for 20 minutes, then take 10 minutes off.”
• “Force yourself to write for an hour, write anything. Call it the WRITING HOUR.”
• “The answer is - try everything. If it works for you, do it.”

(You will need: pens, paper, newspapers, tablet with internet access, recording device)

“Check out a newspaper feature, a tweet or a social media post that surprises or shocks you. You may see something that excites you or makes your blood boil. I certainly see a lot of things that take my breath away in good ways and bad.”
- Juliet Gilkes Romero, Playwright

Sometimes the political world is a very obvious presence in a play; sometimes it is very subtle. This activity is an opportunity to play with this level of subtlety. 

• Spend 10 minutes looking through your preferred news outlet - internet, newspapers, TV, radio - and make a list of current events that come under the political umbrella: from immigration and Partygate to airport drop off charges. Try to choose subjects that you have an instant reaction to as you see it, even if it’s a groan.
• Choose one subject on your list and spend 2 minutes making a list of characters who could be affected by it, eg. Rising heating bills could affect: a lonely OAP afraid to put the heating on, a working mum who can’t afford to pay them, the rich owner of an energy company.
• Select one character (Character A) from your list and spend 2 minutes deciding what they might want or need most in the world and ONE thing they do to try and get it. Make sure you connect these to the topic you’ve chosen, eg. The working mum wants to win the lottery. She spends all her wages on lottery tickets.
• Next, spend 1 minute to decide on an unexpected result, based on what Character A has done, eg. She wins the lottery but her landlord steals the ticket…
• Try to put yourself into the mind of Character A during this unexpected result. It might help to close your eyes and describe what has happened to yourself out loud or write it down.
• Imagine Character A is in one of the following locations and decides to confess what has happened to them to at least one other person (Character B):
  • A broken lift
  • A police station
  • A funeral
  • A garden party
• Spend 5 minutes writing this confession. You can include lines for Character B if you like.
• When you have finished, look over this speech or scene and see how your political theme or subject has affected what you’ve written. Is it there in the emotion of Character A? Or in the responses of Character B? The choices of words that you have used? Could you have chosen a better location for this theme to be present for the audience in some way?

(You will need: pen, paper or tablet to write)

Some writers choose to put their worlds directly into character or dialogue by creating allegorical plays or plays that exist as metaphors. From Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, which is set in an imaginary world where every living thing is at war, to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, an enduring allegory of revolution and power.

To further explore the choices you have as a writer, this activity digs deeper into a less literal form of writing.

• Think for a moment about the subject you chose in the last activity - the ‘Political theme’, if you like. Try to recall why you chose this theme and the emotions or arguments it provoked in you. If it helps, write these down as single words on pieces of paper and stick them up on the wall or scatter them on the floor around you.
• Take some time to re-read the scene you created in the last activity but this time, imagine that Character B is a personification of your political theme. For example: What if Character B represented WAR itself? Or FAMINE? Or FORTUNE? (Dickens does this to great effect in A Christmas Carol)
• Spend 15 minutes altering your scene to reflect this. Challenge yourself to see how much or how little you can add to create this change. Does Character A know who they are?
• Now alter this scene to add up to 3 references to your subject: This can be as blatant as adding a stage direction for a big flag to hang centre stage or giving one character a specific role in society, eg. judge, social worker, teacher, cleaner. Play around with the choices you have and how they affect the scene.
• If you are working with a writing partner or group, share your versions of the scene and discuss whether your readers (or listeners if you read out loud) can detect your subject or theme and which version they prefer: Is there a moment when the choices get too overpowering? How much of the world do you need in order to create the best conflict for your characters and the best experience for your audience?

• Look up some modern examples of political playwrights and give them a read or go and see them in the theatre if you can (There are a wide variety of these and you’ll find most in any library, eg. plays by Winsome Pinnock, Sami Ibrahim, Juliet Gilkes Romero, James Graham, among many others.)
• When you have read or seen a few, consider the following: What size production does this play need - small and intimate with only a few characters or an elaborate set and full-sized cast? How has the playwright used their main characters to ask the questions or convey the views they want? How are we, the audience, expected to feel and what kind of questions does the play make us ask?
• Read the following extract from Shakespeare’s Henry V, Act 4 Scene 1, set the night before the English army goes into battle with the French. King Henry, in disguise, visits his soldiers in their camp to speak with them and learn their feelings: How differently would the other characters speak if they knew Henry was the King? Why has Shakespeare given Henry this choice?
• If you have time, read the whole play to learn more about the context. Pay particular attention to how Shakespeare creates the ‘feel’ of Henry’s great battles without being able to show them on stage.

WILLIAMS: We see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see the end of it. Who goes there?

KING HENRY V: A friend.

WILLIAMS: Under what captain serve you?

KING HENRY V: Under Sir Thomas Erpingham.

WILLIAMS: A good old commander and a most kind gentleman: I pray you, what thinks he of our estate?

KING HENRY V: Even as men wrecked upon a sand, that look to be washed off the next tide.

BATES: He hath not told his thought to the king?

KING HENRY V: No; nor it is not meet he should. For, though I speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions: his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing. Therefore when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are: yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.

BATES: He may show what outward courage he will; but I believe, as cold a night as 'tis, he could wish himself in Thames up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures, so we were quit here.

KING HENRY V: By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king: I think he would not wish himself any where but where he is.

BATES: Then I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.

KING HENRY V: I dare say you love him not so ill, to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's minds: methinks I could not die any where so contented as in the king's company; his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.

WILLIAMS: That's more than we know.

BATES: Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough, if we know we are the kings subjects: if his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMS: But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all 'We died at such a place;' some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing, when blood is their argument? Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it; whom to disobey were against all proportion of subjection.

We’ll never know how many drafts of Henry V Shakespeare wrote but it’s safe to say it was more than one.

"Making mistakes, writing things and then starting again, trying things out, rewriting are all part of the process. You’re not wasting time - it all has value. You can let yourself think, research, ask questions, dream before you write anything down. Or you can get started right away and let yourself try things. It’s all part of writing a play.”