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Regular news and insight from our many poets, writers, educators and facilitators

21 March 2023

Five-act structure

The spring term of Writing for Stage came to a close on
Tuesday evening.

The session began with everyone picking an emotion and an
animal that encapsulated the day we’d had. These included: a stressed ferret,
invigorating platypus, ambitious frog, chill robin, and docile goldfish.

Next, we chose a location from a set of photos, and had 10
minutes to set a short play there that had a beginning, middle, and an end. Our
choices included: a cove with a pink lake and waterfall, a desert with a giant stone
hand rising from the sand, and the Northern Lights.

Lydia talked through the five-act structure, and the writer’s
relationship with it (the more you know about the rules, the more confidently
you can break them).

Next, we were asked to spend 3 minutes writing a profile of
a character with a problem.

Then, we plotted ideas for our character’s journey to solve
their problem onto the five-act structure (see copied onto post-its below), and
ended the session by sharing our stories with each other.













Writing for Stage returns next term.

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