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13 May 2023

Eccentric sunglasses

This week’s session of Writing for Stage began with a blain-splurge warm-up activity, to write a monologue from the perspective of the woman in the picture we were given (see above), talking about the best or the worst day she’s ever had.

We then leafed back through our monologues and scattered in references to a prop the character might be interacting with.

Amelia told the story of the woman’s favourite shop closing down and leaving a pair of custom-made, eccentric sunglasses for her on the doorstep…

Next, we read extracts from STUFF by Tom Wells, featuring a character – Vinny – who’s anxiously overthinking the preparation for a surprise birthday party. We thought about the different situations that would be equally difficult for the same character – preparing for a job interview, for example.

Last session, we made characters by answering these questions:

  • Name?
  • Age?
  • Job?
  • Introvert or extrovert?
  • What is their biggest fear?
  • What do they want most in life?
  • Optimist or pessimist?
  • Fave TV show?
  • Fave music?
  • In a relationship?
  • How are they feeling today?

Our task was to think of a difficult situation for our character to face, and write a monologue from their perspective.

Our responses included a character about to deliver his best man speech, and a 17-year-old getting into the pool in sight of their crush wearing armbands.

Our next task was to write a scene, including this character, where they react to a second character arriving who unnerves them in some way.

Writing for Stage returns next week - we’ve been asked to bring along a news headline to write from as a prompt.

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