Nick Leather
Nick Leather's play ALL THE ORDINARY ANGELS was staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre in 2005 and won the Pearson Award for Best New Play. He had previously been a winner of the first WRITE competition at the Exchange, before becoming Playwright-in-Residence there. He has since written plays for BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 and been a Writer-on-Attachment at the National Theatre. He is currently writing the play BILLY WONDERFUL for the Liverpool Everyman as well as a new play for the Royal Exchange.
So you really really want to write a play but you’re not sure what to write about, you’re not sure where to start, and the deadline is fast approaching? Don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place . . .
Right, so you’ve got a pen that’s in no danger of runnin’ out, and a pad o’ paper that’s waitin’ to be filled, and yer sit, yer sit ... and wait ... only about seventeen thousand words to go, no problemo ... so yer sit, yer sit ... and wait ...
Five minutes pass, and nothin’ has popped into your head, until ... hold on! Here’s a thought! There’s definitely an idea on its way! Yep, here it comes! ... Disappointingly though it’s about what you’re havin’ for your tea and that’s not allowed, that has to wait till later, so you move that thought along and try again. Yer sit, yer sit ... and wait ...
A STORY, is that too much to ask for? A story’s all you want. You could just rob seventeen thousand random words from the dictionary and stick ‘em together, but that would be harder work than it sounds and the thing with a story is – it makes things easy. It makes writing not seem like writing. It makes the pen and the pad disappear. It stops the clock from tickin’. It takes you into yourself and out o’ yourself. It means that seventeen thousand words won’t even seem half enough ...
So how d’yer get it? Where d’yer start? Well maybe you read the paper, or you watch the news; you brush up on your Greek mythology, or flick through some Fairy Tales; you look at your family, or yer look at your friends; yer look at the people that people your lives, and the people that people theirs and blimey, who’d’ve thought it, suddenly you find from all that, you’ve not just got enough material for a play, you’ve got enough for a lifetime!
Take the story of one CHARACTER in particular – not sure what the story is? Easy peasy – it’s just what they want, what they try and do to get it, and when they try and do it by – and there has to be a want, an actor has to be active, otherwise they’d be called passors wouldn’t they? Take that want, take that story and write it down. Maybe in a line. Two at most. Is it interesting? Do you wanna know more? The line might say, ‘an ageing man wants to shed his responsibilities’ and OK that’s alright, that’s fair enough – but where’s the ‘but’? It needs a but, to take it to the next level, so you add on, ‘an ageing man wants to shed his responsibilities, but retain his status’ and lo and behold you stuck in a ‘but’ and already you’re on your way to King Blummin’ Lear!
And to show the ageing man’s story you’re gonna need other characters too, and they have their own OBJECTIVES, they have their own JOURNEYS to make, and each character’s objectives are getting in other characters’ ways, and providing OBSTACLES. And the way in which this happens – the way in which this gets all tangled up and the way in which you untangle it – that, that’s the PLOT.
Hey, you’re moving at pace – slow down, take a deep breath, and a step back. You might wanna turn your few lines into a few pages. Before you turn your idea into a long story, you might wanna look at it as a short story first. What’s leaping out at you? What’s it really about? What’s your THEME? Huh? The redemptive power of love? Awh, you ol’ romantic. The corrosive effect of power? Right on brother! And maybe you had your theme early doors – but even if you didn’t know it, it was there. It is. The theme is the soul of your play. Your story seems everything now, but when it dies it’s only the theme that goes to Heaven. It is there. It’s there in everything and when you’re lost in your play, it’s the light that will always always show you the way out.
Enough of that relaxin’, come on, sit up straight, you’re just gettin’ into gear. Maybe you want to storyline it, always a good idea to write with a safety net. And you’re not tellin’ the story remember – you’re showin’ it, and you only want to show the best bits. That’s all SCENES are – the best bits of the story, the bits you want to show. Maybe your character’s happy at first, then maybe he becomes sad. If yer want you can show a scene when they’re happy and show a scene when they’re sad, but the best scene of all is the one when they go from being happy to sad, or sad to happy. Show the forks in the road. Show the straight lines as well if you want, but always always show the forks.
Maybe your story’s about something big, maybe it’s about something small, but here’s the thing – if it’s about something small, make it feel like something big. Make that small thing mean the biggest thing in the world. The end of a relationship really can mean more than the end of the world if you can make your audience care enough, if you can keep the stakes high, if you can invest everything into it. And it’s time to find out if you can ...
Right, so you’ve got a pen that’s in no danger of runnin’ out, and a pad o’ paper that’s waitin’ to be filled, and yer sit, yer sit ... only about seventeen thousand words to go, no problemo ... so yer sit, yer sit ... and ... oh! Wait! One more thing! Never ever write a play that you wouldn’t wanna watch. Write the play that you’ve always wanted to see, the play that you hope for but never ever get. Take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. Take it, and transform it. And once you’ve taken a moment and turned it into something else, made someone look at it in a slightly different way then, whisper it, but shhhhhhhhhh – that’s ART that is. Who’d ‘ve thought it? The page might still be blank, but not for much longer – take a bow, Art is heading this way.
And so that leaves this – remember, theatre can be absynthe as well as ovaltine. It’s your round – pour your audience a drink, and hand it over.
You’ve got a pen that’s in no danger of runnin’ out, and a pad o’ paper that’s waitin’ to be filled, so yer sit, yer sit ... and WRITE.
Nick Leather's play ALL THE ORDINARY ANGELS was staged at the Royal Exchange Theatre in 2005 and won the Pearson Award for Best New Play. He had previously been a winner of the first WRITE competition at the Exchange, before becoming Playwright-in-Residence there. He has since written plays for BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 and been a Writer-on-Attachment at the National Theatre. He is currently writing the play BILLY WONDERFUL for the Liverpool Everyman as well as a new play for the Royal Exchange. So you really really want to write a play but you’re not sure what to write about, you’re not sure where to start, and the deadline is fast approaching? Don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place . . .
Right, so you’ve got a pen that’s in no danger of runnin’ out, and a pad o’ paper that’s waitin’ to be filled, and yer sit, yer sit ... and wait ... only about seventeen thousand words to go, no problemo ... so yer sit, yer sit ... and wait ...
Five minutes pass, and nothin’ has popped into your head, until ... hold on! Here’s a thought! There’s definitely an idea on its way! Yep, here it comes! ... Disappointingly though it’s about what you’re havin’ for your tea and that’s not allowed, that has to wait till later, so you move that thought along and try again. Yer sit, yer sit ... and wait ...
A STORY, is that too much to ask for? A story’s all you want. You could just rob seventeen thousand random words from the dictionary and stick ‘em together, but that would be harder work than it sounds and the thing with a story is – it makes things easy. It makes writing not seem like writing. It makes the pen and the pad disappear. It stops the clock from tickin’. It takes you into yourself and out o’ yourself. It means that seventeen thousand words won’t even seem half enough ...
So how d’yer get it? Where d’yer start? Well maybe you read the paper, or you watch the news; you brush up on your Greek mythology, or flick through some Fairy Tales; you look at your family, or yer look at your friends; yer look at the people that people your lives, and the people that people theirs and blimey, who’d’ve thought it, suddenly you find from all that, you’ve not just got enough material for a play, you’ve got enough for a lifetime!
Take the story of one CHARACTER in particular – not sure what the story is? Easy peasy – it’s just what they want, what they try and do to get it, and when they try and do it by – and there has to be a want, an actor has to be active, otherwise they’d be called passors wouldn’t they? Take that want, take that story and write it down. Maybe in a line. Two at most. Is it interesting? Do you wanna know more? The line might say, ‘an ageing man wants to shed his responsibilities’ and OK that’s alright, that’s fair enough – but where’s the ‘but’? It needs a but, to take it to the next level, so you add on, ‘an ageing man wants to shed his responsibilities, but retain his status’ and lo and behold you stuck in a ‘but’ and already you’re on your way to King Blummin’ Lear!
And to show the ageing man’s story you’re gonna need other characters too, and they have their own OBJECTIVES, they have their own JOURNEYS to make, and each character’s objectives are getting in other characters’ ways, and providing OBSTACLES. And the way in which this happens – the way in which this gets all tangled up and the way in which you untangle it – that, that’s the PLOT.
Hey, you’re moving at pace – slow down, take a deep breath, and a step back. You might wanna turn your few lines into a few pages. Before you turn your idea into a long story, you might wanna look at it as a short story first. What’s leaping out at you? What’s it really about? What’s your THEME? Huh? The redemptive power of love? Awh, you ol’ romantic. The corrosive effect of power? Right on brother! And maybe you had your theme early doors – but even if you didn’t know it, it was there. It is. The theme is the soul of your play. Your story seems everything now, but when it dies it’s only the theme that goes to Heaven. It is there. It’s there in everything and when you’re lost in your play, it’s the light that will always always show you the way out.
Enough of that relaxin’, come on, sit up straight, you’re just gettin’ into gear. Maybe you want to storyline it, always a good idea to write with a safety net. And you’re not tellin’ the story remember – you’re showin’ it, and you only want to show the best bits. That’s all SCENES are – the best bits of the story, the bits you want to show. Maybe your character’s happy at first, then maybe he becomes sad. If yer want you can show a scene when they’re happy and show a scene when they’re sad, but the best scene of all is the one when they go from being happy to sad, or sad to happy. Show the forks in the road. Show the straight lines as well if you want, but always always show the forks.
Maybe your story’s about something big, maybe it’s about something small, but here’s the thing – if it’s about something small, make it feel like something big. Make that small thing mean the biggest thing in the world. The end of a relationship really can mean more than the end of the world if you can make your audience care enough, if you can keep the stakes high, if you can invest everything into it. And it’s time to find out if you can ...
Right, so you’ve got a pen that’s in no danger of runnin’ out, and a pad o’ paper that’s waitin’ to be filled, and yer sit, yer sit ... only about seventeen thousand words to go, no problemo ... so yer sit, yer sit ... and ... oh! Wait! One more thing! Never ever write a play that you wouldn’t wanna watch. Write the play that you’ve always wanted to see, the play that you hope for but never ever get. Take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. Take it, and transform it. And once you’ve taken a moment and turned it into something else, made someone look at it in a slightly different way then, whisper it, but shhhhhhhhhh – that’s ART that is. Who’d ‘ve thought it? The page might still be blank, but not for much longer – take a bow, Art is heading this way.
And so that leaves this – remember, theatre can be absynthe as well as ovaltine. It’s your round – pour your audience a drink, and hand it over.
You’ve got a pen that’s in no danger of runnin’ out, and a pad o’ paper that’s waitin’ to be filled, so yer sit, yer sit ... and WRITE.