Let’s start with the qualification that we all have within us to write a play: you are a human being, and you’ve been told stories from birth. On some level, you already know what makes a good story. You can feel it. You know that when Cinderella slips that glass slipper on and claims her prince it’s satisfying on a deep level.

I firmly believe that the ability to craft drama stems from watching and responding to it first (I’m lucky; I was a director of new writing before I was ever a writer, I got to test out stories in the flesh as well). This is the first and easiest of all exercises to do: pick a film or play you love, something with a decent amount of plot, and work backwards through it like this:

What happens at the end?

Why does it happen?

Because something else happens.

Why?

Because something else happens.

Why?

And so on until you have a map or a chain of events, each one arising out of the next. Take Toy Story (one of the most brilliant screenplays ever written, after all).

At the end, Woody and Buzz become friends.

Why?

Because they’re bonded by the trauma of Sid’s room.

Why?

Because they end up there while trying to get back to Andy.

Why?

Because Woody pushed Buzz out the window.

Why?

Because he was jealous.

Why?

Because he’d always been Andy’s favourite toy and the status quo had remained the same for years until Buzz’s arrival.

Now read it from first event to last, replacing each “why” with “so” – what is the story? Maybe that a character learns the hard way that he gains far more by letting his world change than clinging onto the old order of things. Or that a new rival prompts someone to give in to the worst parts of their nature, and then to dig deep for the best.

There are many ways you can interpret – what you settle on as the essential action probably tells you something equally important: why you love it. What does this story, this action, whittled down to its barest bones speak to in you? And when you apply this to your own work, you can ask the equally important question: does the action of this play reflect the heart of what I wanted to say in the first place? Does the action of my own play speak to me?

…

Each of those Toy Story bullet points is an event, which is really just a way of saying “something happens and it changes things”.

A second easy exercise: when something needs to happen in your play but you don’t know what, ask yourself “what’s the worst thing that could happen right now?”

Then sub out “worst” for best, darkest, weirdest, funniest, most painful – it’s a way of making sure your actions are connected to your characters, that somewhere in the myriad possibilities of things that could happen will be something that turns a little lightbulb on for you – that tells you something new about the characters or world you’re creating.

It might be something totally external, even coincidental, that then generates a chain of events. A major event in my play SAP revolves around two previously unrelated characters turning out to have a close connection, which places the protagonist in a horrible, and then dangerous, position. They’re great for kicking things off: Macbeth is promoted and the king decides to stay at his house. A shark-bitten corpse washes up on the beach. The absent father of the house brings home his young and beautiful new wife. (This last one happens in Uncle Vanya and it occurs before the play even starts – sometimes just the ripples of events are all you need.) But generally the further you get into a drama, the more the events become internal, characters making choices to react to the circumstances around them. Macbeth, far gone in paranoia, decides to murder his best friend. Brody decides to ignore the mayor and autopsy the shark. Sonya decides to make peace with her beautiful, unhappy stepmother. These particular events are points of no return for all of these characters, after which the world can never be the same as it was.

A third exercise, maybe less easy, and certainly more vulnerable: get someone to act out the scene. Actors are fantastic at identifying events because they’re often when a character is at their most active, most live. They give actors the shape of the play, a series of ‘before’ and ‘after’ moments – “before he said this”, “after they did this”. At the heart of these moments is the sense of a shift in reality or circumstances, and actor, writer and director have to the same job: to get every single person in the room to access that shift.

A final thing about the Macbeth/Jaws/Vanya example triptych: each of these stories takes place on a different scale – a country, a town, a house – but the events are no less momentous for those involved. Dramatic action doesn’t always mean the planet is in danger; sometimes just one person’s world has to threaten to end. Equally, don’t be afraid of action, of letting things really happen in your play – have the confidence to pursue it where it takes you, and you may find a story that even you didn’t know was there.

About

Rafaella Marcus (she/they) is a writer, director and dramaturg from South London. She was awarded an MGCFutures bursary to establish a new free script reading scheme, and was the Runner Up of the JMK Award 2021. Their debut play SAP premiered at Paines Plough Roundabout in Edinburgh 2022 before transferring to Soho Theatre London and a national tour, also winning Most Promising New Playwright at the 2024 Off-West End Awards.