If Your Play Feels Off, This Might Be Why

Drawing on their experience running script competitions for audio and Christmas shows, Dan and Charlotte share their insights into the common mistakes emerging playwrights make—and how to avoid them

In your opinion what makes a good script?

CHARLOTTE: Without sounding obvious, it’s a good idea done well. I love out-there ideas like Mr Burns (Anne Washburn) or Constellations (Nick Payne). But a really simple idea can also be incredible — for example, The Weir by Conor McPherson.

I love a script with a strong structure — in my opinion, a good structure is the foundation of a good script - and the structure itself can be a source of delight for an audience. Think about whether your play takes place over the days in a week, whether it has a pressure-cooker structure, or if the acts mirror a theme in the play — like the stages of grief for example. There’s an Inside No.9 episode that uses this last one - it’s very pleasing!.

Add to this well-defined characters (roles that any actor would be excited to play), good dialogue, and a theme that makes you think. My favourite themes are those that are philosophical in some way or explore the human condition. Those are the plays that stick with me the most.

DAN: Every script, from the most knockabout comedy to the grittiest tragedy, needs three things:

1) Structure: There is no one way to achieve this, although there are many classic structures that you can work from. Whatever the structure is, it needs to serve whatever you are writing about and allow your story to reveal to your audience what they need to know at the right time. For example, Toy Story (like most Disney films) uses the Voyage and Return structure - which works perfectly: setting up a problem that the main character has to solve, sending them on a quest, and having them come back a changed person. The story points are laid out in perfect formation for you to follow. However, a film like Momento choses to take a fully-realised story and essentially play it backwards. Our main character has (unbeknownst to himself due to a damaged memory) already experienced most of the events in the film. We get the tragic ending revealed first and as we go on, it is revealed to us how he got into that situation. This structure is the perfect way to tell that story given the character’s situation. A poor structure can leave an audience feeling confused and annoyed, but there is nothing more satisfying than a well-structured story. 

2)Theme: A story that lacks theme feels rudderless. It doesn’t have to be a strong theme, it can be as light and airy as you like, but it should always be there in the background. A clear theme helps ensure that every moment in the story feels earned and coherent. It prevents sudden, jarring shifts that break the audience’s connection. For example, you wouldn’t want to spend two hours watching a tender love story between office workers - during which nobody at any time mentions the stars or anything - only for an alien spaceship to suddenly appear in the final fifteen minutes. A consistent theme keeps your story focused and believable.

3) Truth: I don’t care how outlandish and fanciful your story is, if there’s no hint of truth to it you will be left with something hollow.

What are some of your favourite plays and/or playwrights?

CHARLOTTE: Oh wow, too many to mention, but all the ones I talked about in the first question (Mr Burns, Constellations, The Weir) are incredible pieces of writing. I also love Jez Butterworth, Caryl Churchill, Nick Darke, Laura Wade, April De Angelis, Pinter, and Shakespeare - obviously. Also, I’m gonna shout out to some more local writers like Jon Welch, Sarah Connors, Anna Murphy, and Brett Harvey. I love how they all have their own unique style. What I particularly love about a lot of the modern writers mentioned, is that they pack so much weight into such simple dialogue — it’s an incredible skill.

DAN: That’s a big question… I’ll just pick three for now.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I was lucky enough to play Hale in a production many years ago and it was a pleasure to learn. The words are so natural (Truth), the concept so unsettling (Theme) and the story unfolds so tragically (Structure) that it has to be one of my favourite plays.

Mr Burns by Anne Washburn. This funny, ingenious and disturbing play shines a light on so many things from potential apocalypses to the growth and value of culture. If, like me you are a fan of The Simpsons, you will love this play and you’ll never look at opera or Sideshow Bob the same again.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Becket. At first glance this play seems to throw out all three of the things that I mentioned in the first question, but look a little closer and you realise it has them all in abundance. It is simultaneously one of the most surreal plays you can see as well as being one of the most truthful plays ever written.

What type of stories do you like to write?

CHARLOTTE: I tend to end up writing stories where you think you’re watching one thing, but you’re actually watching another. I’m totally influenced by The Twilight Zone! It’s funny because my favourite type of play to act in is really deep and meaningful - but I don’t write like that at all! Writing-wise, I like scribbling a good yarn.

DAN: I think I most like to write stories that find flashes of humour amongst some of the saddest moments in life. I like to gravitate towards the dark and find flashes of light. Having said that, I also love to find the sad moments amongst the joy. That juxtaposition fascinates me. One of my mentors Anna Murphy once described it as “finding beauty in the mundane” and I like that.

What would you say are common mistakes less experienced writers make?

CHARLOTTE I’d say the biggest one is a lack of understanding of good structure. There are lots of different structures you can use to write a play, but without a clear one, a play always feels weak. Often, the scripts we receive lack even the basic structure of a set up, inciting incident, rising action, climax etc. And that structure works!

Another thing I often notice is that newer writers forget that everything written in a play is significant. When you read or watch a play, as an audience, you’re looking for things that return, repeat, gain new significance, or have deeper meaning — whether it’s an object, a theme, or a line of dialogue. If something exists in a play for no reason, it stands out and feels unsatisfying.

Something else I see often, especially with our script competition entries, is that one character might be very well-developed; however, other characters exist only to support the main character. Every character should be interesting. For instance, when I recently watched War Horse, a small goose character who kept trying—and failing—to get into the house ended up stealing every scene it was in. Even a minor role can make a big impact when it has personality! Granted, that might have been a directorial flourish rather than part of the script, but it perfectly illustrated the idea of letting no moment go to waste — something all writers should remember.

DAN: I think it usually comes down to theme. I like to have an idea seeded throughout any story. For example, I love a story that pulls the rug as the last second (Inside No.9, The Twilight Zone, etc) but those rug pulls never come out of nowhere: go back and watch them again and you realise the writers have been telling you the twist right from the beginning - you just didn’t realise it! That’s an extreme example but it applies to all writing for me. Don’t pull a story point out from nowhere, find a clever and subtle way to seed it, have that theme running in the background, and we will happily go wherever you want to take us.

If you are a playwright that could do with some guidance, you can check out our script writing guidance service here.

Also, some of the local writers mentioned in this piece (e.g. Dan, Jon Welch) have shows touring at the time of writing if you feel inspired to check them out!