A scene is the smallest complete unit of dramatic action.  It isn’t defined by location or time so much as by a change in the balance of power, knowledge or desire.  Good scenes do something — they turn the story. Someone enters wanting something specific and urgent. Rule: If no one wants anything concrete, the scene has no engine. [more]

In a play, the point of attack is the moment in the story where the dramatist chooses to begin the onstage action. It is not the beginning of the story’s chronology. It is the moment when the dramatic pressure becomes unavoidable. The point of attack answers this question: Why does the play start here and not earlier or later? [more]

An admittedly subjective list below, in no particular order, but first ... What are yours? [more]

In playwriting, craft is the set of deliberate, learnable choices a playwright makes to turn raw impulse — idea, feeling, argument, obsession — into an experience that works on an audience in real time. [more]

Yeah, it’s a real pendulum moment in new-play land: a lot of writers (and theaters) are clustering around ~70–90 minutes or swinging to three-hour epics — with less interest in the old “two acts + intermission = 2:15” default. [more]

Offstage characters in a play are characters who exist in the story world but aren’t physically visible onstage (either ever, or for a long stretch). They still function dramatically because the audience experiences them through speech about them, messages, sounds, consequences or the onstage characters’ behavior. [more]

A beat is the smallest unit of dramatic action — a moment when something changes onstage. More precisely: a beat is a shift in intention, tactic, emotion, power or information within a scene. [more]

If you’re doing research for writing plays, it helps to think of research not as fact-gathering but as pressure-building — material that sharpens conflict, behavior and theatrical choice. Plays run on what people do under pressure, not what is true in the abstract. [more]

A “good” play title usually does one of three things: creates tension, implies a question, or names a metaphor — often in very few words. They are a promise made to the audience. [more]

In plays, speech replaces narration.  Every line should do something: pursue a want, block another character, reveal a decision and/or change the power dynamic. If a line could be removed without altering the scene’s trajectory, it’s decorative. [more]