Student Writing Handbook Fifth+Edition

Scripts / 351

Consider the following examples of one-sentence statements:

Punctuality suggests responsibility.

We learn about people by watching how they treat animals.

Dishonesty usually ruins a friendship.

Each states a message on which a satisfactory drama could be based. Write your
own message now.

STEP 2: Prewriting—Planning the Plot

Think about the action that will help the viewer understand your message. For
instance, if you wish to show that dishonesty ruins a friendship, your plot should
revolve around a friendship destroyed by lying. Certain necessary situations become
immediately apparent:

the established friendship

the occurrence of the dishonesty

the discovery of the dishonesty

the deterioration of the friendship

the inability of the characters to mend the friendship as a result of lack of trust

Thus, these five items outline the drama. The problem, of course, is how best to
show these occurrences. How can friendship be shown? What kind of dishonesty
occurs? How does it occur? How is it discovered? What is the result of its discovery?
Hurt feelings? Or something more serious, like physical injury? Does one friend try
to mend the friendship? Who? How? What happens?

Asking these kinds of questions will help outline the plot. Develop your own outline
now.

STEP 3: Prewriting—Building the Characters

As you outline the plot, you must simultaneously create characters. Some writers
claim they develop characters before they begin plotting. In reality, characters and
plot are so interdependent that the processes for developing them cannot easily be
separated. For instance, if you decide the dishonesty occurs when one friend feigns
illness to avoid going fishing with the other, then your character must pretend to
enjoy fishing while actually preferring something else. How you develop a character
determines the believability of his or her actions and, ultimately, that of the plot.

In order to create believable characters, start with a list of their traits. As you
develop the plot, you can add or delete traits to clarify the characters in your own