Playwriting Exercise: Hurdling the First Line

Do your student playwrights struggle with getting started? Sometimes the hardest part is coming up with that first line, because there’s nothing more daunting to a new writer than the blank page. Help your students move forward by providing the first line and having them write the rest of the scene. It’s not doing the work for them, it’s helping student writers over the first hurdle.

Instruction

• Tell students that they are going to write every day for the next 10 days.
• Their task is to write a two-person, one-location, one-page scene.
• Choose a sentence for students and give it to them as the first line in the scene.
• Give them two minutes to brainstorm and free write possible characters and stories from that first line.
• Tell students to use their free write as source material and write their one-page scene.
• Once students have written their scene, tell them to put it away. The goal here is to get words on the page, not assess the quality of what they’ve written.
• Next class, repeat the process. Choose a first line, have them free write for two minutes, then write the scene and put it away.
• At the end of 10 days, they will have 10 scenes. Ask them to choose one.
• Divide students into groups and have them read aloud their scenes. Have them share why they chose that particular scene.
• Discuss the exercise. Which line was the easiest to turn into a scene? Which was the hardest? Did having a first line help you write the rest of the scene? Which scene surprised you after you started writing? Do you think you could continue writing on any of the scenes? How do you feel about your writing abilities after writing 10 scenes?
• Alternatively, you can have students write and submit a reflection where they respond to the above questions in complete sentences and in their own words.
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