You say you first wrote your ideas as short stories…then stage plays. What’s the difference between writing something as a short story and something as a stage play?

Well, this is one of the most important questions, I suppose. What makes a play ‘a play’? There’s lots of answers to this, and if I went through all of them I’d be here all day (and you’d all get very fed up with me, I’m sure) so, in nutshell, the main thing to keep in mind is this: a stage play is told by people speaking to each other. In other words, everything you want the audience to know about both your plot and your characters has to be conveyed through dialogue. A stage play is about…people doing and saying things! Not what’s going on inside their head. I’ll give you an example. This is an opening of an idea told in the form of a short story:

It was Billy’s first day at his new school so, needless to say, when he walked into the school playground he was a little nervous. The school he used to go to was very small and he had known everyone by their first name. His old school felt like a second home. But this school….oh, it was huge! And there were so many children in the playground. Hundreds of them. And they all looked much bigger than Billy. And they were all making so much noise. Only one child in the playground wasn’t big and running around and making a noise. He was standing by the rubbish bins and he had red hair. The red-haired boy looked over at Billy and smiled. Billy smiled back and thought, Oh! Perhaps I could make friends with him.

Okay. Now, that might be a good opening for a short story. But it is not a good opening for a stage play. Why? Because it’s all about thinking things. It’s all going on inside Billy. For example, the actor playing Billy can’t walk on stage and act thinking ‘my previous school was much smaller than this.’ How can an actor do that? Not even an actor as good as Marlon Brando could do that. So what do you do? Well, you have to find a way of getting Billy to say the things his thinking. And, preferably, say these things to someone else on stage. So, if we were to write the story of Billy walking into the playground as a stage play, it would go something like this:

Billy walks into the playground. He looks a little nervous.
A boy with red hair notices Billy and walks over to him.
Red-Haired Boy Hello.
Billy H-hello.
Red-Haired Boy I ain’t seen you before.
Billy This is my first day here.
Red-Haired Boy You look nervous.
Billy I am nervous. My last school wasn’t a bit like this.
Red-Haired Boy What was it like, then?
Billy It was much smaller. And…and I knew everyone’s name. It felt like a second home. But this school…
Red-Haired Boy It don’t feel like your second home?
Billy No. Everyone looks so big. And they’re making so much noise.
Red-Haired Boy I’m not big.
Billy Nor am I.
Red-Haired Boy And I’m not making a noise.
Billy Nor am I.
Red-Haired Boy So perhaps…we could be friends.
Billy I’d like that.

You see? We’ve got all the information we need…but we’ve done it by having people talk to each other. And, at it’s most basic level, that’s what makes a play ‘a play’.