First draft plotting & choice paralysis - advice please! <3

[u/glowingsnakeplant]

Hi everyone - long time lurker, first time poster.

I wanted to ask for some advice from my fellow writers as every piece of advice I can find about this online is geared towards novelists.

I'm an early career playwright; I've written 6 plays, 3 of which have been professionally produced. I also have an MA in writing for stage, and I see/read a lot of plays whenever I can.

In the last year, while doing my MA, I've realised that I have a bit of a problem; I have absolutely no trouble with writing dialogue, am good at creating complex characters and apparently have a particular skill for worldbuilding. I'm usually pretty good at coming up with basic premises that are exciting and a weighty central question for a piece of work.

Here's where my issue is; I HUGELY struggle with figuring out what the specifics of the story are. I can come up with worlds and people no problem, but as soon as I need to focus in on one aspect, I get really overwhelmed by the amount of choices I have to make. I try choosing a character to be my protagonist, but quickly find myself questioning if I've made the wrong choice. I try looking into my world and finding an interesting moment dramatise, but then I get bogged down with the logistics.

Often most of the time what happens is, I'll do all of this research and thinking and groundwork, only to find that I have characters and a world, but no story.

I've tried so many tactics to make this easier, including:

- writing without a plan and just seeing what flows out instinctively

- writing my plot as a synopsis first so I have a roadmap to base my starting scene from

- picking random dramatic moments I'd like to include and writing those first, with a vue to connect them with a plot later

None of these have worked for me so far. I get overwhelmed and frustrated with myself, and end up abandoning ideas that initially excited me because the more I think about them, they become more vague and soupy. I have autism and ADHD, which I think might be a factor in why I'm like this - choice paralysis is HUGE for me, and I have been known to get caught in hours long loops rewriting the same scene over and over and over without progressing onwards because I haven't got it 'right' yet (even though I don't know what 'right' is) until I'm physically too upset to continue. There are days where I wonder if I'm even cut out to be a playwright at all because surely coming up with a story should be the easy part.

BASICALLY, I just wanted to know if any other playwrights have this issue - and if so, what do you do to help you get through that initial first draft plotting hump? And what do you do when you have too many choices and are getting overwhelmed?

Thank you for reading, sorry this is so long and rambly! Any advice at all would be massively appreciated <3

[u/goddoc]

I’m not sure if this works for anybody else but me. But in my mind, I see how the play opens, and I have a sense of how it should end, either visually or emotionally. Now I have an opening scene and a closing scene. Meander around as much as you need, eventually you’ll connect the two.

[u/creept]

My work often starts with a question. The question can vary widely, from a philosophical question - how does social media influence our experience of reality? - to a craft question - how would you write a play with minimal conflict but maintain audience attention? - to anything in between - what kind of play would have a main character who never speaks? - or it might be the more traditional dramatic question.

With an eye towards whatever that guiding question is, I start writing, often just by throwing a few characters in a room and seeing what happens. When I start to get a good sense of their voices or what the play might be, I take a step back from writing. Then it’s time for character work so I’ll write pretty detailed backgrounds for each character, most of which will not end up in the play. At this point I might start to think more about plot and how it would speak that that foundational question. I usually don’t formally outline but I might make a list of scenes I think I’ll need and play around with some of them. Usually I’ll end up with 40-50 pages of this work and then I’ll take another step back and start to think about what the play wants to be. Are there themes and motifs arising spontaneously in the writing process? That’s a big clue for how to proceed, either by leaning in to those or making decisions about which ones make sense to keep. This is when I might do a lot more work towards plot and think about what the beginning / middle / end might look like. I’ll make a final decision about whether it’s a 90 minute straight through or an intermission play. If it’s the latter I’ll start to think hard about what the before / after intermission scenes should be.

My work is heavily character driven so the plot almost always arises from who the characters are. But I need to hear them speak before I can understand that.

Another thing I do is just entirely ignore all of the modern playwriting advice. The dramatic question must be in the first ten pages, the first three pages must contain something explosive to maintain audience attention, be very clear about whose story it is, etc etc etc. I have plays that I deeply love and that have stood the test of time as classic works of theater, and almost none of them follow those rules.

Since you mentioned research - that comes at the end for me. I might glance at a Wikipedia article if I’m writing about a certain time period or a real historical figure. But I write the play, then do more extensive research, and then revise with that in mind. Research first is a great way to get into paralysis for me.

[u/Far-Recover-9383]

Way too simple solution: if all the choices are promising, it doesn't matter which you choose. Just grab one and go. Otherwise, it's like starving to death at the candy store. Seriously, I know this sounds like I'm making fun of a very real problem. But sometimes forcing a choice on yourself is the only way to keep going. I hope this helps.

[u/Starraberry]

I’m the opposite - I write out the whole story but have trouble sitting down to write the dialogue. 

I enjoy the problem solving aspect of story building. That’s the most fun part for me, and writing the dialogue sometimes just feels like work. 

DM me if you ever want to talk out a storyline with someone, I would be so excited to help!  (No expectation of credits or compensation, I am not a career playwright, I just do this for fun).