Personal Resources for Writing Plays

"What do I write about?" asks the novice. A common problem for writers is finding a subject to write about. A topic must be interesting enough to occupy your mind, your emotions, and your time for at least three months, possibly much longer. Besides, you have to know enough about the argument to write in a compelling manner. Hopefully, your artistic insight will offer dramatic truth regarding shared experiences. If your act of creation does not entertain you, can you expect an audience's enthusiastic response?

Only the playwright can answer the question of what to write. A friendly instructor, hoping to stimulate, suggests, " Write about Richard Nixon's tragic failure with Watergate." Perhaps you are too young to know about Richard Nixon or you do not care about Watergate, even though it is a defining moment in American history. What you have to examine is what you do know and what you do care about. You should begin by tapping the writer's principal resources: your personal experience, your observations, your education and, above all, your creative imagination. Then, exercise your personal resources.

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