Play Versus Short Story: What is the Difference?

What are the differences between a play and a short story?

PLAY

• dates back to Plato and Aristotle
• consists of acts and scenes
• drama comes from the Greek word "dran" which means to do or to act
• tells the story of one or more events
• consists of a few characters
• set on a stage
• tells story through dialogue
• use of literary devices
• theme should be evident as play unfolds
• setting self-evident
• top 100 stage plays (http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/13581.Goodreads_Top_100_Stage_Plays_of_All_Time)

https://prezi.com/iupdawcjsone/renaissance-presentation/

SHORT STORY

• dates back to early 19th Century
• consists of a sequence of events (plot)
• has a clear beginning, middle and ending
• few characters
• read at one sitting
• tells story through narration and some dialogue
• strong character development
• frequent use of literary devices
• theme woven into the plot
• setting described through narration
• top 100 short stories (http://americanliterature.com/100-great-short-stories)

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OQq_R0FSkAM/hqdefault.jpg

The Play's the Thing

"Writing for the stage is an exhilarating experience.  I'll never forget the first time I saw my scruffy pages of dialogue transformed into flesh and blood drama on an off-off-Broadway stage in New York's east village in the late 1960's."

One author, who used to write fiction, poetry and essays, thought that his background would not suffice for playwrighting.  However, he found that his fiction experience helped him to structure a story, his poetry background helped him with rhythm and diction, and his essay writing helped him present the core factual information.  Here are some tips to help you get started as a playwright (http://www.writersdigest.com/author/guestcolumn).

1.  Involve yourself in all facets of the theatre.  Volunteer, attend rehearsals, audition for roles.  Observe the collaboration involved in mounting a play.

2.  Study the play's text before and after the performance.  See how the dialogue moves the play forward.

3.  Use standard playscript format.  Page 1 should include cast members, setting and what happens when the curtain rises.  The characters' names should be written in capitals.  A single space should appear between dialogue, a line between characters.  Stage directions should appear in parentheses.  A one act play should run 30 to 60 pages while a full play should run 90 to 120 pages.

4.  Keep casts, sets and scenes simple.  Focus on character develpment.  Remember that most of Shakespeare's plays can be performed on a bare stage.

5.  Don't overdo stage direction.  Again, keep it simple.

6.  Stage test your play with a group of amateurs or friends.  A dramatic reading of your play will help with pacing, coherence and dialogue.

7.  Find each character's voice.  It should be recognizable.

8.  Keep the plays as small as possible.  "It is a slice of life, not a biography." (http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Play)

9.  Understand the limits of the stage ex. no gun fights, no car chases.

10  Break the plot into scenes and acts (usually three).

11.  Enter playwriting competitions for exposure.  It could be your one true shot at the big time (metropolitan commercial theatres).

12.  Contact play publishers, not theatres.  Look in the Writer's Market for a listing ex. Big Dog Plays, Broadway Play Publishing, Eldridge Publishing Pioneer Drama Service.  When a theatre buys your play, the publisher will send you a royalty statement.  Just as authors have literary agents, playwrights have theatrical agents.  However, you usually need at least one performed play under your belt before you can attract an agent.

Note:  For more information, read The Art and Craft of Playwrighting by Jeffrey Hatcher.

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Play#/Image:Write-a-Play-Step-3.jpg

Six Ways to Establish an Electric Atmosphere in Your Story

The atmosphere is the mood or tone of the story.  It should draw the reader into the story.  It should enable the reader to imagine the world the writer is creating.  It sets up the expectations for the story.

A novel like Harry Potter is suspenseful and whimsical.  Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities is bleak.  Alice in Wonderland, on the other hand, is both sensible and nonsensical according to blogger Angela Gentry (http://study.com/academy/lesson/atmosphere-in-literature-definition-examples-quiz.html).

How do you, as an author, establish atmosphere?  Here are six ways:

1.  Set the mood for the story through an object, according to Angela Gentry.  She gives the example of a Terry Tempest Williams story in which a piece of fruit helps to set a dangerous tone.

"We smother the avocado with salsa hot chiles at noon in the desert.  We look at each other and smile, eating avocados with sharp silver blades, risking the blood of our tongues repeatedly."

2.  Establish atmosphere through setting.  Angela Gentry quotes the book A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle.

"It was a dark and stormy night.  In her attic bedroom, Margaret Murry, wrapped in an old patchwork quilt, sat on the foot of her bed and watched the trees tossing in the frenzied lashing of the wind."

3.  Description is also a tool you can employ to establish setting.  Use powerful adjectives and adverbs, suggests Esther Newton (http://www.writersbureau.com/e-zee-writer/august-2012/page3.htm).  She gives the example of a hotel.

"She eagerly hurried inside, her eyes soaking up the sumptuous sofas, gleaming floors and dazzling chandelier taking centre stage."

The reader imagines businessmen in suits and women in elegant dresses walking the halls of such a hotel.  Ms. Newton puts forward a second description which creates a very different atmosphere:

"She gingerly stepped inside, her eyes widening at the sagging sofas, the filthy floor and dull flickering lights."

The reader imagines a very different clientele at the second hotel.

When describing your scene, don't neglect all five senses.  Authors tend to centre on sight and sound, sometimes glossing over smell, touch and taste.

4.  Use weather to establish the atmosphere of your story.  Contrast a "cornflower blue sky with a bright sun" to a "grey sky with menacing clouds charging across it".

5.  Use the time of day to establish the mood.  If you are penning a ghost story, make it at night to darken the tale.  The season is also important.  If your story is about hope, make it in the spring, the season of renewal and rebirth.  O'Henry's The Gift of the Magi is set during the Christmas season, for obvious reasons.

"The Magi, as you know were wise men -- wonderfully wise men -- who brought gifts to the babe in the manger.  They invented the art of giving Christmas presents."

6.  Don't forget point of view.  Ms. Newton recommends the first person which enables the reader to feel like he is part of the story.  However, third person allows the reader to see the situation from the viewpoint of more than one character.

"It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived." (To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee)

http://www.collegehumor.com/post/6252353/this-is-so-funny

Theme: The Heart of the Story

"Theme is the prescription for living that the writer wants to give the audience or reader." 

(Michael Hauge)

Theme is the central idea of your story.  C. S. Lankin calls it "the heart of the story" (http://www.cslakin.com/).  The theme is connected to the protagonist's internal journey.  It allows the reader to relate to the characters and their struggles.  "Theme is the prescription for living that the writer wants to give the audience or reader," says Michael Hauge (http://www.storymastery.com/).

Picture books should have one theme while chapter books or novels can have more than one theme. The main character in The Polar Express questions the existence of Santa Claus; he takes a journey to the North Pole and finds out that if he can hear the bell, he truly believes.  He need only have faith is the theme of the story.  The protagonist in the novel Catcher in the Rye doesn't want to grow up; preservation of innocence is the theme.  Harry Potter feels unwanted wherever he goes; he wants to find a place to call home.  Joan McCord offers other examples of theme:

• old ways are best
• determination wins the day
• the more you give, the more you get
• faith will see you through
• father knows best
• crime doesn't pay
• as the twig is bent, so grows the tree
• man is the master of his fate
• honesty is the best policy

"Plot, character, setting, point of view and symbolism support and create theme," says Joan McCord (http://authorlink.com/skill-building/what-is-theme-and-why-is-it-important/). As you draft your story outline, as you string your sentences together, as you complete your chapters, keep theme uppermost in your mind.  Remember that the theme is usually inferred, rather than stated directly. Ms. McCord points out that your title, chapter titles, beginning, and particularly, your ending should all lead back to your dominant theme.  Write one sentence to sum up your theme.  Keep it in mind as you write the book.  It will also come in handy when you pitch your story to potential publishers.  

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/THEME-The-Message-freebie-1776549

How Setting is Crucial to Your Story

Setting is the time, place and social background of your story.  Setting helps set the mood or atmosphere of the story.  It can also influence characters' behaviour, affect dialogue, foreshadow events, invoke emotion and reflect society, according to The Writing Place (https://thewritingplace.wordpress.com/2010/04/13/story-elements-importance-of-the-setting/).

As a writer, you can show setting by:

1.  Dialogue

A teenager from Chicago speaks differently than one from rural Kentucky.  Someone who orders a caramel mocchiato might be of a more sophisticated social class than someone who orders an orange soda.

2.  Weather

A hurricane might suggest that you are in New Orleans whereas a blizzard might suggest you are in New England.  Fragrant flowers infers springtime whereas swirling leaves infers fall.

3.  Foreshadowing

A dark, gloomy house foreshadows danger.  Flickering candles foreshadows romance or a religious ceremony.

4.  Behaviour

A story set during 9/11 would be a good place for heroic behaviour.

5.  Society

If our protagonist lives in Victorian era London, the customs are quite different than current day New York City.

6.  Emotion

Victorian era London, its streets filled with wide eyed orphans with rumbling tummies, evokes more emotion than present day London.

Darcy Pattison suggest turning the familiar into the unfamiliar.  For example, Where the Wild Things Are starts in the protagonist's bedroom but ends up in a jungle.  King Bidgood's in the Bathtub transforms a nightly bath into a wild adventure.  You can do the reverse as well.  Turn something unfamiliar into something familiar as Brinton Turkle does in her story about a Quaker family called Rachel and Obadiah.

No matter what setting you choose, make sure you have a working knowledge of the locale and time period.  If not, do thorough research before you start writing.  Here are some picture books and chapter books whose authors have done an excellent job of setting the scene:

Picture Books

1.  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Judi Barrett)

2.  The Lorax (Dr. Seuss)

3.  Thundercake (Patricia Polacco)

4.  Ghost's Hour, Spook's Hour (Eve Bunting)

5.  The Hockey Sweater (Roch Carrier)

6.  One Splendid Tree (Marilyn Helmer)

Chapter Books

1.  Summer of the Gypsy Moths (Sara Pennypacker)

2.  To the Mountaintop:  My Journey Through The Civil Rights Movement (Charlayne Hunter-Gault)

3.  The Impossible Rescue:  The True Story of an Amazing Arctic Adventure (Martin W. Sandler)

4.  Crow (Barbara Wright)

5.  The One and Only Ivan (Katherin Applegate)

6.  Making Bombs for Hitler (Marsha Skrypuch)

https://www.papermasters.com/setting.html

Ten Tips to Writing a Chapter Book That Sells

Chapter books are geared to children ages 7 to 9.  Chapter books run generally 4,000 to 10,000 words in total.  They bridge the gap between picture books and middle grade novels.  Here are some steps to follow when writing a chapter book.

1.  Decide what will happen.

Map out your plot, setting and characters.  Write an outline on the computer or put your ideas on index cards and post them on a bulletin board where they can be easily seen.

liviaquinn.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/othrsbtod8b.png

2.  Organize a list of chapters

Know ahead of time which events will happen when.  Chapters headings should give some indication of what will happen in the chapter.  Keep them short.  Blogger Kathleen Temean recommends each chapter should be 400 to 1,000 words in length.

http://www.theinconvenientchild.com/ContentsLow.jpg

3.  Do character sketches

Who are your characters?  What do they do?  What changes will your main character undergo?  Make sure he or she is three-dimensional.  Kathleen Temean says that your protagonist can be mischievous, can make mistakes, but shouldn't be amoral.  Avoid anthropomorphic characters (animals with human characteristics).

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Character-Sketch

4.  Picture the setting

While plot and characters are often the focus of an author, setting is often neglected.  However, setting "provides the backdrop against which your dramas ultimately play out," (http://www.writersdigest.com/tip-of-the-day/discover-the-basic-elements-of-setting-in-a-story).  If the setting is a real place, heavily research it.  If it is a fictional place, it can always loosely be based on a real place.  Setting can give your story mood, meaning and theme.  Keep it in mind as you string your story together.

http://www.betterstorytelling.net/images/article_images/setting_265x265.jpg

5.  Plan out the Plot

According to Jennifer Jensen, a chapter book plot should be "dramatic, but not nightmarish".  The plot can be fast paced, but not too complex.  Keep it clear and simple.

http://femketuition.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/general-story-plan.png

6.  Establish a Theme

"An effective piece of writing contains a single, dominant message," says blogger Chip Scanlan.  What is my story really about?  You should be able to narrow your theme down to one sentence.
Keep your theme uppermost in your mind as you write your story.

http://happyfishtarot.com/images/themespread.png

7.  Get inspired

Avid readers make avid writers.  Read 100 chapter books to get ideas.  Jennifer Jensen recommends the following series:

-Junie B. Jones
-Judy Moody
-Ruby Lu
-Mallory
-The Magic Treehouse
-Flower Fairy Friends
-Fish Face

I also recommend the series:

-I Survived (ex. the Chicago Fire, the Nazi Invasion, the Battle of Gettysburg, etc)

http://www.amazon.com/Survived-11-Great-Chicago-Fire/dp/0545658462

8.  Start Writing

According to Kathleen Tremean, a chapter book should include lots of dialogue.  Sentences and paragraphs should be short.  Language should be vivid.  Infuse your story with humour, which should be age-appropriate.  Don't forget to include some illustrations.

motivatedpublishingstudios.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/manuscript-writing-21.png?w=593&h=261&crop=1

9.  Edit, Edit, Edit

Give your book to a few people, ideally children who are your potential audience, to read.  Ask for feedback.  Look for constructive criticism.  Wait a month or two.  Go back to your manuscript and implement some of the suggested changes.

http://www.bookmasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/editorial.jpg

10.  Be Patient!  Don't give up!  Wait for the right opportunity to publish your manuscript.  Good things come to those who wait.

https://beardmonkey.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/hourglass.jpg

For more information, read https://kathytemean.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/writing-chapter-books/.