Question: Do you require a particular script format? Short Answer: No, we're pretty liberal

Given the turnaround time on these writing challenges, someone inquired if the script pages submitted needed to be in standard playwriting format or if it could just be something down and dirty like:

A: Hi there

B: Oh, hello yourself.

A: You're in my way.

B: Oh, sorry. No need to pull out that gun, I shall step aside.

A: Thank you.

B: No, thank YOU.

And it can absolutely be that simple.

As long as it's legible, easily readable and in English, we're not going to be picky about format.

Don't let the perfect layout of a script be the enemy of you getting more words on the page in the time allotted.

That said, some people take comfort in formatting (I know I do, I use it as an excuse to read over everything again and proof it while I'm formatting, but I'm super anal about those things, and we're trying to get new scenes and characters created here, so don't let anything like formatting stand in your way.)

Whatever helps your process.

We have one writer who inquired a week or so ago about their own process - they traditionally do all their first drafts in long hand on paper first.  Would it be acceptable to take pictures of their handwritten pages and email those to us?  Yes, absolutely.

Again, legible, easily readable, and in English, that's all we need.

The layout on the page is otherwise up to you.

Have fun with it, don't make it a stumbling block to your creative process.

Also, I have seen some mighty creative use of space and font on the page over the years I've been reading new scripts from other writers - so feel free to have fun with that as well, if it inspires you to try something different.

Happy writing, all!

Challenge #1 - I Love You, I Hate You, I Love You

Hi folks

Thanks for signing on for the fun this coming month.

This was our first shot at hosting a writing challenge this year, so I was setting my expectations low.  Honestly, I would have been happy with just about half a dozen writers scribbling or typing away this time around.

We’re currently a group of almost 40, and we still have today for other folks to sign on and join us (people love a deadline) so… expectations well exceeded. Thanks!

And while there’s a respectable contingent from where Threshold Theater resides in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, we are a far flung group.  I don’t have all the contact information quite yet but so far I know we’ve got representation from  Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, and even up north in Canada. Phew!

So, let’s  dive in, shall we?

Challenge #1 - I Love You, I Hate You, I Love You

Due: Tuesday, November 2nd, 8am
(whenever 8am arrives in your time zone; we’ll do the math here in the Central Time zone, no worries :)

The only guideline for this challenge is to include three lines of dialogue, in this order:

“I love you”
“I hate you”
“I love you”

You can insert the punctuation you wish - period, question mark, exclamation point, etc.

The same person doesn’t have to say all three lines.

The lines can be as far apart or close together as you want - all three up front, at the very end, stuck in the middle, spread out over the entirety of what you’re writing (one near the beginning, one in the middle, one near the end).  

If you’re feeling really creative, you could find a way to use them as stage directions to describe what someone is doing - or an instruction for the way in which someone is supposed to say a completely different line:

BARRETT:
    (I love you)
Please put that knife down.

However you use them, they just need to stay in that order - I love you, I hate you, I love you.

Everything else to create a context for those lines is up to you.

How to submit your work for Challenge #1

You have options.  They are:

Save your script as a PDF or Word Doc and send as an attachment to an email sent to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com

OR

Copy and paste your script in the body of an email and send it to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com

OR

Post your script online (as a Google doc, or in a blog post, on your own personal website, etc.) - email a link to this script to ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com
(If you’re going to Google doc route, just make sure to have the document public, or give permissions to our email address to open it)

When emailing us, make the subject line of your email - Challenge #1
(That just helps us sort through the email more quickly)

OR

Post the link for the online document option above in the comments section on this very blog post for the day's challenge.

Again, this is: Due: Tuesday, November 2nd, 8am
(whenever 8am arrives in your time zone; we’ll do the math here in the Central Time zone, no worries :)

And, just to reassure you, no, we are not going to be sticklers about you following these directions down to the minutest detail - the important thing is that you write, and then that you share it with us, so we can keep track of who’s writing every day.

We will be VERY understanding about technical difficulties and how they can screw up making the deadline on the first few days.  No need to fret about anything except the writing (and hopefully that’s not something causing you to fret too much either :)

Also, no, there is no penalty for finishing and submitting early - but it also isn’t a race, so give yourself all the time up til 8am on Tuesday to write if you need it.  When you’re done, you’re done.

We had a question about the overall goal of the month, are we supposed to write a full-length play, or two one-act plays, etc.?  The short answer is no.  The longer answer is here if you’re curious:

https://thresholdwritingchallenge.blogspot.com/2021/10/question-do-we-have-to-write-play-short.html

Again, remember, it doesn’t need to be great, it doesn’t even need to be responding to this prompt (the prompt is just there so you’re not staring at a blank screen to start with no idea what to write about :)

Doesn't even need to be complete - you could have the beginning or the middle or the end of an idea, maybe two out of three but not all, that's still fine. This is all about getting things started, you can write more later. You have 29 more days to build on whatever you come up with today, if you want. Just get anything on the page, even if won't make sense to anyone else, as long as it make sense to you.

It just needs to be something.

And that something can be:

Lights up.

“I love you”
“I hate you”
“I love you”

Lights down.

The End

That’s always your escape hatch, every day.

That’s your base line.

Build on it.

Have fun.

Don’t stress.

Make an impulsive decision and run with it.

Breathe.

You’ve got the day (almost two days this time).

Just write.

 

 

Question: Do We Have To Write A Play? Short Answer: No

We got a good question in the comments the other day so I thought I'd share my answer.

Someone asked "Is the goal to write one full length play for the month or can we write 2 shorter plays -one act?"

It should have occurred to me to address this.  Apologies.

The November novel writing challenge often instructs people to come with an idea, perhaps even researched prior to the beginning of November, and then the writers will spend the month cranking through churning out that first draft of a full novel by month's end.

We're not requiring the playwriting equivalent of that here.

If you'd like to set that as a goal for yourself, go right ahead.

My answer, via email, to the poster was:

"You can write whatever you want.  

You can write to the prompts.  

You can totally ignore the prompts and write something completely different.  

You can write one play, two plays, or 30 tiny plays, or just a bunch of random scenes, it's up to you.  

Hopefully, when the month is done, you have enough raw material to rewrite and play with to last you the rest of the year until next November. 

(For example, I got a full-length play out of a similar writing challenge two years running - though they were just very rough drafts on December 1st, they have grown since.  

 

Also a couple of ten minute plays.  

 

Another year, I used the November daily challenge as an excuse to force myself to complete a first draft of a completely different play, writing every day until I got it done, and then played around with all the challenges that had been piling up the first couple of weeks for the remainder of the month.)

The point is just to write every day.  We're trying to encourage writing, focusing on prioritizing your playwriting each day for a whole month.  Doesn't need to be great, doesn't even need to be good, just needs to be something.

You can engage the challenge at any level you wish - as long as you're writing :)"

The first year I participated in Red Theater writing challenge, about two weeks in, there was a prompt that jump-started an idea I would probably never have written otherwise (don't worry, I'll be sharing that one later).  

 

Then, about four days later, I thought of that first scene again and thought, "Hey, I think I have another idea involving those same characters. Let's revisit them." And I ended up doing that every day for almost two weeks during that November. When I finally ran out of gas, didn't know what to write next, I looked up and I had over a hundred pages of content, and said to myself, "Well, that's a play." It didn't have a shape or structure yet, but clearly my brain wanted to tell a story with those characters. 

 

So after a couple more days of writing prompts getting me to the end of the month of November writing other things, I returned to that play and kept rewriting until it turned into a proper script.  That same year, I also accidentally wrote a nice little ten minute play as well that I still send out to theaters calling for ten minute play submissions.

Another year, I used the fact I knew I'd be expected to write something new every day for the November challenge to force myself to push through the first draft of a play I was already working on.

One year, I went back and revisited an idea I started developing for several days but abandoned during the previous year's writing challenge because I wanted to keep exploring it and the challenge forced me every day in the month of November to push myself a little harder to conjure ideas - and the writing prompts would often give me inspiration for possible scenes, encounters and conflicts between characters.

 

I would sometimes combine elements from two different challenges in ways that seemed more interesting to me, or revisiting a challenge later in November that I'd skipped over when it was first posted.

Use the writing challenge during each day of November to do whatever you want, accomplish whatever goals you want to set for yourself.

But the most important thing:

Just write.  Something.  Every day.  For a month.

Starting tomorrow...

Introducing Threshold Theater's November Playwriting Challenge for 2021

November is traditionally a month when all sorts of writers sign up for challenges to finish the Great American Novel or that unfinished screenplay - why shouldn’t playwrights get in on the fun?

The goal is simple: to get you to prioritize your own playwriting, even if it’s just for a little while each day, every day, for a whole month.

Even if you only manage it every other day, or a couple of days a week, that’s still progress.

If you’re like me, you can sometimes be so good at putting off your writing until another day that you can look up and find weeks have gone by without you writing a single line of dialogue.  We want to get out of that habit and replace it with a more creative habit.

And if you manage to write every single day of the month of November, then there’s an extra little prize for you at the end (read on)

Our challenge was created as a bit of an homage to a similar writing challenge that my friends at Red Theater in Chicago ran for several years in which I took part (so far I’ve mined the material I developed there for two full-length plays and a ten minute play).  Since they’ve sadly discontinued the event, and Threshold Theater is devoted to the development of new work and creating a community of writers for the theater, we thought, “why not revive that November playwriting challenge idea and do it here?”

How it works:

Everyone who wants to participate in the challenge goes to the Threshold Theater donation page and puts in $15 (https://www.givemn.org/story/Kssucf)

(This is sort of like putting money in a pool for March Madness or an Oscar party, but this time, you're betting on yourself as a writer.)

(If the payment is a problem for you, contact us at ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com - we don’t want money to be a barrier to people participating in the challenge - we’ll make something work to get you in.)

When you’re making the donation, click the "Add A Dedication" checkbox and make a note that says “Writing Challenge”

(You can also feel free to uncheck the box at the bottom of the form that pays the credit card fees, just make it $15 even - up to you)

After putting in your entry fee, drop us an email at ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com to let us know you’re in.

Threshold Theater will take 20% off the top, which will go towards supporting the artists in our new play reading series and future productions.  The remaining 80% of the money collected from the entry fees will go into the pot to create that prize at the end I mentioned before.

The writers that manage to write something, every single day for the 30 days of November, will split the money at the end.  That, of course, is an extra reward on top of the main reward, which is that you prioritized your playwriting and wrote a whole bunch of new material in November.  (And everyone, whether they write all 30 days or not, will get that “new play material” prize.) (Every year I did this challenge through Red Theater, I wrote all 30 days and ended up getting my $15 back at the end, so it was basically free writing encouragement :)

First rule of the challenge - it doesn’t have to be good writing, it just has to be writing.

Part of the point of the challenge is to get you to just make decisions and run with them, blast past your internal censor and just put something on the page.

Everything you write will, by the circumstances of its creation, be a first draft.  You can always go back and “fix it” later :)

Each day you will have a writing prompt.

I will post the writing challenge on our challenge blog at https://thresholdwritingchallenge.blogspot.com/

I will also email everyone participating with the text of that day’s challenge and a link to that blog post (which will come in handy later…)

(The plan is to give you two or three days’ worth of prompts in advance, so if you want to keep writing or get a head start on the next day’s work, you can.  The more writing the better.)

You can write to the prompt, or ignore it and write something completely different.  Up to you.  As long as you’re writing.

The point is just to give yourself the space and time to write something new.  

Doesn’t even need to be a complete scene, you could just have the beginning and the middle and not have any idea how to end it, the rest of the idea may come to you another day down the road.

As long as you have something written, that’s a good day.

If you’re just not able to get anything going one day in November, and all you can come up with is:

“Lights up

CAROL dances across the stage and disappears

Lights down

The End”

That’s fine

(Obviously we want to avoid 30 days of that but that’s enough of a placeholder to count for the day’s writing: Lights up, Something happens on stage, Lights down, The End - that’s the base, challenge yourself to do more)

The daily check in to keep us all honest and for me to be able to track who’s writing each day will go like this:

You’ll get the prompt for November 1st.  You’ll write on November 1st.

8am, the morning of November 2nd, you’ll share your work with us in one of the following ways:

You can email us the script at ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com

You can post the script as a comment on the blog entry for the day’s challenge at https://thresholdwritingchallenge.blogspot.com/

You can post your script online on your own blog or website (or post it as a Google doc) and post a link to it in a comment on the blog entry for the day’s challenge at https://thresholdwritingchallenge.blogspot.com/

You can email that link to your posted work for the day at ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com

Now, I realize not everyone doing this challenge is going to be in Minneapolis, so 8am is going to be a flexible deadline.

Make it 8am wherever you are in the world, and let me know about your timezone when you post it or email it to us.

Then get working on the writing for November 2nd.

And we’ll all go through that process daily until 8am on December 1st, for the November 30th challenge.

(And don’t panic the first couple of days when we’re all getting up and running.  We’re not going to be sticklers about time while we’re all fighting technology and working out the kinks on November 1, 2 and 3… Just post as you’re able and keep us in the loop by email on what’s going on if you’re having trouble :)

Then December 1st, I’ll sit down and make a list of all the people who logged in with writing work every day of the month, and I’ll double check it with you all, to make sure I didn’t miss anybody.

And then we’ll split the collective 80 percent of the entry fees for the challenge between those prolific writers who all remain standing at the end of the month.  We'll get further contact details at that time for the best way to get you your money.

I have always had a tremendous amount of fun doing challenges like this, and my aim is to make it fun and inspiring for all of you as well.

If you’re interested in participating, put your $15 in the prize pot via a donation through Threshold Theater’s GiveMN page (https://www.givemn.org/story/Kssucf) and send us an email at ThresholdWritingChallenge@gmail.com to let us know you want to take part in the challenge.

Deadline to sign on is October 31, 2021.

The fun (and writing) begin November 1, 2021.

Happy writing to you all!

Matthew A. Everett
Literary Director
Threshold Theater
(He/him/his)