Drama

Drama

DRAMA
Drama comes from Greek words meaning "to do" or "to act."

What is Drama?
Drama is a unique tool to explore and express human feeling. Drama is an essential form of behavior in all cultures, it is a fundamental human activity.

Definition

Actors play roles and present the storyline through dialogue, action, and gestures.

Process of Writing
If youre just getting started as a writer, though, or if you always find it a struggle to produce an essay, short story or blog, following the writing process will help.

a. Ideas and Inspiration

Ideas are all around you. If you want to write but you dont have any ideas, try: Using a writing prompt to get you started.

1. Prewriting
This covers everything you do before starting your rough draft. As a minimum, prewriting means coming up with an idea!

a. Ideas and Inspiration

Writing about incidents from your daily life, or childhood. Keeping a notebook of ideas: jotting down those thoughts that occur throughout the day.

a. Ideas and Inspiration

Creating a vivid character, and then writing about him/her.

Process of Writing
Tip: Once you have an idea, you need to expand on it. Dont make the mistake of jumping straight into your writing youll end up with a badly structured piece.

b. Building on Your Idea Couple of popular methods used to add flesh to the bones of your idea:

b. Building on Your Idea

Free writing : Open a new document or start a new page, and write everything that comes into your head about your chosen topic. Dont stop to edit, even if you make mistakes

b. Building on Your Idea

Brainstorming: Write the

idea or topic in the center of your page. Jot down ideas that arise from it sub-topics or directions you could take with the article.

c. Planning and Structure First, decide which ideas youll use. During your free writing and brainstorming, youll have come up with lots of thoughts. Some belong in this piece of writing: others can be kept for another time.

c. Planning and Structure Then, decide how to order those ideas. Try to have a logical progression. Sometimes, your topic will make this easy: in this article, for instance, it made sense to take each step of the writing process in order.

2. Writing
Sit down with your plan beside you, and start your first draft (also known as the rough draft or rough copy). At this stage, dont think about word-count,

2. Writing

grammar, spelling and punctuation. Dont worry if youve gone off-topic, or if some sections of your plan dont fit too well. Just keep writing!

If youre a new writer, you might be surprised that professional authors go through multiple drafts before theyre happy with their work. This is a normal part of the writing process no-one gets it right first time

Some writers

1) Setting aside at least thirty minutes to concentrate: its hard to establish a writing flow if youre just snatching a few minutes here and there.

2. Going somewhere without interruptions: a library or coffee shop can work well, if you dont have anywhere quiet to write at home.
00

3. Switching off
distracting programs: if you write your first draft onto a computer, you might find that turning off your Internet connection does wonders for your concentration levels!

Tip: Writing requires concentration and energy. If youre a new writer, dont try to write for hours without stopping. Instead, give yourself a time limit (like thirty minutes) to really focus without checking your email!

3. Revising
Revising your work is about making big picture changes. You might remove whole sections, rewrite entire paragraphs,

and add in information which youve realized the reader will need. Everyone needs to revise even talented writers.

The revision stage is sometimes summed up with the A.R.R.R. (Adding, Rearranging, Removing, Replacing) approach:

Adding
What else does the reader need to know? If you havent met the required word-count, what areas could you expand on? This is a good point to go back to your prewriting notes look for ideas which you didnt use.

Rearranging
Even when youve planned your piece, sections may need rearranging. Perhaps as you wrote your essay, you found that the argument would flow better if you reordered your paragraphs.

Maybe youve written a short story that drags in the middle but packs in too much at the end.

Removing
Sometimes, one of your ideas doesnt work out. Perhaps youve gone over the word count, and you need to take out a few paragraphs. Maybe that funny story doesnt really fit with the rest of your article.

Replacing
Would more vivid details help bring your piece to life? Do you need to look for stronger examples and quotations to support your argument? If a particular paragraph isnt working, try rewriting it.

Tip: If youre not sure whats working and what isnt, show your writing to someone else. This might be a writers circle, or just a friend whos good with words. Ask them for feedback. Its best if you can show your work to several people, so that you can get more than one opinion.

4. Editing
The editing stage is distinct from revision, and needs to be done after revising. Editing involves the close-up view of individual sentences and words.

It needs to be done after youve made revisions on a big scale: or else you could agonize over a perfect sentence, only to end up cutting that whole paragraph from your piece.

When editing, go through your piece line by line, and make sure that each sentence, phrase and word is as strong as possible. Some things to check for are:

a. Have you used the same word too many times in one sentence or paragraph? Use a thesaurus to find alternatives. b. Are any of your sentences hard to understand? Rewrite them to make your thoughts clear.

c. Which words could you

cut to make a sentence stronger? Words like just quite, very, really and generally can often be removed.

d.

Are your sentences grammatically correct? Keep a careful look out for problems like subject-verb agreement and staying consistent in your use of the past, present or future tense.

e. Is everything spelt correctly? Dont trust your spell-checker it wont pick up every mistake. Proofread as many times as necessary.

f. Have you used punctuation marks correctly? Commas often cause difficulties. You might want to check out the Daily Writing Tips articles on punctuation.

Tip: Print out your work and edit on paper. Many writers find it easier to spot mistakes this way.

5. Publishing
The final step of the writing process is publishing. This means different things depending on the piece youre working on.

5.1) need to
upload, format and post their piece of completed work.

5. 2. Students need to produce

a final copy of their work, in the correct format. This often means adding a bibliography, ensuring that citations are correct and adding details such as your student reference number.

5.3. Fiction writers may be sending their story to a magazine or competition. Check guidelines carefully, and make sure you follow them. If youve written a novel, look for an agent who represents your genre.

5.4. Journalists need to

submit their piece (usually called copy) to an editor. Again, there will be a certain format for this.

Tip: Your piece of writing might never be published. Thats okay many bestselling authors wrote lots of stories or articles before they got their first piece published. Nothing that you write is wasted, because it all contributes to your growth as a writer.

1) Character
Most simply a character is one of the persons who appears in the play, one of the dramatis personae
(literally, the persons of the play).

Most plays contain major characters and minor characters. The distinction between heroes (or heroines) and villains, between good guys and bad guys, between virtue and vice is useful in dealing with certain types of plays

Another common term in drama is protagonist. Etymologically, it means the first contestant. In the Greek drama, where the term arose, all the parts were played by one, two, or three actors (the more actors, the later the play), and the best actor, who got the principal part(s), was the protagonist.

The second best actor was called the euteragonist. Ideally, the term "protagonist" should be used only for the principal character. Several other characters can be defined by their relation to the protagonist. The antagonist is his principal rival in the conflict set forth in the play.

A foil is a character who defines certain characteristics in the protagonist by exhibiting opposite traits or the same traits in a greater or lesser degree.

A confidant(e) provides a ready ear to which the protagonist can address certain remarks which should be heard by the audience but not by the other characters.

Another type of character is the stereotype or stock character, a character who reappears in various forms in many plays.

Comedy is particularly a
fruitful source of such figures, including the miles glorious or boastful soldier (a man who claims great valor but proves to be a coward when tested),

the irascible old man (the source of elements in the character of Polonius), the witty servant, the coquette, the prude, the fop, and others. A stock character from another genre is the avenger of Renaissance tragedy.

The role of Hamlet demonstrates how such a stereotype is modified by an author to create a great role, combining the stock elements with individual ones.

2)PLOT
The interest generated by the plot varies for different kinds of plays. (See fiction elements on plot
for more information regarding plot.)

The plot is usually structured with acts and scenes.

Open conflict plays: rely on

the suspense of a struggle in which the hero, through perhaps fight against all odds, is not doomed.

Dramatic thesis:
foreshadowing, in the form of ominous hints or symbolic incidents, conditions the audience to expect certain logical developments.

Coincidence: sudden
reversal of fortune plays depict climatic ironies or misunderstandings.

Dramatic irony: the

fulfillment of a plan, action, or expectation in a surprising way, often opposite of what was intended.

3) Theme
The plot has been called the body of a play and the theme has been called its soul. Most plays have a conflict of some kind between individuals, between man and society, man and some superior force or man and himself.

The events that this conflict provokes make up the plot. One of the first items of interest is the playwright quotes treatment of the plot and what them he would draw from it.

The same plots have been and will be used many times; it is the treatment that supplies each effort with originality or artistic worth.

Shakespeare is said to have borrowed all but one of his stories, but he presented them so much better than any of the previous authors that he is not seriously criticized for the borrowing. The treatment of theme is equally varied.

4) Dialogue
Dialogue provides the substance of a play. Each word uttered by the character furthers the business of the play, contributes to its effect as a whole.

Therefore, a sense of DECORUM must be established by the characters, i.e., what is said is appropriate to the role and situation of a character.

Also the exposition of the play often falls on the dialogue of the characters. Remember exposition establishes the relationships, tensions or conflicts from which later plot developments derive.

5) Convention
The means the playwright employs are determined at least in part by dramatic convention. Greek: Playwrights of this era often worked with familiar story material, legend about gods and famous families that the audience was familiar with.

Since the audience was familiar with certain aspects of these, the playwrights used allusion rather than explicit exposition. In representing action, they often relied on messengers to report off-stage action.

For interpretation the Greeks relied on the CHORUS, a body of onlookers, usually citizens or elders, whose comments on the play reflected reactions common to the community. These plays were written in metered verse arranged in elaborate stanzas.

This required intense attention from the audience. English Drama: Minor characters play an important role in providing information and guiding interpretation.

The confidant, a friend or servant, listens to the complaints, plans and reminiscences of a major character. Minor characters casually comment among themselves on major characters and plot development.

Extended SOLILOQUY enables a major character to reveal his thoughts in much greater detail than in natural dialogue. ASIDES, remarks made to the audience but not heard by those on the stage, are common.

Realism: Toward the end of the nineteenth century, realistic depiction of everyday life entered the genre of drama, whereas the characters may be unconventional and their thoughts turbulent and fantasyridden.

Contemporary: Experimentation seems to be the key word here. A NARRATOR replaces the messenger, the chorus and the confidant. FLASHBACKS often substitute for narration.

Many contemporary playwrights have abandoned recognizable setting, chronological sequence and characterization through dialogue.

6) Audience
It is the act or chance of hearing; a reception by a great person; the person to hear. Playhouse, script, actors, miser en scene, audience are inseparable parts of the theatre. The concept of drama put forward in this book insists that the audience have an indispensable role to play.

7) Genre
Genre is a term that describes works of literature according to their shared thematic or structural characteristics. The attempt to classify literature in this way was initiated by Aristotle in the Poetics, where he distinguishes tragedy, epic, and comedy

and reinforced by Horace, is regulative and prescriptive, and recognizes even more fundamental distinctions between drama, epic, and lyric poetry. Classical genre theory, established by Aristotle

attempting to maintain rigid boundaries that correspond to social differences. Thus, tragedy and epic are concerned exclusively with the affairs of the nobility, comedy with the middle or lower classes.

Modern literary criticism, on the other hand, does not regard genres as dogmatic categories, but rather as aesthetic conventions that guide, but are also led by, writers.

The unstable nature of genres does not reduce their effectiveness as tools of critical inquiry, which attempts to discover universal attributes among individual works,

and has, since classical times, evolved theories of the novel, ode, elegy, pastoral, satire, and many other kinds of writing.