Every year I look forward to the Hallmark Christmas movies, though I must admit I bail on quite a few. Sometimes I’m just not interested in the topic. Other times the male lead character isn’t doing it for me. But mostly it’s because I can’t get into the story. The beginning is too much blather and not enough substance. I know, easy for me to say. So I’m saying it.
The beginning of your play is not just important; it’s crucial. It sets the scene for everything that follows. You don’t have to impart earth-shattering information in the opening or start with an explosion, but you grab your audience’s attention and not bore them to tears. My one-act play A Moving Experience takes place in the first apartment a young man is moving into, and his mother is frantic. It opens thusly:
Donna: What are you doing, Gordon? Cut it out.
Gordon: What?
Donna: Don’t bring any attention to the bed.
It’s not Shakespeare, but it conveys the woman’s anxiety and might bring a chuckle. In another one-act play, Sofa, two college roommate care about each other but bicker. Here’s the opening:
Beck: Where’s my deodorant?
Then he whaps Josh on the head with a towel as he walks past.
It’s such a guy thing to do and sets the stage for their relationship.
I left out the stage directions for both these plays, which, of course, help to set the scenes. With the dialogue, the idea is to get the tension and conflict out there as soon as possible.
A recent teleplay began in an office, where the female executive’s assistant rattled off her meeting schedule and other duties, and they walked down the hall talking about things I didn’t care about and that were ultimately not germane to the story. Click. That was the sound of me changing the channel. You can do better with your openings.