First of all, for anyone looking to acquire a new skill, look for examples to emulate. There are many one-act drama collections available, which will allow you to read works by both famous and recent playwrights. Study the construction of these texts. What happened? When? How many settings and characters do you need? What is the duration of the drama’s story? One day? One year? Moreover, the drama has various contents and forms. That’s why you need to read, and if necessary, go watch one-act plays. Aside from that, if you also need a suitable script to be performed in front of elderly citizens, you can try one-act stage plays.
One-act dramas are usually different from long dramas. A one-act drama has fewer characters and perhaps a simpler setting. Typically, one-act dramas only focus on the main character and one event or one goal. While the time for sub-lines (subplots) and scenes that don’t involve the main character, the story is minimal. This is what you should look out for when reading a one-act play, and something to keep in mind as you move into the writing process.
Then, the main question a writer needs to ask when sitting down and telling the story is who is your main character? A story, even a drama with a sizable ensemble, needs one major focal point. In a short, one-act drama, you only need a few characters, maybe 4 or 5 people. Determining the main character is not difficult. Ask, whose story is this? Whose point of view are we using? He is your main character.
After determining the main character, find the goal. A character, in any work, needs to have one goal that he strives for throughout the story. For example, Hamlet wants to do good for his father. Dorothy wants to go home to Kansas. To write a play, you need to define your main character’s goals. To get what he wants, he needs to do other things, but the primary “want” that dominates him must be the same. This means that your drama is about what your character wants.
