Alan Ayckbourn's Playwriting Technique
from his workshop broadcast on the South Bank Show ITV 28/7/96
He used the example of a play he had written about an ex gangster becoming a TV star.
- Get the idea first e.g the peversity of the media how only bad news is good news.
- create the main character (Vic)
- then he creates another to play him off
- then he creates a situation to bring them together
- then a past event where they had met
- brings in another character so he can show the bad side of his main character.
- He keeps the number of characters to the minimum
- uses the technique of setting the play over the events of a single day morning till evening
- Now he has characters and a story he sits down and writes the dialogue.