LIT 107 CREATIVE WRITING (PRACTICAL) LECTURE NOTE

Preamble
DOING WRITING…THE SPACE OF CREATIVITY AND IMAGINATION
Writing is an attempt to “penetrate life”, student learner-writers must begin at the beginning –
that is, with their mind. The beginner’s mind embarks on a journey, a task. In Robert Olmstead’s
analogy: writing, he asserts, is like driving at night. You only have your headlights, but manage
to get where you’re going. As writers, we have our shaped novel, play, poem, short story, essay,
memoir destination in mind. There are “small concerns” – tools we need.

The ‘craft’ and the distinctiveness of a many-sided (ad) venture

Creative writing is a many-sided (ad) venture. There can be many approaches to it. Indeed, one
could assume that there is really no distinction between a good novel, and a good play and a
good poem; that they are all ‘phases’ of one phenomenon – products of the imagination. All
writing is CRAFT. From such “crafting”, a learner or reader could extract ‘knowledge’ of various
kinds, from either one greater and famous writer, or from various works of many great and
famous writers. Because it is “craft”, writing is a “task”, a practical task. But because the
‘practice’ of ‘describing’ an object, ‘narrating;, ‘telling’, about that one object, is different from
“dialoguing” with that object when it is a person, a character in action on a stage, which
character has a specific “voice”, a particular feature, creative writing needs to be “artificially”
separated into fiction (novel), drama (playwriting) and poetry (poetic composition-like music).

ISSUES IN NOVEL-WRITING
How to ‘Open’ Novel-Writing (Creativity: An All-affective Phenomenon)
Emphatically, all writing is purposeful. Think now of the word, “Creative”; to “Create” means to
bring about by imaginative skill something purposefully new. Because the process affects the
producer, the product, and the consumer (here, the reader) of the product, “creative” now
becomes an all-affective thing which envelopes all three “stakeholders”. This is why a work of
art interests the artist, appeals to the art appreciator, and remains a memorable thing with an
autonomous life of its own.

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Purpose and Method
Purpose and Method must then merge and drive each other along, much as the fuel in the tank of
a car must be in an internally burning engine to ‘exhaust’ itself as it pulls/propels the engine
along. How does a writer “pull the reader” into his story in the first place? The first sentence in
the first paragraph on the first page of the book becomes specifically crucial. A reader must be
“hooked”, like a fish attracted to a bait is. The fish is given an attractive reason to want to feed.
That is why he sees the bait, goes for it, and gets “hooked”. Remember your fish need not “die”,
but can be coaxed there from into an experiment, living or dying later? “Narrative Hook” as Rita
Clay Estrada and Rita Gallagher call it, must make your reader CURIOUS, INQUISITIVE, and
give him a REASON for staying on to read your novel. Method and Purpose also underline a
writer’s technique. Consider the following “Openers”/Methods and see the Intent/Purpose of the
author(s).
“Metal on concrete jars my drinking lobes”
[Soyinka’s Sagoe in opening the novel, The Interpreters]

“Once upon a time a young man was savouring the pleasures of a new car”.
[Nkem Nwankwo in opening the novel, My Mercedez Is Bigger Than Yours]

“Even before my death I have become a ghost…”

[Ayi Kwei Armah in opening the novel, Why Are We so Blest?]

Shaping
Also, in the preliminary stage of beginning a novel, the ‘shape’ of the story is intimated. At the
beginning the story rolls loosely around a number of subjects and persons. It may be around a
family history, or a political event, or a police clash with a community, or a student who has
gone missing from school or village. Shape comes into your mind as you THINK and as you
think, do not trust your mind to retain all of it; get a notebook, or some sheets of paper. “Writing
is refined thinking”, in the paper. Uncleared land vs great harvest.

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Story Selection
What is “Story”?
Ordinarily, as any good dictionary or thesaurus can tell, a story is just the account of events or
incidents whose ordering may be extremely loose, tight or disorderly but in whatever form they
ultimately possess elements of human sense to an extent. We see “Stories”, more or less, in this
sense in the TV news, or newspaper thrillers or sensational rendering of a killing, a theft with
perpetrators breaking and entering, a conversion or healing of persons on a Christian crusade
ground, or even church worship occasion. In fact, our everyday life is full of “stories”. However,
when it comes to creative writing, story assumes a special dimension. It becomes an “imagined”
or “imaginative”, “invented” – and so, called “fictional” narrative, full of contrived intrigues so
plotted as to receive a variety of names such as “Anecdote” (when full of humour and
amusement), or “legend” (when couched as transmitted history of a people from their previous
times), or ‘mystery’ (in a remote African jungle) when a man and woman, or a boy and girl fall
in love.

Setting in the Novel: Situation & Environment

Estrada and Gallagher insist, very correctly, that a story is not written in ‘chapters’, but rather is
written in “scenes” and their “sequels”, that is in actions organized round a situation and the
reaction contrary to the previous . A setting must be like a string of beads to keep a story on
track. Indeed, for a story to begin well, the writer must think it through first. To think it through
you must be able to know exactly which direction you are going, where exactly you are at any
given stage, how you are going to reach your destination.

Setting by What You See: Vision & Space

In a novel called State of Grace, Joy Williams writes a setting like this:
“… And the ground never dries. The yard is rich mud with no definition between it and
the riverbank. Tiny fish swim in the marks our feet make. The trees are tall and always
look wet as though they’d been dipped in grease. Many of them are magnolias and oaks.
Pods, nuts and Spanish moss hang in wide festoons. The river is the perfect
representation of a Southern river, thin and blond, swampy, sloppy and warm. It is in

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 everyone’s geography book. I was not shocked at all when I saw it. I was not pleased,
although it is quite pretty…”
This SETTING relies on What can be seen. Olmstead avers that only a storyteller who has, and
is, as a sharp teller like Williams has an eye for SURROUNDINGS, and a DISCERNING
language for the particular vision can write so distinctly or clearly. The “world” this writer
describes is “oozing” and “shimmering”. The movement suggests a person’s gaze crossing a
landscape, moving from ground, to the tress, to the river. Each descriptive sentence is TIGHT.
Each begins the same way: “…The yard… is…, the trees are…, the river is ….” with simple
verbs, relating simply what is seen, what is seen is. This description defines. The trees are
defined: magnolias, oaks. ‘pods, ‘Nuts and Spanish moss hang in wide festoons’.
In this kind of setting a writer shows confidence in how to perceive land and
environment. In the end what is seen is not just physical but begins to embody an inner, spiritual
dimension that gives a setting its peculiar character(istic) and magic and attraction.

Setting by What You Hear: Sounds & Storms

In a collection of short stories by Obi B. Egbuna titled Emperor of the Sea, we read this setting.
“…Falilah suggested we went for a walk down to the creek. The moon was out… Falilah
and I sat on a log of wood, all by ourselves in the silent stillness of the night… like two
birds of the air… everything peace and in accord with nature… for about two hours, no
word passed between us. She just sat there, in complete silence, staring at me, with a
mysterious smile on her face… like a High Priestess in a trance… her eyes burning right
through me… I began to feel uncomfortable …tried to get up and tell her it was time to
leave, but… it was as if an invisible force was holding me down….. Then, suddenly,
Falilah said, ‘Can I trust you?’…”
In the narrative we observe a dramatic setting. The character is involved in night, a strange,
exotic setting. Hence we experience nightmarism and mesmerism with the teller. Sound becomes
silence, and silence sound. “Down to the creek…” “Moon was out,” “silent stillness of the
night…”, “no word passed…” “…mysterious smile as a High Priestess in a trance” In a gripping
setting what you hear may be as tough as the silence you don’t seem to hear. That kind of
paradox gives strength to the setting.

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Setting by Weather and Geology: An Environment
Peter K. Palangyo of Tanzania has written in the novel, Dying in the Sun, as follows:
“…She had weighed him down to the ground and she was running her hands over his
short woolly hair, kissing his throat and chest with tears of joy, of life rediscovered,
wetting his neck and chest. He surrendered himself with his arm around her repeating
slowly and inaudibly, ‘yes, yes, my darling’… They lay there… Darkness was slowly
closing in but one could still see the narrow pathway that meandered in its carelessness
toward the destination they were not too impatient to reach. Birds were still singing,
especially the evening dove, and grasshoppers were moving around noisily in the dry
grass. A few herd boys were crying goodnight to each other across the valleys. A cow too
was mooing because of its overloaded udder or because it missed its calves….
Kachawanga was strikingly quiet … with birds and grasshoppers singing their praise to
God…”
In these extracts, weather and environment clearly give TEXTURE to setting, to story.
Thunderstorms, blizzards, hurricanes, extreme heat or cold, the narrowness of the pathway of a
place the author knows well, the meandering of the path, the movement and singing of
grasshoppers in the dry grass, the valleys of cows and herd boys – all these STRENGTHEN your
setting. Men and women live in weather and coldness or heat, in darkness and twilight everyday.
Weather can enhance Mood. They travel together in a story. See how oblivious the lovers in
Palangyo are: she “weighing him down…”, he “surrendering…”. Detail upon detail informs the
reader about what lies beneath the ground, what other lives float around, “…birds singing …
grasshoppers… noisily in dry grass…” Take note of the words which describe. “…churned…
drenched… littered… cool… laced… light… heavy… face and wet… blooming…” in Burke;
and “… weighed… running… short woolly hair… wetting… repeating inaudibly…” in
Palangyo.

Setting by Character: Environment & Personality

Here is how Asare Konadu in the novel, Ordained By Oracle, tells us of a man who would not
sleep on a bed but rather preferred a mat on the floor because he complained that the bed was too
soft.

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 “…This man was a farmer. He had lived through most of his life on his farm, sleeping as
we are doing now (on a coarse mat on a floor). Sometimes he even slept on tree trunks
when hunting. Now, he had some money and wanted to see Accra…” “…To him it was
like the Moslie man from the Republic of Mali coming to Kumasi… “…Yes, as the Moslie
proverb goes, he who does not know Kumasi has not seen heaven. But to him the heaven
was Accra. He booked into a hotel and at night when shown into his bedroom refused to
sleep in the bed… He said any time he fell asleep he found himself in a deep, deep hole
and he kept dropping through a bed of feathers which fluttered round him. So he rose and
slept on the carpet on the floor. It was then he had a fine sleep”.
You can see here that Konadu gives this farmer an “interior” as well as an “exterior”, with his
taste for a particular kind of sleeping comfort, and imagination of what could befall him
otherwise. Here is set, a character who loves to balance rural life-time exposure with the
“heaven” of cities, and for whom only one city, Accra, holds out that taste of heaven. By the last
sentence you see this character is set as a man of realism, set habits, a ‘traditional’ man, rugged –
“slept on tree trunks when hunting…”; a kind of adventurer, now that he has made some money.
You can see how the contrast provided, even speculatively, about Accra and Kumasi makes
places, towns, to shape an image of this farmer for the reader.

Structure: Plots and Plotting

Since creative writing is purposeful work, just as we have purpose in everyday life, the story
needs be solid, practical and ordered. That way writing becomes vital, clear, and good. There
must be a pathway of travel in the story. Structuring the story is the key to shifting into the
essentials of the human experience you wish to express. Structuring gives the writer a
perspective. Structure builds together the elements of the story you want to tell. Disparate as
trees, the sky, the moon, the stars may be, they are bonded in structure. Embedded in the
structure are the plots and subplots. These fertilize the story. Structure helps generate the ideas.
Structure itself is idea in itself too. By it you know where you are going. Your mind will be
‘leaping’, because structure is metaphor.

Structure is image. Structuring helps you to slowly grapple with the positions which the pillars
and pins of your human tale must take. A writer of a story is a pounder. The “pestle” and
“mortar” are tools. They must be used with care, caution and deliberateness, moving on in the

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direction of achieving the smoothest, most appetizingly edible pounded yam. The process is not
just carried on “intuitively”. We go stage-by-stage, knowing when and how much water to add,
when to turn the malleable powder in the mortar right or left, when to pick up the small knife and
scrape off the bits of the pounded yam from the pestle. Plotting a story is like using these
necessary steps.

Handling Conflicts (Enhance Plot Structure)

You need to know what “conflict” in creative writing really means, implies. Conflict is not
simply disagreement. It is not simply the tug and pull of opposites. Take this passage from the
story “Two Stories” by Bret Lott. He writes, via the narrator:
“…I used to imagine it wasn’t the flu that killed my mother, but a broken heart at the
death of her beloved. But the truth of the matter was he’d moved into a logging shack a
year before he’d broke his neck, and only showed up to our house at twilight on Saturday
nights to have at my mother, then to attend church the next morning, his black hair
slicked back and shining with pomade”.
Here, something is happening in a mind. A soul is troubled. That is the “conflicted mind”. The
writer lets you know and feel, through the narrator, the imaging of a broken heart.’ ‘the fact of
flu,’ ‘the truth of abandonment,’ ‘the reality of a broken neck’ – all in four lines! The conflict
occurs in a contentious mind, a mind that has to face up to the differences between imagination
and truth. The author also reveals and explores the way the imagination can still operate in the
face of what it knows to be a fact.

Action as Determiner (of Plot Structure)

A master of the art of how novels are structured, Dwight V. Swain has been quoted as asserting
as follows: “That a story tells how a character overcomes obstacles on the way to an important
goal”. The actions of characters, especially when in conflict or in unpressing opposing views,
make a story. (The instance of the character of The Man in Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful
Ones Are Not Yet Born is handy), his actions as the determiner of the conflict in the narrative.

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CHARACTERISATION IN THE NOVEL (WITH SYMBOLS AND IMAGES)
A novel is like a rich forest upon which human beings depend for its wealth of crop trees. The
crop trees are tall oaks, deciduous and evergreen Iroko; fruit – bearing mangoes; or pear trees.
The edge of the forest may be lined with climbing shrubs even sweet-smelling flower shrubs.
There may even be a few tall palms – oil palms, coconut palms, date palms at the edge of the
forest. Characters, men, women, children; professionals, from domestic servants, vehicle drivers,
artisans, to royalty and rulers, politicians, dictators, emperors, presidents and kings occupy
places at the edge, in the middle or dead-centre of the book – characters are the ‘trees’ of the
novel. They have to be tall enough to be remembered; fat enough to hold certain ground;
intelligent or foolish, or wicked or kind enough to move and be moved in the ‘world’ of the story
being told; in the ‘universe’ of the story. Who does not recall Achebe’s Okonkwo? Who does not
relish Ernest Hemingway’s ‘Sailor’ and even the ‘Sea’ which though watery, lives with the old
man’s medal as a lively, concrete, creature? Indeed, it is in characterisation that the writer
readily becomes a creator and a style maker. Ezeulu in Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God, for
example, is so gripping in attention that the reader and interpreter of the soul of the story of a
collapsing civilization can no longer even remember that he was just an ‘illiterate’ high priest of
a god of a tribal setting battling the ‘civilized’ giants of a cultured and colonizing religion and
commerce-driven empire! When a character is that good, the reader suspends disbelief! Real
‘drama’ resides in the character.

Building the Character

Society is made up of a range of people. In some the people are said to be in “classes” – poor and
working class; rich and leisured; they live in the countryside or cities and urban conglomerates;
they work in farms or in factories. In a work of fiction, the writer draws from this range of
people. The characters, that is, the personages of the action in the story, like the crop trees of a
rich forest, must be built, constructed, made rich, richer, than ordinary mundane life-living
people in everyday society.
Stephen King says “…the job (that is of building the character) boils down to two things; paying
attention to how real people around you behave and then telling the truth about what you see.
You may notice that your next-door neighbour picks his nose when he thinks no one is looking.
This is a great detail, but noting it does you no good as a writer unless you’re willing to dump it

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into a story at some point” (King.189). Let us take one illustration. Aubrey Kachingwe of
Malawi (born 1926) has written a novel, No Easy Task. “Briefly, the novel tells the story of Jo
Jozeni, son of a village pastor. Jo is offered a job on a newspaper in Kawacha, the capital of a
British colony in Central Africa. Although his roots are in the country, Jo gradually takes to life
in the city; and through his colleagues becomes involved in politics, though always remaining a
little outside the ‘inner circles’ suddenly his attitude changes: at a political rally… it is his own
gentle, retiring father who emerges as a hard, and determined political fighter. Jo is faced with a
difficult choice: should he identify himself with his father? Or take the line of least resistance,
marry his girl, and settle down? Or look for something else out of life?”

Character and Life (Vital Relations of Literature and Life)

The big question is, “Are the characters in fiction drawn directly from life?” If they are, why
then do writers often disclaim the fact when they write, ‘… any resemblance to any living person
here is purely coincidental and unintended … characters here are all imagined …’. If novels are
about life, if they are about society as men and women and children and families and
communities, share experiences in a context, then the characters must reflect life, must come out
of society. Natalie Goldberg says, if fictional characters must do this, that is reflecting life; come
out of society, the writer must follow the old adage. “Don’t tell, but show” – that is, “don’t tell us
about anger – or any of those big words like ‘honesty’, ‘truth’, ‘love’, ‘sorrow’, ‘life’, ‘justice’ –
show the reader the situation “in which the character brings out the particular feeling or
embodied idea. Let the character live sharp and clear and be the concrete picture you describe.
For instance, you can write about the nature of life from observing the birth of a child in a
modern hospital: just describe WHAT you see: the mother’s face … the rush of energy as the
baby finally enters the world with a piercing cry, after the nurses have urged and/or bullied the
woman in her several attempts at “pushing”, the husband breathing with his wife… the reader
will see characters illustrating the nature of life.

Characters as Symbols and Images

You may wish to write an allegory, or a parable. In such seeming “fantasy” writing, your
characters are “abstract” objects personified. In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, in many
Biblical “stories” which Jesus used to illustrate facts and rules of life, the characters were not

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always “persons” as we normally think of them. Instead you may want to focus on the things
around you that make you ask whether life is worth living or not, things like crime, poverty,
injustice, death; or the “things” inside each one of us, things like frustration, boredom, despair,
and turn them into “living” characters.
To further clarify how abstract, symbolic characters may be understood and created, let
us look at a contrast: realistic characters created in action. Remember that all your characters are
in a setting, have voices, have beliefs and concerns in their environment, do develop and evolve.
‘Abstract’ characters tend to be fixed in a situation where they exist to illustrate some idea or
belief. Now, real-life characters are real. Let us take an example of a character really created by
“showing” her actions, in the famous American novel. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald:
“…The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise – she leaned slightly forward with a
conscientious expression – then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I
laughed too and came forward into the room. “I’m p-paralyzed with happiness” She
laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment,
looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much
wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the
balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make
people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.”
Here is a character, real, with a name; you come to know her from WHAT she is doing: -
“attempts to rise, “leans”… “laughs”… “speaks”… “laughs again”…” “hold hands”…
looks”…”promises”…”hints”…”murmurs”…. Each action affects the story-teller because, he in
turn, “…leans”, “laughs,” “listens”, “holds” her hands. Behaviour and appearance here help to
further concretize the character. It is not like that in the abstract characters of the parable or
allegory.

Endings and Import

Every novel has a theme. Some writers regard them as the “most sacred of sacred cows” (King;
200). “If”, King asserts, “you write a novel, spend weeks and then months catching it word by
word, you owe it both to the book and to yourself to lean back… when you have finished and ask
yourself why you bothered – why you spent all that time, why it seemed so important … what is
it all about…” Here is a forest comparison. The characters, the actions, the thoughts, the conflicts

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are analogous to “trees” in the forest. When you finish, you have to step back, as a good portrait
painter would, or as a good mathematician seeking to gain a perspective on the diagram of the
theorem on the blackboard he wants to prove, you step back and look at the forest. Your novel
may not have too much symbolism, or ironies, or musical flow of language – prose - , but the
book is about something. What is that ‘some – thing’? Look at the chapters, one by one, see how
the characters are linked, how good, or bad, or ugly those personages you created are, what
concerns they share – same tribes, same professions, differences in a civil war situation, such as
Nigeria has had; in a postcolonial setting as much of Africa has known. How did you envision a
final import of your massage? Refer to Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born,
or Why Are We So Blest? Or, look what the slave trade that ravaged Africa (and is still
ravaging?) did, (the instance of the protagonist of Morrison’s Beloved). Your novel must create a
“world” – violence, terrorism, human error, pride, ambitions, people who cheat, who betray
others in marriage, in politics and who “serve God”.

ISSUES IN DRAMA(TIC) COMPOSITION

This section introduces you to the preliminary issues in playwriting. Femi Osofisan’s “Ten
Commandments of Good Writing” are handy. He is not prescribing for writers but just giving his
opinion on issues he feels could help writers as follows:
1. Write always out of self-respect.
2. Find a model among the finest minds and the best craftsman and apprentice yourself.
3. Do not ever agree to prostitute your writing or tarnish your profession by lending to
vulgarism for whatever financial inducement.
4. Write always with a consciousness that art is still a powerful force in our society;
therefore, someone may want to learn some wisdom from your work.
5. If what you write cannot give joy to you, it cannot give others joy.
6. Write with the knowledge that you owe an obligation to the society and those who are
voiceless.
7. Make your writing a road to beauty and insight.
8. Always remember that you are a tool, the better refined you are, the better your writing.
9. Read constantly, listen more carefully, and observe more closely.

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10. Love is always vital to the career of every writer. Find it.
With these at the back of your mind, you will now be taken through the first steps in play
writing. Femi Osofisan incorporated these ‘commandments in his keynote address at the First
International Conference of Women Writers Association (WRITA) at the Institute of Advanced
Legal Studies, University of Lagos in 1998.

Germinal Idea
A playwright starts from a germinal idea which is the creative compulsion. This starts in his
imagination. He imagines a situation or a story and proceeds to create incidents, situations,
characters, and the environment where the characters will exist and interact. The probable source
of the germinal idea of Wole Soyinka in The Trials of Brother Jero may have been religious
hypocrisy. You are urged to get the cited play(s) and read them very well to enable you derive
maximum benefit from this course.

Sources of Germinal Ideas

Germinal ideas could emanate from the following:
a. An individual: This could be a person who the writer has seen in his imagination or
interacted with in real life. This encounter can spark off an idea which could be
developed into a play. In Soyinka’s The Trials of Brother Jero may have encountered a
fake Pastor before he wrote The Trials of Brother Jero and this encounter may have
influenced his decision to explore the theme of religious hypocrisy.
b. An environment/location: A place or an environment with peculiar things which inspire
the writer to write about that place or environment. In the early days of Christianity in
Igboland, most of the Pentecostal churches operated by the river side or beach. This
explains why in Awka, Anambra State, they are called ‘Ndu Uka Mmili’ which means,
‘the people of the Water Churches’. You may have observed too that the setting of
Soyinka’s The Trials of Brother Jero is the beach.
c. An incident: A particular incident could produce an occasion for drama. For instance, a
fight you witnessed could inspire you to write a play. An incident in good hands stretches
into a full length play.

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d. A basic idea of life which is sometimes referred to as the conceptual thought can induce a
fertile creative mind to develop it into a play. It could be a phrase or a sentence.
e. Human relations as seen in people of different ideas and background coming together.
The relations should be able to generate situations which in turn give rise to conflicts.
These conflicts could be harnessed and coordinated to craft a play. Conflict is a very
important element in playwriting.
f. Information Area: An informational area which the writer has or is interested in can
ignite the creative impulse of the playwright. In order to portray it very well (accurately)
he goes to watch or study the situation and presents it in the dramatic form. Having
decided on religious hypocrisy Soyinka may have visited such churches to get a firsthand
experience

The Process
The process of organization starts after you have conceptualized your idea or situation, and
visualized the type of characters that will be able to carry that story. The next step is to imagine
the environment where these characters will exist. This is called setting. This setting could be a
home, a school, an office of anywhere that is most suitable for you to write on. Once you have
decided on the best environment, you then sketch the human relations. You should try to figure
out the number of characters you need, how they will interact and how the protagonist’s ideas are
going to clash with those of the antagonist. After that, the next step is the preparation of the
scenario.

Scenario
Scenario is the projection of a viable format for the play. Here you decide who and what will be
included in the play, and at what point each character will make his appearance, then you will
imagine how long each segment will last and the probable length of the entire play. Finally you
propose how to link the sequences of action to form an organic structure and a rational whole.
Other issues to be considered in the scenario are:
a. Title: In most cases a playwright chooses a working title which may be a tentative title.
You may end the play with that tentative title or as the play progresses; you might be

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 compelled to change the title. The title helps you to maintain the focus on your main idea.
A good title gives the audience an idea of what the play is all about.
b. Action: This covers the activities of the characters. You must have an imaginative picture
of your characters. In addition you should have an idea of what each character would be
doing at every stage of the development of the play.
c. Genre: You should decide whether you intend to write a comedy, tragedy, satire or tragi-
comedy. The choice of the genre will affect the action of the play. Tragedy is not
supposed to have the same language with comedy. In comedy, humorous scenes will be
present while language in tragic plays is usually serious.
d. Circumstances: These comprise the involvement of the various characters in the play,
what they do which lead to important actions contained in the play. Let us illustrate once
more with Soyinka’s play: what circumstance led Br. Chume to expose Br. Jero and to
find out that Br. Jero is a crook. He meets Amope as she comes to ask Br. Jero to pay for
the velvet cape he bought from her.
e. Clarity: Remember that what we are discussing here is the plan, a kind of an outline for
the play. Clarity here means that you need to state the definite idea /information you want
to explore in the play. It will act as a focal point for you so that you could refer to it from
time to time as you write to ensure that you explore it adequately. This will also help to
avoid the bringing in introduction of many ideas in the play without relating them to the
action of the play appropriately. You need to state the definite idea/information of the
play clearly.
f. Characters: As much as possible, give detailed descriptions of your characters, what
they are and what they will do in order to sustain the action of the play, create conflict
and suspense that will produce good drama.
g. Conflict: State at what point of the play the conflict will emerge. Who opposes/fights
who? What major principle/belief will clash with the other so as to create tension? This
tension that is created through the interactions of characters and ideas is the conflict.
h. Story. Give a synopsis or a brief summary of the play. You should present it in form of a
general but brief narration that states what happened or what is happening in the play.
This will form your plot as you write the actual play.

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i. Motivation. This is the individual thought of all the characters that propel them to do
whatever they do in the play. Ensure that your characters’ actions are properly motivated.
j. Dialogue. This story in (h) is eventually presented in dialogue which is the pattern of
writing and presenting a play.
k. Time Plan. This is your working schedule. Do you think that you can complete the play
in a month, a year or more? Once you take this decision, you will plan a breakdown of
what you expect to be in each segment (call it scene, act or movement). You will then
decide how long it may take for you to complete each segment, and eventually the
tentative deadline for the completion of the play.

Tools
Apart from creative imagination, a playwright needs the following tools:
1. A good knowledge of the stage.
2. Pen and notebooks.
3. Comfortable writing table and a chair “located in a quiet environment”. Also, a reliable
lighting at night is required; if one intend to write at night.
4. Money for your basic expenses like travels (where you need to carry out a research or
obtain information) a typewriter. If you cannot type, you should write and send it for
typing on a computer which is popular nowadays.
5. If you can afford it, obtain a desktop computer or laptop.
6. A good or standard dictionary for accuracy in spelling and use of words.
7. Any good thesaurus of English words and phrases.

THOUGHT/IDEA

Theme
Theme is the main idea that permeates the entire play. You have the major theme but you could
also have other themes, hence, you could have a variety of themes in a single play. Themes could
emerge from a concept, an idea, an abstract quality or an incident which the playwright uses to
send his message to the audience. The theme of The Trials of Brother Jero for instance is
religious hypocrisy or deceit. As the playwright explores the theme, he gives his perspective on

15
the issue. The theme of Shakespeare’s Hamlet is revenge. By the end of the play as the principal
actors die, it becomes clear that Shakespeare does not support revenge. Hamlet, in his bid to
avenge his father’s death, loses his lover, his mother, his peace of mind, his happiness and
eventually dies. The playwright could write his play on an idea based on events around him.
Drama mirrors the society and through that mirror the dramatist informs and educates while
entertaining his audience. He is also referred to as the conscience of the society, so he is
expected to dramatize the ills of the society or the good sides of that society in an impartial
manner.
Through the theme, he condemns those aspects of the society that hinder progress, while he
promotes social injustice/inequality, or crime. In Nigeria for instance, many playwrights explore
themes of bribery, corruption, bad leadership, insecurity, and other forms of misdemeanors that
bedevil contemporary Nigeria. Apart from contemporary issues, themes could also be drawn
from myth, legend, history, or folklore. In all these, the propelling factor for the playwright is to
send a message to the audience through an entertainment medium- drama. Most playwrights
believe that they can make their societies better through the dramatization of the themes that
promote positive values in the society with the hope that the audience will be influenced to take
constructive steps for the progress of their societies. The theme is presented as an interesting
story through an appropriate dramatic genre. In Hamlet, Shakespeare explores the theme of
revenge through the tragic mode while Soyinka presents the theme of religious hypocrisy
through the comic mode. As the audience laughs at Brother Chume’s foolery and Jero’s antics,
they learn to be wary of false or fake prophets. A particular theme could be dramatized by many
playwrights. Each playwright explores the theme from his perspective to give it the desired
originality and mark of uniqueness.
The theme of the play gives it significance because without a recognizable and definable theme,
the story presented in the play will be commonplace and meaningless. So, as a playwright, you
should strive to ensure that you focus clearly on your theme. This is because it is the motivating
force of the story. You see that in Hamlet every step taken by Hamlet points towards his revenge
intent. In The Trials of Brother Jero, the old man’s allegation against Brother Jero and Jero’s
reaction foreshadow his dubious nature that gives him away as an impostor, and a fake prophet.
Also, his admiration of the young lady that goes to the beach every morning lends credence to
his lustful nature. He does not allow Brother Chume to beat his wife because he does not want to

16
lose Chume as a member of his congregation. Finally, the way he dodges Amope each time she
comes to collect the money he owes her points to his dubious nature. Each playwright chooses a
theme before choosing the style to adopt.
Other aspects of the play like characters, plot, setting and language are carefully chosen in such a
way that they advance the major theme of the story. A play could have more than one theme, in
which case we talk about sub-themes. Usually, the major theme is obvious because the main
action of the play revolves around it while the sub-theme is subsumed in the main theme but
discernable.
The theme of a play could be given in one word, a sentence, a statement or a phrase. In some
complex plays, it might be difficult to decipher the theme. However, as a budding playwright, it
is advisable that you choose a theme and focus on it in such a way that it will be discernable
since it is the central thought, the controlling idea in the play.
A theme could be symbolic or literal. At this stage, it is easier to deal with literal themes. The
audience is expected to distill the theme consciously or unconsciously as the play progresses. In
some cases, the theme emerges after the reading or watching of an entire play. Although, this
idea is presented in form of fiction which according to Oakley Hall is “an euphemism for lies”
(23), in writing your play, you should give this fiction a semblance of truth which in the novel is
referred to as verisimilitude. What we mean here is that the play should be as close as possible to
reality. You can achieve this through the presentation of realistic characters who are involved in
possible and plausible actions.
As a playwright, you should strive to convince your audience of the authenticity of your story
through make-belief and they will be in a good position to assimilate your story through a
willing suspension of disbelief as if you are presenting real life situations on stage. So, you will
have to select, alter, distill, distort and sometimes exaggerate facts to create this dramatic “truth”.
This truth is dramatized in a process that could hold and engage the imagination of the audience.
In drama therefore you strive to present an imitation of real life. The most important factor is that
this real life is represented in an artistic form.

Subject Matter
The subject matter is different from the theme but some students of literature interchange them
since they believe that they are the same. As a playwright you should be in a position to

17
distinguish one from the other. The subject matter is the topic of discussion in the play. In many
plays, the subject matter is extracted from the title of the play. In Soyinka’s The Lion and the
Jewel for instance, the theme could be tradition versus modernity or to be more explicit, the
triumph of African Tradition over Western Culture but the subject is the fame of Sidi (the Jewel)
a young and beautiful girl and her fall through her a seduction by the Bale (the Lion) who is old
enough to be her father. In many plays, the title explains the subject matter. This play presents a
relationship between the Lion, Bale and the Jewel, Sidi. This alliance does not only affect her
growing fame adversely but also deprives her of a marriage to a younger man, Lakunle. So in the
play, the title illuminates the subject matter of the play. Also, in The Marriage of Anansewa,
Efua Sutherland explores the theme of love but the subject matter is how Ananse marries his
daughter to a chief she has never met. It means that the subject matter of any play is the subject
of discussion from which the theme is extracted. Usually the theme is subsumed in the subject
matter. Just as the theme is explored through other aspects of the play, the subject matter is
highlighted through events, incidents and the action in the play. Subject matter is reflected in the
action which the playwright presents in the play. In most cases, the statement is about human
problems from the playwright’s perspective. It is his vision of the world and in a good play; the
statement is expected to have universal validity or relevance for all ages.

The Story
Every play tells an imaginary story through action. This story is the unification of the events or
incidents in the play in such a way that it forms a coherent whole. The story holds the audience
and raises its expectations on this or that aspect of the play as it progresses. They watch or read
the play following the story with keen interest as they want to know what happens next. A good
play tells an interesting story and holds the audience spellbound while an uninteresting story
sends it to sleep. It is in the story that the playwright organizes his ideas in such a way that he
produces something that he could hold together to achieve the desired result. In a nutshell, the
story in the order or sequence of events, an outline of the incidents or events in the play, is called
plot.

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PLOT

A playwright tells a story. He is concerned about the story and how to make the story as
interesting as possible. This story is realised in action. Action is more important in drama than
the story. After he has chosen/selected an idea, the next step for him is to see how best that idea
can be expanded to yield a story. His next preoccupation becomes the arrangement of this story
to form a logical entity. This arrangement of the story is referred to as the plot. In this unit we
will discuss the plot and different types of plot.

What is Plot?
Plot is the organization of the events of a play. In simple terms, it is the arrangement of the story
in the play so that it will have a beginning, middle and an end. In the novel, the novelist presents
his plot by describing the characters, their actions, and the environment where they operate, their
motivations, their hopes, and aspirations, but the playwright presents his plot mainly through
dialogue in the interaction of the characters.
A good dramatic plot is expected to be an organization of series of events in the play in such a
way/manner that it moves through series of conflicts, complications, and the climax to the
resolution. In a play, every event is part of a carefully designed model and progression of a
wholly interconnected system of events. These events are selected and arranged deliberately to
fulfill an intricate set of dramatic purposes and theatrical conditions. It comprises everything
which takes place in the imaginative world of the play and the playwright ensures that the
“totality of the events must create a coherent imitation of the world” (Scholes and Klaus 65).
Aristotle sees plot as the most important element of drama. He refers to it as the soul of tragedy.
The playwright should therefore pay particular attention to the construction of his plot. He
should arrange it in such a way that the story will be interesting. A good plot should have a
beginning, middle and an end. Once the idea is conceptualized, he draws an outline of the story
using some characters. The next step is to arrange this outline in such a way that it has a
beginning, middle and end.
Plot is the structure of the actions which in a particular pattern is presented in order to achieve
particular emotional and artistic effects in a play. It helps to give the play its organic unity and a
coherence that makes the play easy to understand. According to Aristotle, the plot is arranged in
this order - exposition, point of attack, complication, crisis, climax discovery, and denouement or

19
resolution. Discovering (anagnorisis) often tends/ commences the untangling of events in
denouement or resolution. In drama, plot is expected to produce a result or an effect on the
audience so, as an aspiring playwright; you should package your play in a particular way to
produce your desired impression or effect on the audience. This is why a theme like religious
hypocrisy could be treated by different playwrights in different ways. In Soyinka’s The Trial of
Brother Jero, Jero swindles people of their money with a promise of securing promotion or
political positions for them. Each playwright presents plot from his own perspective with the aid
of other stylistic devices. In some cases he proffers solution that could help to minimize or
eradicate the ills of his society. The success of a play depends largely on the plot as it aids the
audience’s or the readers’ understanding of the playwright’s message. For the playwright to
achieve this, he needs to design and construct his plot in such a way that the interest of the
audience is aroused continuously as the play progresses. The audience should be curious about
future events in the play especially as it concerns the fate of some characters. This expectancy
and curiosity of the audience about the fate of some characters or the outcome of some events is
called suspense. A good playwright therefore uses suspense to sustain the interest of his
audience.
Plot comprises the action that takes place on stage and the action that occurred in the past which
is usually recalled through a flashback or reported speech. In The Trials of Brother Jero for
instance, the curse placed on Brother Jero by an old man is presented in a flashback as Jero
recalls it in his monologue at the opening of the play. The important element here is the
arrangement of these incidents both past and present in an orderly manner. In real life incidents
and events are not ordered in that form. Plot is different from scenario and story. Scenario is
based mainly on the action that takes place on stage. Story is the series of incidents whose
development does not necessarily depend on each other. These incidents may or may not be
related or connected but in the hands of a good playwright, these seemingly unrelated incidents
are coordinated and fused to form a story. It is said that every adult has at least one story in him.
If you take the story of your life, for instance, you will find out that there are many incidents that
are not related or connected. For instance, take a day in your life as a child: you woke up early in
the morning, brushed your mouth, took your bath, ate your breakfast and went to school. At
school, a teacher came to your class, met a noisy class and punished all of you. Is there a
connection between what you did at home and what happened to you in school? Is the

20
punishment a consequence of your waking up early or brushing your teeth? If you decide to write
a story based on those incidents, you might decide to add that the toothpaste was an expired one
so at school you started having stomach ache. Your crying and discomfort attracted the attention
of others in the class and there was a commotion. At that moment, the teacher came in and
without questions punished everybody and that included you. The success of a play depends
largely on the plot as it aids the audience’s or the readers’ understanding of the playwright’s
message. For the playwright to achieve this, he needs to design and construct his plot in such a
way that the interest of the audience is aroused continuously as the play progresses. The audience
should be curious about future events in the play especially as it concerns the fate of some
characters. This expectancy and curiosity of the audience about the fate of some characters or the
outcome of some events is called suspense. A good playwright therefore uses suspense to sustain
the interest of his audience.

Types of Plot
It is not in all plays that we find what may be referred to as good plots as described above. It is
therefore not surprising that we have different types of plots. Aristotle talked of purity and
unification of plot. He divides plot into simple and complex plots.
Simple Plot
In a simple plot, the action is simple and continuous. In this type of plot the complication is not
usually much and the conflict is not intense. There could be a change of fortune but usually there
is no reversal of situation and no recognition. In simple plots the action runs chronologically and
causally from the beginning to the end.
Complex Plot
In a complex plot, as the name suggests, we are presented with complex incidents and
complications. The change of fortune here is accompanied by a reversal of situation or by
recognition or by both.
Unified Plot
In the unified plot, the incidents are presented in a logical, chronological and causal order. Here
one incident leads to the other and that other one happens as a result of the previous action. The
beginning, middle and end are obvious in the unified plot.

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Episodic Plot
Here there is no causal arrangement of incidents. Obviously, the only relationship between the
incidents is that a particular character is involved in all of them. In a unified plot the excision of
an aspect or a part of the play affects the meaning and the organic structure of the play. There is
nothing like cause and effect in an episodic plot as a part of the play could be removed and it will
not affect, change or destroy the plot.

CHARACTER/CHARACTERIZATION/ MOVEMENT/THE STAGE

Characters
As said earlier on, characters could be human beings; they could be animals as we find in
allegorical plays. Good examples of allegorical plays are Tess Onwueme’s The Desert
Encroaches and Ban Empty Barn. Characters could also be abstract qualities as we find in
Everyman. As you conceptualise your play, the next step is to think of the characters you could
use to realize your goal. When you create your human characters, you should endow them with
moral and dispositional qualities to make them real. You know that as a playwright you do not
have the time and space for vivid description of characters, events and the environment like the
novelist. You should therefore give the necessary information about characters through the
dramatis personae at the beginning of the play, stage directions, and through the dialogue. It is
only through these means that you can present your comments on the character’s age, his
physical attributes, his mode of dressing, his temperament and other information you need.
You should be able to differentiate your characters through variation in manner of behaviour,
social status, external appearance and language. In as much as they should be differentiated, they
should be able to relate with one another to achieve your goal. The interpersonal relationship of
characters is very important because you reveal your characters also through their words, action
and what other characters say about them. You can also reveal your protagonist by pitching him
against supernatural forces as Shakespeare did to King Lear or Macbeth or Sophocles did to
Oedipus. This could be attributed to the fact that in the classical tragedy destiny played an
important role in the fate of the characters. So the tragedy that befalls the character is not
necessarily as a result of conflict between him and other characters but predetermined. Hence
Romeo submits: “…He that hath the steerage of my course directs my sail” (Romeo and Juliet,
Act 1 Scene 4).

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You should have a good knowledge of different types of characters. This will enable you
determine the type of characters you want to create. The hero or protagonist must be at the centre
of the story. Usually, he is pitted against another important character. He changes as the play
progresses. His behavioral changes are attributed to new awareness or revelation or change in the
social structure in the world view of the play. The static/stock or flat character does not change in
any basic way in the course of the play. Usually, he represents a group or individuals in the
society. He emerges from rigid or static social and temperamental features characteristic of the
profession, ethnic group, tribe or nationality he represents. It means that he must act according to
the stereotyped or rigid features of the interest he represents.

Characterization
Characters live on stage as they act out the story. Characterization is the ability of
portraying/creating the characters. The aspect of your conceptualization that gives birth to the
characters is called characterization. In your imagination you create these characters and decide
the best attribute for each of them. When you form/conceive your idea, the next step is to
develop it and then think of appropriate characters you will need to tell your /their story
effectively. Your ability to create the right characters, make them appear at the right places at the
right time, say the right or wrong things (depending on the effect you want to create) at the
appropriate or inappropriate times and places is referred to as characterization.
The important factor in characterization is consistency and motivation. You must strive to create
consistent characters. If for instant you create a servant who speaks in pidgin, he must be
consistent from the beginning to the end. If suddenly he starts speaking Queens English, then he
is not consistent, except if he improves himself through formal or informal education which must
be highlighted in the play. This education now becomes the motivation for speaking Queen’s
English. Motivation in simple terms is the reason behind the action of a character. The
motivation for each character’s action must be obvious if not, the action will become illogical.
You can present inconsistent characters and illogical actions if you are writing an absurdist play.
If you are not writing an absurdist play or in the existential tradition, you are obliged to create
plausible characters who indulge in plausible actions that are as close as possible to reality. You
must therefore try to create credible stories for them to fit in the action appropriately.

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Movement
You may wonder why movement and stage are discussed here. The reason is obvious. Drama
thrives on action. Characters in the play are involved in action and the performance of the play;
the action is realized through the movement of the characters on stage. As a playwright you must
learn to inject action into your play to make it vibrant and interesting. The action is realized in
movement on stage. If you do not have sufficient action in your play, it becomes drab and
boring. You should be aware of the entrances, exits and other movements of your characters. It is
not only the director that concerns himself with movement on stage. A good playwright should
state the movement of the characters clearly in the stage direction. He should also decide on
appropriate cue words i.e. what a character should say before or after a movement is made. For
you, a budding playwright, to be able to do this effectively, you must have a good knowledge of
the stage. The commonest stage is the proscenium stage. Before you write a play, in addition to
the experience you may have acquired in the course and Theatre Workshop visit a theatre and get
yourself acquainted with the stage geography.

The Stage
In theatre workshop, you learnt that there are different types of theatres. They include the arena,
the proscenium, the open theatre, the pit theatre and many others. We will concentrate on the
proscenium stage which is very close to a room though without the fourth wall. It is through that
fourth wall that the audience watches a play. Watching a play on the proscenium stage is like
watching a television. So with this in mind you will create your doors and windows on the
remaining three walls. You should also have a fair knowledge of lighting to know when the light
will come up, dim, or blackout. This knowledge will help you in the series of scene changes
which is anticipated in drama. However if you are writing for television or for film, you will not
be constrained to the particular exits. This is because the camera, light and other technological
equipment are used to create the desired effects and realistic environments. Moreover, realistic
settings are used in celluloid where the camera aids the provision of an unlimited time and space
for the script writer. For instance, on stage you cannot bring in a car but in TV and film the
special camera is used to record the dialogue of characters (actors) driving along an expressway.
In radio plays you need more of sound effects. So if you are writing a play to be published, you
must have a stage in mind. For literary or stage plays, the best approach is usually to produce the

24
play before you publish it. Generally, it is believed that ‘a play is not a play until it is seen live
on stage’. It means that if you have the opportunity of performing your play before you publish
it, you will have the advantage of adding or cutting some scenes in the play before publication.

LANGUAGES, DIALOGUE AND ACTION

Language
Language has been defined as a tool of communicating from one source to another. It has also
been postulated that language is purely a linguistic behaviour that shows a social interaction that
exists among people in a given speech community. The above definitions are echoed in David
Crystal Encyclopedia of Language where language is said to be the human and non-instinctive
means of communication used by individuals in a given speech community. However a
contemporary definition of language postulates that it is the vocal or graphic representation of
sounds in writing, used systematically and conventionally by the members of a speech
community for communicating views, opinions, information, facts, and emotions and so on.
Interestingly, language is important to humans because it can either be spoken or written. This
variable makes it completely different from animal form of communication “animalese”. It is
important to remember that communication must not be confused with language because
language is the tool for effective communication. Finally, we should note that the use of
language for effective communication is context specific. Communication is the process of
exchanging information, views, opinions, and feelings as well as emotions from one source to
another. Language is the medium you use in that communication.

Diction
Diction in playwriting refers to the choice or selection of the words you use in writing your play.
From the onset, take a decision on your choice of words. Your diction could be simple and
straightforward or difficult and obscure, etc. So you must, as a matter of utmost importance,
write accurately. If however a particular character is to speak inaccurate English, let it be
consistent. A very good example is Mrs. Malaprop in Richard Sheridan’s The Rival. Her
language is full of malapropisms and she speaks consistently in that form from the beginning of
the play to the end. Malapropism is the misuse of words in an amusing way. Here the word that

25
is used incorrectly sounds similar to the intended, word but means something quite different.
You should therefore learn the basic grammatical rules especially as it concerns subject-verb
agreement, tenses, punctuation, spelling, active and passive verbs, capitalization, faulty
expressions and some other common errors. However, some faulty expressions result from direct
or literal translation of mother tongue to English or pidgin.
Apart from accurate grammatical expression, you should learn to write beautiful language. You
should therefore search continuously for the most suitable words to use. These are words that not
only express your thoughts very well but are also the most appropriate words in that context. To
achieve this, therefore, you need to read widely especially creative works like plays, novels and
short stories. A rich vocabulary helps to “bring variety and freshness to your writing” and helps
you to reduce the “excessive flogging of certain words and expressions”

Dialogue
Dialogue is an exchange of speech between two people. There may be many people in a
particular scene but the exchange must be between two people at any given time. However, in a
crowd scene, it may be between one group and another or between a group and a character. Even
at that, except for choruses, only one person from the group speaks at a time. Dialogue in drama
is an integral part of the play because, through it, characters are revealed, themes are highlighted
and the action is enacted. It “crystallizes relationships, conveys information, propels the plot, and
precipitates revelations, crises, and climaxes” (Hall 94). Dialogue is used for exposition and
characterization, so it must involve action for it not to be static. You must therefore design your
dialogue in such a way that there is always a progression to a change or resolution of the action
coordinated.

Action
Dialogue is realized through action. Action is the process of performing a task. It involves series
of events that a character engages in, in the play. It includes what a character does or fails to do.
The action must be logically presented and properly motivated except in absurdist plays. In
drawing your outline of the play and the characters, you should be able to decide which action
follows the other and the engagements of the characters at every stage of the development of the
play. Each character is revealed through action.

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Matching Language to Character
This is a very important aspect of language in drama. You must strive towards consistency in
your language. Decide at the outline stage, the language you want to use. Do you want to use
language to delineate characters like causing specific characters to speak in specific ways? Do
you want all of them to speak correct English irrespective of social status or educational
background? Do you want any of them to speak in verse for a particular effect? Do you want to
use pidgin? What is your purpose? You need to answer these and other questions to ensure
consistency and for you to really match language to character.

SPECTACLE

Spectacle refers to all the visual elements that contribute to the aesthetics of any dramatic
production. They include the costume and make up, scene and light design and even the props. In
the Aristotelian concept of drama, spectacle is mentioned as one of seven elements of drama.

Costume
In simple terms, costume is the dress which actors wear on stage. As you know, actors in a play
are just pretending to be somebody else. This is called role-playing. An actor could therefore be a
very good husband and father in one play and in another be drunkard who spends his whole
fortune on women and wine, a reckless man. The same actor could in another play the role of a
mad man. Apart from his utterances and action, costume helps to accentuate the personality of
each actor. Once you see an actor in dirty rags, what comes to your mind is that this is a mad
man. In The Marriage of Anansewa for instance, Ananse’s way of dressing changes as soon as he
becomes wealthy.
Costume is not just the dress but it includes other accessories like a hat, a walking stick, shoes,
earrings, necklace, sunglasses and many others. Hand bags could also be classified as costume
but in some cases as props. If for instance, a lady enters with a hand bag which matches her
shoes and head gear or dress and does not drop it until her exit, it is costume because it forms
part of her dressing. However, if the hand bag is placed somewhere and she goes to pick it or is
given to her by another actor, it becomes a prop. Costume could be designed like the dresses

27
worn in everyday life or it could be symbolic. The important factor is that a well designed
costume should suit the character in terms of age, social status and state of mind. The two major
categories of costume are period (age) or ethnic. The period costume helps to situate the play
appropriately in its historical setting. That is why we talk of classical costume, Elizabethan
costume, Restoration costume, costume of the modern period of the nineteenth century and
contemporary costume. If for instance you want to stage Oedipus Rex, you must study the
Grecian mode of dressing in about the fifth century B.C. Period costume is usually influenced by
fashion. So you need to know the fashion of that period. Ethnic costume reflects the cultural
background or ethnic affiliations of the characters. Ethnic costume has a relationship with the
period costume. While you consider the age/period, you should also consider the socio-cultural
background of the play. Like I said above, it is not the dress worn by the Greeks of the fifth
century B.C. that the Americans or Africans of the fifth century wore. Since fashion is cyclical,
some dresses worn in an earlier century could be fashionable in the contemporary period of the
same country or another country. The ethnic costume helps the audience to tell where a particular
character comes from. There is no defined style in costume but each costume is designed to fit
the wearer (depending on the effect) and to reflect the period or ethnic affiliation of the wearer.
In Nigeria, an actress in Iro and Buba, especially made from Aso Oke materials shows that the
character represents a Yoruba woman. The functions of the costume should be clear from the
explanations above. The most important function is that it is used to distinguish (a person).
Characters highlight their ages or their moods through their costumes. A person in mourning is
usually dressed in black while white flowing gown with a veil depicts a bride that is about to wed
or that has just wedded. Costume helps also to show a character’s occupation. You may ask what
you as a playwright has to do with costume since you are not a director or a designer. As a
playwright, you should contribute to the costuming of the characters in your play. You can do
this through stage direction or dialogue. Below is an excerpt from Femi Osofisan’s
Morountodun. As Titubi and her group enter with placards and distribute handbills, Osofisan
describes them as being (superbly dressed, with lots of jewellery and make-up and wearing
conspicuously the moremi necklace then in vogue – a little gold dagger, surrounded with golden
nuggets. Leading them is Titubi, a pretty, sensual and obviously self-conscious woman) (7).
In drama, everything is condensed in dialogue but the dialogue cannot contain every bit
of information especially about the characters, attire, setting, and mood. In any play, stage

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direction is given in italics and enclosed in brackets as you can see from the examples given
above.

Make Up
Usually, costume and make up go hand is in hand but for clarity we have decided to split them.
Make up as the name implies is to some extent like everyday make up. It is the cosmetics worn
by actors and actresses to highlight their appearances. Make up complements the costume in
revealing the character which the actor plays. Make up enhances the actor’s physical appearance
and like costume reveals age, period, culture, mood and social status. There are two types of
makeup. They are straight make up and character make up. Straight make up is like everyday
make up worn especially by the women. It helps to accentuate or highlight the personal features
of the actor. On the other hand, character make up is used to highlight specific features that help
to transform a particular actor to suit the role he is playing. For instance, when a thirty year old
lady is cast in a play to play the role of an eighty year old woman, the makeup artist will, through
make up, inscribe wrinkles, grey hairs and other features on her to make her appear like an old
woman.
As a playwright you should try to indicate the profession and other special features like
the age of your characters. Some playwrights do this in the dramatis personae (cast list), in the
stage direction or in the dialogue. The information is necessary to aid the director’s interpretation
of the script.

MUSIC/DANCE (SOUND EFFECTS)

Music is part of life. Drama presents life on stage so music is part of drama. However, music is
not found in all forms of drama. The inclusion of music in drama is the prerogative of the
dramatist. Music contributes to the aesthetic quality of the play. If it is handled properly music
helps to enhance atmosphere, mood and even helps to highlight the theme. Sometimes music is
accompanied with dance.

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Music and Song
Definition of Music
Music is defined as “organized sound” A musical tone is said to be “a product of regular
vibration, perceived when an inner part of the listener’s ear is made to vibrate in sympathy”
(Sadie and Lathan14). By contrast, noise is a product of irregular vibration. It means that
banging, blowing, scraping may produce music or sound according to the object banged and the
way it vibrates, depending on how it is organized or disorganized. Music is one of the three great
arts. The three major arts are literature, visual arts and music.
In every society, in every period of history, men and women have made music. They
have sung it and danced to it. They have used it in solemn rituals and in light hearted
entertainment. They have listened to it in fields and forests, in temples, in bars, in concert halls
and opera houses. They have made it not only with their voices but by adapting natural objects
and banging them, scraping them, and blowing through them. They have used it to generate
collective emotions to excite, to calm, to inspire action, to draw tears. Music is a central and
necessary part of human existence. People enjoy music for leisure; engage in music as a form of
profession and music is used in ritual, religious, social and other ceremonial events.
Every culture has found a musical style and a means of expressing it that arises from its
needs, its history, and its environment. In Black Africa for example, where there has been a
crucial need for quick communication over long distances, the musical culture is more closely
concerned with drums and drumming than in other cultures of the world. The ‘gong-chime
culture’ of Indonesia, owes its existence to the fact that the region discovered its musical
character during the late Bronze Age; hence their most important musical instruments are sets of
gongs (Sadie and Lathan).

Functions of Music in Drama

Music contributes to the beauty and impact of the play on the audience in the following ways:
a. It helps to create and intensify the atmosphere of the play. You may not have watched
stage plays but let us use the home video films to illustrate. As you watch a particular
movie, the music that is presented indicates whether a particular scene is a love scene, a
happy/joyous occasion; a mourning or sorrowful scene or if danger is being anticipated.

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b. It initiates activity. Whenever music changes in a play by an increase or decrease in
tempo, you expect a change in the action of the play. The music we are discussing here
includes songs and dances.
c. It helps to advance the theme and explicate the plot.
d. It helps to uplift the spirit and endear expected emotions in the audience because it helps
the audience to respond to the action of the play in a particular manner.
e. It helps the audience to focus attention or concentrate on the action on stage; this helps it
to understand the play better. However, if it is not handled properly, it distracts the
audience.

Song
Song is a form of music which is produced with the mouth so it contains words. It is a piece of
music that one can sing. It is through the words of the music that a musician conveys his
message. A playwright also conveys part of his message through the songs. Song helps to enrich
drama if it is handled properly. A playwright, through the lyrics of a song exalts or condemns
specific issues or ideas raised in the play.
Traditional songs in plays help to highlight the playwright’s background. Femi Osofisan,
for instance, uses songs extensively in his plays and they are mainly Yoruba songs. Some
playwrights use vernacular to present songs in their plays but also give the English translations
of the songs but others present the songs in vernacular without any translations. The contention is
that the songs cannot be translated perfectly in English as it is difficult if not impossible to reflect
the beauty and other nuances of the local language. In the latter case you must ensure that the
songs are inserted appropriately to synchronize with the plot so that the audience will not lose the
message you want to convey.

Dance
Dance is a human experience that has existed through the ages and among all peoples and races.
It is an expression of an inner feeling of man through body movement. Dance is used to express
the emotions of joy or sadness. Dance like music helps to accentuate the cultural background of
the playwright, of the setting, of the play or a particular scene. A story is told through song and
dance.

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 Dance occurs in reaction to music which could be in any form. The playwrights use
dance to heighten the mood or the thematic preoccupation of the play. Dance in plays could be
inserted in the stage direction or in the dialogue. In most plays the occurrence of dance is
indicated in the stage direction but it is usually an accompaniment of music or song except for
specific effects. One of such special effects is a situation where a drunkard or a mad man is one
of the characters; the possibility of any of them dancing without music is high.

PRELIMINARY ISSUES IN POETRY WRITING

Setting

Poetry is the most emotional of all the genres of literature. The setting is therefore important
because you may have encountered a setting that left a memorable impression on you and you
decide to build your poem around it. It could be a unique scenery, a busy road, a slum or a battle
field. It could also be a historical period like Nigeria in the First Republic, or during the military
period. Your setting could be a physical environment, or a social environment. The emotion you
express in your poem must take place somewhere for it to be realistic and relevant to human
experience. In fiction and drama the setting is specific because in most cases the work is set in a
physical environment since human beings do not exist or operate in a vacuum. In poetry, it could
be specific like the cell in Dennis Brutus’s “Letters to Martha” but it could also reflect an
emotional state, a spiritual plane or other unearthly experiences. In poetry according to Tanure
Ojaide, setting “varies in degrees from being amply presented to being minimally there. It could
be narrow or broad, direct or indirect, depending on how related and relevant the experience
being expressed is with where it takes place” (40-41). A good example is this excerpt from Niyi
Osundare’s “A Song For Ajegunle”.
Through roads portholed by callous rains
Through hovels eaves-deep in swelling pools
Through gutters heavy with burdens
Of cholera bowels
Through the feverish orchestra
Of milling mosquitoes
I saw you sprawled out

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 Like the daub of apprentice painter
Here evenings are pale smokes
Snaking out of idle kitchens
The toothless swagger of beer parlours
The battering clamour of weeping wives
The satanic rumble of supperless stomachs
The salaaming clarion of manacling mosques
I saw you sprawled out (Lines 9- 23)

Creating your Setting

How do you create your social or physical setting? You could create an imaginary environment
or base your setting on your knowledge of an existing physical and social setting to suit your
purpose. The important factor here is the intent. What do you intend to achieve? Do you want to
create an imaginary world to serve as your vision of an ideal society or to warn of the dangers
inherent in such an environment as we see in Wilfred Owen’s “Strange Meeting” that seems to
be set in a horrible situation where the enemies do not seem to be enjoying their stay there. In
this poem Owen only used his imagination to create/evoke a phantasmagoric setting for these
two “enemies” who, but for the lies of the politicians who cause or manage wars (as in J. P.
Clark’s “Casualties”), might have been friends and had a few drinks together.
If you intend to write a historical poem, you must ensure that you relate your setting to
the physical and social environment prevalent at that time. In this type of poem, you must ensure
that you use accurate data to create your setting. If necessary carry out a research to ensure the
accuracy of your information. If you don’t do this, you might paint an unreliable picture in your
poem. As a budding poet, it is better for you to avoid writing historical poems. Just record your
emotion the way you feel it or as the inspiration come to you. You will do better if you create
your setting from your personal recollections of events, rooms, rivers/streams, houses,
landscapes, animals, birds, plants and other objects. You will write better if you write about
familiar environments than writing about an entirely fictional one. As a creative writer, exposing
yourself to various types of physical settings or environments will be beneficial to you. Each
time you find yourself in an environment or each time you encounter a place that makes an
impression on you, contemplate what possible use you could make of the setting. The poet finds
beauty or ugliness in everything and expresses it in his poem. So you should start now to see

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settings differently and try to see their relevance to you or to the next poem you are going to
write.
From now on pay particular attention to your environment taking in the details that before
now you did not observe. The flowers should become more colourful, the normal sunset becomes
more picturesque, the glow of worm in a dark night assumes a different dimension, the gentle
breeze sends a message to you and even the snoring of your partner creates a melodious tone in
your ears. Start observing the weather, the seasons, living and dying closely. In all these and
more, you will find a suitable environment to set your poem. Setting can be symbolic; it could be
a joyous occasion, serious and unserious events, memories, dreams and other situations and
events.

Atmosphere/Mood/Tone
According to Ogungbesan and Woolger, atmosphere refers to “the feelings suggested by the
physical details in the poem”. The mood is the emotion which a poem rouses and the tone
describes “the poet’s attitude (e.g. ironic, sympathetic, detached, critical, etc.). The setting
therefore directly or indirectly generates the atmosphere or mood that consequently sets the tone
that conditions the choice of images and diction used in the poem (Ojaide 40).
The setting influences the atmosphere, mood and tone of your poem. You should
therefore vary your setting to enable you elicit appropriate atmosphere, mood, tone, imagery and
diction that constitute significant aspects of your poem. Mood in a poem is an overall emotional
effect created in the poem. To a large extent, it reflects the degree of emotional involvement of
the poet which affects the reader in almost the same way. Consequently, it draws the reader to
empathize with the subject discussed in the poem. It is the impression which the reader forms of
the poem as a whole.

WHAT MAKES A POEM – CONTENT AND DEVICES

In all forms of creative writing, the writer writes about a particular idea. This idea gives rise to
the subject matter. The idea expressed in subject matter constitutes the message which the writer
wants to send to his audience. In this unit, we will introduce you to theme and subject matter in
poetry, and what actually makes a poem a unique genre of literature, i.e. the devices used by the
poet to give memorable expressions to his content (subject matter and theme).

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Theme
In prose or drama, the theme is the underlying idea in the work. In poetry also, the theme is also
the main idea which the emotion expresses. The poem offers instruction or information in a
pleasant and persuasive way. You can draw your theme from a concept, an event or a series of
events, contemporary or historical, an interesting situation, setting, mood, a person, an event or a
personal experience. The poet or write does not “draw” the theme in a poem from legend, myth
or folklore. The important thing is that it is that idea which permeates the entire poem and is the
message which the poet wants to communicate to the audience. In most cases the theme is by the
reader in one word like corruption, love, war, bad leadership, revenge, and many others. This
word is what you decipher from reading the poem and not that the poet will write that s/he is
treating the theme of corruption for instance. Read the poem below and try to discover the theme.

“Let me not to the Marriage of True Minds”

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickles compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out even to the edge of doom
If this be error, and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare.

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Subject Matter
The subject matter in poetry is the same with the subject matter in other literary genres. It is the
topic of discussion in the poem. In most cases, we deduce the subject matter from the title of the
poem. It is from this topic of discussion that the theme is extracted, which means that the theme
is usually subsumed in the subject matter. If we look at the poem discussed above for instance,
we agree that the theme is “perfect love” what then is the subject matter? Let us took at the title
again “Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds”. You may ask yourself what Shakespeare
means by that. Then you start reading the poem and you find out that the sentence is not yet
complete in the title but is completed in the second line. It then reads “let me not to the marriage
of true minds admit impediments”. This means that any marriage between two true minds should
thrive irrespective of perceived obstacle or barrier.

What Makes a Poem?

Poetry is not just about language and ideas. It is an emotional exercise so it involves an
experience. In this experience the poet explores a subject that crystallizes in a theme. In this
experience, the poet expresses his feeling about that idea (theme) through the creative
manipulation of words in a language he chooses. When this experience and expression are fused
creatively he produces a very good poem. If however there is no blend of the experience and
expression, the poem will not be coherent and consequently the audience/reader will not get the
desired or the right message. In such situations the poet fails to communicate.
In poetry you cannot separate experience and expression. It is like a separation of content
and form. If a poem is just the recording of an experience without proper attention being paid to
how it is expressed, it ceases to be art but a record of ideas. On the other hand, if it is just a
cluster of beautiful words that is joined together but does not express an idea, it becomes
meaningless. What makes a poem therefore is what is said and how it said. The experience is
what is being said while the expression is how it is said. The experience could be a real or an
imagined encounter, factual or fictional, objective or subjective, but to which the poet responds
and expresses.

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Sound
In poetry, words are very important because over and above the basic meaning, they constitute
and create the real beauty of the poem. Words give impressions of the emotions of the poet and
that is why specific words should be used instead of the other. For instance, a poet may decide to
use the word ‘chant’ instead of ‘song’ or ‘music’. Apart from the meaning, he chooses particular
words because of the sound effect he wants to achieve.

Rhythm
Rhythm is usually associated with music – song, dance, drumming and other forms. Rhythm is
also associated with motion, architecture or mathematics. In all these, repetition is constant,
though, with certain forms of development and variation. It appeals to the senses. Words are
given prominence by the rhythm. Poetry is musical because of the rhythmic pattern in which it is
presented. Rhythm is also produced through stressed or unstressed syllables that are patterned in
metre. The best way to describe metre is measure. It is the measurement of words in a poem.
Metre as stated above is the measurement of words and it is based on the stress on syllables of
the words in a line. In simple terms, a syllable is that minimum utterance that can be produced
with one breath or pause.
In poetry accent is the stress that is placed on certain syllables in a line of poetry. A line
of poetry contains a number of accented (stressed) and unaccented syllables arranged in a
particular order or pattern. This order or pattern is called metre. There are different types of
metre in poetry. Each metre is categorized based on the number of feet in a line of poetry. A foot
is used to describe a group of syllables that form a metrical unit between two or three syllables.

Rhyme
Poets produce musical effects in the poem through rhythmic patterns. Apart from the production
of rhythm in poetry through alliteration and assonance, another important aspect of rhythm is
rhyme. Rhyme is the repetition of the same sound usually at the end of each line. Assonance and
alliteration could be located anywhere within the line but rhyme is the repetitive pattern or sound
found at the end of two or more lines. The sequence in which the rhymes occur in a poem is
called rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme is indicated by the use of alphabets at the end of the
line. Some of the popular rhyme schemes are aabb, abab, abcb, abba. There are many rhyming

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patterns that are not indicated here. You should just learn that sound repetitions at the end of the
lines are matched to form the rhyme scheme. Let us use a simple nursery rhyme to illustrate this:
Twinkle twinkle little star, a
How I wonder what you are, a
Up above the world so high, b
Like a diamond in the sky. b
In this short poem, ‘stars’ and ‘are’ have similar sounds while ‘high’ and ‘sky’ share the same
sound.

Diction
Diction is simply the choice of words. It is important for you to choose the right words that will
help to convey your idea appropriately. As a beginner you should use simple, ordinary and plain
diction. Do not try to be deliberately poetic by engaging in obscurity and affectation. You should
also avoid unnecessary inversions and high sounding words in your language which you may
think might impress your readers. Always ask yourself if your choice of words could effectively
convey your feelings or your idea. The best way to know if you are on the right path is,
according to Ojaide, to ask yourself the question, “is this the way I talk to people”. Remember
that you are trying to communicate your idea to your reader or audience though your poem. You
should therefore ensure that you communicate to them in a language that they will understand. It
is the intensity and beauty of the language and not its obscurity or bombast that makes a good
poem. As much as possible, therefore, avoid cliche, slangs, phrases and other unfamiliar or
common terms. However, in line with poetic license you could make proper use of deviations in
syntax, structure or form to make your poem unique. You should acquaint yourself with different
poetic forms. This will enable you decide the most appropriate form through which you may
wish to convey your idea. Poetry strives on rhythm, so choose words and metres that will allow
your poem to flow in a particular rhythmic pattern. Do not hesitate to delete any word that
obstructs this free flow in your poem. Diction in poetry could be simple or obscure. A poem that
is presented in a simple language is straight forward and very easy to understand because the
words chosen by the poet is/are simple and very familiar words. On the other hand, obscure
diction in a poem means that the words may or may not be simple words but presented in such a

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way that it will be difficult for you to decipher the message of the poem immediately and
appreciate the poem easily. Compare the two poems below:
(A)
From the west
Clouds come hurrying
Turning
Sharply

Here and there

Whirling
Tossing up things on its tail
Like a madman chasing nothing.
From David Rubadiri’s “An African Thunderstorm”
(B)
The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The Landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. “Madam”, I warned.
“I hate a wasted journey- I am an African.”
Silence. Silenced transmission of
Pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick-coated, long gold-rolled
Cigarette-holder-pipped….
From Wole Soyinka’s “Telephone Conversation”
Poetic language is unique. The poet chooses his words in such a way that together they will be
able to produce the desired emotional effect, convey the message and at the same create the
desired effect and rhythmic pattern. The choice of words reflects the intentions of the poet, the
effects s/he wants to create and even the poet’s target audience. The poet uses figurative
language and figures of speech.

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CONCLUSION
The poet writes a poem, whether it was planned, or recorded as the one given in a dream or
trance or as an outpouring of emotions. At the end of the exercise, the poem is revised to ensure
that the desired rhythmic balance is achieved. The poet ensures that images, figurative language
and figures of speech are used appropriately to convey the intended message. This revision also
ensures that the final product expresses the poet’s emotion appropriately.

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