HOW TO SCORE YOUR SCRIPT
1)Underline everything the playwright says about me, I say about me, and my other says about me.Double underline everything I say about my other, the playwright says about him/her, or her/she says about himself.
2)Put a wavy line underneath facts or given circumstances related to the environment (time of day, location, weather, city, state, etc.).
3)Circle verbs. This will encourage you to keep the scene active and to drive your objective through the verbs.
4)Highlight PUNCTUATION, esp. ellipsis … ALL CAPS, exclamation marks! Question marks? Dashes—, etc.
5)If a sentence ends in a dash—imagine you weren’t interrupted by the other character and write how the sentence ends. If you come across an ellipsis…imagine what your thought process is in that moment and write it down.
6)Put a star next to anything that’s repeated more than once. Hint hint: it’s important.
7)Moment before. You must enter the scene full of “stuff.” Use this format:
I feel ______because ______just happened. When I enter this scene, I expect ______to do______because ______.
Example: I feel angry because my husband just told me he doesn’t believe that Tartuffe tried to seduce me. When I enter this scene, I expect Tartuffe to fall into my trap because he’s tried to seduce me before and I’ll finally be able to prove my husband wrong once and for all.
8)Your overall objective should be written at the top of the scene. Use this format:
I, ______, am trying to make ______feel/do ______in order to get______.
Example: I, Elmire, am trying to make Tartuffe seduce me in order to prove to my husband that he is a fraud and to get rid of him for good.
9)Beat changesshould be indicated by drawing a line through the text where the beat changes.
______
Harper: Where were you?
Joe: Out.
Harper: Where?
Joe: Just out. Thinking.
Harper: It’s late.
Joe: I had a lot to think about.
Harper: I burned dinner.
Joe: Sorry.
OR
Joe: All I will say is that I am a very good man who has worked very hard to
become good and you want to destroy that. You want to destroy me, but I
am not going to let you do that.
Harper: I’m going to have a baby.
Joe: Liar.
10)If a beat changes in the middle of a sentence, you can denote it with a slash.
Harper: No. No. Don’t do that! I’m…I’m fine, pills are not the problem, not our
problem, /I WANT TO KNOW WHERE YOU’VE BEEN! I WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON!
11)Each beat should have an emotion/feeling (pinch) on top of the line and a tactic (ouch) below the line. The pinch is a result of what your other does to you. Tactics are always in relationship to your other and change when the current tactic is no longer working.
Harper’s scriptwould look like this:
Suspicious______
To interrogate Harper: Where were you?
Joe: Out.
Harper: Where?
Joe: Just out. Thinking.
Harper: It’s late.
Ignored Joe: I had a lot to think about.
To provoke Harper: I burned dinner.
Joe: Sorry.
12)CRAFT RELATIONSHIPS!Have an opinion about everything you mention in the scene. Boxany nouns (persons, places, or things), memories or past events mentioned by your character in the scene and write a corresponding color, image, piece of subtext or inner monologue in the margin. You can also do this for significant moments, set pieces or props, things hung on the walls, etc.
Jackie: The apocalypse fell on this family and you left. Mom vomiting her guts up in
the middle of the night and
me having to hold her hair back.
Joe: Going on with what? The job? Stay calm, keep my cool, deep breaths…
13)ARC. The overall journey of the scene.Where do I start and where do I end? This can be a sentence labeled ARC, or an actual diagram of an ARC like the one to the left. Within the text, put a[bracket]around anything that happens over the course of the scene that changes you in some way and affects your arc. Examples include a major discovery or A-HA, a piece of important news or information the character learns, a point of no return, a physical or psychological climax, etc.
14)Blocking written in the margins to correspond with specific lines and moments.
15)How does it end? Do I win or lose? Use this format:
In the final beat, my other ______which makes me feel______. As a result, I win or lose and will now______.