I've been taking some fiction writing classes at the library for the last few weeks with the author Brooke Bessemen. One of the last lessons was about how to write picture books. It would be so easy to ask why these classes are valuable given that my main focus is on playwriting, so why should I bother with classes about fiction? Especially children's picture books? Well, I have some new perspective that I think is actually very relevant, beyond just supporting the public library's free programming. Here's why playwrights should write their plays like they're picture books.

Picture Books are Short...

...often so short you could fit the entire text of the book into a tweet. Authors have to be extremely deliberate and careful about every single word they choose to put into the text. They also have to consider that since their audience is children, their words have to be easy to read and understand, and often they'll pepper in alliteration, rhyme, and other fun literary devices. In fact, picture books read like poems and the process of writing them is similar too. Even after all the painstaking work to find the right words, reading the whole book and taking time to "ooh" and "aah" at the pictures is less than five minutes.

Everybody knows the quote but few actually care: brevity is the soul of wit. This applies to the writer who feels the need to word vomit 300 words into a pointless stage direction, or the director that rambles in circles for ten minutes when asked a relatively simple question, or the actor who programs a full blog for himself to share thoughts nobody asked for. Saying what you mean and meaning what you say is so crucial if you're an author who is trying to get your director to stage your vision and story. Use active language. Get to the point! Show your audience what's interesting. Plays that are overwritten are tedious and too long. Cut to the chase, cut out the fluff, and be very specific about the words chosen for the manuscript.

Picture Books Need an Illustrator...

...just in the same way that plays need directors. In class, we learned how an author has to collaborate with the illustrator, but they often never even meet. This means the author has to put all the information the illustrator needs into the manuscript, but not too much or they're going to be chained down. In fact, this is something that publishers consider. To increase their odds of getting a paycheck, the author of a picture book creates opportunities for the illustrator to tell the story through the visual art, and it's the pictures that really highlight the story and transform it from words into an experience. A great example of this is This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen.

So in theatre, the director is the illustrator. The playwright should leave room for the director to tell the story, to enhance the action through the visual medium. Collaboration between a playwright and a director may be very close, or they might never meet, but the same rules apply. The playwright's ultimate goal is to communicate a manuscript that gives just enough so it can be expounded and built into something worth watching when it gets staged, not to compose a perfect piece of literature that'll find its way into theatre classrooms in a few decades. Just like the picture book author has to trust the illustrator to do their job, the playwright should trust the director. Plays should be written with this in mind. Let them have some of the creativity cake, too.

Interestingly, in the picture book world, there are many author-illustrators who do both. Director-playwright would be the equivalent for us. It's easier for an illustrator to learn to write then for a writer to learn to illustrate, and I bet that applies to playwrights and directors/actors as well.

Picture Books Don't Preach...

...because kids have very short attention spans. They get even shorter once they realize you're trying to teach them some kind of frivolous lesson. I think the same exact thing applies to adults, and I've seen this done very egregiously by playwrights who preach some ethereal moral lesson as if they're the most insightful person to have ever lived. This isn't to say that having a moral to the story isn't important, but the moral has to be fundamentally baked into the action and the characters.

There is a lot of value in self-expression through writing. If that's your goal, go for it, but consider very carefully if your personal work needs to be produced. A play has got to tell an interesting story that is actually worth listening to. Unless you're truly exceptional, odds are that nobody wants to hear it. Know your purpose.

So write something fun! You definitely should have a moral, just make the audience do a little bit of thinking to get there. Plays have to be easy to watch and follow, and preaching your moral directly at them will make them zone out. Make your script worthwhile. Have interesting characters in conflict and give them real actionable objectives, and then let your moral naturally flow out.

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But who am I to share my perspective like this? I'm probably not the most insightful person to have ever lived. None of my thoughts have ever been original... but at least I know that. I'm not about to drop a 120-page rambling authoritative morality lesson disguised as a play anytime soon.