Playwriting - Part 6A - The Working Process, The Plot Treatment

There are many playwrights who like the plot treatment. I can honestly say that I am not one of them. I may use it in part, but I do not like using it in whole. However, that does not mean that you won't like using plot treatments.

Plot treatments are esentially writing out every bit of detail in a narrative format rather than writing dialog for the play. Even if there are elements that you aren't going to include in the play and that aren't going to be seen on stage, you include them. The plot treatment includes lots of detail.

For example, a plot treatment of Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley may have started like the following example:

In the interior of a grand Catholic church where the altar is mainly white, but has green paraments hanging on each side of the altar, stands a Catholic priest, 6' high and thing with long fingernails, dressed in an all white chasubel with a green stole, stands behind a dark brown lectern that comes up to his waist. He had a mop of blond hair and wears square framed glasses. As he talks to his congregation, he nervously rubs his hands together and his eyes dart back and for as he says, "What do you do when you're not sure? That's the topic for my sermon today." As he continues to talk, he gains his composure and confidence. He clasps his hands behind his back. The rattling of paper bulletins can be heard from the congregation.

This has obviously come from my imagination, but there's the possibility that Shanley wrote it, even though he probably didn't. I included dialogue in this part that might have been written as a plot treatment. It is likely there will be dialogue in your plot treatment because it is for a play. It doesn't mean that the dialogue won't change as you write your play.

When you write a plot treatment, you make sure to label each act and scene for your play so you are able to keep them organized. The label can go above the sections or be in bold to the side of them.

You can do a plot treatment in different ways. If you like plot treatments, you may like making a plot treatment out for the whole play at once. You can also make a plot treatment for each act that you write, most likely following the three act structure, so you'd have three different times you would write a plot treatment before starting to write dialogue for a play.