How to Write a Dramatic Monologue

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Laura from youngwritersworkshops.com and I'm going to talk about how to write a dramatic monologue. Now a monologue is a speech given by one character either in a play or another presentation like a movie or television show. In generally a monologue is going to be presented by a character that the audience can really identify with. In order for a character to talk for an extended period of time he has to have a connection with the audience. So, before you begin to write, make sure you know your character well. Whichever character is going to be delivering this monologue you have to know, as a writer you have to know more about the character to be able to speak from their voice, to write words that they will be able to speak and really connect with the audience. So, choose the character that you're going to write about and develop that character well. Outline ahead of time what your monologue is going to be about, where it's going to, what direction it's going to go, what's going to be the outcome of this monologue, how will it reach a climax, and you'll write the monologue in a way that it doesn't waste any words. You're building to a point, a climax, and then cutting it off and leading into the, returning to the action within your play or story. A monologue should be really well edited. Read it over, edit it, step away from it, go back to it, and make sure that each word is accomplishing what you want it to accomplish. You don't want to waste any words or have extra redundant verbiage in there where it needs to be very clean and tight and really be true to the character's voice. So those are some steps for writing a dramatic monologue."