Just like the Greeks loved their Poetics, modern playwrights will love their PASTO. PASTO is an acronym for a contemporary playwriting structural theory that was first introduced in a now out-of-print book, Primer of Playwriting by Kenneth MacGowan. The letters in PASTO stand for preparation, attack, struggle, turn, and outcome.
The ice encased on branches is crystalized and sharp, beautiful and crisp.
Old Mr. Jensen buzzed the boxwood to our right, often offering to clip our hair alongside branches grown unkempt...
Most writers work at something besides writing. It might be work we do around our home, apartment or dorm, such as cleaning, organizing or cooking. Or it could be a paid job, such as dog-walking, healthcare or customer service. No matter what work we do, there are advantages to being employed in other vocations, and it’s possible to stay inspired at the same time.
Waiting in line at Whole Foods market, the cashier rings up my seven packs of Adderall...
The luminosity that came through the window, barely touched few objects, it almost produced no shadows. I knew well the pitfalls of that rebellious house that revenged the years of misuse by clicking worn floor planks, echoing secrets by thin partitions newly installed, watering rain by the holes of the chandeliers, for long opaque of dust and loneliness.
You are designing yourself,
“Looks like we got ourselves a cowboy,"
he asks her to tell him / what it's like to love him...
One of the most intriguing ways to show what your characters are made of is to give them a dilemma that forces them to reveal who they are to the reader, to themselves and to you.
