You have until midnight on May 15th to write an entire play that fits on a single page.

That's the deadline for the Gone In 60 Second Play Festival. Now in its sixth year, the event selects and stages 200 minute-long plays in simultaneous productions at The New Workshop Theater at Brooklyn College and The Viaduct Theatre in Halifax. I've been lucky enough to have been a part of the last two festivals, and I look forward to the challenge every year.

Here's an idea: why not use the aforementioned app Write or Die and write the play on the clock?

Oh, and the whole thing is a fund-raiser for acting scholarships. If you're looking for extra incentive.

Gone In 60 Play Festival

Back in the day I used to write on a Brother WP 3400. It was a monstrosity: half word processor, half typewriter. It used 3.5" diskettes and its own god-forsaken proprietary software. Saving projects was a crap shoot. The bastard even eradicated my first full-length play, which I had spent an entire month cranking out at a writer's colony. Looking back, it was probably for the best.

My Brother Torture Machine (as I called it back then) had one thing going for it; the screen was beautifully uncluttered. The text glowed in an eye-pleasing orange, reminiscent of something out of Wargames. There were no rulers, no toolboxes or fonts. There was certainly no animated paperclip asking if you were writing a letter. It was just you and the text, simple and clean.

I loathe writing in Microsoft Word. There's too much in the way. I'm a big fan of Celtx, but crafting early drafts into screenwriting software just messes with your flow. TextEdit is nice, if you just want to get something on the page. But for anyone who truly longs for the Zen experience of writing with the WP 3400, Lifehacker has the scoop on distraction-free software like Text Monkey (PC) and JDarkroom (Mac).

Thanks to Mr. Martin's Typewriter Museum, the only place on the entire web that remembers the WP-3400. Cue the pained roar of a dinosaur.

On a deadline? Have a daily word-count commitment you're at risk of breaking? Check out Dr. Wicked's Write or Die. This web-based text program allows you to choose a specific word goal, and prompts you to keep writing until mission accomplished. You can choose different grace periods (how long it will let your fingers stop moving) and types of prompts (from gentle to electric shock). I'm not sure how serious of a tool this is, but it's sure fun to see how writing under the gun effects your style. I used the program to write a first draft of this, and had a blast.

I've seen wall space in publishing houses and film production offices devoted to the most cringe-inducing query letters. All of them are unmitigated disasters; hand-written on mead loose leaf, novella-length ramblings, cryptic Zodiac-inspired language. Most have enough common sense to avoid glaring errors, but the truth is, that single page has a lot of work to do. It must introduce yourself, describe your work, and sell it. Very few writers survive the delicate moment when a time-starved gatekeeper holds your fate in his hands, just itching for a reason to lighten the in box. Feeling I could use a little tune-up on my own technique, I came across a free ebook by Noah Lukeman that is full of helpful advice.

Nothing in a query letter should be wasted. As with a resume, every word choice must be
deliberate. I'm always impressed when I receive a query which takes up only half a page or less
(which is rare). I understand how hard it is for a writer to achieve this, to fight back the urge to
tell more, to condense all he has to say to a mere few sentences. More often than not, I'll be
intrigued. If he can exhibit this kind of discipline in a query letter, it bodes well for what he can
to do in the actual book.

Although How to Write a Great Query Letter is geared towards the fiction writer seeking an agent, this primer has wisdom for anyone submitting their creative work. Check it out and let me know what you think.

PS. My latest obsession: acquiring an IBM Selectric.

Photo by Welcometoalville
Image licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.

The Village Voice's Ward Sutton with a thought-provoking speculative rock history.