Instructions
Write a dramatic monologue from the point of view of this fictional Balboa, expressing what he might have said aloud as he stood on the boulder surveying the Pacific Ocean.

Monologue

A monologue is a speech given by a single character in a play. The word is derived from the Greek-"mono" means "one," and "logos" means "speech." Typically, a monologue serves the purpose of having a character speak his or her thoughts aloud so that the audience and/or other characters can understand what the character is thinking.

WRITING A MONOLOGUE

Your character – the narrator

· who is this character?

· what is his/her background?

· what is his/her state of mind?

· why does he/she want to talk?

The character’s story
What is the story he/she has to tell? Such as

· a crime committed by him/her

· a crime committed against him/her

· a betrayal

· a secret

· something that has changed his/her life

Write down five details about this story that the character would think important.

The situation

Create a setting allowing the narrator character to tell that story. Such as,

· a police interrogation room

· an intensive care ward

· a pub

· an airplane

· a hitch-hiker in a car

Write down five details that would help the audience to picture this place.

The listener

To whom is the narrator's character telling his/her story? Such as,

· policeman/psychiatrist

· someone in intensive care/coma

· a sympathetic drinking buddy

· a fellow passenger

· the driver of a car who has picked up a hitch-hiker

Write down five details about this listener that will help the audience to picture him/her or become him/her.

- Divide the story into sections

- The most efficient way to do this in a very short story is by flashback technique:

1. start near the ending

2. go back and take us in stages through the build-up to the ending

3. return to the ending and finish it off with one of these possible endings:

a) a revelation/decision

b) a dilemma

c) a sense of the inevitability that something will happen