Workbook

Thirty reps, one voice sheet, one punctuation card.

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1. Enter late. Write a twelve-line argument. Delete the first four lines. If the scene still makes sense, the opening was manners, not drama.Cutting
2. Leave early. End the scene on the line before the apology. Put the apology in as a stage direction the audience never hears.Cutting
3. The unsaid object. Two people wash a mug. One of them is leaving the city tomorrow. The mug is the only noun they may share. Eight lines.Subtext
4. Contradict the adverb. Write “I’m thrilled,” she said, and then a beat that proves she isn’t. No other adverb.Tags
5. Said only. A full page. The only speech verb allowed is said. Distinguish the speakers with what they do and what they won’t answer.Tags
6. No tags. The same scene with no said and no names inside the dialogue paragraphs. If a reader gets lost, your beats are decorative.Beats
7. Status flip. A starts the scene in charge. By line ten, B is. Nobody mentions power. A practical task (a form, a lock, a prescription) changes hands.Conflict
8. Same words, different want. Both characters say “It’s fine” once. Each time it must mean a different refusal. Show the meaning in the next beat, not in a gloss.Subtext
9. Voice grid. One piece of bad news, told by three people: a teenager, a solicitor, a night-shift nurse. No accents spelled phonetically. Syntax and what they bother to explain.Voice
10. The word they never use. Give a character a short list of words they would not say (sorry, literally, darling). Write a page without them, then a line where stress makes one slip out.Voice
11. Exposition as a fight. The reader needs to learn that the bridge closes at nine. Do it as an argument about whose fault it is that you’re still on the wrong side.Exposition
12. As you know, Bob. Write the clumsy version in which a brother explains the family business to his brother. Then rewrite it so he is accusing him of ignoring it.Exposition
13. Banter with a bill. Two people who like each other split a bill they cannot really afford. The jokes are the negotiation. Nobody says they are short of money.Banter
14. Wit as avoidance. A character is funny for six lines because a direct answer would end the relationship. On line seven they fail to be funny. Stop the scene there.Banter
15. Phone, one side. Write only one side of a phone call. The audience should still know the three facts the other person delivered.Format
16. Phone, screenplay. The same call in screenplay format. Use (INTO PHONE) no more than once. Put the other half in action only if we can hear it.Screen
17. Four lines. A confession. No speech longer than four lines. If you need a fifth, replace it with a look described in one action line.Screen
18. Parenthetical fast. Write a scene with six parentheticals. Then cut all six. If a line dies without its parenthetical, rewrite the line, don’t restore the note.Screen
19. Ten lines, one relationship. Stage play format. Ten lines. By the end we know how long these two have known each other and who is about to leave. No prologue.Stage
20. Overlap. Three speeches in which the second speaker starts before the first finishes. Mark the overlap without camera language.Stage
21. Balloon budget. A panel with two characters and a maximum of 25 words between them. The next panel is silent. The silence has to be the punchline or the threat.Comics
22. Caption versus balloon. Tell a memory in a caption while the balloon handles the present-day lie. Do not let them repeat each other.Comics
23. Three barks. The same guard says three lines: player approaching, player idle too long, player leaving. Each under eight words. They must not form a monologue if heard in a row.Games
24. Branch that matters. A choice of three replies. Two can converge. One must change what the NPC will do, not just their adjective. Write the consequence in a stage direction.Games
25. Interruption. Write a cinematic line the player can walk away from in the middle. The first half must still make sense as a bark.Games
26. Reconstructed memory. Write a family argument you are allowed to invent for this exercise, then a footnote in your own voice saying which two beats you would not swear to in court.Memoir
27. No phonetic dialect. A character from a place you know well, heard in syntax and idiom, with every word spelled in standard orthography. Read it aloud. If it goes thin, add a specific object, not a misspelling.Voice
28. Invented slang, three words. A future or secondary-world job. You may invent three words. Everything else is pressure, tools, and rank. If a reader needs a glossary, cut a word.Genre
29. Interrogation without a speech. Eight questions. The suspect never answers the question asked. The detective only repeats one question, the third time shorter.Crime
30. Read-aloud pass. Take any scene from this week. Read it aloud. Circle every line you paraphrased when you spoke it. Those circles are the rewrite list. The mouth is a better editor than a synonym list.Revision