ABSTRACT
Playwrights are doing their particular poietic work when they are clarifying, in their minds, an intended structure of action. A would-be playwright who starts by writing dialogue is starting at the opposite end of a creative and imaginative process that must be based not in what people say but in what they attempt to do, the spine of the plot. The aim for playwrights is to develop an acutely conscious grasp of the relation between individual segments of a play and the completed structural whole that makes the artifact “One Play.” Constructing a play is a poietic craft based on successive created time-durations. Design the consciously according to principles. Plan these as a meaningful sequence, and fill them in as actions. It is necessary, to be a playwright, to “activate” vivid fictions in the mind until they move and/or talk, but a vigilant poet needs always to control form once the fictions start to move.
