Elizabeth Upshur is a Black Southern storyteller and editor. She is the co-poetry editor at Okay Donkey Mag and is a contributing editor at The Seventh Wave. She is the cofounder of The Southern Esesu Endeavor, a virtual thirdspace for members of the Black Diaspora, and home of the annual 3 day SEE virtual retreat filled with editorial and generative workshops, Open Mics, Submission Crawls, panels, and presentations. Elizabeth is a recipient of scholarships and fellowships from Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference, Poets on the Coast, Grub Street, Hugo House, and Voodoonauts.

Most of us have heard the saying, “A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” What this quotation is getting at is that a person who has dabbled in several different fields hasn’t become renowned for their expertise in one particular skill, but instead understands the basics of several different fields, and is therefore more valuable because of the quantity of topics that they are knowledgeable about. 

For example, an airplane engineer with a degree from MIT AeroAstro is exactly who you want constructing planes, but not exactly who you’d call in rural Tennessee. Yes, she’s a specialist, with a highly developed skill set pertinent to her job, but that’s all that she knows. Whereas, Mr. Jim— the handyman down the road— is someone with general knowledge in several different areas like automotive repair, tractor issues, hay balers, kid’s bicycles, and almost anything that has a set of wheels. 

I think we can learn a lot from that open mindset on the page and in our practice as writers. For example, for the past 8 years I’ve been dabbling in several different types of writing such as playwriting, poetry, nonfiction, and translation. Learning and reading in these other genres has made my fiction stronger, more interesting, and more collaborative. So, let’s talk Playwriting and what we can take from it for our fiction. 

I recently took a virtual 6 week Introduction to Playwriting class with Grub Street Center for Creative Writing with Kira Rockwell in the spring. Every week we would read and discuss a recent play as well as workshop our classmate’s play samples. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve been in a small group playwriting workshop. Each character is read aloud by a different classmate, doing their best to approximate the diction, style, and swagger of the character. In our class, we were about 33% actors, so we had a lot of fun getting as dramatic as possible, with accents, affectations, and long…ominous…pauses. 

1. Your Characters are What They Say

From playwriting, I’ve learned how important dialogue is and how to punch up my writing. As I’m writing or editing, I ask myself: does this dialogue give me more information about the character? Is it authentic to the character? Am I talking or moving the story forward? If the answer to those questions are three no’s, then that’s going to be one of my focus areas for the next draft. 

One of my favorite dialogue exercises is to take a few lines, write them down on individual flashcards, and try to match them up to their character. This is definitely going to show you if you’ve been making all of your characters talk too similarly, and give you a better idea of how you might want to differentiate your characters by the way that they speak. 

2. Workshop Your Work 

This one may be a bit obvious, but yes, workshopping is essential to writing better. Not only does this get as many eyes as possible on your writing, your audience can offer suggestions for how to make your writing stronger, for you to see plot holes that need fixing, and also to get encouragement on what it is that you’re doing right.

Seeing your story connecting with an audience is always such a rush. It helps to remind us that though we typically write alone, we do our best work as a community. Savor the kind words and excitement, and look back on those happy memories as many times as possible to keep yourself motivated to keep writing. 

As a writer, having your work in progress be read aloud by a group of people is invaluable. And it can also be a lot of fun! Group settings can be virtual or in person, weekly, monthly, etc. The point of a workshop is for you to read and offer praise and help to your peers, and for you to hear your work read aloud and receive praise and help for your next draft. 

You’ll likely find some groups or writers who resonate a little more with your vision and offer more insightful advice, which is totally normal. And since we’re human, the quality of our writing may ebb and flow, making our workshop feedback more criticism than praise sometimes, but so long as everyone has the goal of offering and receiving in order to write a better next draft, stay humble and keep going. Don’t give up until you’ve found a good one, because good workshoppers are worth their weight in breadsticks!

3. Be Economical in Your Writing

Depending on what kind of play you’re writing (10 minute, short, long) you have a time constraint as well as a stage constraint, but you’re also working with human actors and stagehands who might have to physically make it morning, afternoon, and nighttime for your actors. 

In a short story, every single word counts. So when cutting or editing, maybe we don’t need those two extra sentences describing the house that the main character lives in, and that space might be better utilized for dialogue where two characters are arguing or for an action scene. 

Or let’s say we’re writing a mystery novel. In that work in progress, being economical with our writing might look like combining characters so we aren’t keeping spreadsheets of fifty people, or condensing a scene to just the important information that our main character needs, or having information be relayed or summarized instead of taking several scenes to interrogate a long list of suspects.

So, there you have it. Three lessons from playwriting that can help you assess your writing and that you can start to integrate into your writing practice if you haven’t already. If you’re interested in plays, I highly suggest you check out your local theatre and make a day trip out of it (consider it research!). And if you’re interested in taking a playwriting class, keep an eye out for Grub Street’s offerings in 2025!