How to Write a Great Musical, Even If You’re a Beginner (7 TIPS!)

whether you're beginner or Season Pro being crystal clear in these seven areas will help you to write your musicals and make them great but without Clarity on all seven points flocks and obstacles may appear that obstruct your work so let's avoid that shall we number one know your story inside and out whether you're writing an adaptation of a well-known story basing your show off of a real life event or creating something entirely original you need to know your story completely inside and out when you sit down to write there should be no doubt in your mind about what happens in your story what details need to be included what the objectives are at any given moment and where the story is headed now for those of you who are adapting material which is gonna be mostly everyone I'm not saying that you need to know your Source material inside and out I mean if you do cool that's super useful I'm sure but what I mean here is that you need to know your story your version of this tale that we are telling in a musical theater format your not writing your Source material that's been done already you're writing your musical adaptation when it comes to that story you are the one creating it it is yours completely and at that point you might as well treat it as a holy original story because this version this one is yours and only yours and if you don't know that story top to bottom sideways and slant ways well then who does number two know your North Star now when I work with clients or even when I'm working on my own material there are six sets of guiding questions that I believe everyone needs to know the answer to in order to have the ability to stay on track while you're writing and editing these question sets help steer the ship of our show our showship our our Showmanship show ship show so that we are never getting off course or being led astray as we write revise and develop our musicals these question sets are number one what is this story actually about both the original tale as well as your version number two ask yourself why this story being told in this way and why now to clarify this why question is hitting at why the world or a specific set of audience needs this story even more specifically why does this story need to be told as a musical what does that add uplift or insert and beyond all this why does this story need to be told now what is it about the present moment that says yes this story is needed right now number three what is your personal why for telling the story why are you telling this story why are you the person who needs to be telling this story what are you adding or bringing to the table what is this story about for you are we putting a new or different spin on this story number four who is the target audience for this story who wants to hear the story who needs to hear the story who needs to begin given access to being able to hear the story number five what do you want the audience to take away with them from watching this show what is that message number six what are your shows major two to three themes I know this feels like a lot but these questions are absolutely crucial to have answers to if you need any help going through this process on your show please reach out I go even deeper on each of these questions with my clients and I'd be happy to help you with your projects you can even book a free 30-minute call with me if you'd like to explore that or even just get some advice the link for that is in the description below number three know your structure before you begin okay yes I'll admit that sometimes you can't know the structure until you're into the writing process but 95 of the time having a solid idea of the structure before you begin writing is extremely important now I'm not going to tell you that you need to outline but it's a good idea and that's even with me using the term outline Loosely outlining can be whatever it means to you you need to go in with a plan or that first draft is going to be or potentially cause absolute chaos are you going to use act structures three or five are you using spiral storytelling is this a concept musical what is the emotional Arc like for the audience as well as each individual character have you created a musical plot yet without a good sense of these things writing the scenes songs and actual character interactions is going to get very very difficult very fast number four know the world of your story and I mean this in three different ways number one you need to know the actual setting of your show when and where does it take place and how does that affect the environment audiences want to be immersed in a vivid and specific World when they go to the theater and of course that helps everybody buy into the actual storytelling number two is musical language what types of sounds are going to be used in this show does that use Crossover with or dip into any specific musical genres are there going to be motifs that you know you're going to use are there going to be specific tonal relationships well if you're classical contemporary pop rock country or some mixture of any of the above number three is the language of the words themselves how do the people in this world interact using their words and what kind of vocabulary is being utilized and therefore How does each individual character feel separate unique and different while still fitting within the world of the language because knowing the world means that you can number five know your characters intimately in order to fall in love with the characters whether we love to love them or love to hate them we need to know them intimately which means that you need to know them even more intimately if you enter into the process with only a vague idea of who these characters are or have only fleshed them out in two dimensions then actually sitting down to write them is going to feel like a gigantic slog audience is crazy Brave well-rounded three-dimensional and relatable characters whose Journeys we can follow through failures and triumphs I mean we go to the theater to exercise our empathetic muscles after all this means knowing what makes these people tick what their objectives are how they relate to the other characters into the world their flaws their unique strong points their overall arcs and most importantly how they will each contribute to the storytelling too many people skip this step and then they flounder as they try to put actual words to paper do yourself a favor and don't skip this step do it right away number six know your foundations there are two major foundations that you need to have under you songwriting and storytelling when I talk about storytelling what I'm talking about specifically is knowing how to craft a cohesive clear and compelling story easy right luckily Clarity and cohesion should be pretty well taken care of at this point if you have the answers to those North Star questions so it's just that tricky little compelling piece what makes a story compelled telling I mean great characters are an excellent start and we do have those now beyond that it comes down to having a fantastic central conflict out of which we can create an engaging plot balance tensions with desires and objectives knowing how to write believable and interesting character interaction on the songwriting front well songs are an incredibly important ingredient in what makes a show a musical so they definitely need some attention knowing your options for song structures genres and types is a fantastic start and having a working knowledge of composition and or lyric crafting is an absolute necessity but beyond these Basics you need to know how to use the music as subtext how to convey emotion and how to succinctly develop characters and move plot along all within a song well all of that plus knowing how to write a catchy Melody and a memorable hook you know just all those little things and if this alone feels super overwhelming to you then I highly suggest that you apply for my Flagship musical theater writing Workshop course not only do we focus on songwriting of all types throughout the course as we actually do it in collaborations with feedback but we also cover a lot of the other foundations that we've talked about so far today more information and a short application can be found at a link in the description below number seven know your collaboration type collaboration On Any Given project can look a bajillion different ways whether that's a writing collaboration writer director writer producer or even an entire production team the most important thing here is to know what kind of collaboration you're in need of and then finding the people who are the perfect fit for both you and your project hitter is a collaborative art form and we need to be able to rely on one another and one another's skills in order to make these musicals come to life this of course means good communication but it also goes much further than that if you want to know what else needs to be involved in musical theater collaboration then you should watch this video next otherwise thank you all for being here with me today and I'll see you again soon cheers [Music]

Channel: Musical Theatre Writer Guy

Views: 2,258

Keywords: musical theatre, musical theater, musicals, song, theater, theatre, writer, writing, lyric, lyricist, libretto, librettist, composer, composition, perform, performer, singer, actor, director, designer, producer, audience, Michael Radi, MT Writer Guy, story, storytelling, Broadway, musical theatre writing, musical theater writing, musical theatre writers, musical theater writers, musical theatre writing program, broadway, musical theatre songs, how to write a musical, how to write a musical theatre song

Id: f5WaOndcOzE

Length: 8min 48sec (528 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 28 2023