Young Writers Society

I got a chance to write a short scene connected to the Foster Care system to be performed by some student actors. Yay! Now help me make it not suck as much as it does so far.

CHARACTERS:
Harriet; a very cliche, cookie baking grandma figure, Janet's foster parent.
Janet; teenage girl, not too different than average girls, recently put into foster care
Mickey; teenage boy, very worried for her best friend Janet

The scene is a basic living room and front door stage set. There needs to be a slight visual appearance that there’s enough space for it to seem like two rooms, the doorway room and the living room. The only actor on stage is Janet, who is in a chair reading, with a cast holding her arm up. A doorbell rings, and Harriet runs from off stage to the door, wearing baking attire and holding a tray of cookies.. She opens it, and Mickey’s on the other side. Shall we begin?

Harriet: Well, hello young man.

Mickey: Hi, I’m…uh…looking for Janet?

Harriet: Oh, you must be Janet’s boyfriend-

Mickey: -NOT…her boyfriend. We’re just friends.

Harriet: No need to be rude, Janet was just really…excited when she told me you
were coming over. I just figured…

Mickey: Is she just in the living room?

Harriet: Just reading. And waiting for these cookies. Would you like one?

Mickey: Uh…sure.

Mickey takes a cookie from the tray and Harriet walks Mickey into the other side of the stage.

Harriet: Janet! Your…friend’s here!

Harriet walks back to the kitchen (offstage). Janet stays seated and Mickey stays standing, almost nervously. Janet is very cheery and happy.

Janet: Hi Mickey! Where’ve you been, you haven’t called me in days.

Mickey: Well, I thought that you maybe…I don’t know, needed some alone time.

Janet: “Alone time”? Alone time for what?

Mickey: Janet, the newspapers are talking about what happened. It’s pretty serious.
I mean, your arm and all…

Janet: Oh, that. Forget about it, it’s nothing.

Mickey: Nothing? Janet, your father shot you in the arm, how can you call that
nothing?

Janet: It was an accident.

Mickey: Your temperamental, cop father started shooting his pistol wildly in the house and you got shot when you walked in the room without him seeing you. Accident or not, your father still shot you.

Janet: He wasn’t angry with me, and it wasn’t on purpose. I don’t see the problem.

Mickey: He was still angry with your mom. Enough to shoot his gun around.

Janet: He’s like that all the time. It’ll fade soon, like it always does. This one was
just…louder.

Mickey: Louder because of a GUNSHOT!

Janet: Be a little quieter, would you? Harriet likes her house quiet.

Mickey: That’s another thing. This was loud enough that you got put into foster
care. Aren’t you happier here? Aren’t you glad to be away from those
angry, arguing parents?

Janet: Yes.

Mickey: Wait…really?

Janet: Yeah. Harriet makes the best cookies, she’s nice, and aside from staying a
little quiet, she doesn’t really have many rules. Still miss my parents, but
that’s my own little dilemma, not Harriet’s problem.

Mickey: That’s good, I guess. And are you talking to Harriet?

Janet: About what?

Mickey: Did you just tune me out? Your parents, the gunshot…

Janet: She hasn’t brought it up. She takes a little interest in my school work and
stuff, but she doesn’t ask much about it.

Mickey: But you need that.

Janet: No I don’t.

Mickey: Yes you do. You can’t just pretend it isn’t a problem.

Janet: It isn’t one. Besides, I’ll be gone from here in a few days, no need to
worry her about it.

Mickey: Harriet, do you really think you’re going to be going back to your parents?

Janet: Yeah.

Mickey: Your parents are alright again? They’re solving their problems?

Janet: I don’t know. I haven’t seen them since I got here.

Mickey: You’re just guessing that you’ll leave soon?

Janet: Yeah. Again, this was just a little louder. They put me in this house a night
or so, and I go back when the problems are dealt with.

Mickey: Janet…most kids aren’t usually put in the foster system, in a foster home
with a foster parent, for short times like that.

Janet: Well, I’m not most kids. And my parents are better than that.

Mickey: Janet, I don’t think they are.

Janet: Well, I do.

Harriet starts sneaking on stage, listening to the next few lines of dialogue.

Mickey: Janet, you’ve got to start realizing the truth.

Janet: What truth?

Mickey: That your parents aren’t going to be okay!

Janet: Yes they are!

Mickey: Your father shot you in the arm, you-

Harriet makes herself apparent on the scene and comes fully onstage.

Harriet: Mickey, can I have a word with you?

Harriet walks Mickey off to the other side of the stage, and Janet starts reading quietly, acting a little grumpy.

Harriet: I know that you care about Janet a lot…

Mickey: She’s not my girlfriend.

Harriet: I never said that! I know you care about Janet a lot, but I think it’d be best
if you don’t bring up her parents with her.

Mickey: What?

Harriet: Well, she’s happy here, and she doesn’t need to worry about it anymore.

Mickey: But she thinks that she’s going to be leaving here soon.

Harriet: Well, maybe she will?

Mickey: You can’t possibly believe that.

Harriet: *Sighs* I’ve taken in about ten foster kids over the pastthree years. They
get moved around to other homes, they move out, but nobody I’ve seen
has gone back to parents like Janet’s.

Mickey: So why are you letting her think this way?

Harriet: I only met Janet when she was put here. It didn’t seem kind to make her
talk about it. If she wants to, I’m more than happy to. But I just can’t walk
up to a girl I’ve hardly met and say that her parents are broken up and that
she can’t go back to them.

Mickey: But that’s just…just…

Harriet: She’ll realize soon enough. I just…don’t want to push her.

Mickey: Mickey is speechless for a moment before speaking. Maybe you’re right.

Harriet: Please, let her talk when she’s ready.

Mickey: Alright.

Mickey goes back into the living room. Harriet walks across the stage, back to the kitchen-offstage.

Mickey: I’m sorry.

Janet: For what, yelling at me that my parents are…how did you put it?
Temperamental and hopeless?

Mickey: Look, if you ever want to talk…

Janet: There’s nothing to talk about!

Mickey: Just give me a call. See you at school.

Mickey goes out the door, and leaves the stage. Janet is grumpy still, and Harriet walks across the stage. Janet stops her when she speaks.

Janet: Can you believe him? Badmouthing my parents like that?

Harriet: It wasn’t the nicest, I suppose.

Janet: …you think my parents are going to be back together, right?

Harriet: …I don’t know.

First off, this is an interesting and new idea for a script, but there are a few issues. Let's begin. Every once and a while, you have punctuation, capitalization, and spelling errors. Carefully proof-read your scripts and make sure they're up to shape. Also, in dialog, you need to have your character's name capitalized, with a colon after the name. Then add an enter space, and put the dialog underneath. So instead of this:

Mickey: Hi, I’m…uh…looking for Janet?

It would be this:

MICKEY:
Hi, I'm... uh... looking for Janet?

That's cleared up, now... Your actions need to be in parentheses, and with play scripts (not movie scripts) They need to be in italics. So instead of this:

Mickey goes back into the living room. Harriet walks across the stage, back to the kitchen-offstage.

It would be this:

(Mickey goes back into the living room. Harriet walks across the stage, back to the kitchen-offstage)

There is also no punctuation at the end of an action. There should be no period, or comma, or anything, at the end of your sentence.

Mickey: Your father shot you in the arm, you-

This is right at the beginning of Harriet and Mickey's talk together. At this point, Mickey is bringing up the shooting incident too much, I feel. You can have other dialog here. And:

Mickey: Your temperamental, cop father started shooting his pistol wildly in the house and you got shot when you walked in the room without him seeing you. Accident or not, your father still shot you.

This is an info-dump. You can sprinkle it over the next few lines of dialog. All of this together seems unrealistic.

Mickey: Louder because of a GUNSHOT!

Never add caps in a script, unless they're for a character's name. You can do this as a substitute.

Mickey (Yelling): Louder because of a gunshot!

This little thing I've added after the character's name is called a parenthetical. It indicates what a character is either doing while he/she is talking, or how they say this line. For proper script format, either look up 'Proper script format' or download a free program called CeltX. This is an interesting idea, but if you're serious about scripts, take my advice.

Hello Howler. I don’t believe we’ve ever met but I’m Lily, your friendly neighborhood reviewer.
But it does look like Vasticity covered all of the basics of playwriting so I’ll just look at the plot a little bitty bit.

Mickey: Is she just in the living room?
Harriet: Just reading.

These lines feel a little...uncomfortable but I do you a little suggestion.
Mickey: Um...is she here?
Harriet: She’s in the living room, just reading.

The fact that he’s asking if she’s in the living room, just seems odd. Asking where she is or if she’s there seems less...weird.

kids over the pastthree years.

Oops, you need a little space here.

...I’ve hardly met and say that her parents

I think that this would make more sense if ‘I’ve’ were ‘I’ and ‘met’ were ‘know.’ Just think about it.


Okay, the one thing that this lacks is description. You really need to make sure that your actors are going to know how to, well, act. Facial expressions, body language. In a script, these things are very important.

Good luck with the play though!

~lilymoore

Great- im agreeing with the writers above me. This is very interesting but you sometimes mix up the names, check that out. And in the begining you wrote Mickey; teenage boy, very worried for her best friend Janet- it should be his best friend (from the way you wrote it Mickey seems to be a boy.). Either way this is great!
Nike