WRITING ASSIGNMENT – THE MONOLOGUE

 

 

 

Experienced writers and readers have learned either consciously or unconsciously that a chief method of vivid presentation of character at a writer’s disposal is the substance and manner of a character’s own speech. All have had the experience of being treated to a a monologue by a stranger seated on a plane or a bus or in a waiting room, and we often walk away from such an encounter with a very powerful impression – sometimes negative, sometimes positive – of the character and temperament of the speaker. The vocabulary, the diction, the inflection, the gestures, and – of course – the content of the narrative will all make an impression on us.

 

A monologue is one form of first-person narration; in it a character knowingly speaks to an audience that is an implied listener or one who is present in the story as a character. Playwrights frequently use the monologue to construct a kind of very small play - one character, onstage, speaks to the audience – and at least one actor-writer, Spalding Grey, has made a career of the one-character show in such long monologues as Swimming To Cambodia. The monologue can be an effective form of short fiction, as well, for it allows for full development of a character exclusively through dialogue.

 

Read the model monologues by Megan Joy, Amy Huff, and Brandon James.

 

Write a monologue using one of these first sentences:

 

1)     “I should’ve seen it coming when you _________________.”

2)     "Not once did my mother/father ever _______!”