Story Mountain Worksheet
$6A one page map of a story in five stages, with questions to fill in at each one.
Short plays and monologues, and how to write your own
I’m Despina. I write short plays and monologues for the stage, and I sell worksheets, templates and scripts for new playwrights, plus two video courses.
Opening
Who is here, what do they want and what does the audience notice first.
Character Questionnaire
$5Forty questions that tell you who a character is, from their morning to their worst day.
Scene Outline Template
$7A template for planning one scene: who wants what, what stands in the way and how it turns.
Ten Short Monologues
$9Ten short monologues for one voice, each about three minutes long, with notes on how they were built.
Build-up
Each scene costs the hero a little more than the last.
Story Mountain Worksheet
$6A one page map of a story in five stages, with questions to fill in at each one.
Character Questionnaire
$5Forty questions that tell you who a character is, from their morning to their worst day.
Scene Outline Template
$7A template for planning one scene: who wants what, what stands in the way and how it turns.
Ten Short Monologues
$9Ten short monologues for one voice, each about three minutes long, with notes on how they were built.
Problem
The moment everything goes wrong, and cannot be taken back.
Story Mountain Worksheet
$6A one page map of a story in five stages, with questions to fill in at each one.
Character Questionnaire
$5Forty questions that tell you who a character is, from their morning to their worst day.
Scene Outline Template
$7A template for planning one scene: who wants what, what stands in the way and how it turns.
Ten Short Monologues
$9Ten short monologues for one voice, each about three minutes long, with notes on how they were built.
Resolution
The scene where something is finally said out loud.
Online course
Video course · 8 lessons
Write Your First One Act Play
From one idea to a finished one act play, in eight lessons you can take at your own pace.
- Finding an idea that can carry a play
- Mapping the story in five stages
- Writing the first minute
- Scenes that cost something
- The moment everything goes wrong
- A scene where it is finally said
- Ending without explaining
- Reading it out loud and rewriting
Ending
What is different now, shown with no explanation.
- Buy now: Story Mountain Worksheet
Story Mountain Worksheet
A one page map of a story in five stages, with questions to fill in at each one.
$6 - Buy now: Character Questionnaire
Character Questionnaire
Forty questions that tell you who a character is, from their morning to their worst day.
$5 - Buy now: Scene Outline Template
Scene Outline Template
A template for planning one scene: who wants what, what stands in the way and how it turns.
$7 - Buy now: Ten Short Monologues
Ten Short Monologues
Ten short monologues for one voice, each about three minutes long, with notes on how they were built.
$9
About
About me
I have written plays for thirty years. Most of them were put on in small theatres with a bare stage, a few chairs and one good lamp, and I have sat at the back of the room for every one, pencil in hand, learning what I got wrong. A play only shows you its problems when someone says the lines out loud.
The things I sell are the tools I use myself: a worksheet that shapes a story into five stages, questions that make a character real, an outline for a scene, cards that start a conversation on the page. I have also put in some of my own short plays and monologues, so you can read how another writer solves the same problems.
I teach in two video courses, one for a first one act play and one for monologues, and I send a short letter every week from the rehearsal room. You do not need a theatre or any training. You need a pencil, a quiet hour and something you want to say.
Newsletter
Stage Notes
A short letter every Thursday for people who write for the stage: one lesson from the rehearsal room, one exercise and one thing to read.