An introduction to writing monologues for the WJEC Lang/lit spec

1. WRITING MONOLOGUES

2. LL3 Performance Texts
Section B Producing Texts for Performance
2 performance texts (500 words each)
+ An evaluation on ONE (500words)
One text MUST BE transcribed
LO:TO UNDERSTAND THE
CONVENTIONS OF MONOLOGUE
WRITING

3. The performance pieces are marked out of
15 for AO4
The Evaluation is marked out of 10 for AO2
THE MARKING

4. The relevant assessment objectives for this section of
the A2 internal assessment expect candidates to:
demonstrate expertise and creativity in using language
appropriately for a variety of purposes and audiences,
drawing on insights from linguistic and literary studies
(AO4);
demonstrate detailed critical understanding in
analysing the ways in which structure, form and language
shape meanings in a range of spoken and written texts
(AO2).
THE AOS

5. Speeches, monologues and movie voice-overs were all popular
again this year. Some excellent work had also been done on
nature documentaries and this is a genre which works particularly
well as the ‘voice’ is very clear. In the best work there was a clear
sense of audience and purpose which enabled candidates to write
in an appropriate register. Providing a brief contextualisation for
each performance piece is undoubtedly best practice. This detail
clearly establishes the audience and purpose for the piece and
demonstrates the candidate’s awareness of the genre.
THE EXAMINER SAYS….

6. Candidates need to show awareness of the form they have
selected e.g. stage directions should appear in monologues.
Candidates should provide two distinctly different original
pieces i.e. it is inadvisable to include two speeches unless they are
markedly different in audience and purpose.
‘Spontaneous’ texts need to include some non-fluency features
e.g. fillers, repairs, voiced pauses, etc.
Provide a key for the markers used in the transcribed piece.
WHAT DO YOU NEED TO
REMEMBER?

7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrCDNsUQYb4&feature=related
WATCH THIS CLIP FROM THE WEIR
BY CONOR MCPHERSON

8. This monologue features an elderly
woman, who lives alone.
She has help from a woman who comes in
and looks after her during the day.
The monologue starts as she has just fallen
over whilst trying to clean.
A CREAM CRACKER UNDER THE
SETTEE
ALAN BENNET

9. TALKING HEADS
A LADY OF LETTERS
BY ALAN BENNET

10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD1MW-nyhxg
BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SERIOUS
BOB NEWHART

11. The thing about monologue is that it's immediate. It happens now. It happens
here. And it is literally "im-mediate", in that there is ostensibly no mediation:
nothing intervening between the character and the audience. That's why, in certain
magical theatrical circumstances, it can seem to fill the world. Everyone can think
of a moment in a great play when attention zooms in on a single character telling
a story - and the audience simply stops breathing. It happened memorably in
Conor McPherson's The Weir, for example, as each of the characters told their
tale; and it's a famous reward at the end of Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh.
In Pinter's The Caretaker, with its pivotal speech from Aston about electro-
convulsive therapy, it provides one of the best moments of western theatre: "He
showed me a pile of papers, and he said that I'd got something, some complaint.
He said ... he just said that, you see. You've got ... this thing. That's your
complaint. And we've decided, he said, that in your interests there's only one
course we can take [...] he said, we're going to do something to your brain."
COMMENTS BY LYNNE TRUSS

12. They are bloody hard to do, by the way. Getting inside your characters' heads
and manipulating their lives from within requires a muscular imagination, to
say the least. It's like Being John Malkovich, but thankfully without all that
exaggerated stooping. I've now tried monologues with twists as well as ones
that are more concerned with exposition. I've tried light ones and deeper ones;
redemptive and non-redemptive. It's astonishing how many things you have to
think about. You must continually ask yourself, "How far does this person
know what's going on? Do I know, either?" Bennett said his talking-head
people "don't quite know what they are saying, and are telling a story to the
meaning of which they are not entirely privy". Typical of him to make that
sound easy, too.
AND SHE SAYS….

13. Step 1: Think of a character and a situation
Step 2: Invent a backstory
Step 3: Consider your setting and design a stage for
performance
Step 4: Start to draft out your monologue
BUT OVER TO YOU….

14. SOME STAGE DESIGNS TO
CONSIDER