The Easy, Simple and Best Ways To Write Your Stories, Drama and Poetry Yourself

Chapter Four

Acts and Scenes of a Drama Book
It is important to state here that a drama book can have an Act at a time. That is, Act One comes only once in a drama book. After Act One comes Act Two, Three and so on till the last Act as the writer wants. But one act can have more than 2 scenes. A particular act in a drama book can have scene 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and so on. Secondly, every act must have introduction of the dramatist or playwright, introducing the acts or the first scenes of the acts. However, scenes may being without the writer's introduction. Introducing a scene, especially, from second scene to the last scene of an act is solely dependent on or is based on the writer's choice. It is however good if a writer will introduce all his/her scenes in an act of his/her drama book for the proper comprehension of readers. Thirdly, there are usually terms used to indicate the end of an act or a scene in a drama book, the terms include: "Light gradually falls", "The cotton gradually close", "Night falls", or "The Act or Scene ends". The phrase "The End" is usually used to mark the general end, closure or finishing of a story book like prose and drama.

3. Cast: Apart from division differences, another difference drama book has with prose is that drama contains a part in it called cast. This is the provision in the drama book before or after the story or action in the book where the writer list all the names of characters (actors and actresses) he/she used in his/her drama book with the various roles they played in the drama book. Example
Cast
Nwoko Solomon- The Pastor
Nwoko Stella Obusor- The wife of the Pastor, etc.

4. The Use of Figures or Figures of Speech, Idioms and Parables: (read in number 2 of prose in this chapter).

III. Poetry: This is an entirely different literary work from the other two (prose and drama) literary works discussed above. Its style, division, arrangement and expression are entirely different from prose and drama. Some of the things poetry shares in common with the other literary works is literary appreciation, such as, figures of speech, and expressing words idiomatically and parabolically. And they are all literary work of art or genres/branches of literature.

Poetry is written and arranged or divided into lines and stanzas. It is most time written as song to be sang or recited with verses and stanzas. A line of poem is called one or a "Line" while more than one lines of poem are called "a stanza" example.

In the dew of the day - a line of poem

In the dew of the day
Before the rising sun - two lines of poem, therefore called a stanza.

Note: A poem of two lines is technically called "A Couplet". There are two categories or types of poetry, and many kinds of poems. We will discuss briefly these two categories of poetry, few kinds of poems, give examples of what full or complete poem looks like and finally highlight few other tips on how to write poetry in this chapter.

A. Categories of Poetry
1. Sonnet: This is a fourteen (14) lines poem with rhymes or rhyming schemes. This type of poem does not need many pages and lines of books, it rather needs just fourteen (14) lines in a book. However, it is the most difficult to write, this is because, it demands lots of creativity, being very constructive and calculating in the mind and in reasoning in order to write it. This means that a sonnet poet needs the ability to compress words with many means into just fourteen (14) lines of a book. Note, not fourteen pages or leaves of a book, but fourteen lines of a book.

This was however, the major style or method of writing poetry or poem in the olden days- till 18th and Middle 19th Centuries. There are two major categories of people noted in history to have used sonnet as a major method of writing poetry or poem. Sonnet were associated with them and were divided or categorized after them, they include: Shakespeare or English and Italian or Petrarchan, hence we have- Shakespearean or English Sonnet and Italian or Petrarchan Sonnet. These two will be briefly discussed.