Have you ever read a story or watched a play and thought, “Hey, I think it should have ended this way!” Or “Wouldn’t it be cool if the other guy won the race?” How would that change the ending?

Hi! My name is Danielle and I have enjoyed writing plays for my children and our homeschool friends and would love to share how to write a play, so you or your child can write one too.

Writers Can Make it Their Own

If you’ve ever read a book and then saw the movie, you know that the writers take creative liberties to make it their own. You can keep it simple and use exactly what is on the page, or you can change it up and give the characters new names, or make them different animals, or give a plot twist no one would expect. 

When researching online to confirm Goldilocks and the Three Bears is in the public domain, I began to discover how many different variations of the story there are. In one version, Goldilocks runs away from the three bears’ home, never to go into the forest again. In another version, she is cleaning their house and they invite her to stay and live there with them. In yet another version, she is eaten by the bears. 😲 If you’ve ever read Grimm’s Fairy Tales, you know that the happily ever after we see today is not the theme of the original stories.

How fun would it be to take a familiar story and give it a plot twist. You lead your audience down a path that leads them to believe they are going where they’ve been before, THEN SUDDENLY something completely different happens!!! 

This can be fun to add humor to a story in unexpected places. It can also add mystery as things take an unexpected turn for the worse. 

Will you give your reader hints to indicate that the ending may go differently than expected, or will it be a complete surprise when they get there?

If we’re creating a playscript for young actors, we have to consider what they will be acting out. Some scenes may not be appropriate for the younger actors; while they are perfectly fine for an older group. Maybe a happily ever after for the three little pigs is much better than the alternative. Whereas older actors might appreciate the wolf having a victory at the end of the book. Jon Scieszka writes the story from the wolf’s perspective called The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. (You can watch the author read the story out loud here.) There’s no end to where the imagination can go if we allow it. Let’s look at some examples. 

Ex. 1 - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

(illustration by John Tenniel for Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland)

What if Alice is traveling through Wonderland and keeps ending up in the same place? What changes for her to finally get out of that location and get out of Wonderland? Maybe she doesn’t get big again and therefore can’t go back home or no one can see her because she is so small. Maybe she loves it so much, she never leaves and her family wonders what happened to her.

Ex. 2 - Goldilocks and the Three Bears 

What if Goldilocks sits in the three chairs, then sees the porridge and decides to try it like most versions, but then she is satisfied and ready to go home. Just before she leaves, she looks out the kitchen window and realizes there are beehives outside that can provide some nice honey for her porridge, so she goes outside to get some. She knocks into the hive and the honey producing bees chase after her. She runs back into the house to get away from them, then up the stairs and into Baby Bear’s room. She hides under the covers hoping the honeybees won’t find her. The bears come home to find her shivering in the bed and feel sorry for her. They offer her some porridge with honey then send her on her way back to her grandma’s house with a jar of local honey. 

The End!

Ex. 3 - The Tortoise and the Hare

 
In the traditional tale, the hare falls asleep while the tortoise slowly continues the race, catches up and passes the sleeping hare and wins the race. (Moral of the story: Slow and steady wins the race.)

What if the tortoise wakes up the hare to ensure it’s a fair race. The hare jumps up and wins the race. The tortoise gets to the finish line and celebrates with the hare and everyone else joins in the celebration. (Moral of the story: What’s the point of competing if you don’t have an opponent.) 

OR

The hare falls asleep while the tortoise slowly continues the race. The tortoise finally catches up to the hare and sees her sleeping by the tree. He sees this as his opportunity to win and quietly passes the hare, UNTIL SUDDENLY… the hare trips the tortoise, he falls right on his face, and the hare wins the race! The crowd is shocked as to what has happened and silent as the hare celebrates her victory. (Moral of the story: No one likes a cheater.)

Ex. 4 – Macbeth

What if Macbeth decides not to listen to his wife and he doesn’t kill Duncan. Lady Macbeth does instead because she so badly wants him to be king. Macbeth covers it up, so Macduff and Banquo still suspect he is guilty, but this time Banquo doesn’t die because Macbeth doesn’t hire the murderer to kill him. Instead, Macbeth sends Banquo on a mission which keeps him away and appears he has been killed, so Lady Macbeth thinks Banquo is out of the picture. 

Lady Macbeth still suffers from the guilt of what she has done and the knowledge that her husband knows and others may too. A note is written by Lady Macbeth revealing it all as she kills herself over being so guilt stricken. The note is initially swept under a table and isn’t seen for a few days so many think Macbeth killed her to silence her. Eventually the note is revealed right before Macbeth is killed and he remains King. Banquo returns and celebrates with his friend and Macbeth treats his people well, never allowing pride or the need to be in power to control his actions again. We still experience the consequences of pride and the need for power, as Lady Macbeth suffers from the guilt, but the main character has a different ending to his story.

As far as the audience is concerned, are they exposed to these facts during the play living in the lie that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth share, or are they surprised to find out it wasn't Macbeth and that Banquo is still alive?

Now if we tried to change the story and Duncan doesn’t die because his guards recognize the conspiracy, fake being drunk and take Macbeth out when he comes after Duncan, then the story ends there. That wouldn’t make for much of a story, so we do have to consider how changing the plot or the ending affects having a story at all. 

Other Plot Twist Options

• Does it turn out it was all just a dream after seeming so real while the story was being told? 

• Do we think it’s a dream and we find out it’s actually reality?

  I’ll leave that all up to you to decide because it’s YOUR play! 😉 
  
  

Drama Game Fun

Fun Improv game - tell a familiar short story, then stop right before the solution to the problem and have students come up with a new solution and surprise ending. For more drama game fun check out Places Everyone!

You Can Write a Playscript with a Plot Twist to a Familiar Story

As you can see it’s easy to write a plot twist to a story if you start from something that is already created like a familiar book or another play. Just be sure, like the stories above, that it is available in the public domain and therefore no longer under copyright. Using this method, you or your child can start writing a play today. 

Check out all the blogs in the series How to Write a Play: 

1. Write a Playscript from a Fairy Tale

2. Write a Playscript from a Book

3. Write a Playscript from the Bible

4. Write a Playscript from Multiple Stories

5. Write an Abridged Playscript from a Full-Length Play

6. Write a Playscript about an Historical Event

7. Write a Playscript for a Radio Play

8. Write a Playscript with a Plot Twist to a Familiar Story

9. Write an Original Play

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You can start writing a play today with our full How to Write a Playscript drama curriculum or perform a play with these downloadable PDFs!

Looking for a play with a plot twist and alternate ending, check out The Butler Did It! full-length play and receive two different options for the ending.

Thanks for joining us!

Danielle at homeschooldrama.com