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Well, monologue is a literary forum that

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is very short. Some monologues are only

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a paragraph long and very few monologues

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are more than a couple pages long. If

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you have dialogue, it's usually longer.

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So, the monologue is just somebody

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speaking, but usually it moves from

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emotion A, emotion B to emotion C.

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Usually there's a trajectory or an arc

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of emotion. So it starts off with

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something just a statement and it takes

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you through some emotion and some

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acceleration and intensification and

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then there's an ending that may be a

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little startling if it's dramatic. So

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the person is revealing something about

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himself or herself

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that wasn't known in the beginning. The

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monologue I've I've often assigned it

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takes takes you from one emotional level

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to another. Like it may start off very

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somber. It may be funny. It may start

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off um quiet and then get angry and then

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reside again. And so that you have an

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arc of emotion. So however it starts

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out, it doesn't end that way. It ends in

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a slightly different way. And when you

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see really good acting in movies or on

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stage, you see an actor going through

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some arc of emotion. They're not flat

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and they're not always the same. And

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when the actor is not doing that, it's

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sort of like carbonated beverage that's

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lost, you know, it's lost the fizz. It's

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just sort of flat. And great monologues

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exist all through theater because uh

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Hamlet's saliloquis are basically

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monologues you know and some people

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think that Hamlet was constructed as a

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sequence of of sonnetss of saliloquis

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and then the play was kind of

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constructed around these these great

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saliloquis. So it's very exciting for a

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writer to just write a monologue without

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anything around it. One of these little

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monologues could be like the stepping

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stone to a novel.

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If the character comes alive, the person

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could be very much a character that you

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would want to write about.

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In 1990, I was invited as a as a

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novelist to write for the theater. And I

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wrote one act plays and longer plays and

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monologues. And I wrote a play that was

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about eight monologues called I Stand

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Before You Naked and some other little

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dramas. And this is one of them. This is

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called Lethal.

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It has one long

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paragraph and then one sentence. So the

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structure is very important. It

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basically is one long paragraph and then

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this structure. So this is a man

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speaking. It's not a woman speaking, but

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he's speaking to a woman. Lethal.

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I just want to touch you a little.

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That delicate blue vein at your temple,

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the soft down of your neck.

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I just want to caress you a little. I

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just want to kiss you a little. your

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lips, your throat, your breasts.

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I just want to embrace you a little. I

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just want to comfort you a little. I

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just want to hold you tight like this. I

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just want to measure your skeleton with

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my arms. These are strong, healthy arms,

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aren't they? I just want to poke my

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tongue in your ear. Don't giggle. Don't

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squirm. This is serious. This is a real

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thing. I just want to suck a little. I

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just want to press into you a little. I

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just want to penetrate you a little. I

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just want to ejaculate into you a

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little. It won't hurt if you don't

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scream, but you'll be hurt if you keep

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straining away like that. Thank you. I

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just want to squeeze you a little. I

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just want to feel my weight against your

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bones a little.

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I just want to bite a little. I just

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want a taste of it. Your saliva, your

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blood, just a taste. A little. You've

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got plenty to spare. You're being

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selfish. You're being ridiculous. You're

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being cruel. You're being unfair. You're

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hysterical. You're hyperventilating.

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You're provoking me. You're laughing at

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me. You want to humiliate me. You want

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to make a fool of me. You want to gut me

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like a chicken. You want to castrate me.

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You want to make me fight for my life.

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Is that it? You want to make me fight

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for my life? Is that it?

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So that's a man speaking.

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The structure is one long paragraph

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growing in intensity as the person

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reveals more of himself and then the

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final line is like the summation. You

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want me to fight for my life? Whereas he

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really she's fighting for her life at

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this point and he is so projecting his

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masculinity into her that even though

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she's the victim, he perceives himself

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as the victim. And many rapists and ch

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child molesters and abusers, they

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actually think of themselves as victims.

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They don't they don't feel necessarily

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guilty. They feel that the the victim

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made them do it. She provoked him by

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wearing a red dress or the child looked

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at him in a certain way and it's all her

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fault

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and so that final line is meant to be

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ironic. In a dramatic monologue, you do

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want to have an escalation of of

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tension. So having an incantatory lines

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like I just this a little a little a

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little I just want to do this and then

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several sentences that have exclamation

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points you know one after another sort

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of like machine gun then fire on stage

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that would be effective and then you

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might want to have a longer sentence and

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something a little longer and then the

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whole thing is over with

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so it doesn't last very long. You

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couldn't do this for very long. Like you

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couldn't do it for you couldn't do it

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for 15 minutes. You could only do it

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like for 2 minutes, 3 minutes.

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It's very important to look forward to

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your work and the playfulness is

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something that comes with letting your

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imagination go. So not not writing

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something that's for your professor. You

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want to get an A  by being very

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diligent, having a lot of footnotes. The

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the creative writing is something that's

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much more fluent. If you read short

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stories by JD Salinger, for instance,

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you see how funny he is. He's very

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sarcastic and ironic, and a lot of it's

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sort of juvenile humor, but it's funny.

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You know, the idea that we're all

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teenagers and we always remember what it

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was like to have these adults around us

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who are so pompous and hypocritical.

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And that um that release is why

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many firsterson novels have adolescent

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speakers and young adult fiction is a

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very fertile field where people are

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writing from the point of view of of

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teenagers even though they're much

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older. It's very important to to project

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your own imagination into someone else.

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For instance, if you're a fairly young

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person to write from the point of view

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of an older person. It gives you an

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immense um objectivity and and the

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perspective is just so much it's so much

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more interesting. Like a young man who's

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a college student, if he writes from the

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point of view of a girl,

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that's something that's new to him and

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it's it's very liberating. So he can

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write about something he wouldn't have

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dreamt about writing