How to Write an Independent Musical

Like with any creative writing job, the first thing you need is an idea. The core of your musical, the basis of it all! For me, it has been everything from a rock opera about children playing street hockey, to a battle of local weather men having a "forecast off". Anything can be a musical. Anything. any story, any idea. Once you have yours, it's time to get down to the nitty gritty.

Now it's time to outline your story. Even if it going to be a short musical, 30 minutes or less, we still need and want to stick to the basic three act structure. So keep this in mind when you are writing. Something that I use when making shorter musicals like this is one musical number per large scene. Now that our characters are fleshed out and our outline is done, it's time to write the script. First I would highly recommend grabbing yourself some script writing software, to really help speed the process along as well as ensure proper screenplay formatting. I would recommend a program such a Final Draft, or Celtx (if you are on a budget, as it is free!) Both will give you professional results.

When you have to write your musical numbers into the scenes, try what I do: simply write a scene description starting "this is where X character sings Y song. In this song he/she states..." and then prattle off all of the things that should be sang about in the song; every important realization and plot point that should be revealed. This is key when giving your script over to a musical composer. Once you have finished off writing your script, now is the all-crucial revision stage. I would recommend printing your script out and re-reading it yourself, pen in hand. Mark all the changes you want to make, dialogue, actions, descriptions, and grammatical.

Once you've given it the old once over, hand it off to someone else to read it. Have them mark their comments and remarks throughout the script as well. Now, take your paper copy back to your computer and get to writing! Make all necessary changes to your script. Now it's time to find a composer! A friend in a band can be a huge help here. If you don't know one, then fear not! You can more than likely find a college student studying musical composition to assist you in your endeavors, and they will most likely do it for free. Worst case scenario: you can always pay a composer to write the music and the lyrics. Remember to work closely with them on writing the lyrics! This is where all of your notes from the script on what important messages need to be conveyed in each song will come in handy.

Once your musical score is complete, and your scripts printed out, it's time to hold auditions! But fear not, for I shall cover that in another article. Happy writing!