Hinge Moments Drive Narrative
Strategies for Layered Work
Hinge moments are moments when the door opens and you or your characters walk through or across a threshold into a new part of life. Before/after moments. We may not know it moving through it, but looking back, we can see these hinge moments as transformational. They might include major political events like 9/11 or 1/6 or 10/7 or our most recent election. Beyond political events, hinge moments are also personal milestones like graduations or promotions, and life events like becoming a parent or suffering a loss. Hinge moments could also be something we want to bring attention to like becoming aware of (recognizing) the loss of civil liberties, or the loss of habitat for migrating birds or the extinction of species.
The way we live today includes many of these hinge moments all happening at the same time, so I don’t think it would be unusual to try to layer the occurrence of more than one hinge moment into a narrative. Even though we are mostly focused on character-driven narrative here in the US, that doesn’t mean the world of our characters exist only on the porch or in the kitchen or around the sofa.
Make a CHART
with political/personal/environmental across the top of the page, and your characters named down the left-hand margin. Give them each 3 hinge moments that are meaningful to them or changed them or has the capacity to change them in some way.
Or Make a LIST
for yourself of all the hinge moments that have changed you across your lifetime and then let your characters borrow some. Look for resonance. Look for conflict. Look for the energy that will give your writing a boost. (Sometimes I have to remind myself to write as if I’m flirting with someone or playing a super-silly game or tearing up the stage in a metal band. Try it.)
How can we layer in the hinge moments of life
to expand the world of our work beyond the home? Especially if we’re not writing social realism or issue-related shows? How can our intimate character work encompass whole worlds and larger potentially unsolvable problems? (Don’t worry about solving problems. Focus on asking hard questions, what keeps you up at night.)
Use Metaphor
What are the worldly/political or planetary/environmental events that resonate with the personal events of each character? We are consuming news and information at greater rates than ever before. Surely it would not be out-of-character for someone to discuss any of what is in their feed. And their feed and their information and concerns will be completely different from another character.
Leverage Love
If a character has a thing for whales, leverage that. Use love or thrill or desire or obsession to help us enter their inner world and what they care about. Someone else’s enthusiasm can be contagious and help us feel invited in. Instead of starting with a problem, start with an offer of connection and love.
Free Write with the Power of the Universe
To find out what you really care about and what you can really do with language: Pick a topic and see what comes out as you explore what it means to you or a character you’re working with. Write as if you’re hang-gliding or bungee-jumping or sailing the Greek islands. Write as if you’re on fire or a bomb is ticking. Give yourself the super-power you always wanted and write with your cape streaming out from behind you in the wind!
Brave Group Coaching is Back!
The 6-week Introductory Brave Group Coaching Course starts June 24th, Tuesdays at 7pm ET (time zone converter here)!
It is possible to self-regulate and ground, even in these difficult times. It is possible to move past feelings of helplessness even while American, neurodivergent, disabled, chronically ill, and/or in chronic pain.
This is affordable coaching in a small group with kindness for however you want to show up, camera on or off, etc.
The practices I’m teaching shifted the needle for me. Small incremental changes are possible, and they help more than you’d imagine. Or I wouldn’t be here in remission for 5 autoimmune diseases, functioning without chronic pain.
Advanced Brave Group Coaching Returns
twice a month on Tuesdays at 12pm ET (time zone converter here) starting July 8th, then July 29th, August 12th and 26th.
Neuro-Affirming (NAF) Parts Work Group:
Meets Second Saturdays of each month to offer community, parts work experience and support for anyone interested who is neurodivergent (inclusive of many different ways to be neurodivergent including Autism, ADHD, Audhd, OCD, cPTSD, traumatic brain injuries, and more). Run by Emma and Jess, both of us Audhd, we are creating Parts Work content for healing and ease in neurodivergent systems. Sign up for our link here. Our next meeting is 12pm ET (time zone converter here) Saturday, June 14th. Sliding scale from $5-25/session.
Amazing People Doing Amazing Things:
If you want to be listed here, please let me know what you’re up to and include your links!
For example, I’m waiting to hear from two shortlists, so keep your fingers crossed for me! My micro-chapbook, “Possible Paths for the Minotaur,” will be published online by Ghost City Press this summer. Proceeds will go to the TransGender Law Center.
Chicago’s Lookingglass Theatre is producing the World Premiere of Iraq, But Funny which follows five generations of Assyrian women attempting to reclaim their story as it’s being narrated by some British guy. Written by Atra Asdou, this journey from the Ottoman Empire to modern-day U.S.A. is filled with history, family, dysfunction, razor-sharp wit, and off-the-wall humor, culminating in a riotous reckoning you won’t want to miss! Directed by the amazing Dalia Ashurina who directed my play/podcast Abraham’s Daughters. Previews start on May 29th and runs June 7 through July 20th.
Audrey Cephaly has written a great Substack on How to Write the 10 Minute Play - I highly recommend her Substack every day, and especially this one.
Take a Poetry Workshop with Only Poems.
Playwrights! If you’re not already subscribed to Mark Ravenhill’s free newsletter for his 101 exercises for playwrights, you might want to click here to do that. If you’ve missed them, reach out and I’ll send you a pdf of the 1st 53, and a pdf of 54 - now. So you won’t have to search through the endless Twitter-verse for random entries.
If you are struggling with the news, try this article about resistance.
Opportunities:
Playwrights! Go to Umbria this summer with LaMama, David Diamond, and Dael Orlandersmith!
THE APPLICATION WINDOW FOR LOCAL LAB 15 IS NOW OPEN. If you are a resident of a western state (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming) you can apply here through June 1st.
Centre Theatre New Play Festival wants new plays! Submit by June 30th!
Moxie Theatre seeks new plays Submit by June 30th! All plays must be written by women+ playwrights. For musicals, at least two thirds of the writing team must identify as women+ (in a team of two people, both must identify as women+) Submissions are now open for ten-minute plays, full-length plays, and full-length musicals. They recommend 6 or fewer characters.
Ixion is seeking up to 8 scripts where DEFIANCE figures prominently to be considered for further development, including staged readings and possibly full production in June of 2026. No more than 4 actors. Simple setting. No more than 12 pages. Include only first initial and last name of author. Put script name and your last name in header or footer. Multiple subs allowed. No bios. Send to ixionensemble@gmail.com by 5 p.m. 9/30/25. Defiance can be in any form or any situation to explore relationships, dynamics and moments where opposition comes into play, could take on the relationship between a parent and child, and individual versus a collective or even a people versus an entity.
Breath of Fire is offering free evenings online to write your play with the amazing Diana Burbano on Wednesdays 630 - 830pm PST. Diana is the Artistic Literary Leader of Breath of Fire, an award-winning playwright, Equity Actor and Teaching Artist for South Coast Rep. From 2/26 - 10/22/25.
Telephone seeks all kinds of creative folks from everywhere in the world to respond to other artists/poets/dancers/etc to create a global community of responses. It is a massively brilliant project (I contributed to), and they want all kinds of creatives involved especially outside the US. Check out what they are doing and reach out!
Women in the Arts & Media have a list of opps you can sign up to get monthly.
For poets, Angela T. Carr’s Wordbox has monthly opps & more!
Brave Space
With prompts, grounding practices, & discussions, Brave Space invites playwrights, poets, painters, potters, novelists, memoirists, musicians & artists working in any medium to make meaning in a safe community. Begin and/or bring your projects to completion. Or use Brave Space as a body-doubling space to get other things done in community. $5-25 suggested per session. 4+x/week! On or off camera. No commitment, drop-ins welcome. Try it!
Brave Space Schedule:
Mondays & Wednesdays at 12pm ET; Fridays at 12pm ET w/fast feedback; and Sundays at 6pm ET with Sharing Second Sundays at 730pm ET (that means June 8th!!!) Email or reply below for a link!
No Brave Space Memorial Day. No Brave Space Friday June 6th.
ACTIONS TO TAKE:
TODAY 5/22/25 Mahmoud Khalil’s hearing! Please sign and share Amnesty International’s petition for his freedom.
Give to the Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance
Give to Doctors Without Borders
6 Ways to Support Palestine
Donate for Civilians in Palestine
Fight for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).