Strategy and Tactics

Strategy is the Character's overall plan to achieve his or her want and tactics are the individual ploys or details of the strategy. Both are means of pursuing an Action. The most important aspect to both Strategy and Tactics is that they are the physical behavior that the audience sees onstage, that indicates everything else in the play. You can look at them as the bricks and mortar, while the Actions of your play are the main support structure. Or, you can look at them as the tip of the iceberg.

Strategy and Tactics include everything a character does onstage. This includes any movement, Dialogue, silence, song, fight, dance - any and everything, done in order to accomplish a character's Action.

Since the audience only sees this behavior, picking the appropriate Strategies and Tactics is one of the best skills you can have as a playwright.

Action
Because a ten-minute play is so short, it's good to find a way to keep focused. Once you find a good Action that you can sink your teeth into for each of your characters, allow it to inspire their choices. You can try to accomplish any given goal with any given set of behavior.

Look at a swordfight. The Actions are simple. Each character wants to beat the other person (or even kill them). Their tactics can include anything from individual jabs or parries to using the furniture, swinging on chandeliers, taunting their opponent - all of it stemming from that Action. Check It Out.

While you don't have the option of writing a ten minute stage-combat scene, it's worthwhile to sometimes get your character back on track with that "swordfight." Remember, if they wander for a second, they stand to lose whatever it is they're trying to get.

Variety
Tactics only work for so long. That's why characters change them up. Usually when they've worked as hard as they can with one tactic, some new piece of information comes up, which causes them to adjust. Sometimes the new information is that what they were trying just isn't working. Maybe it's that the situation they're dealing with is different than they thought it was.

One way to keep your play fresh for an audience is to make sure that there's a variety of tactics for your character to use. By the end of the play, she should have tried as much as she could have to accomplish her goal. If you feel as though your character is being too negative, see what happens if you make her try something positive. Too sad - try something happy. You can accomplish any action with any tactic - some are just more effective choices than others.