Today, write a paraphrase of your scene or monologue. Work line by line and thought by thought, trying to put your characters' thoughts into modern-day equivalent English. Try to catch each speech's meaning as exactly as you can.
Here is my example, taken from the opening lines of The Merchant of Venice.
Act I, scene I, lines 1-7:
Antonio: In sooth I know not why I am so sad.
It wearies me, you say it wearies you.
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff ‘tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn.
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.
Paraphrase:
Antonio: To tell you the truth, I don’t know what’s making me so sad.
I’m really getting tired of it, and I hear you, I know you are too.
But I can’t say how I “caught” this disease, where I found it, or how it happened to me.
I’m still trying to figure out where it comes from and what it’s based on.
And the worst is, it makes me feel like such a fool, it’s hard to even know who I am any more.
