Play Writing

To write for the theater, you need to know about theater. Ideas are easy to come by. Examine your background, interest, and beliefs. Examine the world around you. Exercises can help you come up with ideas. Choose the audience you want to reach, and write to that audience.

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

The required classic textbook primer for all screenwriters. "Anatomy of a Screenplay" outlines the required profile for storytelling in feature films from Character Structure to Convergence. This extremely popular book is clear and concise and used in colleges and grad schools around the world.

ADAPTING YOUR NOVEL INTO A SCREENPLAY BOOK TO SCREEN is based upon the content presented by Frank Catalano at the Annual Writer's Conference sponsored by San Diego State University. How to create great stories and characters from the page to the screen and how to pitch them to producers and get them made Writing Great Characters in the First Ten Pages What Does an Audience Expect of You? How to Pitch Your Book as a Screenplay Your First Ten Script Pages Writing on Your Feet How to Start Your Story at the End How to Visualize Your Book as a Movie Trailer How to Create Inevitability A Rose by...

This guide to play reading for students and practitioners of both theater and literature complements, rather than contradicts or repeats, traditional methods of literary analysis of scripts. Ball developed his method during his work as Literary Director at the Guthrie Theater, building his guide on the crafts playwrights of every period and style use. The audiobook is full of tools for students and practitioners to use as they investigate plot, character, theme, and the other crucial parts of the superstructure of a play.

Are you tired of writing dull, lifeless dialogue? Do you struggle with finding the balance between too much and not enough explanation? Want to create characters that feel like real people? And what about historical dialogue-- how do you capture the essence of a different time? Can dialogue effectively deliver exposition? What, exactly, is "on the nose" dialogue, and why should we avoid it? And the age-old question: to swear or not to swear? Look no further, because after publishing more than 165 books, bestselling author Angela Hunt has the answers to all of your burning questions about ...