Details

ISBN-10: 022639350X
ISBN-13: 9780226393506
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publish Date: 10/09/2017
Dimensions: 8.90" L, 6.00" W, 0.90" H

Character, Scene, and Story: New Tools from the Dramatic Writer’s Companion

Paperback

Price: $20.00

Overview

Will Dunne first brought the workshop experience down to the desk level with The Dramatic Writer’s Companion, offering practical exercises to help playwrights and screenwriters work through the problems that arise in developing their scripts. Now writers looking to further enhance their storytelling process can turn to Character, Scene, and Story.

Featuring forty-two new workshop-tested exercises, this sequel to The Dramatic Writer’s Companion allows writers to dig deeper into their scripts by fleshing out images, exploring characters from an emotional perspective, tapping the power of color and sense memory to trigger ideas, and trying other visceral techniques. The guide also includes a troubleshooting section to help tackle problem scenes. Writers with scripts already in progress will find they can think deeper about their characters and stories. And those who are just beginning to write will find the guidance they need to discover their best starting point. The guide is filled with hundreds of examples, many of which have been developed as both plays and films.

Character, Scene, and Story is fully aligned with the new edition of The Dramatic Writer’s Companion, with cross-references between related exercises so that writers have the option to explore a given topic in more depth. While both guides can stand alone, together they give writers more than one hundred tools to develop more vivid characters and craft stronger scripts.

Read More
Reviews
"If you are a playwright not yet on the Pulitzer short list, or a screenwriter not yet invited to the Oscars, the best thing you can do is get to Chicago and join Will Dunne's scriptwriting workshops at Chicago Dramatists. If you can't do that, the next best thing is to get The Dramatic Writer's Companion and Character, Scene, and Story and sit down to his exercises. Dunne describes clearly and succinctly how each element of drama works–each beat, each scene, each facet of character and stagecraft–and then he sets you to work to master it. The work leads wide and deep, from the hidden past to the strategies of scene, from objectives to the supernatural, from levels of desire to the pressures of conflict. Every hour's attention to one of these mental journeys will lead you to know more, imagine better, and write more nimbly."–Janet Burroway, author of Writing Fiction and Imaginative Writing
More Reviews

Details

ISBN-10: 022639350X
ISBN-13: 9780226393506
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publish Date: 10/09/2017
Dimensions: 8.90" L, 6.00" W, 0.90" H
Skip to content