There are increasing opportunities for new writers of plays, be it for stage, screen or radio - but also increasing demands. This highly practical and informative book looks at how to get started and how to become a successful playwright in any area.

Through a series of systematic explorations across a wide range of scenarios, Sensory Writing for Stage and Screen offers script writers exercises for attending to their own sensory experiences as a means to exploring the sensory experiences—and worlds—of the characters they create.

What makes tragedy tragic? What makes comedy comic? What does Much Ado About Nothing have in common with When Harry Met Sally? Seneca with Desperate Housewives? Goldoni with Frasier? In Genre: A Guide to Writing for Stage and Screen Andrew Tidmarsh explores these questions and more. Investigating how the relationship between form and content brings endless discoveries and illuminations about how narrative works, this entertaining and accessible book looks at how storytelling in film and theatre has evolved and how an appreciation of form can bring the writer, director or actor a solid foundation and a sense of security, which ultimately assists the creative process. Including genre-specific exercises in every chapter helping the reader to write and devise, Genre: A Guide to Writing for Stage and Screen is for all those with an interest in story and can be used by writers, actors and directors alike – whether students or experienced professionals – to make the blank page appear less terrifying.

" Reading and digesting the lessons in this book can be of greater value to an aspiring dramatist than years in an MFA program. Whether you are writing for the stage, screen or audio, this book is an invaluable teacher and guide to have by your side throughout the development and revision process." Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig "This book does what no other playwriting book in my experience has done, it offers a new way of seeing and conceiving how theatre makes meaning and carries emotional impact in performance." Suzan Zeder, Professor Emerita and former Head Of Playwriting at University of Texas at Austin, USA Combining a step-by-step analysis of the technique of writing for stage and screen with how the mystery, poetry, and emotional momentum is achieved for the audience, Sherry Kramer offers an empowering, original guide for emerging and established writers. In this structured look at the way audience members progress through a work in real time, Sherry Kramer uses plain-spoken vocabulary to help you discover how to make work that will mean more to your audiences. By using examples drawn from plays, film, and streaming series, ranging from A Streetcar Named Desire to Fleabag to Pirates of the Caribbean, this study makes its concepts accessible to a wide range of artists who work in timebound art. The book also features multiple exercises, developed with MFA writers in The Iowa Playwrights Workshop and The Michener Center for Writers, where Kramer taught for the past 25 years, which provide entrance points to help you consider and create your work.

Provides basics on screen writing, from what to write and the legalities to finding an agent and getting it on the screen.

A good story can easily be ruined by bad dialogue. Now in its 4th edition, Rib Davis's bestselling Writing Dialogue for Scripts provides expert insight into how dialogue works, what to look out for in everyday speech and how to use dialogue effectively in scripts. Examining practical examples from film, TV, theatre and radio, this book will help aspiring and professional writers alike perfect their skills. The 4th edition of Writing Dialogue for Scripts includes: a look at recent films, such as American Hustle and Blue Jasmine; TV shows such as Mad Men and Peaky Blinders; and the award winning play, Ruined. Extended material on use of narration within scripts (for example in Peep Show) and dialogue in verbatim scripts (Alecky Blythe's London Road) also features.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • A “heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11” (The New York Times Book Review), this definitive history explains in gripping detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center. In gripping narrative that spans five decades, Lawrence Wright re-creates firsthand the transformation of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri from incompetent and idealistic soldiers in Afghanistan to leaders of the most successful terrorist group in history. He follows FBI counterterrorism chief John O’Neill as he uncovers the emerging danger from al-Qaeda in the 1990s and struggles to track this new threat. Packed with new information and a deep historical perspective, The Looming Tower is a sweeping, unprecedented history of the long road to September 11.