Reddit mentions: The best playwriting books

I'm afraid that you're probably not really going to get a fully detailed response on here regarding where to start as a playwright as most writer's processes are different, especially on the format of scripts as that subject seems to be up for debate recently depending on the theatre. Also, I believe I can safely make the inference that most successful playwrights aren't redditors (or if they are, they're probably not subscribed to r/playwriting, else this subreddit would be a little more active). However, what I can do is point you toward some great resources that are utilized by most every aspiring/professional playwright that I know.

Backwords & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays by David Ball is a fantastic book for anyone interested in dramatic literature. This is a book that will guide you in analyzing plays (and any story really) with a concentration on the actions of characters, the consequences of those actions, and how they fit into the arc of the story. It does this by taking you through Shakespeare's Hamlet from the end of the play to the beginning, as opposed to Act I to Act V. This is an invaluable resource that is used by playwrights, dramaturgs, actors, directors, and most everybody working in the field of theatre. It is also a resource that is a staple in most theatre graduate schools.

Another resource that is generally agreed upon as a proper manual for the art of playwriting alone is Naked Playwriting: The Art, The Craft, And The Life Laid Bare by William Missiouri Downs. Downs takes you through the basics of crafting a play and exposes you to the various philosophies regarding processes with little personal bias. It's not a dry read at all and will guide you through the use of examples. It will teach you not only the standard formatting for dramatic writing, but also the pros and limitations of writing for the stage. This book has helped me significantly as a playwright.

A good supplementary text would be Audition by Michael Shurtleff. Michael Shurtleff was a very important Hollywood/Broadway casting director who discovered the likes of Barbara Steissand, Robert DeNiro, and Dustin Hoffman, as well as many others. This book is generally held up as the Bible for actors. Why an acting book, you ask? Most of the good playwrights that I know are also good actors, which points to the fact that the more you know about acting, the better playwright you will be. Not only will it familiarize you with the craft, but it will also allow you to provide opportunities for great acting within your work as a writer.

Unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with any good resources about writing for musical theatre, however the main principles of writing straight plays holds true for all musicals. I'm sorry that I couldn't provide you with anything more extensive or personal, but if you are serious about writing for the stage, these are the best resources I can give you. But if you want to definitely get better, there is nothing more important than reading as many plays and seeing as much live theatre that you can get your hands on.

Hope this helps! And good luck.

The Power of the Playwright's Vision by Gordon Farrell: I have the privilege of being able to learn from Gordon Farrell directly this year (he is, among other things, a professor at NYU's Dept. of Dramatic Writing) and I cannot endorse his genius enough. His understanding of the techniques and mechanisms that playwrights use in their craft is mind-boggling, and they're catalogued in this book in a surprisingly digestible way. The best thing about this book is that it isn't prescriptive; Farrell doesn't tell you "this is how you write a naturalist play" or "this is where you would always put a reversal." Rather, he familiarizes you with all the tools you can use to write an effective script and how to combine them. To me, this is as good as it gets.

Three Uses of the Knife by David Mamet: This is a slightly more controversial (and much shorter) text, in which famed playwright David Mamet sits down and tells you what it's all about, man. It's rather rambly, and some people say it's contradictory, but I absolutely love the way he breaks down dramatic technique in informal ways. It's tangential and a bit of a mess at times, but you get a sense of why Mamet's plays are so damn good. Farrell's guide you understand rationally, this one you just experience.

Those are my two favorites, and I highly recommend you read both.

EDIT: Forgot about a very important piece of information that you probably already know but that I'll toss in regardless. Reading books on playwriting is a good way to get better, but the best way to get better is to write more plays. There is no better teacher than experience (read: catastrophic failure). Yes, reading books is a great way to understand the techniques and basic structure you can use, but don't cling to the things you read about. Martin McDonagh--arguably today's most successful playwright--came to prominence by writing plays that actually disrespected theatrical convention through his elaborate staging and action sequences (smashing skulls with hammers, shooting cats, shooting an oven with a shotgun). He didn't study classical playwriting techniques, he watched a lot of movies and read Jorge Luis Borges and brought that to the stage.

Basically what I'm saying is: finding your voice is worth a great deal more than learning the "right" way to write.

There are definitely guidelines. Some are strict, but many of them can be bent.

Your script says "awesome as fuck". I don't know what that means. I need you to explain it. What makes it awesome? That's how you have to spell things out in a script.

But great work on hammering out a screenplay! If you're interested, here are some good books on screenwriting:

• Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting
  
• The Screenwriter's Workbook
  
• How to Write a Movie in 21 Days
  
• Essentials of Screenwriting
  
• The Dramatic Writer's Companion
  
• Save The Cat!
  
  The line you mention from Django is really good. We see that it is a stereotypical western town. We all know exactly what that looks like because we gave seen those millions of towns in westerns before. For your line, we all have different interpretations as to what "awesome as fuck" is.
  
  Did you use Celtx? If not, try it. Great free screenwriting software.

Okay, so I was browsing your wish lists and this scarf holder made me (i'm somewhat lame...) really excited! I haven't seen one before and it would solve my scarf storage issues... I'm a flouncy Drama student, I own a lot of flouncy colourful scarves, but never know where to keep them. You are one smart cookie. :)

This book is very high on my book wish list right now, because I'm writing a play. And why is that awesome? Because I'm writing a play! And directing it! And I'm excited... :P

Anyway, long post... let's be twinsies :)

The Playwright's Guidebook: An Insightful Primer on the Art of Dramatic Writing by Stuart Spencer has a list of plays to read.

You should read the major Greek plays, all the Shakespeare plays, and plays by Ibsen and Anton Chekhov. These plays are referred to so often that you'll be lost if you are unable to catch the frequent references. You definitely need to know what that stupid fucking seagull represents. Stupid Fucking Bird :)

I've noticed that regional theaters are relying heavily on the Pulitzer Prize winning plays for their seasons.

I've been doing a lot of research on theaters in major American cities and this gives me a better idea of what plays are being done. It is also a good way to find new opportunities. For example, lately I have been researching the Los Angeles scene and came across The Road Theatre Company which has a Summer Playwrights Festival. But what I found curious is that they have a theater in the NoHo Senior Arts Colony. That is the first retirement home I've seen for creatives with its own theater!

Just reading your description of how you write,

"This happens, and now this happens, and now this happens..."

Write with more life, write with action.

Don't settle for, "Like a mad man he jumped into the car. Then he sped off. As he was driving he skidded across some black ice."

Change it up, we know that whatever you are writing comes after what you just said, you don't need to tell us that. Only most of us are morons, not all of us.

Just say what you want to say. Use action verbs and words. We can fill in the rest.

When I re-read what you wrote, I see that you also want to have some highs and lows alternating between sentences or groups of sentences. Like bobross1313 says, get the words on the page first, then after you've got your 50,000, re-read it and then add in the zest where you want it. I couldn't tell you who said it, probably a bunch of different people, but you are going to have to go through your writing at least once more after you've written it. NaNoWriMo is only about quantity, not quality.

Not only that, but after you've written 50,000 words, you're a little better of a writer so when you go back to re-read it won't seem nearly as good as when you first wrote it because you are a better writer. The same thing will happen the next time you go through it because you will get better each time. The only way to get better is to write more and read more and then write some more.

You can do it.

It's all about action.

You might want to check out this book too, "The Scene Book".

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0143038265/

It may help you to structure your scenes a little better and understand how a scene is set up.

Hi and welcome here :)

I bought the Amazon kindle version

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Modern-Classics/dp/1472574737/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466151698&sr=8-1&keywords=Love%2C+Love%2C+Love+%28Modern+Classics%29+mike+bartlett

of course from my Amazon site, I don't know where you live so I linked the .com one ;) Hope this can help and good luck! :)

To give you a few examples of great contemporary writers :

• England : Lucy Kirkwood's Chimerica, a great political play
  
  
• Sweden : Khemiri's Invasion! and I call my brothers, intelligent and funny plays.
  
  
• France : Michel Vinaver's Overboard is one of french's theatre masterpiece of the last 50 years.
  
  
• Norway : Jon Foss, for example with Autumn Dream, write poetic and understated masterpieces.
  
  
• Japan : Oriza Hirata (People of Seoul) is one of their great modern playwright, but I'm not sure he's translated into english.

David Edgar's 'How Plays Work' is an absolute bible. It doesn't tell you how to specificity write a play, but it shows how other popular plays have been written. Very good read. That man has seen every play ever preformed!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1854593714/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=&sr=

You might check out Marsha Norman's 5 questions. You answer the questions, you got yourself a plot, and it's helped me figure out serious plot problems.

1.) This is a play about a __. (protagonist, character)
2.) The wants but . (driving action of the plot)
3.) It all takes place in . (setting, mood)
4.) Along the way the learns . (turn, character arc, denoument)
5.) The audience knows it's all over when __. (the dramatic question)

Also! This was/is required reading for playwriting MFAs. (AND it's an easy read) https://www.amazon.com/Plays-Work-Nick-Hern-Books-ebook/dp/B009YMCJ2C

Good luck!

Cool. Glad to help.

Here's the two books that I was referring to. It's definitely a trap to start buying screenwriting books or writing books -- however, there are couple of key nuggets I've only recently uncovered.

Cheers.

https://www.amazon.com/21st-Century-Screenplay-Comprehensive-Tomorrows/dp/1935247034

https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1936891026/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473978726&sr=1-1&keywords=the+war+of+art

My top two favorites:

Moving Beyond Words: Essays on Age, Rage, Sex, Power, Money, Muscles: Breaking the Boundaries of Gender by Gloria Steinem, one of the mothers of feminism. This has her famous essay on Freud (and what the world would be like if we lived in a matriarchy - for example, periods would be celebrations instead of shamed) and lots of other great essays.

The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, a modern script beloved by young feminists.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
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I highly recommend "Beneath the Silver Rose" ($.99 promotion for Valentine's day) There are two books in this series out with more to come. This book is a heroic fantasy for adults. There have been five reviews so far, all 5 stars!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MZ1LJDC/

Jerzy Grotowski - Towards a Poor Theatre

Antonin Artaud - The Theatre and Its Double

Bertolt Brecht - Brecht on Theatre

Jacques Ranciere - The Emancipated Spectator

Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle

Del Close + Charna Halpern - Truth in Comedy

Extreme Exposure - An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the 20th Century

New Downtown Now - An Anthology of New Theatre from Downtown New York

Those books should give you a good introduction to directing in the theatre outside of traditional American realism. Where were you hoping to go to school?

Invisible Ink

https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Ink-Practical-Building-Resonate/dp/0984178627

This one only has one point but it separates the shallow from writing that resonates and tells you why.



These go a long way but I think experience helps you understand why this list is so good.
http://www.aerogrammestudio.com/2013/03/07/pixars-22-rules-of-storytelling/


This books got a couple of important points particularly talking about "character vs plot" and the "unity of opposites"

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0671213326/ref=mp_s_a_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491923420&sr=8-1-fkmr0&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=lejos+egri

Ok, spend $20 on a book (I recommend this one ) and spend the rest on beer.

Learn to invent an interesting character that wants something and you'll have so many ideas that you're excited about that the problem will be choosing one. Think of an interesting character....then add WANTS TO and get busy.

Lets play a game:

Guess the movies:

• A ninja detective who dresses as a bat WANTS TO stop a madman who wants to destroy his city
  
  
• A lonely socially challenged Vietnam vet WANTS TO
  save a young prostitute from her pimp
  
  
• A family man and sheriff in a coastal town who is afraid of water WANTS TO stop a shark whose feeding on tourists.
  
  
• A boxer WANTS to retrieve his dads gold watch while a gangster boss puts a hit out on him, meanwhile gangsters who talk about cheeseburgers and foot massages WANT TO dispose of a dead body and they run into a couple who WANTS TO rob the diner they are in (Tarantino breaks rules but he knows to follow the most important one)...
  
  My movie:
  
  
• A vampire who treats her vampirism like a job WANTS TO escape the cop and vampire hunter on her trail:
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HG8kFCH1V5E
  
  Get this:
  
  https://www.amazon.com/Art-Dramatic-Writing-Creative-Interpretation/dp/0671213326/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1510115359&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+dramatic+writing
  
  What's your genre?
  
  Ill give you an idea or two (for free). Ideas are easy, pulling them off is the tricky part.
  

The book that got me through my first draft was [Naked Playwriting] (https://www.amazon.com/Naked-Playwriting-Craft-Life-Laid/dp/1879505762) by William Downs and Robin Russin, I would recommend it to anyone looking for advice!

The Screenwriter's Bible

Writing Movies: The Practical Guide to Creating Stellar Screenplays

Naked Playwriting: The Art, the Craft, and the Life Laid Bare

And browse Simply Scripts.

I wouldn't have passed this. Your writing is incredibly flowery, your description is overwrought while managing to convey absolutely nothing, you adverb and adjective all over the place...
Sorry to be harsh, but you need to pick up some books on the absolute basics of fiction writing. I recommend:
http://www.amazon.com/Scene-Book-Primer-Fiction-Writer/dp/0143038265/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291362532&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Writing-10th-Anniversary-Memoir-Craft/dp/1439156816/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291362561&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Style-4th-William-Strunk/dp/0205313426/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291362620&sr=8-1

I totally used to have a book called "Nazi Psychoanalysis". It was super heavy, so I never got very far through it, but I had it because it was by the guy who wrote "The Vampire Lectures", which I was using for a paper. I DO have a book that seems silly, but is really gripping in regards to the historical examples.

This is a really good book. Intended for stage and screen plays, but the foundations work for any type of writing. A bunch of exercises to try

Uh... I feel like you're kind of burying the lead, here...

Reminder that the writer of American Dragon, Jeff Goode, also wrote a play called Poona the Fuckdog, which had its cover/poster drawn by Jay Naylor.

I don't think this story happened, but then again Jeff goode made this

Read this and this