Comments on: Beau Willimon, Writer Out Of Necessity

By: Camilla Beskow

Camilla Beskow — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 10:13:07 +0000

Hi Steven!

Glad you enjoyed the article.

I agree that it would be great to see less focus on dialogue in theatrical plays. One issue, however, is that in a staged play, you don’t have the options of zooming, showing things from different angles, cutting, etc. So certain things are harder to show on stage than on screen. You can’t just show an image of a clock, and have everyone understand that time’s slipping away, so your characters may have to say so for the audience to understand what’s going on.

I’m glad to hear you’re writing for all genders. Not doing so would be like the guys at Pixar saying “I can’t write Finding Nemo, I’m not a fish.”

Thanks for your comment and good luck with your writing!

By: Steven Fernandez

Steven Fernandez — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 01:31:57 +0000

Plenty of solid, good, points here. For example, that you don’t need to write multi-line dialogue all the time: So true! (I wish theatrical playwrights would finally start learning that lesson!). That writers should be “allowed” to write characters of a gender different to their own: Of course! It’s a contemporary, hyper-sensitised, fallacy that only female writers can write authentic, rich, positive-role-model female characters. That male writers have ‘no clue’ on how to write believable women. (Readers of samples of my own work – of BOTH genders – have told me I do well in this.)

And that writing is a marathon exercise. Also undeniably true. In fact, I have said that myself, on radio, February this year.

And other good points as well, of course …