Yves Lavandier’s book Writing Drama currently rates as the absolute favorite of our book reviewer Jack Brislee.
To give you the opportunity to delve into Lavandier’s amazing knowledge and insight, we will be publishing a weekly excerpt from the book.
Today we start off with an easy introduction. And a warning…
Writing by Numbers: a warning
If a cookery book instructs you to place given quantities of eggs, flour, sugar and butter into an oven and set the temperature to 180 degrees for 45 minutes, the chances are you will produce a very tasty quatre-quarts pastry.
This is not because the rules are easy to explain but because they are easy to apply. At times the rules set out in this book will appear just as easy. But as I have already noted in the Introduction, the reader must bear in mind that it is the implementation that is the hard part.
It is not understanding the rules that requires talent but putting them into practice. Knowing what to do is one thing, being able to do it is another.
Becoming a successful writer, it has often been observed, takes 5 percent talent and 95 percent hard work. A book like this (or any similar guide to writing) can only take the reader so far; it is not enough to have read and understood it in order to become a skilled writer of drama (or even a competent script reader). That would be too easy.
-Yves Lavandier
If this excerpt has whetted your appetite and you would like to own this book, don’t fork out the $150 or so Amazon is charging. Instead, send an email to the publisher contact@clown-enfant.com with subject ‘the story department referral’ and you will be eligible for the super-discounted price of 30 Euros (i.e. only $37 at the time of writing). This saves you $113 (or 75%) off the Amazon cost.Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.
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