Customer Reviews

Perfect 10: Writing and Producing the 10-Minute Play

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Most how-to-write guides are completely worthless. Once you've learned your grammar and have the concepts of conflict and resolution mastered, the writer's ard lapses into something some people can do and some people can't, and no one really knows why. I keep buying how-to-write books, like this one by Gary Garrison, hoping one will eventually deliver more.

Well, this one delivers. By assuming the reader has already tried at least some writing, the paradigm shifts from simple instruction to specific points that green writers often need fine-tuned. Garrison seems more like a copy editor at times, making suggestions for clarity and story efficiency, than a mere how-to writer.

The book is slim, little more than a pamphlet, and the conversational tone sometimes comes across as flippant, so not everyone will enjoy working with it. Also, there's only about so much you can learn from reading a book; if you expect your work to be magically transformed by Garrison's charisma and ability, you're in for a sore disappointment.

However, this book is more useful than not. The two most useful chapters are Five and Seven. In Chapter Five, Garrison interviews experienced ten-minute play producers, who make some actual nuts-and-bolts suggestions to improve the average young playwright's style. In Seven, Garrison reprints five whole ten-minute plays and asks astute study questions about them.

This book is no magic bullet. Writing remains hard work, and plenty of it. However, for a new writer looking to expand skill and depth in writing, this book helps you avoid the pitfalls that beleaguer those who insist on going it alone.

I was very pleased with the way this book was written and organized. As a fledgling author of ten minute plays, I found Mr. Garrison's book to be very helpful, witty and professionally done. His experience as director of ten minute play festivals is invaluable to anyone planning on doing the same. As a member of a community theater looking to include ten minute plays in their repetoire over the next few years, Mr. Garrison's book has given me a good idea of what I'm in for. Well worth the price of the book.

I have used this book with my beginning playwriting students for several years now. It gives excellent parameters for beginning playwrights to keep in mind. In educationalese, you might call the book a set of rubrics for the young wrtier.

Perfect 10: Writing and Producing the 10-Minute Play

I have selected this book as supplementary to my college playwriting course for 2009. I think it fits well with my primary text and provides a good, easy to follow, process for writing and workshopping a ten-minute play. I expect the book will enhance my course and make playwriting more interesting to my students.

This was just the type of book I was looking for - one specifically addressing the 10-Minute play, a creature different from any other theatrical endeavor. I found the book easy to understand, well organized and very informative. I think it could have spent a little more time on the mechanics but overall it will be a great help in teaching my theatre arts students how to write 10-Minute plays for class and for the various festivals that now feature them.

I started reading this books with great enthusiasm - and approximately first 30 pages were really interesting - the author gives brief and precise advice on the sturcture of 10-minute plays. I should admit - I have copied those hints into my working note-book and have already started using them. But as for the rest of the book (i.e. chapters on "producing") I would say it is the useless waiste of paper, more like if-you-are-idiot-I-can-help-you style text, full of primitive statements - absoluetaly nothing new, original. Endless and boring pages on how the play can be better sold to a theater. With one exeption - there are several plays of different authors written specially for this book, kind of demonstration of what Mr Garrison meant to say. Though, they can really teach you something, and namely, how NOT to write.
On the whole, the book seemed still useful for me (thanks to those chapters on sturcture) and I rate it with 3 stars.