Solving Your Script: Tools and Techniques for the Playwright [Paperback]

Jeffrey Sweet (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0325000530 | ISBN-13: 978-0325000534 | Publication Date: February 15, 2001

Solving Your Script is a hardheaded approach to solving technical problems in scripts. In down-to-earth chapters, award-winning playwright and screenwriter Jeffrey Sweet introduces tools enabling writers to:

• write exposition using the future tense
• make characters vivid even before they appear
• find the idiosyncrasies in a character that will generate story

Each chapter includes a discussion of a particular technique, followed by an assignment from Sweet's workshop and scenes written by his colleagues and students. There are also detailed discussions of what works in the scenes, what is problematic, and why.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

This book came about because a number of the readers of THE DRAMATIST'S TOOLKIT asked me if I had exercises I assigned when teaching. These exercises form the spine of the book, but writing this also gave me the opportunity to explore new ideas I've stumbled on in the years since the publication of THE DRAMATIST'S TOOLKIT. This isn't a book of vague inspiration but one intended to make writers aware of the technical options that face them when trying to tell a story with actors.

From the Inside Flap

You may not be able to study with award-winning playwright and screenwriter Jeffrey Sweet at New York's Actors Studio, but now you can take advantage of the next-best thing -- and you don't have to move to New York. SOLVING YOUR SCRIPT is a virtual workshop in a book, helping you develop the technical muscles you need to write for the stage, film and television.

You'll discover tools to help you:
* write exposition using the future tense
* make characters vivid even before they appear
* find the idiosyncrasies in a character that will generate story.

Each chapter includes a discussion of a particular technique, followed by an assignment from Sweet's workshop and scenes written by his colleagues and students -- with detailed discussions of what works, what doesn't and why.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 236 pages
• Publisher: Heinemann Drama (February 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0325000530
• ISBN-13: 978-0325000534
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #625,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Aside from writing scripts (plays, musicals, TV stuff, the odd screenplay), I write about writing, teach writing, run workshops in improvisation, occasionally direct, and sometimes perform. It is my great pleasure to serve on the Council of the Dramatists Guild, to be resident playwright of the Victory Gardens Theatre of Chicago, to be a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and to be an alum of New Dramatists. I live in New York, but frequently travel to participate in productions of my stuff or to teach guest workshops at universities and professional schools.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the Money, June 10, 2001

By 

House Dad (Louisville, KY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Solving Your Script: Tools and Techniques for the Playwright (Paperback)

I've read several books that explained how to follow the three-act structure in writing a movie or play.

But Jeff Sweet's books include specific ideas writers can use to improve their work line by line.

Negotiation over objects, the power of the unspoken word and violation of rituals are some of the devices Sweet explores in his book.

Each idea is amply illustrated with scenes written by students which are accompanied by Sweet's comments.

This book will enable you to improve your work as a playwright/screenwriter.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sweet Offers a Welcome Follow-up, May 20, 2001

By 

Bo Wilson (Richmond, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Solving Your Script: Tools and Techniques for the Playwright (Paperback)

"The Dramatists Toolkit" collected much of the common-sense wisdom playwright and teacher Jeff Sweet has accumulated in his highly successful career. In "Solving Your Script," he does the service of offering a workbook-style companion piece.

Sweet doesn't claim to be offering any pedagogically-structured tutorial; rather, both books offer a variety of lessons into which the reader may dip freely when a particular question or need arises. His aptly-named first book called itself a "Toolbox", into which a worker may reach for the tool which is needed at that moment. The follow up provides a collection of exercises in the use of those same tools.

I'm a playwright with over thirty professional productions, and I also teach from time to time, and I have found Mr. Sweet's book tremendously useful in both areas. His is a friendly voice which welcomes the reader as a collaborator, never straying into a pedantic or professorial tone. I recommend it highly to anyone who has any interest in the theatre, whether as artist, teacher, or passionate audience member.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Noble Companion to "The Dramatist's Toolkit", May 5, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Solving Your Script: Tools and Techniques for the Playwright (Paperback)

Since Jeffrey Sweet's "The Dramatist's Toolkit" is the book I recommend when people ask me about playwriting books, I ordered "Solving Your Script" as soon as I knew it was available.

As I began reading it, I was disappointed--most of the exercises are obvious to anyone who has read "Toolkit." (In fact last year I won a contest with a ten minute play I wrote as an exercise based on "Toolkit's" suggestion that characters' negotiation over an object can reveal their relationship.)

As I continued reading, I realized that the benefit this book provides new and veteran playwrights is not the exercises; the guts of this book is the analysis Sweet provides for the scenes used to illustrate the exercises. Sweet teaches playwriting both at New York's Actors Studio and on the internet. "Solving Your Script" includes not only his own work but also scenes from his students. He footnotes the student scenes (sometimes on a line by line basis) to point out what he thinks works well and what he thinks could be rewritten. While reading any single set of footnotes is instructive, the cumulative weight of reading comments on scene after scene is significant. After reading the entire book, the attentive reader may feel she's saved herself a semester's tuition.

From now on, when I'm asked for a recommendation for a playwriting book, I'll probably recommend that playwrights buy both "The Dramatist's Toolkit" and "Solving Your Script" and consider them a two volume set.