The Creative Writing Handbook - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0333792262 ISBN 13: 9780333792261

Publisher: Red Globe Press, 1999

Synopsis

This revised and updated edition of The Creative Writing Handbook now includes new chapters on writing for stage and radio and on writing screenplays for film and television. Written by professional writers and tutors, it covers all aspects of the writing process, from drafting first thoughts to shaping them into polished and publishable work. In a series of lively and stimulating chapters, all major areas of writing are explored, from screen-writing to short fiction, from autobiography to experimental prose. The Handbook offers new and experienced writers a whole range of creative ideas, sound advice and open-ended tasks for exploring experience, mastering technique and thereby releasing the full potential of the imagination. As most taught courses in creative writing are in workshop form, each chapter includes invaluable ideas on how to run group sessions and offer a rich fund of suggestions for developing writing beyond the workshop.

About this title

Review

With more films pouring out of Hollywood and more television stations sprouting up than a couch potato has had TV dinners, most people you talk to nowadays seem to have a film or television treatment bubbling away on their brain's back burner. If you are one of these hopeful cooks, then The Creative Writing Handbook is worth reading for its chapter on screenwriting alone. In fact, the book's range is so broad--from writing for film, stage and radio to short fiction, autobiography and experimental prose--that almost any developing writer will find their concerns addressed. (Different chapters are written by different professional writers and tutors, each an expert in that particular field.)

Authors Meriel Lland and Robin Nelson tell you exactly how to lay out a film and television script--different rules apply--and explain the "plot-resolution writing model" favoured by successful writers (central character faces conflict to you and I). The catch? This conflict has to be resolved over the course of a 90 to 100 page screenplay. With each page equalling one minute of screen time, write any more and your precious script is likely to be binned by a "gofer" solely employed to burrow through a studio's slush pile.

Other helpful chapters are those on writing for stage and radio and journalism. In the former, editor Mary Luckhurst drums home the importance of meaningful dialogue, in the latter, Luckhurst and Betty Princep set varied workshop tasks, from researching your readership and finding article angles, to writing a sports report. Indeed, one of the book's strengths is its workshop tie-ins at the end of each chapter, making it invaluable for anyone teaching creative writing at university or A-Level.

So, if you do have the next Pulp Fiction simmering away in your imagination, stop dreaming and start cooking. --Amanda Cameron

Review

'...The Creative Writing Handbook is worth reading for its chapter on screenwriting alone. In fact, the book's range is so broad - from writing for film, stage and radio to short fiction, autobiography and experimental prose - that almost any developing writer will find their concerns addressed...one of the book's strengths is its workshop tie-in's at the end of each chapter, making it invaluable for anyone teaching creative writing at university or A-Level.' - Amanda Cameron, Amazon.co.uk

Edition details

• Publisher: Red Globe Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0333792262
• ISBN 13: 9780333792261
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Singleton John, Luckhurst Mary