John Graham Jones - Writer -

Articles

How to write plays instead....

Instead? Instead of what?
Instead of short stories. There is no money to be made from writing short stories unless.... but read the booklet "Don't Write Short Stories".
However, there may well be some money to be made out of writing plays.
By 'plays' I mean plays for the stage, plays for radio, scripts for television, scripts for films. Not that there are no differences between these various kinds of 'play', but they can be grouped together because they are similar in the respect that there is no narrative (or rarely - there is, of course, occasionally, the narrator or 'voice over' in films, radio plays and TV plays - more rarely in stage plays).
There are few markets for short stories. Those that once existed are gone. But there are markets for plays. Just look in The Writer's and Artist's Yearbook or The writer's Handbook at the sections on film companies, theatre companies etc. to see how many companies are looking for scripts.
Whereas the money to be made from short stories (and, indeed, novels too) is small, there is a lot of money to be made from writing film and TV scripts; less from radio and even less again from plays for the stage - unless you can sell your play to a professional company and the play is performed in the West End, but this happens rarely to the non-professional writer.
So there are good, practical reasons for trying to write plays and scripts rather than short stories. If you can do it!
Because the fact is that some people can and some can't.
It seems to be a skill that people have or don't have. As if some are born with it and others not.
However, you won't know if you are able to do it if you don't try.
So here, to beging with, a few pointers to the technique of writing plays.

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