The Writer's Toolkit: Exercises, Techniques and Ideas for Playwrights and Screenwriters

by Paul Kalburgi

Overview

Perfect for playwrights and screenwriters of all levels of experience, The Writer's Toolkit will equip you with everything required to kickstart your creativity, develop your craft, and make your writing the very best that it can be.

Written by an experienced playwright, screenwriter and producer, this essential book is packed with almost two hundred practical exercises, techniques and ideas for every part of your process, designed to be used either solo or in a group. It includes:

Writing warm-ups to focus your mind and get your creative muscles in gear

Dozens of exercises to strengthen fundamental elements of your writing such as developing characters, improving dialogue, layering in subtext, creating a strong setting and constructing a compelling plot

Immersive-writing techniques to lift the world of your script off the page and allow you to shape it more effectively

A blueprint for writing a ten-minute play – a great way to practise your craft, explore a new idea and add to your portfolio

A Submission Surgery with exercises and pointers so you can review and fine-tune your completed work before sending it out

101 quick-fire writing prompts to help you warm up, take a break from your current project, or just keep you feeling productive

Also included are mindful meditations to use at the beginning and end of your writing sessions, to help you relax, boost your productivity and maximise your creative output.

Whatever you need as a writer – whether that's to crack a problem in your current script, develop ideas for future projects, build up your skills and experience, or bust through writer's block – this book will give you the right tools for the job. So get writing!

'A generous and inventive book, packed full of the creativity it is bound to inspire' Anna Jordan, playwright and screenwriter (Succession, Killing Eve, Yen)

'An enthusiastic, encouraging guide with endless tips to make every stage of the writing process not only doable but enjoyable too' Diane Samuels, playwright and author (Kindertransport)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781788503471
Publisher:	Hern, Nick Books
Publication date:	10/01/2020
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	264
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Paul Kalburgi is a British playwright, screenwriter and television producer. He was awarded Master of Arts (Writing for Screen & Stage) in 2015 by Regent’s University, London.

Select playwriting credits include Broadway or Bust (Bath House Cultural Center, Dallas), In the Tall Grass (Bishop Arts Theatre Center, Dallas; winner of ‘Outstanding New Play’ DFW Theater Critics Forum), Maxine (Stockwell Playhouse, London and Times Square Art Center, New York), Almost The Birthday Party (Etcetera Theatre, London; published by Lazy Bee Scripts), MCN TV (Brockley Jack Theatre, London), Tickled Pink! (Battersea Barge, London), Jack & The Beanstalk (touring, UK and Ireland), and The Countess (Blue Elephant Theatre, London).

Select screenwriting credits include Shortland Street (TVNZ, New Zealand), The Price of Fame (REELZ Channel, USA) and Healing (Revelation TV, UK; winner of ‘Best Song’ (music and lyrics) Concrete Dream Film Festival, Los Angeles). For television, Paul has produced programmes for a host of networks in the UK and USA since 2007, working across genres including celebrity ob-doc, docudrama, lifestyle, factual entertainment and news.

Alongside his writing projects, Paul continues to facilitate writing courses and workshops in the USA, UK and New Zealand. Paul is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

Table of Contents

Introduction xiii

How to Use This Book xv

Acknowledgements xix

Part 1 Mindful Meditation Before Writing 1

1.1 Meet Your Muse 6

1.2 Message in a Bottle 7

1.3 Today is Wonderful 8

Part 2 Warming Up Your Writing Muscle 11

2.1 Freewriting/Freetalking 14

2.2 Pygmalion's Seagull 17

2.3 Zooconomy 18

2.4 Scene-Bombing 20

2.5 Crosswords 23

2.6 One Step Forward 25

2.7 The Inspirator 28

Part 3 The Elements 31

3.1 Character 35

3.1.1 Getting to Know You 36

3.1.2 The Willard Project 39

3.1.3 Remember Me? 42

3.1.4 Stepping Stones 44

3.1.5 All Change, Please 47

3.1.6 Cuddly Toy 50

3.1.7 Fractured Fairy Tales 52

3.1.8 But Why? 54

3.1.9 The Age of Aquarius 55

3.1.10 The Absent Protagonist 57

3.1.11 Flaws and All 59

3.1.12 Daddy or Chips? 61

3.1.13 In Loving Memory 63

3.1.14 Speed-Dating 65

3.1.15 The Day the Characters Quit 68

3.2 Dialogue 71

3.2.1 Unique Voice 72

3.2.2 Lady of the House Speaking 75

3.2.3 I'm Not Being Funny, But… 77

3.2.4 I'll Join You for Dessert 79

3.2.5 Sell it, Don't Tell It 81

3.2.6 We Are What We Speak 83

3.2.7 Listening In 84

3.2.8 Talking in Incomplete… 87

3.2.9 You Sound Familiar?! 89

3.2.10 Emoji Talk 91

3.3 Subtext 93

3.3.1 Writing Between the Lines 94

3.3.2 Elephant in the Room 96

3.3.3 Walls Have Ears 98

3.3.4 I'm Fine. Really 99

3.3.5 And the Winner is… 101

3.3.6 Silence Speaks Volumes 102

3.3.7 That was Our Exit! 104

3.3.8 She Turns and Walks Away 106

3.3.9 Thematic Subtext 107

3.3.10 A Literary Bouquet 109

3.4 Setting 113

3.4.1 Rain Later. Good, Occasionally Poor 114

3.4.2 The City and Sex 117

3.4.3 The Dentist's Chair… on Mars 121

3.4.4 Perspective of Place 123

3.4.5 Beats Keats 125

3.5 PLOT 129

3.5.1 Invisible Exposition 132

3.5.2 Pick a Path 135

3.5.3 Did You Lock the Door? 138

3.5.4 The Six-Million-Dollar Story 140

3.5.5 Baked to Plotfection 143

3.5.6 Change of Fortune 145

3.5.7 The Ticking Time-Bomb 146

3.5.8 Six-Word Stories 149

3.5.9 #Awkward 151

3.5.10 Plots Untwisted 154

Part 4 Immersive Writing 157

4.1 The Writing Space 160

4.2 Post-it Plotlines 166

4.3 Visiting a Soul Place 169

4.4 Method Writing 174

4.5 Get Social 178

Part 5 The Ten-Minute Play 181

5.1 The Perfect Ten 184

Part 6 Submission Surgery 187

6.1 Trimming the Fat 191

6.2 Dialogue Don'ts 193

6.3 Scenes on Trial 195

6.4 The Logline Test 198

6.5 The Pizza Read 200

Part 7 Quick-Fire 101 205

7.1 101 Writing Prompts 208

Part 8 Savasana After Writing 231

8.1 Savasana 234

Alphabetical Index of Exercises 237

Editorial Reviews

"An easy read… there are many themes that will be of value."

British Theatre Guide

"An enthusiastic, encouraging guide with endless tips to make every stage of the writing process not only doable but enjoyable too."

playwright and author (Kindertransport) Diane Samuels

"A generous and inventive book, packed full of the creativity it is bound to inspire."

Anna Jordan

"A goldmine, honest and down-to-earth… Kalburgi manages to achieve more than a theoretical manual on the art of scriptwriting; he invigorates his creatives, cheers them on, and urges them to dust off their notebooks and start scribbling, stirring his reader's imagination with well-calibrated pointers."

Broadway World