(no subject)

I was greatly amused by this Guardian piece entitled "Do You Trust Richard Curtis and Simon Nye with Doctor Who?", whose author appears to think that there's substantial fan outrage at the idea of comedy writers writing Who, and jokingly suggests that this might lead to such outrageous spectacles as Martin Clunes being cast as an alien baddie!

Fans are supplying the obvious in comments. To whit:
a) Steven Moffat trusts Richard Curtis and Simon Nye with Doctor Who
b) Martin Clunes has already been an alien baddie in Doctor Who, in 1983's "Snakedance". The universe did not end.

No, really, are there fans actually complaining because Curtis and Nye are *comedy* writers? And have they looked at Steven Moffat's CV prior to Doctor Who?

Also, I'm sure I'm the last person in fandom not to have seen this, because it's been out for at least a week, but the article links to a Series 5 trailer that looks rather exciting. (Spoilers for the upcoming series, obviously, but not major ones.)

Review: The Elements of Playwriting

The Elements of Playwriting by Louis E. Catron


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Catron has an interestingly top-down approach to playwriting- he actually suggests that a playwright begin by writing a manifesto about what they believe is important in life. Next one should write an essay on what qualities one believes are admirable or heroic, and what actions exemplify these qualities. And so on. Eventually, one ends up with a play.

I suppose I shouldn't knock it until I've tried it, but I've never produced any other piece of fiction in this way, and I'm not sure why a play should be different.

Setting aside that methodological peculiarity, there's a lot of advice in this book that applies pretty well to writing any kind of fiction. It's presented well, but not particularly better than in many other writing books. The information specific to plays in particular was more interesting - there's a particularly good discussion of the differences between writing for the stage and writing for film or television.

My favorite thing in this book were the examples - snippets from actual plays chosen to illustrate particular points, with analysis of what the playwright was doing. I would have liked more of the examples, or indeed longer examples.

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