Playing out

[desperance]

Philip Hensher, writing in the Guardian, wonders why so many brilliant fiction writers turn out atrocious dramas. "It's a curious fact that very few writers have ever been able to write both good novels and good plays. Almost invariably, even the most acclaimed and technically skilled novelist turns into a rank amateur when writing for the theatre."

Guess what I'm doing next, soon as this novel goes away...?

Anyone wants to read the rest of this assassination, it's here.

Thanks, Phil.

Comments

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

It's because it's a *completely* different style of writing. It's sort of like asking why Michael Jordan only made it to the minors in baseball when he was the world's greatest basketball player. It's not that the minors are at all shameful (rather the opposite), it's just that it's a totally different game.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Whoo - do we think it's that different, baseball against basketball? As against, for instance, baseball against cricket: very different rules, very different techniques, but still the same idea at heart, hit and run...?

They're all ways of telling stories, in the end. And it is conspicuous that while he is right, few novelists make good playwrights, a lot of novelists turn to screenwriting as back-up, and some of those do that extremely well.

[At which point, anxious author is entirely distracted by cat playing ridiculously cute, between keyboard and screen, and any hope of being serious flies out the window...]