>> Not necessarily more special than any other mediums in terms of
being a taker in of words, I think most of my history has been given
to reading books and kind of learning to love words in other forms.
But it turned out, when I was starting to put the words out to see how best
I could share them with an audience, whether a visible or a far away one.
But yeah, plays were the natural form that my writing seemed to lend itself to.
Historically, I went through a youth theater.
When I was a child, I developed a lot of theatre from about ten years old and
went to weekly workshops and then a very nice director at one point in my life,
who maybe knew I wasn't the strongest actor, but knew my love was there and
knew my love for words.
Said in this next show, instead of being in it, why don't you write it?
And she gave me the very polite and went intention shift into writing and
since then my career has just evolved in that way.
>> Excellent.
Have you tried writing in other forms?
I mean, have you tried writing poetry,
prose fiction anything apart from your plays?
>> In truth, I think I do more than I acknowledge.
Often my plays, although they are delivered from a stage to a seated
audience in front, they are often direct address and person narratives.
So when you look at the play as it exists on a script,
it's not too dissimilar to a piece of produced fiction.
It has the same unfolding narrative scene from a single narrators perspective.
So, I think it really is a bordering entity in
terms of moving between those two mediums.
And now, I've had the very lovely joy now that my career is a bit more
established to see it move the other.
When if my words, which started on a stage are being looked at by film producers and
by publishers who are interested in asking me to make that jump,
so to place them in the context of a book.
>> Well, let's- >> I want you to write them again,
write them anew as a work for television or film and that's very exciting.
>> Yes.
That's also very interesting,
because one of the things we've been saying in this module is that a good idea.
Maybe something, which you can use perhaps as a play and
then use part of it in a story or even perhaps in a poem.
So you seem to be saying also that a really good idea can be used
in a variety of forms in a play, in a story, other forms as well.
>> Yes, that's right.
Absolutely.
And I think it can sometimes be an impediment to the evolution of an idea,
if we worry too much about the means of distribution, about the form it should
take before we think about the kernel of the idea itself and
the potentiality within that kernel.
Sometimes, it can be nice just to write for
the sake of writing and to be driven by the needs of the story themselves.
And then only retrospectively to say, okay, this is play I'm writing.
Yeah, sometimes we can cut ourselves off at the pass,
if we too quickly force it to sit in a particular framework.
>> Yes.
Now as well as talking about forms of writing in this module,
we've been talking about genres.
The idea of fantasy, realistic writing, historical writing and so on.
Now I know you've written a very successful play about pirate, for example,
but would you say that your writing content fits into any particular genre?
Would you see yourself as a writer of fantasy or
of realistic plays or a mixture?
How would you classify yourself?
>> Sure, I think I aspired to the notion of the mixture, just because as
a writer or an artist in general or even a human, it's nice to push yourself.
It's nice to recognize one form that you've been sitting quite comfortably
in and then see where else you might go.
Personally, that's always been a pleasure.
In terms of the recurring star, whatever that might be,
I think maybe it's magical realism.
So the powerful allegorical nature of a magical realist story,
which means that you're dealing with some fantastical notions.
There may be elements of magic,
there may be characters who aren't wholly of the human world.
An animal may have the capabilities of speech.
But within that, despite these things,
the bedrock of the story is still a very known and real one.
The world should feel very tangible and a watching audience should be
able to see it for the allegorical reflections of their own real world.
I think fantasy, which is truly escapist, which goes to far-flung places and
leaves the real world behind is not so much my bag.
But ones which are essentially existing in human terrain, but
have the permission to venture off where they need to.
That feels like quite a nice compromise.
>> Yes.
>> The magical realism.
>> Great.
Because we have been saying to folk on this course that a combination of genres
and a combination of forms can often be very successful.
Fin, a number of the folk taking this course Just beginning to write,
writing for the first time.
And probably one of their problems is deciding,
whether they want to write plays, stories, poems, etc.
Have you got any advice you'd like to give to writers who are just beginning and
who are trying to make their mind up what it is they should be writing?
>> Sure.
I am reticent and I realize it's ironic in this context to give too much advice,
as I think the thing I love the most in all the writers,
I love on these bookshelves behind me.
It's their personal voice.
It's the take that they have on the art of telling a story and that variation,
that deviation from a form is
David HillAuthor
Maria GillAuthor
Alex AlexandrouDr
