Category: Uncategorized
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Writer’s Block Solutions: Sharper Dialogue & Stronger Stakes
Every writer gets stuck somewhere down the line. It doesn’t matter how many plays you’ve written or how many drafts you’ve survived, at some point, the words stop flowing, and the story that felt so alive yesterday suddenly looks like a flat line on a heart monitor. You need some writer’s block solutions! Most people…
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Playwriting CompetitionTips: How to Smash the 10-Page Sift
Every writer who submits to competitions like the BBC Writers Open Call knows the first hurdle: the 10-page sift. Before anyone engages with your characters’ full journey, those opening pages decide whether your script makes it to the next round. That’s not just about story—it’s about readability, rhythm, and confidence in your craft. That sift is brutal. But…
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10 Inspiring Gift Ideas for Writers
Writers are a unique breed. We live in worlds of imagination, and we wrestle with words until they sing. And we often spend long hours alone with our thoughts, so, choosing gifts for writers can feel daunting Indeed, what do you give someone whose greatest joy is a blank page and a pen? The answer:…
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10 Playwriting Exercises to Sharpen Craft and Spark Imagination
You wouldn’t run a marathon without warming up; likewise, it can be difficult to sit at your desk expecting yourself to be ready to commit ideas to the page without mentally preparing yourself. And this is where playwriting exercises come in, helping us test our language, structure, and tone in the privacy of the draft.…
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Writing my Debut Novel: Autumn Leaf – a thriller
I’ve been writing stage plays for over twenty years and, over the years, I’ve published a range of collections, including Plays: One, The Two Handers, The Three Handers, and a list of individual plays. But I’d never written a novel. Until now. In this blog, I’ll tell you about my first thriller, Autumn Leaf and…
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WriteForTheStage Prize for New Writing: Leeches, by Kieran Scott
We’re very excited to announce the publication of Leeches by Kieran Scott: the winner of the WriteForTheStage Prize for New Writing 2025 at the Greater Manchester Fringe. The first prize is a publication with WriteForTheStage Books, and we proudly announce that the play text is now available on Amazon. This marks a major milestone for…
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How to Write a Play That Gets Read: Your First 10 Pages
If you’re learning how to write a play—or refining one for submission—you’ve probably heard of the dreaded 10-page sift. It’s the moment your script either earns a full read—or gets quietly shelved. Brutal? Yes. But it’s also an opportunity. Because if you know how to make those first ten pages explode off the page, you’re…
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What is a Digital Writing Retreat? (And 5 Focus Tips for Writers)
Do you get easily distracted while writing? Do you have a piece you’re desperate to write but can’t find the time? Are you struggling to get to the heart of the matter? These are all common problems for writers of all experience, which is why writing retreats are so popular. But, they’re super-expensive, setting you…
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The story of Born in the USA – the play, not the album!
It started with watching the telly. Many things do. My friend Martin Jameson frequently begins our conversations with ‘Have you seen………?’ and, invariably, the answer is no. So when he asked me if I’d seen the HBO series The Vietnam War, written by Ken Burns, the answer was a typical ‘no’. So I watched it. It was not an easy watch. The…
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Plotting the Kill: Thriller Structure for the Stage
How to Build Suspense, Surprise, and Emotional Stakes in Live Performance Thrillers thrive on tension, misdirection, and the slow drip of dread. But unlike film or fiction, theatre demands a different kind of suspense—one that unfolds in real time, with limited space, live actors, and no edits. The audience is right there, breathing with the…