Prior to penning plays Dave was a full-time writer for the Hull Daily Mail, a theatre critic for The Stage and a television, film, video and book reviewer for The Big Issue in the North.
During the course of a glittering career as a freelance journalist, he has worked for publishing giant Emap, whatsonstage.com, The Scotsman, Artscene, The Big Issue, numerous websites, several regional newspapers and as a copywriter.
Some of his fine, witty prose has been included in a Letts’ GCSE English study guide as an example of descriptive language and he has also worked as a college lecturer.
By now, you will be thinking that Dave is a pretentious arty type that wears a lot of corduroy. He is, but he has also been employed as a bricklayer, a milkman and a debt collector.
Try Dave's writing exercise...
Often, what is happening off-stage or in the minds of the characters in a play is more important than what occurs on stage. However, very often what those actions and the implications of those actions might be are ambiguous and left to an audiences imagination, as the writer simply writes the stage direction “He exits” or “she picks up the vase”.
Read several pages of a play with more than two characters. Then, using those characters, write another short piece, based on the thoughts, actions and feelings that you imagine the characters are undertaking and going through. When they exit, what are they doing? Who are they meeting? When they move from stage left to stage right, what are they thinking?
You can apply this technique to your own work to add extra dimensions to your play and its characters. Try it!
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