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The
Playwright's FAQ
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The Playwright's FAQBy Lynne Harvey, writer-in-residence at the Drayton Court TheatreQ. Are correct punctuation and grammar and correct spelling really essential? A.Will the BBC put out another cop series? Of course it's essential! The English language allows you to express yourself down to the tiniest breath of emotion - but only if understood and used correctly. By understanding the make up, breakdown and many meanings and drifts of words in this language. Don't you love the language you're working with? Then show it respect. Strangely some people think correct grammar equates with 1950's speech. They feel restricted if they have to spell correctly and think it restricts creativity. If you bought a book with sloppy grammar, bad spelling and bad use of English you'd feel insulted wouldn't you? You expect it to be right. You can only be creative when you fully understand the tools you're working with. This is stating the glaringly obvious but many of our words have multi meanings, you as a writer can add even more meaning and understanding to those words, use them in a way that no one has before, bringing insight and beauty to a piece. Bad grammar shows you don't really understand the fluency of this language and how it can be shaped. Bad grammar looks and sounds ugly - yes, sounds ugly. As a scriptwriter your words should leap off the page, they should sound and reverberate in the head of the reader, whether that be theatre reader, director, or actor taking the part. Bad grammar and spelling sounds wrong. It draws your attention like an ink blot or a dead fly on the page. This is a rich language, it moves, grows and changes all the time and part of your work is keeping track of the language. A language that grows and gets richer all the time - albeit slowly. Have you noticed that all those books of 'New Words' seem archaic just five years later? As a lot of the 'new words' were words of that moment, they were usurped very quickly. It takes a long time for words to get accepted and widely recognised and used. As a writer you should be storing all this data and language changes for future use - you never know when you might need it. You're a writer for goodness sake - if you can't understand, respect and create miracles with this language, who can? If you let the language down, it will let you down, the real beauty of it is how you can shape and pull it to your command. If you feel you have no command of it, then you have no confidence with it. How many times have you listened to a period drama to hear them speak circa 1980? I have - many times. It stinks and it makes the writer look a darn fool. As for punctuation, this gives air to your writing, brings life to your writing. Most of us make typos and the odd error, but glaring sloppy errors are ugly and do you no service. As in most things, you can only break the rules if you know them. If you know your language you can play with it and give it life.
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