Solving Your Script : Tools and Techniques for the Playwright

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Summary: Sweet Offers a Welcome Follow-up
Review: "The Dramatists Toolkit" collected much of the common-sense wisdom playwright and teacher Jeff Sweet has accumulated in his highly successful career. In "Solving Your Script," he does the service of offering a workbook-style companion piece.

Sweet doesn't claim to be offering any pedagogically-structured tutorial; rather, both books offer a variety of lessons into which the reader may dip freely when a particular question or need arises. His aptly-named first book called itself a "Toolbox", into which a worker may reach for the tool which is needed at that moment. The follow up provides a collection of exercises in the use of those same tools.

I'm a playwright with over thirty professional productions, and I also teach from time to time, and I have found Mr. Sweet's book tremendously useful in both areas. His is a friendly voice which welcomes the reader as a collaborator, never straying into a pedantic or professorial tone. I recommend it highly to anyone who has any interest in the theatre, whether as artist, teacher, or passionate audience member.

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Summary: The only worthwhile sort of playwriting text...
Review: ...is the one that actually addresses what you do when you write.

Jeffrey Sweet, in his Dramatist's Toolkit, looked at what playwrights actually do when they are writing, but spent a relatively short time with each subject. Solving Your Script is a wonder, taking those ideas and going into them in depth. Sweet presents, for each topic, some discussion, an example from his own scripts, an exercise, and then several annotated responses to the exercises. Often, Sweet will teach as much in the notes for each exercise as in the rest of the book.

Each lesson is an invaluable aid in the method of creating not a play - Sweet does very little by way of play discussion - but a scene. The book looks at ways to generate and bring out conflicts between and within characters, how to actually craft scenes that will captivate your audience. This is such a fresh and useful approach that I do not think that there is a peer to Solving Your Script. The only book to come close is Michael Wright's worthy Playwriting in Process.

Everybody's got an opinion on play structure and how you ought to write your play and what should be at the center of it. There are a lot of prescriptivist texts on playwriting out there. The formula books, of which there are many, will at best frustrate you and at worst help you to turn out a formulaic, forgettable play. Sweet's book will help you refine your dramatic skills. Buy this along with his Dramatist's Toolkit and Wright's Playwriting in Process for a trifecta of tools for honing your playwriting instincts.

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Summary: Another great book for playwrights!
Review: I didn't think Jeffrey Sweet could top The Dramatist's Toolkit, which is full of insightful analyses of well known plays and related advice to playwrights. Solving Your Script is equally engaging and useful. It comes at the subject of playwriting from another perspective. It, too, is full of advice, but it also offers not just writing exercises, but samples of completed exercises with detailed critiques. I admire the practical, specific ideas in both of Sweet's books, and I recommend them both.

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Summary: Worth the Money
Review: I've read several books that explained how to follow the three-act structure in writing a movie or play.

But Jeff Sweet's books include specific ideas writers can use to improve their work line by line.

Negotiation over objects, the power of the unspoken word and violation of rituals are some of the devices Sweet explores in his book.

Each idea is amply illustrated with scenes written by students which are accompanied by Sweet's comments.

This book will enable you to improve your work as a playwright/screenwriter.

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Summary: Great Addition To Scriptwriting Library
Review: Jeff's book is a welcome and helpful addition to a playwright's library. It's a book that I refer to often. It's a great companion to The Dramatists' Toolkit.

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Summary: A Noble Companion to "The Dramatist's Toolkit"
Review: Since Jeffrey Sweet's "The Dramatist's Toolkit" is the book I recommend when people ask me about playwriting books, I ordered "Solving Your Script" as soon as I knew it was available.

As I began reading it, I was disappointed--most of the exercises are obvious to anyone who has read "Toolkit." (In fact last year I won a contest with a ten minute play I wrote as an exercise based on "Toolkit's" suggestion that characters' negotiation over an object can reveal their relationship.)

As I continued reading, I realized that the benefit this book provides new and veteran playwrights is not the exercises; the guts of this book is the analysis Sweet provides for the scenes used to illustrate the exercises. Sweet teaches playwriting both at New York's Actors Studio and on the internet. "Solving Your Script" includes not only his own work but also scenes from his students. He footnotes the student scenes (sometimes on a line by line basis) to point out what he thinks works well and what he thinks could be rewritten. While reading any single set of footnotes is instructive, the cumulative weight of reading comments on scene after scene is significant. After reading the entire book, the attentive reader may feel she's saved herself a semester's tuition.

From now on, when I'm asked for a recommendation for a playwriting book, I'll probably recommend that playwrights buy both "The Dramatist's Toolkit" and "Solving Your Script" and consider them a two volume set.

Rating:
Summary: Nuts and Bolts
Review: The thing I appreciate most about Jeffrey Sweet's books on playwriting is the specific approach he takes. In both books he presents lessons, concrete exercises you can do yourself that illustrate the interaction between characters through what they say. SOLVING YOUR SCRIPT has an advantage over his first book in that it contains student writings which Sweet can use to point out what works and what might hinder a scene.

Rating:
Summary: Nuts and Bolts
Review: The thing I appreciate most about Jeffrey Sweet's books on playwriting is the specific approach he takes. In both books he presents lessons, concrete exercises you can do yourself that illustrate the interaction between characters through what they say. SOLVING YOUR SCRIPT has an advantage over his first book in that it contains student writings which Sweet can use to point out what works and what might hinder a scene.

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Summary: Excellent "sequel" to The Dramatists' Toolkit
Review: This book is an excellent "sequel" to Jeffrey Sweet's earlier playwriting book, The Dramatists' Toolkit. Scenes written by students and lesser-known playwrights are included along with detailed (sometimes line-by-line) analysis and criticism. I found this book helpful as well as interesting. Highly recommended!

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Summary: Narrow view of the playwright's craft
Review: This is a case of "playwright beware". While Sweet has had some success as a playwright and also as a teacher, the beginning writer would do well to sample both of Sweet's books with caution. He presents some interesting techniques for approaching the art and craft of scriptwriting, but they only work well for the kind of plays Sweet himself writes. The biggest tipoff is that he doesn't reference any scripts but his own! He also uses student works for criticism, most of which aren't very readable, much less helpful. Anyone who reads widely from contemporary theatre soon recognizes that most of the techniques Sweet espouses are pretty much ignored at one point or another by successful commercial playwrights whose works are being produced on and off Broadway and in regional theatres.

And that's another weakness of Sweet's method: he doesn't adequately stress the importance of reading every script you can get your hands on, as well as seeing as much live theatre as possible. Maybe he just assumes that's a given, but with novice writers you shouldn't assume anything. Both his books would have been greatly strengthened by quoting illustrative passages from other playwrights' works that have been widely produced. He also doesn't touch on the larger structure of a full-length play and how to create an interesting, stageworthy story from beginning to end. Where is one to go with all these intense little "scenelets" he has you create?

Admittedly there are precious few books to help aspiring playwrights, so Sweet's efforts are appreciated, as far as they go. He does offer a logical way to think about the scriptwriting process, but neither of his books will be of much use to anyone who is aiming to get produced commercially unless they find their own way past his limiting view. As many respected playwrights have stated before, the best education may be the one you get in a darkened theatre after the house lights have gone down! Save your money and go buy a ticket instead.