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The Secret Life of Plays

The book is an analysis of the creative process of playwriting. As a contribution to the pedagogy of creative writing, it is written for practioners, and is a culmination of many years of practice-as-research undertaken by Steve Waters both as a prolific writer of plays and as a teacher of playwriting at Birmingham and then UEA. Drawing on a wide range of plays, both historical and modern, The Secret Life of Plays examines the continuities, conventions and trade secrets that govern their writing. Waters takes the reader through the key elements of dramatic writing, scenes, acts, time, space, characters, language and images to show how plays are more than the sum of their parts, but are vital and living organisms.