Writing & Selling Drama Screenplays: A Screenwriter's Guide for Film and Television

By Lucy V. Hay

It may be drama features that win the most awards and kudos from critics, but in the current marketplace you're unlikely to sell a drama screenplay in the way you would a genre script.

Breaking down the nuts and bolts of what differentiates drama from genre, Writing and Selling Drama Screenplays considers questions such as:

• What is 'emotional truth'?
• What separates stereotypical and authentic characters?
• What are the different types of drama feature screenplay?
• How do we make these films, when there's 'no money'?
• What are the distribution opportunities for dramas?
• Exploring the ways in which drama and authenticity work, it will empower screenwriters to make their own story and character choices, so they can write and also help to package, finance and even make their own drama features.

Writing and Selling Drama Screenplays includes detailed case studies of produced dramas made on both shoestring and bigger budgets, and industry insights from their writers, directors and producers. It looks in-depth at Scottish BAFTA-winning Night People, the iconic coming out movie Beautiful Thing, the touching New Orleans drama Hours, starring the late Paul Walker, and the ambitious true story of Saving Mr Banks, based on the battle of wills between Mary Poppins author PL Travers and Walt Disney himself. It also discusses films such as Brokeback Mountain, American Beauty, The King's Speech, Juno, Erin Brockovich, Changeling and Girl, Interrupted.

'A top-notch, cutting-edge guide to writing and selling, not just practical but inspirational. Lucy's distinctive voice infuses the entire journey. Quite brilliant. Here's the woman who'll help you make things happen' - Barbara Machin, award-winning writer & creator of Waking the Dead

'Delivers the stirring call to arms that writers must not only write, but take their work to the next level themselves, making sacrifices and taking risks if they want to see their stories on screen' - Chris Jones, Filmmaker, Screenwriter & Creative Director at the London Screenwriters Festival

Check out Lucy V. Hay's other screenwriting books: Writing & Selling Thriller Screenplays and Writing Diverse Characters for Fiction, Film and TV

• Language: English
• Publisher: Creative Essentials
• Release date: Oct 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781843444138

Lucy V. Hay

Lucy V. Hay is an author, script editor and blogger who helps writers via her Bang2write consultancy. She is the associate producer of Brit thrillers Deviation (2012) and Assassin (2015), both starring Danny Dyer, and has consulted on a huge number of award-winning films over the past decade. Lucy is head reader for the London Screenwriters' Festival and has written several novels, including her crime fiction debut The Other Twin (2017, Orenda Books) and two other books for the Creative Essentials series: Writing & Selling Drama Screenplays and Writing & Selling Thriller Screenplays. She lives in Devon with her husband, three children, five cats and a bunch of African Land Snails.