Screenwriting vs. Playwriting

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > SCREENWRITING > PLAYS vs. FILM >

'. . . the purpose of a screenplay is to tell the story so the audience wants to know what happens next, and to tell it in pictures. Movies are basically about plot. They're about the structure of incidents, one incident causing the next to happen. A play doesn't have to be that. It has to have a plot as some sort of spine, but the spine can be very simple: two guys waiting for Godot to show up.'

-- David Mamet

The Screenwriting section including visual vs. verbal storytelling has been revised and expanded in the new paperback and Kindle edition, Playwriting Seminars 2.0.