Action!: Writing Your Own Play

Booklist - Ian Chipman

"Two new entries in the picture-book-size Writer’s Toolbox series explore two very different mediums—plays and comics—but, taken together, underscore the importance of basic fundamentals in effective writing. Both books combine original artwork and a number of “Tools” to get the creative juices flowing. Action! uses the classic story of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt to illuminate the 14 tools budding playwrights should keep in their arsenal, ranging from suggestions to plan out and cast your story first, to tips about stage directions, dialogue, and props. Throughout, Beacon’s art depicts scenes of the two J. J. J. Schmidts engaged in goofy high jinks alongside excerpts from the script. Art Panels, Bam! Speech Bubbles, Pow! features a young girl creating a comic about a dog and his lost bone and starts out with fairly broad directives to read other graphic novels for inspiration and brainstorm story ideas, before getting into graphic-novel-specific tips on laying out panel arrangements and dabbling in emanata and speech bubbles. When the tools get a bit vague (like how exactly to go about making thumbnail sketches), the art picks up the slack to more clearly convey what is being discussed. A handful of “Getting Started Exercises” provide even more fodder for artistic inspiration in these genuinely good-natured and helpful introductions to creative writing." - Booklist

March 15, 2011