{"id":22522,"date":"2015-08-15T00:01:09","date_gmt":"2015-08-15T07:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=22522"},"modified":"2015-08-15T00:01:09","modified_gmt":"2015-08-15T07:01:09","slug":"crime-novelist-david-corbett-acting-taught-him-how-to-write-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/crime-novelist-david-corbett-acting-taught-him-how-to-write-scenes\/","title":{"rendered":"Crime Novelist David Corbett: Acting Taught Him How to Write Scenes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"david<\/a>
David Corbett, author of “The Mercy of the Night,” spoke at a meeting of the Left Coast Writers. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

What’s the best way to master the art of scene writing? By acting out scenes by\u00a0the play-writing biggies. That’s the advice of writer David Corbett.<\/p>\n

Speaking to a meeting of the Left Coast Writers last week,\u00a0Corbett described\u00a0an acting class he took early in his career. “I learned to write by acting out scenes,” he said.<\/p>\n

“From Arthur Miller I learned how to dramatize an idea.\u00a0From Harold Pinter I learned subtext. And from Tennessee Williams I learned character, character, character.”<\/p>\n

\"Cover<\/a><\/p>\n

Thanks to Jon, who accompanied me to the monthly\u00a0Left Coast Writers<\/a> meeting\u00a0at Book Passage in Corte Madera, California, we now have a copy of Corbett’s latest crime novel, “The Mercy of the Night,”<\/a> in the house.<\/p>\n

Normally, I’m not drawn to mystery, crime or thrillers — too scary; I’m a wimp. But Jon likes those genres, so much so that he’s been spending his afternoons actually writing that stuff, a thriller in his case.<\/p>\n

As for me, I went home with a copy of Corbett’s book on writing, “The Art of Character.” If there’s\u00a0one thing I enjoy almost as much\u00a0writing — it’s reading about writing.<\/p>\n

If you enjoyed this post, you might like “Tulips and Sex: Writing as If Everyone I Know Were Dead.”<\/a>\u00a0 Also, “You’ve Got the Agent, You’ve got the Publisher — But Do You Have the Publicist?”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Cover<\/a><\/p>\n

What’s the best way to master the art of scene writing? By acting out scenes by\u00a0the playwriting biggies. That’s the advice of writer David Corbett. Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,52],"tags":[633,1523,1524,1525,29,630,197,69],"class_list":["post-22522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-the-writing-room","tag-book-passage","tag-crime-novels","tag-david-corbett","tag-fiction","tag-jon","tag-left-coast-writers","tag-the-writing-room-2","tag-writing-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}