“Dunne employs his wealth of experience as the current resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, a Charles MacArthur Fellowship honoree, a former O’Neill Theatre Center dramaturg, and an award-winning author of such plays as How I Became an Interesting Person, Love and Drowning, and Hotel Desperado to give writers a blueprint on how to examine their ideas in depth in order to develop their plays and screenplays.”

Judy Samelson, Playbill

“If you are a playwright not yet on the Pulitzer short list, or a screenwriter not yet invited to the Oscars, the best thing you can do is get to Chicago and join Will Dunne’s scriptwriting workshops at Chicago Dramatists. If you can’t do that, the next best thing is to get The Dramatic Writer’s Companion and Character, Scene, and Story and sit down to his exercises. Dunne describes clearly and succinctly how each element of drama works—each beat, each scene, each facet of character and stagecraft—and then he sets you to work to master it. The work leads wide and deep, from the hidden past to the strategies of scene, from objectives to the supernatural, from levels of desire to the pressures of conflict. Every hour’s attention to one of these mental journeys will lead you to know more, imagine better, and write more nimbly.”

Janet Burroway, author of Writing Fiction and Imaginative Writing

“Dunne has taken everything he knows from the powerful dual standpoints of an award-winning playwright and a master teacher to create the book we’ve been waiting for. It’s all there—from every angle and every perspective—how to bring fascinating, fully-developed characters in conflict out into the light and onto the stage.”

Susan Stauter, artistic director, San Francisco Unified School District

“Dunne mixes an artist’s imagination and intuition with a teacher’s knowledge of the craft of dramatic writing. It is an irresistible combination, producing a book which is simultaneously astute and imaginative. . . . No one can teach anyone to become a dramatic writer. But it is possible to learn how to improve your writing skills. It is possible to be provoked into thinking differently, into adding different colors and dimensions to your ideas, to extend the range of images in your head, to startle your imagination; in short, to be inspired into trying new approaches and methods. The Dramatic Writer’s Companion has the potential to do all of that for a writer.”

May-Brit Akerholt, award-winning dramaturg

“A breath of fresh air. Whether you’re working on your first play or your fortieth, preparing a first draft or polishing up a finished piece, The Dramatic Writer’s Companion offers challenging, thought-provoking exercises rather than formulaic ‘how-to’ solutions. This is the kind of book that not only makes plays stronger; it makes writers stronger as well.”

Jeni Mahoney, artistic director, Seven Devils Playwrights Conference and playwriting program head, Playwrights Horizons Theater School

“The practical genius of Dunne’s writing lessons proved invaluable to me in the development of the script for my own film, Mean Creek. I have read many books on scriptwriting, most a bunch of intellectual blather about themes and structure, whereas Dunne’s approach to writing is grounded in specific and useful exercises that a writer can actually employ at the moment of creation.”

Jacob Estes, recipient of the 2005 John Cassavetes Award, Film Independent’s 20th Spirit Awards for his film Mean Creek

“Dunne lays out all the right questions with great precision and elegance. In the process he coolly demystifies all the dramaturgical demons; they become nothing more than the routine technical challenges faced by any craftsman.”

Dennis J. Reardon, professor emeritus of playwriting, Indiana University

“Dunne meets the writer on his or her own terms, eye to eye. Unique, ambitious, and comprehensive, The Dramatic Writer’s Companion contains practical writing exercises underscored by well-developed dramatic theory.”

Art Borreca, head of Playwrights Workshop and Dramaturgy Program, University of Iowa