Scriptwriting as creative writing research: a preface

Abstract

It is an unusual step to publish a collection of unproduced scripts. Rarely, if ever, arescripts treated as texts in their own right and seen as deserving of publication,irrespective of any staging or production. This perceived unpublishable status ofunproduced scripts fosters a sense that such scripts are not a suitable focus ofscholarly discussion. They are dismissed as somehow amateur or unworthy; thisdespite the fact that many of the most successful scriptwriters have written at least onescript, usually many more, that never ‘made it’ to stage or screen. Are these workssomehow less worthy of critical discussion, or weaker examples of the writer’screative and research processes, than their produced works? I would argue that theyare not.