I’ve never written any plays or dramatic pieces but I was asked the other day by one of my creative writing group if I did. I was somewhat surprised and wondered why she asked, but my answer was simple, no.
As a voracious reader when I was younger, and had the time to read voraciously, I read Shakespeare, Wesker, Anouilh, Ibsen, Chekhov, plus all those others I had to read while studying English and French… but writing a play? I must admit I have thought about it, as I wrestle with trying to set a scene, which I’m not very good at, or shut my characters up when they will witter on, but actually sitting down and writing a play? I have thought a couple of my books might work as a film, but actually sitting down to see if I can make the transition?
What puts me off doing it? because something does… I have the blank page syndrome, which I don’t have when writing anything else. Perhaps it is the convention… I’ve read so many plays which are full of instructions as well as dialogue, maybe that is sub-consciously putting me off when really I should just write the thing, put down what all those people in my head are saying and then sort out the directions and instructions afterwards?
I asked the person in my writing group why she had asked. “Oh,” she said. “You’re so dramatic and expressive when you are telling us something.”
I took it as a compliment, but did she mean I was a bit of a drama-queen?
Lois Elsden 
Your friend doesn’t appreciate what a massive difference there is between writing novels and writing plays or screenplays.
In a novel, you can inhabit your characters’ interior space, you can describe their thoughts and feelings in intimate detail, even when they aren’t actually doing anything, and you, the writer, are in complete control of the end product.
In a play for the theatre, or in a screenplay for TV or cinema, you can only hope to show or infer what your characters are thinking or feeling by what they do or what they say, and the realisation of your narrative ideas is a collaborative process involving creative contributions by numerous other people in many different ways.
These are very different writing skills, and they require a different mindset from the writer. To be dramatic and expressive in the way you talk about things, in reality or in your other writings, is not necessarily an attribute when it comes to writing a blueprint for actors and directors and cinematographers to interpret and bring to an audience.
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I agree, I think this is why I’m so daunted by the idea because I get involved with the characters from the inside, and in drama there needs a certain external perspective. I think you must have to have a sense of the whole thing from every angle, which is a little different from following a linear narrative.
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You’re dramatic because you’re a storyteller, play writing is completely different
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True!
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