Editing Writer (section)

===Performative===
====Librettist====
[[File:Wagner Luzern 1868.jpg|thumb|Composer [[Richard Wagner]], who also wrote the libretti for his works]]
{{Main|Libretto}}
Libretti (the plural of libretto) are the texts for musical works such as operas. The Venetian poet and librettist [[Lorenzo Da Ponte]], for example, wrote the libretto for some of [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]]'s greatest operas. [[Luigi Illica]] and [[Giuseppe Giacosa]] were Italian librettists who wrote for [[Giacomo Puccini]]. Most opera composers collaborate with a librettist but unusually, [[Richard Wagner]] wrote both the music and the libretti for his works himself.
{{Quotation|''Chi son? Sono poeta. Che cosa faccio? Scrivo. E come vivo? Vivo.''
("Who am I? I'm a poet. What do I do? I write. And how do I live? I live.")<br />Rodolpho, in [[Giacomo Puccini|Puccini]]'s ''[[La bohème]]''<ref>Excerpt of Rodolpho's aria in Act I of ''[[La bohème]]''</ref>}}

====Lyricist====
{{Main|Lyricist}}
Usually writing in verses and choruses, a lyricist specializes in writing [[lyrics]], the words that accompany or underscore a song or opera. Lyricists also write the words for songs. In the case of [[Tom Lehrer]], these were satirical. Lyricist [[Noël Coward]], who wrote musicals and songs such as "[[Mad Dogs and Englishmen (song)|Mad Dogs and Englishmen]]" and the recited song "[[I Went to a Marvellous Party]]", also wrote plays and films and performed on stage and screen as well. Writers of lyrics, such as these two, adapt other writers' work as well as create entirely original parts.
{{Quotation|''Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don't feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do.''<br />[[Stephen Sondheim]], lyricist<ref name=Lipton>{{cite journal|last=Lipton|first=James|title=Interview: Stephen Sondheim, The Art of the Musical|journal=The Paris Review|date=Spring 1997|volume=Spring 1997|issue= 142|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1283/the-art-of-the-musical-stephen-sondheim|access-date=May 3, 2013}}</ref>}}

====Playwright====
[[File:FF The Tempest title.jpg|thumb|Title page of [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]]'s ''[[The Tempest]]'' from the 1623 [[First Folio]]]]
{{Main|Playwright}}

A playwright writes plays which may or may not be performed on a stage by actors. A play's narrative is driven by dialogue. Like novelists, playwrights usually explore a theme by showing how people respond to a set of circumstances. As writers, playwrights must make the language and the dialogue succeed in terms of the characters who speak the lines as well as in the play as a whole. Since most plays are performed, rather than read privately, the playwright has to produce a text that works in spoken form and can also hold an audience's attention over the period of the performance. Plays tell "a story the audience should care about", so writers have to cut anything that worked against that.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=https://www.sydneytheatre.com.au/magazine/posts/2015/november/feature-mike-bartlett-kciii?fptd_mode=validation|title=Mike Bartlett on writing King Charles III|last=Bartlett|first=Mike|date=18 November 2015|website=Sydney Theatre Company Magazine|publisher=Sydney Theatre Company|access-date=6 April 2016}}</ref> Plays may be written in prose or verse. Shakespeare wrote plays in [[iambic pentameter]] as does [[Mike Bartlett (playwright)|Mike Bartlett]] in his play ''King Charles III'' (2014).<ref name=":0" />

Playwrights also adapt or re-write other works, such as plays written earlier or literary works originally in another genre. Famous playwrights such as [[Henrik Ibsen]] or [[Anton Chekhov]] have had their works adapted several times. The plays of early Greek playwrights [[Sophocles]], [[Euripides]], and [[Aeschylus]] are still performed. Adaptations of a playwright's work may be honest to the original or creatively interpreted. If the writers' purpose in re-writing the play is to make a film, they will have to prepare a screenplay. Shakespeare's plays, for example, while still regularly performed in the original form, are often adapted and abridged, especially for the [[filmmaking|cinema]]. An example of a creative modern adaptation of a play that nonetheless used the original writer's words, is [[Baz Luhrmann]]'s version of ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''. The amendment of the name to ''[[Romeo + Juliet]]'' indicates to the audience that the version will be different from the original. [[Tom Stoppard]]'s play ''[[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]]'' is a play inspired by Shakespeare's ''[[Hamlet]]'' that takes two of Shakespeare's most minor characters and creates a new play in which they are the protagonists.

{{Quotation|'''''Player''''': ''It's what the actors do best. They have to exploit whatever talent is given to them, and their talent is dying. They can die heroically, comically, ironically, slowly, suddenly, disgustingly, charmingly or from a great height.''<br />[[Tom Stoppard]], [[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]] (Act Two)<ref name=Stoppard>{{cite book|last=Stopppard|first=Tom|title=Rosencrantz and Guildentern Are Dead|year=1967|publisher=Faber and Faber|isbn=0-571-08182-7|page=75}}</ref>}}

====Screenwriter====
{{Main|Screenwriter}}

Screenwriters write a screenplay – or script – that provides the words for media productions such as films, television series and video games. Screenwriters may start their careers by writing the screenplay [[Spec script|speculatively]]; that is, they write a script with no advance payment, solicitation or contract. On the other hand, they may be employed or commissioned to adapt the work of a playwright or novelist or other writer. Self-employed writers who are paid by contract to write are known as [[freelancer]]s and screenwriters often work under this type of arrangement.

Screenwriters, playwrights and other writers are inspired by the classic [[Theme (arts)|themes]] and often use similar and familiar plot devices to explore them. For example, in Shakespeare's ''[[Hamlet]]'' is a "play within a play", which the hero uses to demonstrate the king's guilt. Hamlet hives the co-operation of the actors to set up the play as a thing "wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king".<ref>''[[s:The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark/Act 2|The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark/Act 2]]'', (Act II, Sc.2, line 609)</ref> [[Teleplay]] writer [[Joe Menosky]] deploys the same "play within a play" device in an episode of the science fiction [[Television program#Seasons/series|television series]] ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''. The bronze-age playwright/hero enlists the support of a ''Star Trek'' crew member to create a play that will convince the ruler (or "patron" as he is called), of the futility of war.<ref>See Season 6, Episode 22: [[Muse (Star Trek: Voyager)|"Muse", ''(Star Trek: Voyager)'']]</ref>

====Speechwriter====
{{Main|Speechwriter}}
A speechwriter prepares the text for a [[Public speaking|speech]] to be given before a group or crowd on a specific occasion and for a specific purpose. They are often intended to be persuasive or inspiring, such as the speeches given by skilled orators like [[Cicero]]; charismatic or influential political leaders like [[Nelson Mandela]]; or for use in a court of law or parliament. The writer of the speech may be the person intended to deliver it, or it might be prepared by a person hired for the task on behalf of someone else. Such is the case when speechwriters are employed by many senior-level elected officials and executives in both government and private sectors.