MY PATH TO PUBLICATION
ABIGAIL BURDESS
Writer and comedy performer Abigail Burdess uses a threeact structure to describe the process that took her from aspirant author to published novelist
© Kevin Murphy
Age ten, I wrote an essay, saying when I grew up, I would like to write GOOD books, that I know people will enjoy reading, but every time I write it ends up really muddled. Structure-mavens might recognise this as the introduction of the FLAWED HERO: Abigail, a muddle.
At first I took writing achingly seriously. (THESIS) I wrote poetry. I wrote an English verse adaptation of a French philosophical novel called Gaspar, Balthazar et Melchior, by Michel Tournier. In iambic heptameter. I know. I also acted in some startlingly unfunny Heiner Muller plays, stuff like that. (STASIS=DEATH), if you’ve seen any Heiner Muller.)
In my mid-twenties, I met Cicely Giddings – the funniest person in the world. (INCITING INCIDENT) Would I carry on writing pointy-headed verse or would I do a sketch show in Edinburgh with a comic genius, ‘that I know people will enjoy’, because they would laugh, out loud? (DEBATE). We did the show! People laughed! I entered the World of Comedy. (BREAK INTO ACT 2: ANTITHESIS). Now I knew what I wanted to be: a successful comedy writerperformer! (DESIRE OF THE HERO).