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It is commonly assumed, and regularly taught, that the key difference between playwriting and screenwriting is that the former tells the bulk of its story with words (it is dialogue-driven), while the latter relies more heavily on images (it is camera-driven). This may be true, but a less obvious difference is that onstage one needs words and performance to draw the audience’s attention to a certain spot or action (“Hey, look here!”), while onscreen all you need is a close-up or a camera move—the viewer can’t look anywhere else, no matter how much they might wish they could.