London Writers' Salon
#179: Moira Buffini — From Playwright to Novelist, Writing Dystopian YA, plus Creative Resilience and Sustaining a Long Creative Career
Episode Summary
Playwright and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Moira Buffini on moving between theatre, film, and fiction, writing for yourself instead of the market, and shaping structure by rewriting toward the ending you want readers to feel.
Episode Notes
Playwright and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter Moira Buffini on moving between theatre, film, and fiction, writing for yourself instead of the market, and shaping structure by rewriting toward the ending you want readers to feel.
You’ll learn:
- Why “you are the audience” can be a practical rule for cutting through market noise and writing with conviction.
- A useful way to handle reviews and outside opinions without letting them steer the work.
- How to build story momentum when you can’t fully plot ahead, and why not knowing the next move can be a strength.
- A structure approach based on “writing toward a feeling” at the end, then layering drafts until the story clicks.
- What discipline looks like when you’re writing big worlds in prose, and how constraints can keep you from getting lost.
- How a dramatist’s instincts (plot, structure, obstacles) can transfer into long-form fiction and help sustain narrative drive.
- A grounded reminder about the “mundane” day-to-day of being a professional writer, and why that doesn’t cancel the magic.
- The practical foundations she names for keeping your mind working (sleep, movement, and treating the body as part of the instrument).
- What it can take to keep writing alongside caring responsibilities, and why persistence is often the hardest part.
- The simplest career advice she returns to: don’t accept the story that you “can’t,” and keep putting in the hours.
Resources & Links:
About Moira Buffini:
Moira Buffini is an Olivier Award–winning UK playwright and BAFTA-nominated screenwriter, writing many plays for the National Theatre and the West End. Films include Tamara Drewe, Jane Eyre, Byzantium, and The Dig. She cocreated and was showrunner of Harlots. Songlight is her debut novel. She lives in London.