OK, while I was looking for some material about writing for soap operas, I found two books by JR with slightly different titles: Writing for the soaps, published in 1984, and Writing for daytime drama, published in 1992. Maybe it's the same book with only the title changed, but I don't think so because the books differ in the number of pages.

So, has anyone read these books? Are they worth while?

I know this message board is paradise for people interested in writing/credits watching, so there's no better place to open a topic about this, I guess.

I know Jean was once HW for As the World Turns, and that she was a member of the Communist Party, which was the reason she was kicked from the States. If anyone knows any other juicy details about her and her work, I would appreciate if you would share that with us. Thank you!

I own both books and would recommend picking up both of them. The later book covers a lot of the same material as in the 1st one, but is updated. Even so, both books are treasures to own. Book one contains breakdowns and scripts from variety of soap operas including ATWT (the death of Nick Andropolous), RH (a Joe/Siobhan scene), Capitol and others while the later one contains scripts and such from Santa Barbara, Days, B&B (Caroline's going-away party). Both books are very informative and I use both volumes regularly as refernce books in my own writing. I also often reread each book as somewhat of a refreasher course. Highly recommended.

And she covers all the aspects: dialogue, breakdowns and head writing?

Yes, most definitely. She explains (in quite a bit of detail) all that goes into writing for soaps from planning to actual script construction. In many cases, she reprints actual breakdowns (or portions of breakdowns) along with the corresponding scripts that were written from those breakdowns.

I've read the 1992 book and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Beyond the differences that Matt explained, the 1992 book is much rarer than the 1984 book. Therefore, the 1992 book is quite a bit more expensive.

I think it's because it was published in London.