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So You Finished a Draft... Now What?

RewritingIt’s something we all need to deal with, and there is no getting around it. Rewriting, rewriting, rewriting. In the last post, I talked about writer’s block and, well, how and why writer’s block is pretty much a whole bunch of bullshit, and to again quote Terry Pratchett, “something invented by people in California who ...
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Navigating Your Story

  • Salva Rubio
  • .September 16, 2024
Since its inception over twenty years ago, the methodology of Blake Synder’s Save the Cat has been as synonymous with storytelling as Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey and Syd Field’s Paradigm Worksheet.Many screenwriters can’t help but spot the moment when “Bad Guys Close In”, or the “Dark Night of the Soul” whenever they sit do...
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Writing Appealing Character Descriptions

Character descriptions are one of the most difficult things to perfect in your screenplay. “What?,” you gasp. Descriptions are more than a name, gender, age, occupation, and what a character is wearing. Their primary purposes is to generate images in a reader’s mind with economy and precision, especially when a character is firs...
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The Power Of Westerns (Part 1)

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Westerns:From the late 1930s to the mid-60s westerns as movies and television ruled the box office and ratings ranks. Legends like directors Howard Hawks, John Ford, Sam Peckinpaw, Sergio Leonie, and actors Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, and a raft of others bec...
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How to Format a Script

If you’re confused by how to format a script, you’re in the right place. The following post contains excerpts from our book, “Master Screenplay Format: A Clear Guide On How To Format a Screenplay For The Spec Market.”The overall message of the book when it comes to your movie script format is to stay as clear and consistent as p...
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Coloring Scenes

It's all in the writing. After all the structuring is done, the scenes themselves have to shine. Most often, when I read a script, I think to myself, "It needs color." Color the characters; color the scenes; color the dialogue. It's all in the writing.William Goldman shows howConsider William Goldman's The Princess Bride. Here i...
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5 Techniques To Make Your Scenes Pop

What I know about scenes from years of writing and teaching scriptwriting is a lot. I’ve written hundreds of scripts, both produced and unproduced, and I’ve been teaching this stuff for 25 years and counting.But what I don’t know about scenes is at least as much as I do.Scenes are perceived to be simple in that they are there to...
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Pixar's Rules Of Storytelling

Rule #1: You admire a character more for trying than for their successes.Rule #2: You’ve got to keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience. Not what’s fun to do as a writer. The two can be very different.Rule #3: Trying for theme is important. However you won’t see what the story is about until you’re at the end of th...
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The Thematic Argument

  • Michael Welles Schock
  • .April 1, 2024
Theme is an abstract concept by nature, and thus has always been difficult to define or comprehend. To put things most simply, the theme is what the story “believes in.” It contains the underlying values, principles, or beliefs the story intends to express. A clear and recognizable theme will guide the choice of story content, d...
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5 Tools For You To Write Gripping Screenplay Scenes

  • Dan Hoffmann
  • .March 12, 2024
Forget structure. Forget character. Forget concept. Your screenplay is nothing but scenes. So, if your scenes don’t stand out as original or memorable, no one will remember your story, your characters, your concept or your script, long enough to read it.So, if your protagonist is fired after being called into his boss´s office; ...
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Be Undisciplined And Write Your Voice

  • Basil Iwanyk
  • .February 26, 2024
Basil Iwanyk is a prolific film producer at Thunder Road Pictures known for box office hits including Sicario, John Wick, The Town and Oscar winner, A Star Is Born. “I grew up in New Jersey and you grew up doing one of three things – you commuted into New York City and ran your own business, or you became a lawyer or a doctor… n...
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Know Your Process

  • Ruth Atkinson
  • .February 12, 2024
I’ve often wondered what makes a successful writer. I’ve tossed around many attributes like talent and connections but the one thing I keep coming back to is productivity. A successful writer is one who writes. Who actually writes. Consistently.For most trying to balance their everyday lives with a writing life can be difficult....
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10 Surefire Tips To Boost Your Screenwriting Career

  • Pen Densham
  • .January 10, 2024
Pen Densham has been telling stories since he was knee-high to a grasshopper so he knows a few things about selling your screenplay in the Hollywood jungle. He is also well-aware of the tenacity and resilience screenwriters require to succeed in this business. There will be protracted periods of wondering in the screenwriting de...
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10 Ways to Write More

  • Greta Heinemann
  • .November 6, 2023
The below is a guest blog from working writer Greta Heinemann, producer on NCIS NEW ORLEANS, winner of the Final Draft Big Break Contest, once a CBS Mentoring Program participant, and Humanitas New Voices Prize recipient. Greta is repped by UTA and Bellevue Productions, and while she did write it from the point of view of a writ...
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How Much Creative Risk Should Screenwriters Take?

  • Alexander Robb
  • .September 25, 2023
The delicate balance between art and commerce is often a factor in every screenwriter’s work. If every screenplay always played it safe, where how would filmmakers like David Lynch, David Cronenberg or Yorgos Lanthimos be? Would The Shape Of Water have ever been produced, let alone win an Academy Award? Where would the film indu...
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When Flashbacks Attack

  • James Napoli
  • .September 25, 2023
When Flashbacks Attack – Your Guide To Correct Use In Your Screenplay:I am a flashback apologist. I believe it is narrow-minded for screenwriters to reject flashbacks out of hand as a storytelling device. Provided they give the reader/viewer the proper emotional underpinning and do their jobs of advancing the story, screenplay f...
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The Reflection Character

  • Michael Hauge
  • .August 14, 2023
Stories are built on a foundation of desire and conflict. To create an emotionally-involving and commercially-successful screenplay, you must give your hero some compelling desire he or she is desperate to achieve. Then you must make that goal seem impossible. And if you want to take your character through an arc – to show some ...
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Lion Revisited

(REPOST) I’ve only now seen LION (Garth Davis, 2016). I have never been so affected by any film. This film states the obvious, which we all need to hear on a regular basis: that human emotions are universal. They transcend and are independent of different ethnicities, religions, and social mores.LION is an amazing achievement. W...
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How to Write a Vomit Draft

  • Angela Bourassa
  • .June 12, 2023
For me – and I think for many writers – the most intimidating part of the writing process is typing the first words of the first draft of a new film or TV script. It’s terrifying. I will procrastinate at that point of the writing process longer and with more steadfast dedication than at any other point.Why? Because as soon as yo...
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The Real Objective

Screenwriters do not write movies.Screenwriters write scripts. And scripts are not movies.Movie audiences are people sitting in a theater, or at home, having a visual experience complete with actors, music, directing, editing and perhaps digital effects.The audience for a script is a reader. And all they have is the written word...

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