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Dramatic Tension – Don’t Let Them Go (Part II)

  • Patrick O'Driscoll
  • .August 4, 2024
This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Dramatic Tension:Keeping audiences hooked relies on meaningful dramatic questions, yet few stories generate tension on the most meaningful level.Nothing prevents an audience’s boredom like the need to know what happens at the ending. Provided the protagonist has our empathy or interest, th...
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Dramatic Tension – Don’t Let Them Go (Part 1)

  • Patrick O'Driscoll
  • .July 29, 2024
This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Dramatic Tension:Clever concepts, genre staples, and rare characters can entice audiences, but without story-long dramatic tension, your screenplay will struggle to keep them engaged.Screenwriting has one rule: thou shalt not bore thy audience. Even Neanderthal storytellers knew that borin...
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Experience Emotional Authenticity

  • Christopher Riley
  • .July 7, 2024
“Experience Emotional Authenticity” Author Christopher Riley on ‘The Defining Moment’:“I think it was a desire to connect with people,” said author Christopher Riley about his fascination with filmmaking and screenwriting. “I didn’t do that very well, [but] I have this memory of writing a poem in grade school and my uncle read i...
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The Psychology Of Creativity For Screenwriters

Screenwriters, and all creatives for that matter, frequently grapple with the constant and tiring task of – creating. We have all suffered from writers’ block, a lack of inspiration and motivation, or a paucity of good ideas at some point in our careers. Self-flagellation and self-doubt don’t help. They cause stress and anxiety ...
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The Self-Imposed Deadline

  • Roy Peter Clark
  • .April 29, 2024
The Power of The Self-Imposed Deadline:With lots of activity around the publication of my new book “Murder Your Darlings: And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser,” I have been fielding lots of questions about productivity. It often comes in this form: “How did you ever write six books in a dozen years?”When I h...
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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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Test Your Story Concept

I once taught a webinar for The Writers Store on Story Development. In it we talked about the importance of testing your story concept before you end up like Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation lost in a sea of notes and pages with no idea how to move forward.What you want to do is find a process for evaluating your story concept befo...
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9 Ways To Write Strong Screenplay Hooks

  • Dan Hoffmann
  • .March 25, 2024
The opening of your screenplay is arguably the most important part. No matter how great your story, if the opening fails to capture the studio reader or producer, the story ends right then and there for you.When I first started as a studio reader, the exec. producer instructed me not to read all the screenplays that were stacked...
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Awaken Creativity

  • Nicole Bianchi
  • .March 18, 2024
The Simple Strategy Famous Writers Use to Awaken Creativity:A story idea suddenly appears in your head with a complete beginning, middle, and end. You sit down to write, and the words flow freely. It’s as if the story is typing itself.How often do you experience that kind of burst of incredible inspiration?I’m guessing that prob...
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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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Colliding Two Story Ideas Together To Make One Great One

  • Jeffrey Kitchen
  • .March 12, 2024
The quest for a great story involves chewing through hundreds of ideas trying to find one with that magic something. And not only do you have to find an idea, but you have to evaluate its power because the ability to tell gold from fool’s gold is crucial to having a sustained screenwriting career.Wasting time building a script a...
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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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How to Write a Vomit Draft (And Why It’s So Important)

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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How To Layer Your Screenplay Scenes

Scene layers is the key to really elevating the success of your scenes by making them work harder.1) Plot, Character, and ThemeThe highest form of scene incorporates the techniques already discussed and layers of the holy trinity of any story.I’m pretty sure everyone knows what plot and character is but theme always seems to be ...
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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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Where To Start A Screenplay (Part 1)

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Start Screenplay:Where do you start with a story? I’ve heard the ending, a character, a concept, and so on. Certainly, if you’re writing to sell like most scriptwriters, concept is key. A high concept is better – the elevator pitch as it’s sometimes called.But starting at the ending presup...
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Where Do You Get Your Ideas?

Dr. Linda Seger, author of Making a Good Script Great and 8 other books on screenwriting discusses how to set yourself up as a writer so that there is ALWAYS something to write about !   Writers vary in terms of how many ideas are floating around in their heads at any one time. Pen Densham, (Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves) told m...
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Rules For Creative Thinking

The following are Sister Corita’s rules for creative thinking.  I think # 8 is SO important.  “Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.”Here’s the complete list:1. Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while.2. General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher,...
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How Do You Execute Your Screenwriting Voice?

  • Alexander Robb
  • .December 13, 2023
How Do You Execute Your Screenwriting Voice And What Goes Into Creating A Style On The Page?In this article, Alexander Robb (Literary manager at Insignia Entertainment) discusses how your voice translates into your unique writing style.I get asked this question – All. The. Time. So many writers struggle to find their voice or st...

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