On the show today veteran screenwriter, director, producer, educator, author, Paul Chitlik. Paul has worked on 80’s show classics like the Twilight Zone, Small Wonder, Who’s the Boss, and Perfect Strangers, among others. He spends his free time as a clinical assistant professor teaching Screenwriting at the Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.

Small Wonder follows the zany adventures of a suburban family, their next-door neighbors, and an innovative robot designed to look like a human child.

Chitlik’s best-selling book, Rewrite 2nd Edition: A Step-by-Step Guide to Strengthen Structure, Characters, and Drama in your Screenplay, is a gold mine of expert guidance for every aspiring screenwriter.

Veteran screenwriting instructor and award-winning writer Paul Chitlik presents an easy-to-read, step-by-step process to take your script from first draft to submission draft. He reveals the hidden structure of screenplays, sequences, and scenes, as he guides you through the process of examining your draft, restructuring it, and populating it with believable, complex, and compelling characters.

Along the way he outlines how to make your action leap off the page and your dialogue crackle. While the first edition was widely used in film school rewriting classes, it was also recommended as an introduction to screenwriting craft by a number of professors and professionals. Paul Chitlik has included, for the second edition, more examples, exercises, and applications for television, the web, and other media, using a wide range of citations in film, television, and the Internet to underline his approach.  

Paul shared so much of his creative thought process during our conversation and how he approaches cutting his scene. You don’t want to miss it.

Enjoy this conversation with Paul Chitlik.