Better Things to Come

TheStoryDepartment.com.au may show some less than convenient quirks this weekend.   Lee and I are flying our trusted server over to a faster and more reliable host in sunny California. Meanwhile you can just keep reading… photo credit: ArtBrom UPDATE 24 March ’10: When you click on a category link, you’ll get the home page … Read more

Your screenwriting software of choice?

Gone are the days when you only had to choose between The Beatles and The Stones, i.e. between Final Draft or MM Screenwriter. Thank God for the impact of the web on screenwriting, with a plethora of new options marketed to all screenwriters, rich or poor. The list keeps growing by the day.

Cut the feelings

If I read the line ‘she smiled at him lovingly’ one more time, I swear I will kill the writer. Uncountable are the screenplays where characters are constantly smiling, looking ‘lovingly’, expressing ‘dark anger’. Some inexperienced writers are of the belief they can implant emotions into the brain of the audience simply by describing the … Read more

Best o/t Web 14 Mar 10

:: Black on action (via Scott Myers).

:: Christopher Nolan on what to expect from Batman 3

:: How to logline a dual plot story? John August helps.

:: Dick happy about Blade Runner (via Kottke).

:: Final word on the Oscars (and Karel agrees)

:: The North By Northwest shooting script for download

:: Charlie (and Donald) Kaufman’s Adaptation script

:: (we keep going…) The Shawshank Redemption script

:: Finally: Basic Instinct (for Forest Gump and MANY others, go to MyPDFscripts.com)

:: Hitchcock on Content vs. Technique (via Bill Martell)

:: To three-act-structure or free-form, that is the question.

:: Cultivating a following- writing for a TV series.

:: Advice: never send out your first screenplay.

:: Own up to your audience: your inciting incident.

:: What really goes on in act one?

:: Satire with a touch of truth: the Super Script

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You Can Write a Movie

“You Can Write a Movie” by Pamela Wallace Writers Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio. 2000. 118 pages. ISBN 0-89879-974-0 Amazon Price: US $4.35 THE AUTHOR In 1986 “Witness” won the Academy Award for the best Original Screenplay. It also won awards from the Mystery Writers of America and the Writers Guild of America and was named … Read more