Story. Screenplay. Sale.
After seeing Sicario and sourcing the script in 2015, I instantly fell for the voice of this new writer. But Taylor Sheridan was not new. His script Comancheria hit the Blacklist a few years earlier, and would hit cinemas the next year under the title Hell Or High Water. Today, Taylor Sheridan is the most … Read more
Nothing appears more appealing to the beginning writer than to break rules. And nothing is more annoying than hearing “Do this; don’t do that!”
Some will say that rules are essential, because without them there is only anarchy. But are there really any hard rules in screenwriting? And if there are, who sets them?
And what is wrong with anarchy?
A powerful tool in creating distinctive characters is their language, using accent, dialogue and even foreign language. In the real world, everyone speaks in a way that is slightly different from everyone else. In sociolinguistics, this is called an idiolect. (from Greek idiōma ‘private property, peculiar phraseology’, and idios ‘own, private’) A few years ago I … Read more
One of the most effective ways to learn about screenwriting is – wait for it – reading screenplays. Duh! Yet, I’ve read so many rants about the quality of scripts, that it warrants a clear view on what is out there, and what we can learn from them. When Django Unchained won Best Original Screenplay, I … Read more
Isn’t it remarkable how a simple synopsis, a seemingly innocuous 1-page text, can give a writer a world of pain. If it’s such a drag, then why bother? Plain and simple: nobody wants to be bored reading 100 pages if we can bore them with only one. It makes sense to read 10 pages of … Read more