Story. Screenplay. Sale.
If anyone tells you that a screenwriter must set up the story goal before the end of Act 1, avoid their screenwriting advice. They don’t understand drama. I’ll explain in a minute. The internet is rife with advice of all kinds, and I find it increasingly difficult to locate useful gems. If you’re really critical, … Read more
In an earlier post I warned you about the 2-Act Structure. If none of the structural paradigms offered by the gurus work for you, why don’t you create your own? Here is mine. Every structure model is academic. There really are no rules. Instead, these systems are merely tools to allow us to communicate about … Read more
When How To Train Your Dragon was released, some people learned to their horror that the film was written following Blake Snyder’s beat sheet. How could such a successful – and critically acclaimed – film be written by the numbers?? Creatives hate screenwriting ‘rules’. So they should. But it is also helpful to understand what rules … Read more
Screenwriting guru Robert McKee looks at the essence of screenplay writing: if the dialogue, the big print, and the actions are all modified in pre-production, then what is the writer actually contributing to a film? McKee looks at the nature of turning a script into a film, and concludes that the single most important thing … Read more
Gruff, grim and grizzled screenwriting guru Robert McKee looks at what differs sophisticated contemporary works from the golden years of stage, page and screen; the rise and possible decline of film as an art form; and what the TV legal thriller Damages is doing right (hint: it involves the use of hooks. Like this one). … Read more