Novels and screenplays are two entirely different animals. The writer of a
brilliant novel may not have the skills required to write a screenplay... and vice versa. Though,
for the most part, these skills can be learned - so a brilliant novelist can probably write a
brilliant screenplay... and vice versa. But they are different mediums, and require different
skills. Just because I can drive a car doesn't mean I will instantly know how to fly a plane.
And techniques and literary devices that work well in novels often don't work at all in a screenplay
- can you imagine a film that is nothing but correspondence projected on the screen? (Epistolary
novels)
Yet writers often attempt to use a technique that works in one medium in another, with varied
degrees of success and failure. Many novels contain multiple plot threads that eventually connect
at the end. When I was offered the job of adapting ANGELS & DEMONS, the main reason why I turned
it down was because it had two separate plots that eventually came together at the end - and that
usually doesn't work on film. We only have a couple of hours to tell a film story, and telling
*one* story in that amount of time is usually a challenge. Plus, the shifting back and forth
between stories can be confusing and often lessens audience identification and involvement.
As I've said in other Script Tips - one movie, one story. Multiple stories is a device that
works well in novels, but is close to impossible to pull off on screen.
But what if you want to give it a try? This Script Tip explores the methods that work
best when you plan on telling two stories in one screenplay...
The great Dalton Trumbo adapted Edward Abbey's novel into LONELY ARE THE BRAVE with two stories
which meet up at the end (with a bang) and it's a great film... but part of that is our foreknowledge
that Carrol O'Conner's truck driver and Kirk Douglas' cowboy are on a collision course. Part of the adaptation was to give
O'Conner's trucker very little screen time. The script focuses on Douglas' story thread - the novel
was called BRAVE COWBOY not TRUCK DRIVER (in a strange way, this movie is the predecessor of FIRST
BLOOD). An entire story thread about a draft dodger never made it to film at all, and the small
town sheriff exists only as part of the cowboy's story in the film. Part of adapting a multiple
story novel is often picking which of the stories to tell... and jettisoning the others.
COP VS. CROOK
So when Steve Zaillian, the closest thing we have to Dalton Trumbo today, came out with his new
film AMERICAN GANGSTER, I was prepared to love it.... but I didn't. People have asked me about the
structure - the idea of cop and crook stories that come together at the end. That's been done many
times, the best of them is Michael Mann's HEAT. In HEAT the cop (Al Pacino) and the crook (Robert
DeNiro) really only have one scene together... and it's one hell of a scene. Compare that scene to
the Denzel Washington/Russell Crowe scene in GANGSTER. Kind of disappointing.
If you look at HEAT, there are three stories:
1) The cop chasing the crook.
From early on Pacino is chasing the wrecking crew guys, trying to get a bead on them, following
them, spying on them... interacting with them in some way. Though Pacino and DeNiro only have the
one scene, the rest of the movie is cat and mouse with Pacino chasing DeNiro and his men - actively
pursuing them. There is direct conflict between Pacino's team and DeNiro's team from the very
beginning of the movie until the very end. That conflict is what *drives* the story.
In AMERICAN GANGSTER Russell Crowe is after drug dealers, and targeting Blue Magic... but we mostly
see the big board and not much actual investigation on his part. And he has no idea Denzel and his
team even exist - until the very end of the movie Crowe believes that Italians are behind the drug
trade, with the African Americans just doing the sales work. The concept that an African American
is the big drug kingpin comes very late in the film. Eventually we have the undercover buy scene...
and that takes us to the dirty cops rather than Denzel and his crew. So it's really a dead end.
Not much actual pursuit or police work in GANGSTER... and no direct conflict between cops and
crooks. Story is conflict - without that direct conflict we have two separate stories until the
very end.
2) The crook's life.
Here's where HEAT totally kicks ass over AMERICAN GANGSTER. Early on, DeNiro gives his big rule
for surviving as an armed robber - "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing
to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." This rule makes him a
man alone (who claims he's not lonely, but who does he think he's fooling?). Right after he reveals
this rule he meets a woman in a book store and begins a relationship. This creates a great conflict
- we want DeNiro to find love and have a relationship... but we know this violates his big rule
(and that rule is there for a reason). So we are torn. Should he keep her? Dump her? And as the
police close in - the *relationship* is in jeopardy. The crook's life story is directly tied to
the cop & crook story!
In AMERICAN GANGSTER they attempt to contrast Denzel as the family man with Crowe as the guy
losing his family in a divorce... but there is no *conflict* in either story. Denzel just rises to
power and brings his family along. Sure, there's a quick scene with a brother who screws up, but
there is no drama *built in* to his story. He just rises to power.
If you just compare the Denzel part of the story to a movie like SCARFACE (either version - but Pacino stars in the remake) it's
also the lesser film. In SCARFACE with have Tony coming to America with nothing and struggling to
work his way to the top. Every step to the top is filled with conflict - and chainsaws and bathtubs.
Denzel *starts out* as Bumpy's right hand man - the #2 guy - and after Bumpy is killed, he instantly
becomes the #1 guy. No conflict, no struggle - it's automatic. Now, he's more intelligent than
Bumpy and manages to build his empire... but it's a pre-existing empire. Not as dramatic as starting
with nothing and fighting your way to the top. Hey, I'm not even going to mention the wife/sister
emotional conflicts in SCARFACE. So, even if we just look at the gangster side of the story,
GANGSTER is lacking the drama and emotional conflicts that other gangster movies have. That makes
it difficult to sustain this half of the two story movie. If each story were exciting on its own,
we have something to involve us in each story until they come together at the end.
Okay, and now let's compare the *crimes* these crooks are involved in. In AMERICAN GANGSTER Denzel
is basically on the phone making deals, or in Thailand making deals. Neither is exciting. Though it
may be *interesting* on an intellectual level that he's treating drugs as a business, movies are
visceral. They are emotional rather than intellectual. Watching a businessman do business is...
dull. The most excitement we get in Denzel's story is when he blows away a rival during lunch...
and that's a great scene. It contrasts the concept of business and crime. What we needed were fewer
scenes of Denzel doing deals and more scenes with Denzel doing away with rivals. Except that would
turn him into a gangster instead of a businessman.
There are some cool movies that look at the business of crime, including that GODFATHER movie
starring DeNiro and Pacino. But Michael Corleone wasn't afraid to mix business and murder. That
was the point. When we soft-pedal the crime aspects of a criminal business, we end up removing the
conflict and ending up with a movie about making deals... and that doesn't even have as much
conflict as an episode of THE OFFICE. If Denzel Washington is playing a crook, he needs to act
like it.
In HEAT Robert DeNiro is involved in *armed robbery* and we not only get that great set piece
robbery and shoot out, we get all kinds of action along the way. Shoot outs. Suspense. Chases.
You could remove every element of the "Pacino story" and still have a great film. Now, Denzel's
story could have focused on the action side of his business (a previous version of this story,
Larry Cohen's BLACK CAESAR, focused on the war between the black crime lord and the Mafia), but
it focused on the businessman side. You may say, "Hey - that's the story!" but watching a guy
make phone calls is boring. Not the best choice for a story about a crook...
Even though HEAT has that great street shootout, what makes it more involving than GANGSTER
isn't the *action* it's the *conflict*. Sure, that conflict is explored through machinegun fire...
but it could have been dramatic conflict. We need conflict for drama... and then we need to
actually have dramatic scenes. The closest GANGSTER gets to any sort of conflict is that quick scene
when Frank's brother Huey (the always amazing Chiwetel Ejiofor) screws up... but this is resolved
almost immediately. The conflict doesn't build, it's just a quick episode in the gangster's life.
3) The cop's life.
In HEAT Pacino is having the same kind of relationship issues as Crowe in GANGSTER... Both are
dealing with realtionship and family issues. The difficulties of a cop's life on a family. But
those problems are tied to the cop chases crook story in HEAT, and connected to nothing at all
in AMERICAN GANGSTER.. In HEAT, every time Pacino needs to spend time with his wife or daughter,
the case comes up and he has to dump them (creating big dramatic conflicts). He is constantly
having to chose between job and family, and he picks job every time. This escalates his family
problems. Even when he is with his wife, there is conflict about the times he wasn't with her.
The conflict escalates throughout the story - coming to a big breaking point when his daughter
needs to be rushed to the hospital at the moment the case is really breaking. Now there's a dramatic decision!
Compare this to Crowe in AMERICAN GANGSTER, who gets a bunch of fairly dull scenes in court
getting a divorce and then *not* fighting for joint custody of his daughter. Crowe doesn't even
try to keep his relationship going - which makes his life non-dramatic. The relationship is dead
when the film begins - and just stays dead. No conflict, no struggle, no drama.
Now, you may say: "Hey - based on a true story. What choice did they have?" Well, no story on
film is really true - everything gets dramatized... and the other folks who were involved seem to
think Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts exaggerated everything and made them the stars... when there
were two other major black crime lords in New York at the time (one doesn't even get mentioned in
the film - and that is the guy who, up until this film, was seen as the #1 black crime lord of
all time). If they fudged some major things in the story, why not fudge some minor ones and make
it more dramatic? Instead of starting out with Richie's marriage on the rocks, why not show it
disintegrating (more dramatic) throughout the film? If you are going to fudge the facts here and
there, do it to make a better film - a more dramatic film.
Though AMERICAN GANGSTER got a couple of Oscar nominations, HEAT is the movie that people quote
lines from and buy on DVD. I think GANGSTER will end up a forgotten footnote, and HEAT will remain a classic.
The key to any story is conflict. If you have multiple story threads, the key is to make sure
each thread has a strong conflict that escalates throughout that thread, creating dramatic scenes
- you don't need to have cars and buildings exploding, but people's tempers need to explode.
Film is a dramatic medium - so we need to see that drama exploding on screen. A novel can be
internal, a film is only what we can see and hear (externals). We need to bring the conflict to
the surface in dramatic confrontations - with or without automatic weapons. And while each story
thread has its conflict, each story thread *must* impact the other to create conflict and drama.
All of the threads end up part of the big story, so they must be connected - entwined. HEAT and
AMERICAN GANGSTER are similar stories, yet where HEAT is an amazing, exciting, involving epic,
AMERICAN GANGSTER is an epic style film with two great actors that looks good and tells a story...
but comes off like a dull documentary. Uninvolving.
The key to telling *any* story is conflict - the key to telling more than one story in a film
is also conflict. The more you fracture the film, the more important conflict becomes.
New to screenwriting? You probably have questions! How do I get an Agent? How do I write a phone conversation? Do I need a Mentor? What’s does VO and OC and OS mean? What is proper screenplay format? Should I use a pen name? Do I need to movie to Hollywood? What’s the difference between a Producer and a Production Manager, and which should I sell my script to? How do I write a Text Message? Should I Copyright or WGA register my script? Can I Direct or Star? How do I write an Improvised scene? Overcoming Writer’s Block? How do I write a Sex Scene? And many many more! This book has the answers to the 101 Most Asked Questions from new screenwriters! Everything you need to know to begin writing your screenplay!
All of the answers you need to know, from a working professional screenwriter with 20 produced films and a new movie made for a major streaming service in 2023!
Thinking about writing a big Disaster Movie? An Historical Epic? An Epic Adventure Film? Or maybe you like Gladiator Movies? This book looks at writing Blockbusters and those Big Fat Beach Read novels - anything epic! Usng movies like JAWS, POSEIDON ADVENTURE, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, THE GUNS OF NAVARONE, and those MARVEL and FAST & FURIOUS flicks as examples. What *is* a Blockbuster? 107 years of Blockbuster history! Blockbuster Characters. Blockbuster Story Types! Why modern Blockbusters are soap operas! Social Issues in Blcokbusters? Big Emotions! Keeping All Of Those Characters Distinctive! How to avoid the Big problems found in Big Movies and books! More! If you are writing a Big Event Movie or a Big Fat Novel, there are tips and techniques to help you!
"The Presidential Suite of the Hollywood Hoover Hotel looked like a bloody battlefield: bodies everywhere, furniture broken, red liquid dripping from the walls, dead soldiers littering the elegant Berber rug as clouds of smoke overhead bounced between two air conditioning vents.
Mitch Robertson stepped over the body of an ex-child star turned sex tape star turned pop star and entered the room, spotted a gun on the floor and picked it up... careful not to spill his coffee with three pumps of mocha syrup from Penny’s Coffee Shop. That coffee was gold, the only thing keeping him going in this dazed state of wakefulness. The gun felt light. Holding it, he saw the silhouette of an 80s action star sitting sideways on a tipped over chair. Motionless. Was he dead? Mitch was still hung over from the Awards Party the night before, and wondered whether this was all some sort of crazy nightmare that he would wake up from... but when he tripped over the brown legs of a bottomless Superhero, flaccid junk encased in a condom but still wearing his mask, and hit the edge of the sofa, gun skittering and coffee spilling, he realized that it was all very real. What the hell had happened here?"
When You Finish Your Screenplay Or Novel... The Rewrites Begin!
The end is just the beginning! You’ve finished your story, but now the rewriting begins! This 405 page book shows you how to rewrite your screenplay or novel to perfection. Everything from Character Consistency to Shoeboxing to How To Give And Receive Notes to 15 Solutions If Your Script’s Too Long! and 15 Solutions If Your Script’s Too Short! to Finding The Cause Of A Story Problem to Good Notes Vs. Bad Notes to Finding Beta Readers to Avoiding Predictability to Learning To Be Objective About Your Work to Script Killer Notes and Notes From Idiots to Production Rewrites and What The Page Colors Mean? and a Complete Rewrite Checklist! The complete book on Rewriting Your Story!
*** HITCHCOCK: MASTERING SUSPENSE *** - For Kindle!
Alfred Hitchcock, who directed 52 movies, was known as the *Master Of Suspense*; but what exactly is suspense and how can *we* master it? How does suspense work? How can *we* create “Hitchcockian” suspense scenes in our screenplays, novels, stories and films?
This book uses seventeen of Hitchcock’s films to show the difference between suspense and surprise, how to use “focus objects” to create suspense, the 20 iconic suspense scenes and situations, how plot twists work, using secrets for suspense, how to use Dread (the cousin of suspense) in horror stories, and dozens of other amazing storytelling lessons. From classics like “Strangers On A Train” and “The Birds” and “Vertigo” and “To Catch A Thief” to older films from the British period like “The 39 Steps” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much” to his hits from the silent era like “The Lodger” (about Jack The Ripper), we’ll look at all of the techniques to create suspense!
Contained Thrillers like "Buried"? Serial Protagonists like "Place Beyond The Pines"? Multiple Connecting Stories like "Pulp Fiction"? Same Story Multiple Times like "Run, Lola, Run"?
HITCHCOCK DID IT FIRST!
This book focuses on 18 of Hitchcock's 52 films with wild cinema and story experiments which paved the way for modern films. Almost one hundred different experiments that you may think are recent cinema or story inventions... but some date back to Hitchcock's *silent* films! We'll examine these experiments and how they work. Great for film makers, screenwriters, film fans, producers and directors.
Why pay $510 for a used version of the 240 page 2000 version that used to retail for $21.95? (check it out!) when
you can get the NEW EXPANDED VERSION - over 500 pages - for just $9.99? New chapters, New examples, New techniques!
"SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING is the
best book on the practical nuts-and-bolts mechanics of writing a screenplay I've ever read."
- Ted Elliott, co-writer of MASK OF ZORRO, SHREK, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and the sequels (with Terry Rossio). (ie; 4 of the top 20 Box Office Hits Of ALL TIME.)
All Six Movies analyzed! All of the mission tapes, all of the “that’s impossible!” set pieces and stunts, the cons and capers - and how these scenes work, the twists and double crosses, the tension and suspense (and how to generate it), the concept of each film as a stand alone with a different director calling the shots (broken in the sixth film), the gadgets, the masks, the stories, the co-stars and team members (one team member has been in every film), the stunts Tom Cruise actually did (and the ones he didn’t), and so much more! Over 120,000 words of fun info!
THE MISSION IMPOSSIBLE MOVIES - 347 Pages - Only $3.99 !
All five "Bourne" movies (including "Legacy" and it's potential sequels) - what are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? Reinventing the thriller genre...
or following the "formula"? Five films - each with an interesting experiment! A detailed analysis of each
of the films, the way these thrillers work... as well as a complete list of box office and critical
statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just fans of the series.
He's back! The release of "Terminator: Dark Fate" is set to begin a new trilogy in
the Terminator story... 35 years after the first film was released. What draws us to these films about
a cybernetic organism from the future sent back in time? Why is there a new proposed trilogy every few
years? This book looks at all five Terminator movies from a story standpoint - what makes them work
(or not)? What are the techniques used to keep the characters and scenes exciting and involving? How
about those secret story details you may not have noticed? Containing a detailed analysis of each of
the five films so far, this book delves into the way these stories work... as well as a complete list of
box office and critical statistics for each film. This book is great for writers, directors, and just
fans of the series.
Screenwriting books have been around as long as films have. This series reprints vintage screenwriting books with a new introduction and history, plus new articles which look at how these lessons from almost 100 years ago apply to today’s screenplays. Anita Loos book is filled with information which still applies.
In addition to the full text of the original book, you get the full screenplay to Miss Loos' hit THE LOVE EXPERT, plus several new articles on the time period and women in Hollywood.
Expanded version with more ways to find great ideas! Your screenplay is going to begin with an idea. There are good ideas and bad ideas and commercial ideas and personal ideas. But where do you find ideas in the first place? This handbook explores different methods for finding or generating ideas, and combining those ideas into concepts that sell. The Idea Bank, Fifteen Places To Find Ideas, Good Ideas And Bad Ideas, Ideas From Locations And Elements, Keeping Track Of Your Ideas, Idea Theft - What Can You Do? Weird Ways To Connect Ideas, Combing Ideas To Create Concepts, High Concepts - What Are They? Creating The Killer Concept, Substitution - Lion Tamers & Hitmen, Creating Blockbuster Concepts, Magnification And The Matrix, Conflict Within Concept, Concepts With Visual Conflict, Avoiding Episodic Concepts, much more! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is over 175 pages!
ARE YOUR SCENES IN THE RIGHT ORDER? AND ARE THEY THE RIGHT SCENES?
Your story is like a road trip... but where are you going? What's the best route to get there? What are the best sights to see along the way? Just as you plan a vacation instead of just jump in the car and start driving, it's a good idea to plan your story. An artist does sketches before breaking out the oils, so why shouldn't a writer do the same? This Blue Book looks at various outlining methods used by professional screenwriters like Wesley Strick, Paul Schrader, John August, and others... as well as a guest chapter on novel outlines. Plus a whole section on the Thematic Method of generating scenes and characters and other elements that will be part of your outline. The three stages of writing are: Pre-writing, Writing, and Rewriting... this book looks at that first stage and how to use it to improve your screenplays and novels.
William Goldman says the most important single element of any screenplay is structure. It’s the skeleton under the flesh and blood of your story. Without it, you have a spineless, formless, mess... a slug! How do you make sure your structure is strong enough to support your story? How do you prevent your story from becoming a slug? This Blue Book explores different types of popular structures from the basic three act structure to more obscure methods like leap-frogging. We also look at structure as a verb as well as a noun, and techniques for structuring your story for maximum emotional impact. Most of the other books just look at *structure* and ignore the art of *structuring* your story. Techniques to make your story a page turner... instead of a slug!
This book takes you step-by-step through the construction of a story... and how to tell a story well, why Story always starts with character... but ISN'T character, Breaking Your Story, Irony, Planting Information, Evolving Story, Leaving No Dramatic Stone Unturned, The Three Greek Unities, The Importance Of Stakes, The Thematic Method, and how to create personal stories with blockbuster potential. Ready to tell a story?
Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is over 85,000 words - 251 pages!
Your story doesn't get a second chance to make a great first impression, and this book shows you a
bunch of techniques on how to do that. From the 12 Basic Ways To Begin Your Story, to the 3 Stars Of
Your First Scene (at least one must be present) to World Building, Title Crawls, Backstory, Starting
Late, Teasers and Pre Title Sequences, Establishing Theme & Motifs (using GODFATHER PART 2), Five Critical
Elements, Setting Up The Rest Of The Story (with GODFATHER), and much more! With hundreds of examples
ranging from Oscar winners to classic films like CASABLANCA to some of my produced films (because
I know exactly why I wrote the scripts that way). Biggest Blue Book yet!
Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is over 100,000 words - 312 pages!
Expanded version with more ways to create interesting protagonists! A step-by-step guide to creating "take charge" protagonists. Screenplays are about characters in conflict... characters in emotional turmoil... Strong three dimensional protagonists who can find solutions to their problems in 110 pages. But how do you create characters like this? How do you turn words into flesh and blood? Character issues, Knowing Who Is The Boss, Tapping into YOUR fears, The Naked Character, Pulp Friction, Man With A Plan, Character Arcs, Avoiding Cliche People, Deep Characterization, Problem Protagonists, 12 Ways To Create Likable Protagonists (even if they are criminals), Active vs. Reactive, The Third Dimension In Character, Relationships, Ensemble Scripts, and much, much more. Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is once again around 205 pages!
Show Don't Tell - but *how* do you do that? Here are techniques to tell stories visually! Using Oscar Winning Films and Oscar Nominated Films as our primary examples: from the first Best Picture Winner "Sunrise" (1927) to the Oscar Nominated "The Artist" (which takes place in 1927) with stops along the way Pixar's "Up" and Best Original Screenplay Winner "Breaking Away" (a small indie style drama - told visually) as well as "Witness" and other Oscar Winners as examples... plus RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is over 200 pages!
Most screenplays are about a 50/50 split between dialogue and description - which means your description is just as important as your dialogue. It just gets less press because the audience never sees it, the same reason why screenwriters get less press than movie stars. But your story will never get to the audience until readers and development executives read your script... so it is a very important factor. Until the movie is made the screenplay is the movie and must be just as exciting as the movie. So how do you make your screenplay exciting to read? Description is important in a novel as well, and the “audience” does read it... how do we write riveting description?
Expanded version with more ways to create interesting dialogue! How to remove bad dialogue (and what *is* bad dialogue), First Hand Dialogue, Awful Exposition, Realism, 50 Professional Dialogue Techniques you can use *today*, Subtext, Subtitles, Humor, Sizzling Banter, *Anti-Dialogue*, Speeches, and more. Tools you can use to make your dialogue sizzle! Special sections that use dialogue examples from movies as diverse as "Bringing Up Baby", "Psycho", "Double Indemnity", "Notorious", the Oscar nominated "You Can Count On Me", "His Girl Friday", and many more! Print version is 48 pages, Kindle version is over 175 pages!
What is a scene and how many you will need? The difference between scenes and sluglines. Put your scenes on trial for their lives! Using "Jaws" we'll look at beats within a scene. Scene DNA. Creating set pieces and high concept scenes. A famous director talks about creating memorable scenes. 12 ways to create new scenes. Creating unexpected scenes. Use dramatic tension to supercharge your scenes. Plants and payoffs in scenes. Plus transitions and buttons and the all important "flow"... and more! Over 65,000 words! Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is around 210 pages!
Expanded version with more techniques to flesh out your Supporting Characters and make them individuals. Using the hit movie BRIDESMAIDS as well as other comedies like THE HANGOVER and TED and HIGH FIDELITY and
40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN and many other examples we look at ways to make your Supporting Characters come alive on the page.
Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is around 170 pages!
Expanded version with more techniques to help you through the desert of Act Two! Subjects Include: What Is Act Two? Inside Moves, The 2 Ps: Purpose & Pacing, The 4Ds: Dilemma, Denial, Drama and Decision, Momentum, the Two Act Twos, Subplot Prisms, Deadlines, Drive, Levels Of Conflict, Escalation, When Act Two Begins and When Act Two Ends, Scene Order, Bite Sized Pieces, Common Act Two Issues, Plot Devices For Act Two, and dozens of others. Over 67,000 words (that’s well over 200 pages) of tools and techniques to get you through the desert of Act Two alive!
Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is well over 200 pages!
The First Ten Pages Of Your Screenplay Are Critical, But What About The Last 10 Pages?
Creating the perfect ending to your story! This 100,000 word book shows you how to end your story with a bang, rather than a whimper. Everything from Resolution Order to Act Three Tools to Happy or Sad Endings? to How The Beginning Of Your Story Has Clues To The Ending (in case you were having trouble figuring out how the story should end) to Falling Action to How To Avoid Bad Endings to Writing The Perfect Twist Ending to Setting Up Sequels & Series to Emotional Resolutions to How To Write Post Credit Sequences to Avoiding Deus Ex Machinas, to 20 Different Types Of Ends (and how to write them) and much more! Everything about endings for your screenplay or novel!
Loglines, Treatments, Pitching, Look Books, Pitch Decks, One Pagers, Rip-O-Matics?
You have written a brilliant 110 page screenplay, but how do you get anyone to read it? You need to distill it down into some form of verbal moonshine or story rocket fuel that will ignite that bored development executive or manager or agent and get them to request your screenplay. But how do you shrink those 110 pages into a 25 word logline or a 2 minute elevator pitch or a one page synopsis or a short paragraph? This 100,000 word book shows you how! Everything you need to know! From common logline mistakes (and how to solve them) to how your pitch can reveal story problems to the 4 types of pitches!
Should really be called the BUSINESS BLUE BOOK because it covers almost everything you will need to
know for your screenwriting career: from thinking like a producer and learning to speak their language,
to query letters and finding a manager or agent, to making connections (at home and in Hollywood) and
networking, to the different kinds of meetings you are will have at Studios, to the difference between
a producer and a studio, to landing an assignment at that meeting and what is required of you when you
are working under contract, to contracts and options and lawyers and... when to run from a deal!
Information you can use *now* to move your career forward! It's all here in the Biggest Blue Book yet!
Print version was 48 pages, Kindle version is over 400 pages!
Use your creative energy to focus on the content; let Final Draft take care of the style. Final Draft is the number-one selling application specifically designed for writing movie scripts, television episodics and stage plays. Its ease-of-use and time-saving features have attracted writers for almost two decades positioning Final Draft as the Professional Screenwriters Choice. Final Draft power users include Academy, Emmy and BAFTA award winning writers like Oliver Stone, Tom Hanks, Alan Ball, J.J. Abrams, James Cameron and more.
* * * Buy It!
IT'S BACK! SECRETS OF ACTION SCREENWRITING
Over 460 pages packed with tips and techniques.
How to
write a plot twist,
the four kinds of suspense (and how to create it), reversals, ten ways to invent new action scenes, secrets and lies,
creating the ultimate
villain, five kinds of love interests, MORE!CLICK HERE!
CLASSES ON MP3
CLASSES ON MP3! Take a class on MP3! GUERRILLA MARKETING - NO AGENT? NO PROBLEM! and WRITING THRILLERS (2 MP3s). Full length classes on MP3. Now Available: IDEAS & CREATIVITY, WRITING HORROR, WRITING INDIE FILMS, more!
Take classes on MP3!
MY OTHER SITES
B MOVIE WORLD Cult Films, Exploitation, Bikers & Women In Prison, Monster Movies.
E BOOKS: New Blue Books and Novelettes!
I am expanding all of the Blue Books from around 44 pages of
text to around 200 pages! Some are over 250 pages! See what is availabale and what is coming soon!Also, I've been writing Novelletes and there
will soon be novels. E BOOKS: BLUE BOOKS & NOVELLETES
BOOKLETS & PRODUCTS
FIRST STRIKE BLUE BOOKS
Each Blue Book is 48
pages and focuses on a different aspect of screenwriting. Dialogue. Visual Storytelling. Your First Ten Pages. Act 2 Booster. Protagonists. Great Endings. Seventeen Blue Books now available!
