Just because you finished a screenplay doesn’t mean it’s actually done. The script will need to be rewritten again … and again … and again.

This week we are proud to welcome the creator of some of the UK’s finest and highest-rated TV series of the 1970s, recipient of the Best Series Writer award by the Writers Guild of Great Britain, writer-author-series creator John Finch!

She wrote the book on TV writing … literally! And she also started what has become the most esteemed graduate school for television writing. This week Gray has a wonderful chat with author, writer, and professor Pamela Douglas.

Whenever I hit an empty hole in my writing, I try to think of it as just an undiscovered area. Not that it is the end. I do not use myself up in a frontal assault, but change direction, grab a cup of tea, or take a walk and let my brain hop around and give me ideas and solutions in an uncritical, patchwork quilt approach. Ideas from other parts of a story can ricochet around and solve several issues at once.

This is the story of Le Dieu du Carnage, the international hit play by acclaimed novelist and playwright Yasmina Reza. Based on a real-life incident, translations of Reza’s satirical comedy won an Olivier Award and a Tony® before director Roman Polanski and Reza wrote a new translation, for the screen. Ray Morton talks to the celebrated writer.

From Robert McKee’s “Screenwriting 101″ class at USC, to co-developing a successful spinoff of a John Hughes classic, to writing on some of the most well-known shows of the last two decades, writer-producer-author-director Alan Cross has a lot of great stories to tell!

Telling two equally successful tales within the same time frame is a structural challenge. As Jacob Krueger explains, while examining Blue Valentine and Dead Poets Society, ratcheting up the tension between parallel stories will help raise the stakes for the characters, and raise the interest of the viewer.

I was recently given a copy of a very interesting new book called Stan Lee’s How to Write Comics by Stan Lee and Bob Greenberger, a step-by-step guide to crafting scripts for comic books, co-authored by the legendary comics writer, editor, and publisher and co-creator of many of the medium’s most classic characters, including Spider-Man, The Hulk, Thor, and The Fantastic Four.

Trying to make sense of all of the dos and don’ts of scriptwriting can be very confusing, especially when so many of them seem to be contradictory. Mastering all of the rules can often seem like an impossible task and can cause many people to become discouraged and even consider giving up. Here’s why you shouldn’t.