Just a typical day, week, month in my life as a screenwriter – I am doing another scene check on my latest draft these days. I am looking at how I structured each scene. So far — in a few scenes there is no conflict and too much expository. Occasionally, there is an abrupt shift that [...]
There are numerous character exercises I suggest my clients and students complete when creating their protagonists to ensure that they are producing truly compelling characters that don’t feel like they were born on page one. My favorite, however, might be writing down the 5 Deal Breakers for your character. The 5 things your character would [...]
My education and self-schooling as a filmmaker has been in service of discovering how story at its essence is relevant to film artisans like actors, production designers, directors of photography, editors, etc. What do editors need to know about dialogue and subtext? What will a DP or composer do differently if they can identify the [...]
When pursuing a screenwriting career, you have to get out of your writer’s cave and meet executives face-to-face. The BEST way to pitch your work is to sell yourself! After all, should an exec like your script, s/he will have to work with you for a long period of time developing it. It’s just as [...]
I’ve always enjoyed blending genres, even though many of the great tomes of screenwriting wisdom caution against it. “From the first few pages of your screenplay, the audience has to know exactly what genre it is.” I’ve come to learn that it’s not the audience that needs to know what genre it is – the [...]
It’s nearly impossible to flick through TV channels or look at the movie listings these days and not find show that involves law enforcement. Whether it’s CSI, Dexter, a gritty thriller feature or even Boardwalk Empire the authorities are involved at some level. And if there’s one thing that will make the show fail, it’s [...]
Money? Fame? Love of the process? What is it? Why do we continue to write screenplays when aside from the outrageously arduous task of getting it even remotely right, the odds of then getting it sold and then made and then becoming a hit are…well, tremendously long and then… sustaining or repeating that success is, [...]
After twenty-five years of writing screenplays, always while working two jobs, an Ohio woman decides that she has had enough. Along the way, there have been nibbles here – producers who have taken a shine to a particular script, free options, partial financing – and bites there – mangers and agents who have promised the [...]
If you’re going to pitch your script you’re going to need certain materials: a killer logline, a short pitch that captures the essence of your story, and a two page treatment that shows how it all works in relation to your character’s journey. But often so much focus goes into figuring out the perfect pitch [...]
