Dear readers, the following is taken directly from an experience I had earlier this week. Only the names have been changed. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear Julie, My name is XXX and I wrote an action/thriller/crime script. Here is the summary: [INSERT AN ENTIRE PAGE OF BLOW-BY-BLOW WAY TOO MUCH BLACK SYNOPSIS]. Signed, XXX. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dear XXX, So [...]

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 [...]

I get asked this question all the time: How (and where) should I pitch my TV show? As the Pitch Prep Coach for the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE)’s PitchCon and repeatedly getting up to bat myself as one of the qualified producers in the NBC/Universal partnership with the Independent Film and Television [...]

We’ve all been there. You have a great idea for a script. It’s going to blow everyone away and take your career to the next level. And then you sit down to write. You make it through your outline, maybe you even break into your second act, but there’s just no denying it. This great, [...]

As you know, if you read this column with any regularity, I take a morbid pleasure in sharing with you cantankerous, mean-spirited, and humiliating conversations I have from time to time with fellow writers, publishers, film producers and other fellow travelers of the writing life.  The following repartee occurred some time ago, but it captures [...]

In “Story Talk: Writer’s Block—Really? Part 1” I introduced the myth and the reality of writer’s block and talked about the popular mythology about this overinflated annoyance.  As it happens, writer’s block is 99.99 percent smoke and .1 percent fact.  The .1-percent part is the only part you can work with. Here in “Story Talk: [...]

Writer’s block—we’ve all been there.  We’ve all suffered.  And we’ve all been duped.  What would you say if I told you writer’s block is a fiction?  What would you say if I said that writer’s block was a complete fabrication foisted upon writers for decades?  Would you feel duped?  Would you feel had?  Or would [...]

Screenwriters are a bunch of know-it-alls. There really is no other job where a person with a dozen produced credits, a student, a struggling newbie or a guy serving up your a latte will all act as if they know equally as much about the craft of screenwriting. How did this happen? How did we [...]

Ala Rodney Dangerfield, “I don’t get no respect.”  Actually, I do, I get lots of it, but at the moment of this writing I have been eviscerated and disemboweled by a fellow writer who hates story consultants and story gurus.  I enjoy sharing my little humiliating conversations with you, so here’s how it kind of [...]