What do you call the guy from the 7th Cavalry regiment who, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, said, “General Custer, reinforcements are on the way”? An optimist. I admit that when it comes to assessing another type of seemingly “hopeless” situation– a new writer’s chances of selling his script– I’m an optimist too. [...]
When I work with writers to help them reboot their writing productivity, they often say things like, “I can’t find time; I’m just too busy to write. I’ve got all these demands, my life is going to hell, it’s just one string of emergencies after another.” This is one of those “stories” I’m talking about [...]
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 [...]
Get your copy of How to Write a Screenplay, presented by our Editor, Jeanne Veillette Bowerman, on her personal process of writing draft one as our gift to you! The filmmaking industry has a certain expectation of how a script for a movie is written. In our free How to Write a Screenplay webinar, you’ll [...]
Looking for software and advice on script writing? Bookmark The Writers Store article on Writing a Screenplay. In this age of distraction and multitasking, it’s all too easy to blame technology for luring us away and ruining our writing productivity. I see writers lamenting Facebook and Twitter as distractions. And they certainly can be. But [...]
Setting a goal like “I’m going to work on my script today,” may work for some people, but for others it can be a deterrent to taking action because it’s nebulous. There’s not enough for your mind to grab hold of and you can end up floundering or procrastinating as a result. Defining a clear, [...]
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 [...]
Every time you sit down and open Final Draft, the blank page stares back at you, defying you to fill it with words. Nothing comes. You’ve got a high concept. You’ve brainstormed your plot points, you’ve created a step outline. You’ve written detailed scene summaries and descriptions of the world, the characters, the backstory. But [...]
