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Situation Based Writing
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Loading ...The most important bit of writing advice for the beginning writer, every scene you write needs to be a situation, no exceptions. You must create interest before you can accomplish anything else, and situations create interest. The two basic ways situations emerge: circumstance and strong character need. …Talking about drama is not the same as drama… …The [...]
Finding Inspiration in the Cookie Aisle
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...by Christina Hamlett The arrival of Daylight Savings Time three weeks early this year heralds the approach of a long stretch of summer for you to finally get cracking on that screenplay you’ve always wanted to write. There’s only one obstacle: Where to find a fresh story to whet the appetite of prospective producers and appease [...]
How to Write Badly to Write Better
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...by Gene Perret In a previous column, I noted that the magic bullet for writing success is to Be Good At What You Do. If you want to be a writer, learn to write. That earlier article practically guaranteed that if you became a good writer and continued to become a better writer that the profession [...]
The purpose of drama, and its relationship to Cameron Diaz’s ass
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...John August (co-writer of Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle) asks his readers to comment on this quote by David Mamet: “People have tried for centuries to use drama to change people’s lives, to influence, to comment, to express themselves. It doesn’t work. It might be nice if it worked for those things, but it doesn’t. The only [...]
How to write a movie
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Read it aloud, make sure there’s a favorite part - and don’t fall into the ‘German funk trap’. Frank Cottrell Boyce who scripted 24 Hour Party People and A Cock and Bull Story, lays down his screenwriting golden rules …A while back, I was on Radio 4’s Film Programme the same day as Simon Pegg. We [...]
The Thriller
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...by John Truby The Thriller is one of Hollywood’s most popular forms because it combines the criminality and surprise of the detective form with the danger and pressure of horror. A good thriller puts the hero in danger early and never lets up. While the thriller usually involves a main character trying to find a murderer, it [...]
Tips for writers: Go away, Internet
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Is the Internet a tool or distraction? We it’s certainly both and all writers need to find a balance. Although, finding that balance is easier said than done. Jacket Copy, the book blog of The L.A. Times, takes a look at some of the more drastic measures some writers have implemented to [...]
Tales from the Digital Frontier: Breakthroughs in Storytelling
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...by Carolyn Handler Miller As writers, we are practitioners of an ancient art: the art of storytelling. Storytelling is a continually evolving form of expression. The first storytellers had only one simple tool at their disposal - the spoken word. Later storytellers had more sophisticated methods of spinning tales, using staged dramas, printed texts, and ultimately, [...]
Politics and the English Language by George Orwell
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by George Orwell Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language — so the argument runs — must inevitably share in the [...]
Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses by Mark Twain
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by Mark Twain “The Pathfinder” and “The Deerslayer” stand at the head of Cooper’s novels as artistic creations. There are others of his works which contain parts as perfect as are to be found in these, and scenes even more thrilling. Not one can be compared with either of them as [...]
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