by William M. Akers I’ve been doing exactly what you do, writing, for a long, long time. I’ve taught and critiqued screenwriters for almost that long, and, lo and behold, I discovered that all beginning writers make the same mistakes. So I wrote a book, a checklist of stuff to do to your script before you [...]
Using Reverse Cause and Effect to Construct a Tight Script by Jeff Kitchen The work of the amateur screenwriter is often characterized by the Unnecessary. Dialogue and description are often overdone, scenes tend to be overwritten, acts are bloated, and so on. You may have entire scenes that are unnecessary, perhaps even a whole act that isn’t [...]
by Martha Alderson, M.A. Most writers end up writing at least twice as many scenes as needed to produce a compelling story. One skill that defines a good writer is the ability to know which scenes to keep and which ones to kill off. As a plot consultant, I developed two visual plot tools to help [...]
by Leigh Michaels Can writers take a long honest look at their own writing? The answer is yes, but it’s difficult. When we go back to read the words we’ve put on the page, we not only read the actual words, we relive the emotions we felt as we were writing. We see the characters in [...]
by Paul Chitlik I can absolutely guarantee you, based on more than twenty years experience, that the second thing a reader (be she a script reader, development exec, agent, producer, or studio head) will do when she gets your script, is thumb through to the end to see what the page count is. The first, of [...]
by Derek Rydall As a screenwriter, you may use other script consultants to critique your material, but inevitably you’ll need to master the ability to analyze your own work. This can be a difficult task, somewhat akin to trying to look at your own face (without a mirror). If you are going to write at a [...]