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Precious Screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher

After graduating from Harvard University and NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Geoffrey Fletcher spent nearly a decade writing thousands of unproduced script pages while working at temp jobs. In 2010, Fletcher’s first produced screenplay, Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, was nominated for Writers Guild and Academy […]

Nature as Mythic Storyteller

by Jennifer van Sijll
Films that last often have a mythic quality. Like great children’s stories, we consume these films as we do ageless fables. Unlike lesser stories, the lessons learned in these films carry a universal authority that seems to transcend man.
Biblical stories naturally achieve this mythic stature by virtue […]

Approaching Character: The Circle of Being

by Syd Field
Henry James, the great American novelist, in an essay entitled The Art of Fiction, asks a rhetorical question about the nature of character: “What is character,” he writes, “but the determination of incident. And what is incident but the illumination of character.” The key word of course, is […]

Writing to a Quota

by Gene Perret
Whenever I do interviews or seminars concerning my book, The New Comedy Writing Step by Step, interviewers and writers invariably ask “What’s the first thing a person should do if he or she wants to become a comedy writer?” My response is a two-parter and although it’s aimed […]

A Nineteenth-Century Guide to Screenwriting

by Michael Halperin
Victorians’ Secrets: A Nineteenth-Century Guide to Screenwriting, or How the Victorians Invented the Screenplay
It may seem peculiar in the 21st century to discuss screenwriting in the same breath as anything that had to do with the 19th century. What does one have to do with the other? After […]

Making Christian movies

Screenwriter John August offers a few points of advice to a reader asking a question about creating niche market films.

…What is your take on the Christian movie scene?
I am new to all of this and just finished up a treatment for a Christian movie. I have been doing some research […]

Making It As A Screenwriter

Writer/director Adrian Mead’s a six-part series looking at how to build a career as a screenwriter, packed with ideas and inspiration for the budding writer.
VIA: scottishbooktrust
Making It As A Screenwriter 1: Introduction
In this introduction he sets out the plan for the series, and establishes his perspective and focus.

Making It As […]

When All That’s Left Is Writing: Turning Anxiety Into Creativity

by Dennis Palumbo
An old deodorant commercial once proclaimed, ‘If you’re not a little nervous, you’re really not alive.’
Pretty sage advice, even though the only thing at stake was staying dry and odor-free. But there is something to be said for accepting — and learning to navigate — the minor turbulences […]

The Five S’s of Screenwriting

by Kate Wright
Working with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jason Miller and the legendary Tennessee Williams offered me a tremendous entrée into the magical world of storytelling. As American icons, their extraordinary talent inspired the world; and as screenwriters, their remarkable ability to work through the visceral process of storytelling taught me […]

High Concept Defined Once and For All

by Steve Kaire
High Concept is a term that’s been confused, misunderstood and misused by writers for decades. The common belief is that it’s any movie that can be pitched in one sentence. A man who battles his wife for custody of their children is one sentence, but it’s a million […]