Drama is driven by conflict, and conflict is driven by needs. Needs spring from the cavernous emptiness that echoes inside us all. Flaws force people into bad decisions, down the wrong path, into dead ends. Stories exist to show that that damage is undoable. Success is possible, happiness attainable. You take a pastry chef whose…
Read moreverbs-everywhere: I was watching the first draft of my play come out of the printer and it was like, “Oh, look, there’s a subplot that I forgot to develop.”
Read moreNotes From a Screenreader: Mamet-ize it
nywift: Photo via Go Into the Story. THIS is the supreme last word on screenwriting from David Mamet. It is a memo from Mamet to his writing staff on The Unit, which you may or may not recall ran for 69 episodes between 2006 and 2009. It is glorious, true, funny, useful and brilliant. It’s not…
Read moreGAME OF THRONES IS DIFFERENT
Your script is about one person who wants one thing. There isn’t time to fully develop every possibility in your script, you have to be utterly bloodthirsty about what you cut out.
Read moreSETTLING IN FOR THE BACKSTORY
Backstory mostly doesn’t matter. It’s just information used to interpret other information, none of which is dramatic.
Read moreUseful Confessions #6
As I sink down to my forehead in a draft, I start pushing the characters around to make the plot work. Always bad. I “cast” the parts with photos tacked up over my computer. I can look at them and focus on “what would they do?” rather than “how can I make the next thing…
Read more“Premise pilot” – flying wrestler
“Premise pilot” – flying wrestler Emmy-winning film and television writer Erik Bork (HBO’s BAND OF BROTHERS) defines the TV “premise pilot”, and suggests not writing one! A very good case for stamping out backstory in your pilot.
Read moreCHARACTER INTROS WITH CASTING SUGGESTIONS IN THEM
By the way
writerlyn: The deadlines for the Nicholl Fellowship and Scriptapalooza and Page awards and Austin Film Festival and sundance screenwriters lab (okay not so much on that one) and big bear film festival are COMING UP SOON! This is your year! Bring it.
Read moreBad books on writing tell you to ‘WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW’, a solemn and totally false adage that is the reason there exist so many mediocre novels about English professors contemplating adultery. Joe Haldeman (via thegodawfulgatsby) bahahaaaaaa (via youvegotbeauty) …and screenplays about awkward writers moving to Los Angeles. Writing what you know is useful in…
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