Your Phone is Murdering Your Soul. So this is a “backlash” piece about how cellphones are making humans inhuman, including how cellphones make it impossible to WRITE about people anymore. Which: Granted, that is not the point of the article, which is itself a trolly clickhole, but the author claims that stories can no longer…
Read morePLEASE, FOR THE CHILDREN…
annerocious: Turn off the “continued” at the top and bottom of every page option. It’s in the preferences menu.
Read moreI find it impossible to write fiction that’s set after 2002. [….] It’s just that it’s inconceivable to depict contemporary times authentically without including interludes where characters stare at their cell phones instead of advancing their plotlines – their lives – towards some conclusion. Which is, as a thing to read, mind-numbingly dull. Unless I…
Read moreThere is a good idea in every script. There is. They go wrong when they aren’t given a twist or an update, when the main character is not relatable or active, when the stakes are watered down, or when the resolution isn’t cathartic. There is a story for your idea, don’t let it go horribly…
Read moreOne of the things you do with dialogue is keep the major parts of it unspoken. Gil Dennis (via theloverboi) God, yes. Please.
Read moreNotes from a Screenreader: Well, Obviously
nywift: Photo via Go Into the Story. The post “Writing Advice So Obvious It Gets Overlooked“ covers the most fundamental of all story fundamentals (thanks to the marvelous writerlyn at Musings from a Young Hollywood Professional for reblogging this brilliance). It is advice that deserves a thorough looking over. Whose story is it? Very obvious,…
Read moreTHE THIRD PAGE OF A TALKING SCENE
GO AHEAD, BE A BITCH
Telling the truth includes revealing the less savory aspects of your characters. Good characters, interesting characters, have depths and shadows. They don’t have to be serial killers, but they don’t have to melt down with guilt when they march seventeen items through the express lane, either. This is most often a symptom of spec scripts…
Read moreTONE DEAF
In a comedy, stuff like sex and violence and drugs and kink and crime are tolerated at different levels than they are in dramas and genre. That’s tone. Messing with tone is a lot of fun, you can mash up horror and comedy and get something fun or bitingly dark or satiric, depending on where…
Read moreNotes from a Screenreader: Bad Contractors Build Great Characters
nywift: Photo via Go Into the Story. Like badly built houses, when your characters suffer from faults in their very foundation they can get by just fine with good weather. But when conditions turn ugly, their weaknesses begin to show and the drama starts to happen. To make a really great character, think like a…
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