How to do dialogue. Look at all this accomplishes that four pages of declarative speeches could never do. Seriously. Look how much we know about who these people are and what they think of each other. Four very short little lines. I think this is from the Halloween episodes, written by Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk,…
Read moreWISH YOU WERE HERE
Spec screenplays do this weird thing where they leave the most interesting, original, unique parts completely out. As a for instance: a writer needs to get two characters in bed because the plot is about hiding the affair from co-workers. So the script just has them fall on top of each other and the plot…
Read moreWhat I Learned/Got from Submitting to Contests
What I Learned/Got from Submitting to Contests somedayscreenwriter: In the last year I submitted an Archer spec and an original pilot (Full-Time Dad) to contests and festivals to varying degrees of success. My Archer made it to the second round of Austin Film Fest. Full-Time Dad took Bronze in the PAGE awards, was a runner…
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Read moreLET’S TALK ABOUT OTHER KINDS OF STRUCTURE
There are some. I leave it to Linda Aronson to explain how they work, because I can’t fit it in a gif. Except this one. And I get really down on writers starting out with big ambitions about complicated structure because, frankly, it’s hard enough to do one protagonist and one linear storyline to good…
Read moreYOUR STRUCTURE IS ALL OVER THE MAP AND YOUR STORY STARTS ON PG 58
when a breakdown has over 30 roles…
mysteryagent: Readers, too. Are you Peter Jackson? Calm down.
Read moreHOW TO BECHDEL FOR FUN AND PROFIT
Ask any producer who has Scarlett Johansson or Viola Davis’s agent on the phone whether that cop character could be a woman. That is how binary we are. In dollar signs. It is flashy news that Bechdel-passing scripts did better with paying audiences than Bechdel-failers last year. So now that it’s ridiculously simple and can…
Read moreBECHDEL TEST PREDICTION: 2014 COMPETITION SEASON
Every script has two female characters talking about tampons.
Read moreTHEORETICAL PHYSICS AND YOUR SCREENPLAY: PART ONE
This is the wave function of a Gaussian state moving at a constant momentum. Coincidentally… It’s also a screenplay moving at a constant momentum.
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