"The Connected Screenwriter is the essential guide for all aspiring, new, and established writers for the screen. Covering every aspect of scriptwriting for the small and big screen, this guide includes hundreds of useful, easy-to-search, detailed contact entries ranging from courses, societies, and grants to representation and production companies. Along with provocative articles and valuable advice from top creators in the industry, this is the only practical guide that provides the most comprehensive information for all screenwriters." --Book Jacket.
$50 Billion of Advice in One Book* Have you ever wondered why some books and stories are adapted into movies, and others aren't? Or wished you could sit down and pick the brains of the people whose stories have been adapted--or the screenwriters, producers, and directors who adapted them? Author John Robert Marlow has done it for you. He spoke to book authors, playwrights, comic book creators and publishers, as well as Hollywood screenwriters, producers and directors responsible for adapting fictional and true stories into Emmy-winning TV shows, Oscar-winning films, billion-dollar megahits and smaller independents. Then he talked to the entertainment attorneys who made the deals. He came away with a unique understanding of adaptations--an understanding he shares in this book: which stories make good source material (and why); what Hollywood wants (and doesn't); what you can (and can't) get in a movie deal; how to write and pitch your story to maximize the chances of a Hollywood adaptation--and how much (and when) you can expect to be paid. *This book contains the distilled experience of creators, storytellers and others whose works have earned over $50 billion worldwide. Whether you're looking to sell film rights, adapt your own story (alone or with help), or option and adapt someone else's property--this book is for you.
A comprehensive listing of literary agents, managers, entertainment attorneys, production companies, TV shows, and power actors as well as what types of scripts production companies are buying this year.
"The main difference between an early-career screenwriter and a great screenwriter is their process. Screenwriters with an effective and professional process tend to write great scripts."This book teaches a method called process-driven screenwriting. The process is a series of planning steps we take before writing our script. This process works for any kind of movie. It works for Hollywood Blockbusters or experimental art-house films. As long as our intention is to create drama, the process will help us write better scripts. This book doesn't offer a formula or plot-template. Instead, it helps screenwriters find a writing technique that works for them. At the heart of this book is a simple idea... dogma is the enemy of creativity.This book contains a set of practical tools. Tools designed to help writers create drama and to craft great cinematic stories. This is also a book that explores the ideas behind drama, story and what it means to write cinema. Although the tools in this book are simple, the conversation about how we write movie scripts isn't. I have not separated the conversation about writing from the discussion about the tools. That's because the two things are connected. We need tools like this because writing cinematic drama is complicated. It's not possible to separate the process from the challenges of screenwriting. Process-driven screenwriting is very simple. Anyone can learn the basic steps in a short period of time. However, as with any tools, it takes time and practice to master their use. These tools can be used to create simple stories or to craft complex narratives.So, what are these tools? What are the steps? raw idea - our initial inspiration or ideatheme - decide what facet of human experience we're exploringcompass logline - decide who the film is about, when and where it is setchase our fascination to create the world of story - creating a fictional worldcharacter development - populate the world with characterscreate a plot - decide what happens and the order in which the audience finds things outwrite the script - write cinematic drama in a form that is acceptable to the production teamIn reality, everyone is a process-driven screenwriter whether they know it or not. Every writer has a process, even if that process is to stare at a blank page until they have an idea. Every writer's process is unique to them. We do what works best for us. Writers with great processes write great screenplays. In this book, we will look at ways any writer can improve their process without giving up the things that make them unique.
Encompassing thousands of entries that cover every aspect of the screenwriter's trade, a valuable resource features articles, essays, advice, and insider's tips from leading scriptwriters on topics including British and U.S. film and TV companies, agents, contracts, copyrights, markets, and more. Original. 20,000 first printing.
“I was a writer before I knew what a writer was.” -Joseph DoughertyJoseph Dougherty has been a successful playwright and television writer, producer, and director for more than thirty years. He's written for breakthrough series that have changed the way we look at television drama, from thirtysomething to Pretty Little Liars, winning everything from Emmys to Teen Choice Awards along the way.In A Screenwriter's Companion, Dougherty offers insights and advice both practical and nonpractical to writers and would-be writers. Dougherty's voice comes off the page with anecdotes about the writing process, hard-learned tips for survival in “the business,” and reflections on the influences that head led him to a successful career. Honestly, entertainingly, without cynicism, he gives readers permission to embrace the writer they want to be, so they can experience the rewards and satisfactions of writing. Beyond an insider's take on story and structure, dialogue, action and outlining, A Screenwriter's Companion is as much mentor as it is manual. With every insider observation about how to keep a potential producer reading till the last page of a script, there's encouragement to explore your thoughts and memories, things a writer needs to embrace in order to become more than “a pro.” In short, to see writing not as merely a career, but as a way to greater self-understanding.
The Screenwriter’s Path takes a comprehensive approach to learning how to write a screenplay—allowing the writer to use it as both a reference and a guide in constructing a script. A tenured professor of screenwriting at Emerson College in Boston, author Diane Lake has 20 years' experience writing screenplays for major studios and was a co-writer of the Academy-award winning film Frida. The book sets out a unique approach to story structure and characterization that takes writers, step by step, to a completed screenplay, and it is full of practical advice on what to do with the finished script to get it seen by the right people. By demystifying the process of writing a screenplay, Lake empowers any writer to bring their vision to the screen.
All writing is rewriting. But what do you change, and how do you change it? All screenplays have problems. They happened to Die Hard: With a Vengeance and Broken Arrow-and didn't get fixed, leaving the films flawed. They nearly shelved Platoon-until Oliver Stone rewrote the first ten pages and created a classic. They happen to every screenwriter. But good writers see their problems as a springboard to creativity. Now bestselling author Syd Field, who works on over 1,000 screenplays a year, tells you step-by-step how to identify and fix common screenwriting problems, providing the professional secrets that make movies brilliant-secrets that can make your screenplay one headed for success...or even Cannes. Learn how to: •Understand what makes great stories work •Make your screenplay work in the first ten pages, using Thelma & Louise and Dances With Wolves as models •Use a "dream assignment" to let your creative self break free overnight •Make action build character, the way Quentin Tarantino does •Recover when you hit the "wall"-and overcome writer's block forever
This book offers a unique approach to storytelling, connecting the Enneagram system with classic story principles of character development, plot, and story structure to provide a seven-step methodology to achieve rapid story development. Using the nine core personality styles underlying all human thought, feeling, and action, it provides the tools needed to understand and leverage the Enneagram-Story Connection for writing success. Author Jeff Lyons starts with the basics of the Enneagram system and builds with how to discover and design the critical story structure components of any story, featuring supporting examples of the Enneagram-Story Connection in practice across film, literature and TV. Readers will learn the fundamentals of the Enneagram system and how to utilize it to create multidimensional characters, master premise line development, maintain narrative drive, and create antagonists that are perfectly designed to challenge your protagonist in a way that goes beyond surface action to reveal the dramatic core of any story. Lyons explores the use of the Enneagram as a tool not only for character development, but for story development itself. This is the ideal text for intermediate and advanced level screenwriting and creative writing students, as well as professional screenwriters and novelists looking to get more from their writing process and story structure.
Through a series of carefully designed writing workshops, this book guides the screenwriter through the messy creativity of screenwriting. Drawing on over 20 years’ experience facilitating screenwriting workshops, author J. Mira Kopell provides readers with a path to screenwriting that makes space for reflection, critique, and exploration. Structured around five specific writing assignments, each assignment supports the writer forward incrementally by focusing on a specific set of craft elements needed to then move them on to the next. A key value of the assignments is that they are not exercises but steps in the development of the writer's own screenplay. By using this book, readers can both receive meaningful feedback on their own project and learn to give insightful, focused critiques of their fellow writer’s work. Rather than offering craft as a “to-do” list that promises successful scripts, this book reimagines craft as “tools not rules,” empowering a writer to let their unique story dictate choices in order to support their work and honor their own voice. This book is ideal for students and lecturers of screenwriting, groups of writers looking to form their own workshops, and aspiring professionals wanting to develop their craft.
