Scott Myers

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 27

I’m a sucker for World War II stories. This one is amazing: On 20 June 1942, the SS guard stationed at the exit to Auschwitz was frightened. In front of him was the car of Rudolph Höss, the commandant of the infamous concentration camp. Inside were four armed SS

Screenwriting 101: Shane Black

“Well, it’s sort of like being led by the nose by the process as opposed to having any particular control over it. As ideas occur to me over a period of time, I’ll write down little bits and snippets for scenes and pieces of dialog — ideas for a

Daily Dialogue — April 27, 2011

“Home is behind, the world ahead And there are many paths to tread Through shadow, to the edge of night Until the stars are all alight Mist and shadow Cloud and shade All shall fade All shall fade”  — Pippin (Billy Boyd), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the

Reader Question: What guidelines are there for using scene headings / primary slug lines?

Question from Matt: Hey Scott,I have another question for you. So one of my biggest problems, and maybe just more of an annoyance, is when to determine a new scene. To explain, let’s say I have a guy running through the woods alright? So it starts as EXT.

“Lolita: A Screenplay”

Okay, this is totally cool. Did you know Nabokov published a book called “Lolita: A Screenplay”? And did you know you can read it online for free? Comment Archive

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 26

Okay, there’s got to be a story among these choices: The 7 Most Bizarrely Unlucky People Who Ever Lived. The first story gives you an idea of what we’re talking about: Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence They’ve been attacked by terrorists more times than John McClane. It

Hollywood Tales

“When [Larry] Cohen is writing a screenplay, there are certain things he will not do. He will not rely on an outline. Over the years, he has found that organization and planning make his stories fall flat… He will not use a computer. ‘Oh, no,’ Cohen says on being asked

Reader Question: Is there an “aha” moment for a character as part of their metamorphosis?

Question from anonymous: hey scott, got a question for you about the inner journey of a character and the moment of realization… im trying to track the inner change a main character undergoes from the start of the movie to the end and im wondering traditionally when (structurally) most characters

J.J. Abrams: Seven films that shaped ‘Super 8?

Geoff Boucher at The Hero Complex (LAT) with this feature: No one plays their cards closer to the vest than J.J. Abrams, and that’s why “Super 8,” which arrives in theaters June 10, is still a bit of a mystery to most moviegoers even in this age of

Popcorn Fiction: “Moving Day: A Commander Future Story” by Drew McWeeny

Another short story from Popcorn Fiction, the excellent site hosted by screenwriter and novelist Derek Haas: No story we published received more attention than Drew McWeeny’s “The Interview.” He introduced the character of Commander Future…and the story straddled the line between the real world and those imagined in

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 25

Sounds like the beginning of a sci-fi thriller: Around 500 dead birds have fallen from the sky in Louisiana, found scattered along a quarter-mile portion of highway in Point Coupee Parish, the AP reports. The discovery is approximately 300 miles south of Beebe, Arkansas, where just days earlier

On writing

“The only thing worth writing about is the conflict in the human heart.”   — William Faulkner

Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Singing in a non-musical

Easter weekend is a busy time in the real world, but not so much in virtual one, so not a lot of response per the DDT this week. Fortunately Chris Drzewiecki swooped in at the last minute with a great suggestion: A new theme for the board… “Unnecessary Singing” … when

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 24

Okay, this one is truly bizarre: Gang tattoo leads to a murder conviction: The logline: Inked on the chest of a Pico Rivera gang member was the detailed scene of a liquor store slaying that had stumped an L.A. County sheriff’s investigator for more than four years. It

R.I.P.: Kevin Jarre (1954–2011)

Per an obituary in the LAT: Kevin Jarre, a screenwriter steeped in American history who wrote the Civil War saga “Glory” and the western “Tombstone,” died unexpectedly of heart failure April 3 at his Santa Monica home, said his aunt, Patty Briley Bean. He was 56. Jarre had been a

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 23

I’m pretty sure you saw this: For about an hour on Thursday afternoon, Morgan Freeman was dead. That is, if Twitter was to be believed. Not only that, it appeared that CNN had reported Freeman’s death on its official Twitter feed, as users began retweeting other users’ tweets

Written Interview: Larry McMurtry

Larry McMurtry is known as a novelist having written such books as “The Last Picture Show,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Lonesome Dove,” but he’s also a screenwriter having won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay with Brokeback Mountain. Here are a few excerpts from this interview: Why has breaking down

Peter Jackson on screenwriting process

I figure since this is on Jackson’s Facebook page, I can reprint this in its entirety: Just arrived at our four-day Easter break, which will be a nice time to recharge batteries and do a few script tweaks for future scenes. We always find there are three distinct

The Young and Hungry List

Per The Tracking Board, their list of the “top 100 writers on the verge.” Needless to say, they mean in Hollywood. You can read exclusive GITS interviews with list writers Greg Russo and Jeremiah Friedman & Nick Palmer. Any other writers on the list who visit this site, I’d

Is my script big enough, Part 10: Metamorphosis

The final post in a 10-part series Is my script big enough to be a movie? DOES MY SCRIPT HAVE A BIG ENOUGH PROTAGONIST METAMORPHOSIS ARC? I have a theory. Beyond entertainment, people watch movies because they want to see characters change. In TV shows, everything from reality TV

A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 22

Okay, just happened to see this one yesterday: The first three-parent babies could soon be born: The technology is now in place for three different parents to contribute DNA to an embryo — two of them providing the 98% of DNA in the cell nucleus, while another provides the crucial

Great Characters: Col. Vincent Kane (“The Ninth Configuration”)

The Ninth Configuration is a little known movie, but I saw it when it was in theaters in 1980 because I’m a fan of spiritual thrillers. Here is a plot summary from IMDB: A new commanding officer arrives at a remote castle serving as an insane asylum for crazy

Daily Dialogue — April 22, 2011

Alan Garner: Hello. How ‘bout that ride in? I guess that’s why they call it Sin City. [awkward laughter] Alan Garner: You guys might not know this, but I consider myself a bit of a loner. I tend to think of myself as a one-man wolf pack. But

Of beginnings and endings

Brothers and sisters, we all know the act of writing a story is hard work. Coming up with good ideas. Figuring out characters, Solving plot issues. Confronting scenes that don’t work. Dialogue that won’t come. Losing sight of where we’re going. Sometimes writing can be the very

Here’s shocking news: Movie studios market to the young!

A must-read article in TheWrap: The latest market research by the MPAA carries a clear message to the marketing arms of the studio: Target the young. This is important to what we see because the six major studios rarely, if ever, greenlight a project unless it is certified as